Bumpkin Challenge Report (Long post)

[FirePhil]

Picked up Matt and set off from Bristol at 9am, we were making good time until we got into London and the map I printed off from multimap didn't quite cut it. We eventually found our way to the right part of London and luckily spotted Tom and Graeme walking along and they happened to be right outside the venue. Nice. After a spot of breakfast we sat down to play.

I started reasonably well and my T20,000 was up to T25,000 before I lost a decent size pot just before the first break when I missed a huge draw holding 9 T on a flop of 7 J K and my bluff on the river got called by top pair. I was still marginally above my starting stack so wasn't too unhappy with the first 2 hours play.

After the break things took a turn for the better when at the 400/800 level it was folded to me and I made it 2500 to go in the cutoff with K7o to steal the blinds, though the steal went a bit wrong when both the button and the BB called. The flop came 4 7 9 which looked pretty good for me so when the BB checked I bet out 5000. The button folded but the BB called which I wasn't too pleased about but they had called flop bets with overcards in a couple of previous hands and only had about another 3000 after calling so I wasn't in too bad a spot. The K on the turn made things look a whole lot nicer and the BB bet their last 3000 and I had an easy call. They turned over QQ and the river was a blank and I won a ~24k pot (No offense to the player with QQ but I think they played it awfully).
A couple of hands later a shortstack pushed from EP and I looked down at QQ on the button and called, his A8 didn't hit and I was up to ~40k.
My stack stayed around this level for a while, I wasn't catching any cards but a few steals kept me even.

Just before the 2nd break I played an interesting hand. The blinds were 600/1200 and I open raised to 3200 in LP and only the BB, a tricky agressive player who had been mixing it up and had shown a few bluffs as well as a few big hands, flat called. The flop was all rags with two clubs, the BB bet 3000 (they tried to be more but it was disallowed for a string bet), I called and the turn was another small club and it went check-check. The river was the A and the BB checked again. I asked the button to count her chips before betting 7000 (she had 14k left). They thought for a long time before eventually folding.

Q. What was I holding? What range on hands should call? What hands should raise? I'll answer this later (without giving away too much hopefully ).

I was doing OK with ~50k at the 2nd break with about 20 players left I think. The chip leader had over 100k and a few shortstacks were at the 10-15k mark.

The blinds were 1000/2000 when I made a big mistake. I was in the BB and the SB was shortstacked with around 7-8000 left after posting. It was folded to the button, the same player as the BB in the previous hand I described. They limped which seemed strange in that situation, the SB folded and I checked my option holding J7o. The flop came jack high, I lead out for 3000 and the button min-raised to 6000. I didn't like this, but they only had about 3000 more so I decided to set them all-in figuring I had 3-5 outs if I was behind. I'm not sure if this was a good play or not but it was defintately bad when it turned out they had a 10k chip that I couldn't see so I was raising 13k rather than 3k. They called quickly with KK and I didn't improve and my ~50k stack had taken a big hit at a bad time with escalating blinds. In future I will ALWAYS ask for an accurate chip count

We were down to 2 tables shortly after this and the tournament chip leader with well over 100k was moved to my immediate left . I had just under 30k at this point. Almost every time I opened a pot I was getting re-raised and having to fold hands like A9 and KJ, with the blinds at 1500/3000 this was n't good for my stack size. I was card dead and I couldn't steal the blinds enough to stay afloat, I was down to about 18k when it was folded to me on the button and I looked down at 9 T and pushed. I'm pushing here with almost any 2 cards with the blinds well worth stealing for a 25% stack increase, a probably live suited connector was easily good enough. The BB thought otherwise though and called with AQo, I flopped an open ended straight draw but missed all 14 outs twice and was out in 12th.

Busting out at this time was about the worst possible, about 10 minutes earlier people had left to go to the Gutshot for the £100 freezeout (congratulations to Graeme on winning this) and 5 minutes earlier they had started a £10 freezeout at Fern Lodge. Checked into the hotel and thought about heading up to the Gutshot to play some cash games but my phone battery died so I ended up jst getting some dinner and sleeping.

No money and no more poker but it was still a really good day, looking forward to the next one. Bristol WILL recaim the trophy

[trustme]

Really good report Phil, thanks for that.

[sentialsteve]

A great, well written report Phil, I love reading these write-ups! Reading that one has really made me wish I'd gone, will have to seriously think about going to the next one now