£50 First Tuesday Game at Circus

£50 Freezout in Circus on the first Tuesday of every month is one of the best games in the north-east and with a decent structure and prize pool is one that is a must for poker enthusiasts.

Luckily for me I had already won a seat playing the £20 double chance freezeout taking the tourney down as well as the seat that is awarded with the first prize. FREEROLL

Im posting this a 3-4 weeks after the event so unfortunately i'm not going to go into as much detail about the tourney as I would of liked but certain hands aren't fresh in the mind and dont want post incorrect information.

Anyway, as I was freerolling the pressure was off for this game and could go into this game to just enjoy the action. There was a really good turnout with 129 runners + £500 added to the prizepool. Starting stack of 8,000.

Action was slow to start with until the third level when after picking a few good spots managed to increase my starting stack to about 13.5k. I had a couple of players on my table who I knew could play (A.Virabi and Ridla) but apart from the table seemed pretty weak.

First Major Run-in - Ok, the fella to my left seemed the rich business type whom didnt really care bout the game spending most of his time on the phone not even present at the table and generally not giving a fuck. On a whole his play was ridiculous. So action folds around to me in the SB with this phone geezer in the BB. I look down at AQ and decide to just limp to disguise my holding. He announces "I should raise but i'll check for you" So we see a flop of 27A. I check and he pushes his remaining 6.5k into the pot without any thought. I was stunned at this play. There was like 300 in the middle and he pushes for 6.5k lol. Ok I think for a little while coming to the conclusion he aint pushing with AK, Aces up or a Set in this spot and anything less I have beat. So I call and pleasantly suprised to see him table A10. A Queen on the turn has him drawing dead and a nice scoop for me. weeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Unusual for me to get my money in Behind - This hand was an interesting hand and took place pretty deep into the tournament. With only 40 players remaining out of the 129 that started the blinds had got pretty big and running antes well under way. This was an awful time to become card-dead. I had been moved tables and hadnt tabled a hand. In fact I nevver played a hand for over an hour apart from the odd blind steal. This table had quite a few well known players some of which had huge stacks and were respected players. Most of the action on this table was bet, pass, pass, pass or bet, raise, pass, pass, pass. Until the hand in question. UTG player limps and with that comes 4 callers to me on the button. I look down at 9 6 hearts and call for value. SB makes it up and the BB checks. Flop come 10 8 Q with two spades. Action checks to player in mid position who bets half 3/4 of the pot. I think for a while and think I can float if another spade comes or get paid massive if I hit my double belly buster of a 7 or a J. I call and everyone else passes.The turn brings the Ace of Spades. Bringing me no help to my draw. The player checks which gives me the perfect opportunity to represent the flush draw (given my tight image) and take down this already decent size pot. I bet 3/4 pot. The player in question immediately cringes and realises he's making a decision for his tournament life as his stack was the size only x3 my bet on the turn. I was aware of this and thought this would help me in taking down this pot. After about 4-5mins in the tank the player announces im all-in and reluctantly pushes his stack over the line. Now im the one in the predicament. Calling this players all-in would take a chunk out of my stack leaving me with about 10k which isnt much more than the starting stack and at this stage isn't great. After weighing up my options I decent im getting too good pot odds to pass, been positive he hasnt got the flush i know 8outs is enough. I call and table my 9-6 to his amazement as he tables his A-9 for top pair (no 9 spades btw). He starts to celebrate as the river is been dealt. BANG "Jack" on the river gives me my straight and a monster pot to go with it. It takes the lad a while to realise hes beat after convincing himself he made a great push on the turn. I believe his push was hopeful (soul read lol) and not a read on me regards my bet. Either way he was right but unfortunatly for him the pot was too big for me to pass. I got lucky but hey, cant complain.

Slow-Roll To The Max -After some big hands and a couple of hours I found myself in the final 24 of the tournament with a very healthy stack. I had 80,000 chips whilst the chip average was only 40k. I was in a position to walk my way to the final table or at least a cash as the top 18 places were paid. I was second in chips at my table only to have the luckiest player I have ever witnessed on my table. I'll paint the picture - Young Lad, Pissed, First Live Poker Game, Doesnt know what a BB. Im sure you've met the type. I asked this lad if it was his birthday or something as he's calling peoples all-ins with A3,K4,J9 and hitting everytime and eliminating player after player for fun. With him sitting with over 100,000 I was praying for a monster against this kid to wipe the smile from his face.

The hand started with the UTG+1 platyer pushing all-in for his remaining stack of 16,000 in relative to the blinds+antes this wasnt huge and not much more than the average opening raise at this stage. The crazy kid smooth calls as everyone expects and action is passed to me. I peel my cards and squeeze out "POCKET KINGS". Against any other player I would more than likely go down the route of calling the all-in and checking the remainder of the hand with the other player just to increase the chance of elimination of the UTG+1 pusher. Plus there is no reason I need to get involved with another bigstack. Against crazy kid I think he'd probably call with any old shite and pay me off massive. I could smell the double up of 80k to 160k and if i win that Ive gotta be one of the favourites to take this down.

So after some thought i ship my full 80k into the middle announcing "Im all-in". Action back on crazy kid and starts groaning, putting his hands over his face and muttering "I really dont wanna play a hand against you, I just dont know what to do" Once the lad announces that I know i'm miles in front and screaming for him in my head to call. After about 6 long minutes of groaning the lad says "If i dont play these cards, no point in playing" and calls. I immediately table my Kings and hope for no suckout until crazy kid eventually tables his cards and says "unlucky" FUCKING ACES! my jaw dropped and heart sank i didnt know wether to laugh or cry. I was gutted. I immediately stood up in disgust. By this time there was already a crowd of people around the table in shock from what they were seeing. No help on a board i cannot possibly remembervand thats it OVER.

If it was a player I knew or a player who knew what they were doing I probably wudda floored tha twat for the sickest slow roll eva but as the crazy kid had no idea what he was doing and I genuinly believe he nearly passed his aces I let it go. Looked at the lad, gulped, and said "Nice Hand". Taxi for Varzee please. lol

Overall was a cracking game and was pleased with the way I played the night was scarred by that last hand and maybe I was been greedy but in those circumstances would probably do the same again.