Stanley Casino - Deep Stacked Sunday Poker Tournament
Gaffer sent me an unexpected and welcome text message on Saturday afternoon to let me know that the Stanley Mint Casino in Glasgow were running a £30 Deep Stack poker tournament on Sunday afternoon. I was in the midst of some DIY hell at the time and dreading the thought that it was probably going to take all weekend to complete. The thought of a good, deep stack tourney provided me with all the motivation I needed to beast into the DIY and by 11:55pm it was done.
We set off for the big smoke in glorious sunshine around lunch time and it wasn't long before we were supping a beer and watching the old firm game on TV whilst waiting for the tournament to start. The offer of 4 import beers for a tenner was too good to pass on and we would ultimately sink quite a few more before the afernoon was over.
This was the first week that the Stanley had run the deep stacked Sunday afternoon game and it coincided with an old firm match so the turnout was un-surprisingly a bit low with only 9 players registered.
The game commenced with 15,000 chips, 20 minute blind levels starting at 25/50, yum, delicious...
Within about 20 minutes we had the first drama of the afternoon when one player pushed all in on the river and the player on the button flipped over his cards to reveal a full house, thinking the shove was merely a call of his earlier bet. Drama ensued...
We settled back into play but there was quite an atmosphere at the table for a while after that. The play was good though, the deepstacks giving plenty of room for some fun and games. I setup a pretty tight image after donking off some chips with pocket queens on a straightening board. Just before the first break I picked up Kings and raised pre-flop. The flop brought an Ace and I made a big mistake not putting in a continuation bet to represent the Ace, at the time I thought a slow deliberated check might look more menacing, like I was trying to trap the other player who had position on me. He naturally raised and I went into the tank. My instinct told me he didn't have the Ace and his body language confirmed this but I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger and risk my tournament life this early. So I folded and he revealed pocket 10's, more chips donked off. At least my table image was now tighter than a tight thing and this would come in handy a few times later on.
The first hand back after the break I got a good opportunity to put in a nice big raise and pick up 3 or 4 sets of blinds pre flop, which made up for some of the chips lost with the Kings in the previous hand. Play continued and a few players dropped out. Gaffer had a narrow escape against another short stacked player sucking out runner runner Kings to make a set on the river and bust his opponent. However it wasn't to be Gaffer's day when he picked up pocket 10's and feeling the pressure of the escalating blinds shoved his stack into play only to run into me with pocket Kings again, sorry bud.
Three handed and things got interesting. I was about equal in chips with another player who had been playing good solid poker but the chip leader had a big advantage over us and had been playing super wild and aggressive, but we know how to take advantage of that don't we children. So I was reasonably confident that pressurising the solid player and trapping the maniac should get me into the money, and the plan was working, I gradually eased out a slight advantage on the solid player and the maniac was still at it. But then it all went horribly wrong. Perhaps I can blame the 6 continental beers I had quaffed by this point, perhaps not. Either way I made a complete arse of things. I didn't think things through and got punished for it. I picked up King 5 suited and called maniac boy's preflop raise, which by now meant absolutely nothing. The flop came down Ace, 5, 6 and when he put in his standard oversized continuation bet I shoved only to discover that this time our little friend didn't just have an Ace, he had the six as well. Ho Hum, bubbled. What a tosser, I had things under control, knew how to play both the players and was reasonably confident I could eat into the wild man's stack enough to get the better of him and take down the game.
So it was in a beer blurred state of frustration that I stepped back outside into the bright afternoon sunshine with Gaffer to mosey back home and persuade 'er indoors that she should actually be delighted that I was going straight back out to play some more poker in the pub. Well I did, and I won the first game of the night with some devastating heads up play, to come back against a chip leader with a monster stack, and more or less recover my buy-in from the afternoon event. A couple more beers and a curry on the way home, Deep Joy.
This Sunday afternoon poker is an excellent lark and I'd like to make it a regular occurence, all I've got to do is try get 'er indoors to see the light.
