APAT Season 2 - 1st leg

Season 2 of the APAT tournaments got underway this weekend with a new structure. Instead of several large oversubscribed tournaments around the country, APAT decided to have regional events where you can pick up ranking points and the top 10% of each one goes through to regular National tournaments.

I played the first of these regional events at the Grosvenor Victoria casino ("The Vic") in Edgware Road. I went along with Farzad from work and also met 2 of his cousins.

I was a bit disappointed that only 48 players entered. This meant that whilst the top 9 got ranking points, only the top 5 got paid prize money, including an automatic entry to the next national event. The change of structure also meant that we only had 3000 starting chips (instead of 10,000) and half hour blind levels. This meant a much faster structure.

I got off to a bad start losing about a third of my stack early on. A loose young guy limped in early position and I called with 65 both spades. I think we got another caller and the big blind checked. The flop was a nice 9d 8h 5d, and the turn was even better with 7d giving me a straight. Unfortunately there was a possible flush out there with 3 diamonds. I bet 500 (which was about the size of the pot). The young guy had check/called (the others folded on the flop). A jack on the river was even scarier as it also gave a higher straight if the guy had a ten. This time he bet 1200 which was about half my remaining stack. I folded. There was just too much beating me out there.

I managed to get my chips back later when I doubled up with QQ against JJ. A couple more small pots left me at 4100 at the first break.

After the break, another table broke up and 2 guys of contrasting styles moved to my right and made my life difficult. The first guy was a young Indian guy who was fairly aggressive raising first in whenever he could. The guy next to him, and to my immediate right was a poor player who was annoying to play against. Basically if playing first, he'd limp in, but call a lot of raises before him. He particularly liked doing this with weak aces. He would also call a lot of all-ins with bottom or middle pair. The trouble is most of the players who did this against him were either doing bluffs or on draws, so he'd win these pots. The reason it was difficult to play them is because if I wanted to make a move, I only wanted to do it against one of them, not both. The first guy would almost certainly fold to a reraise, the other definitely wouldn't, but I didn't get any strong hands to capitalise on this.

Fortunately our table eventually broke, but I was getting short. I managed to double up with AQ against TT, get a load of limpers to fold when I pushed AK in the big blind, stole a couple of pots and got blinds with pushes with AJ & KQ. Then the poor player got moved to my right again. I lost some chips when I played a hand badly against him considering my knowledge of him. I was on the button with 77. It was folded to him, and he limped as usual. I raised to 2400 (3 times the blinds at the time) and he obviously called. Flop was AJx and he pushed. I turned to him and said "playing your ace-crap again?", and folded. I was kicking myself, I should have just called.

I then got moved again as we were down to final 2 tables. I was struggling again and getting blinded away as I couldn't get a hand. Then down to about 3500 with blinds at 600/1200, I was in the big blind. All folded to small blind who pushed. I look down to see a delightful looking pair of kings. I call and hold against here A5.

I hold onto the final table and seats are redrawn. I am still the short-stack. A few hands into the final table, everyone has folded to me and I see KT both clubs. This is a good enough hand for me, so I push. Guy to my left also pushes but I'm pleased to see he has 99. I'll settle for a coinflip. Unfortunately, the board is all low cards with no clubs and I'm out in 9th.

It was a strange tournament as I never seem to have a workable stack to play with. I always seem to battling against the blinds all the time. I'm therefore pleased to get to the final table, although I got nothing from it...apart from 1 ranking point.

I am definitely preferring live play to online. For some reason I play much better. I think it's because I have more time to think. I'm not very good at reading players yet, but that will come over time. I'm going to play more of these this season as I do enjoy them.