 
Ladbrokes Poker Cruise - 2006
By Stefan Ball- Febuary 2006
15th January - Main event - $5,500 buy-in NL HE freezeout - day one
The structure was excellent. We started with 10,000 chips, 60 minute levels and a slow build up of blinds - 25/50, then 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 100/200 + 25 antes, 150/300 + 25 etc. In a fabulously cheesy presentation the night before, compered by Jesse May in white Essex-girl shoes, the tournament director promised that blinds would be lowered or frozen in the later stages to ensure plenty of play right through to the final table.
He also announced that Ladbrokes would not profit from the tournament because they were going to add the entry fees to the prizepool. I imagine they did this to beef up the top prize and make a better headline in Poker Europa and Inside Edge. The opening publicity last autumn promised 600 entries to the man event and a top prize of $750,000, but this became problematic when Ladbrokes started qualifying players for the $5,500 cruise independently of the $5,500 main event. A lot of people seem to have taken the opportunity to win a cruise without bothering about the main tourney. In the end only 325 people won or went in for the big one and the prize pool was a meagre (cough, cough) $1.7 million.
I won entry to the main event and the cruise early on, when satellite finals still paid the full $11,000 package. My flight, berth and main event entry only cost me $21. Top 64 would make the money, so 64th place for me would be HUGE PROFIT.
First couple of hours I limped a few times with suited connecters without success and took down blinds semi-stealing with small pocket pairs. Phil 'The Power' Taylor was sitting two to my right, and was one of the early casualties, going out in the second level. He lost a couple of times with big hands, and tilt may explain why he pushed his 4.2k stack all in when there was only 300 in the pot. He was BB at the time and had T8 in this hand. The board was Txx, and a guy with AT dwelt up and called. I'm not much of a darts fan, but he seemed a nice bloke. I guess he wins enough in his main game to treat poker like R&R.
I made it to the first 15 minute break with about 9,000. Right after the restart I got AA in the big blind. Everyone folded to a tough player in the small blind, who made up the bet. I decided as there were only two of us in it was worth slowplaying. To cut the story short he had 77 and made a set on a 765 flop. He checked and called my bet. The turn - an 8 - made a straight look possible, and both of us checked to see another 5 on the river. He checked his full house and I put in a bet thinking my AA might still be ahead. I should have folded to his carefully-judged reraise, which was just small enough to suck me in, but I didn't. I mucked my hand so he might have thought I had a straight. In hindsight, if I had raised before the flop he would have called suspecting a resteal and I would have lost even more.
I'm getting better at controlling tilt, but AA getting cracked sometimes has me aslant for a hand or two, which is perhaps why I made a mistake on the very next hand by announcing 'raise' from the SB without realising that another player had already raised. Doh! Verbally committed, I did the decent thing and pushed his 500 raise up to 1k. My intended cheap semi-steal with JTo turned into a very dodgy and expensive out of position reraise. The flop was AKx and we both checked to the river, where he bet and I folded. More bad play: the AK were scare cards for him too and if I'd been in gear I could have taken the pot away from what I think now was probably a smallish pair.
By the way, I say I did the decent thing by honouring my verbal bet, but over the next few days I saw numerous incidents where players did similar things, saying 'call' or 'raise' then retracting it when they realised somebody else had already raised. None of them were told to put their money in the pot. The dealers had been told to lighten up on the rules because so many people were internet players on a jolly. I think this is bad, because these same newbies are only going to get punished further down the line when they do the same thing in another B&M.
Anyway, back in the day I am down to about 5k. I get A6 offsuit on the button and when it is folded to me I raise. SB reraises and I call. Flop is A and rags, he checks, I bet 1k. Then an interesting moment: he tosses in two chips, one of them a 1k chip, the other... his card-protecting lucky chip. This time the dealer does enforce a rule and says it has to stand as a call because SB didn't say 'raise'. Clearly he wanted to reraise me, probably another 1k, but his cackhandedness makes me think he is nervous and probably weak. I point to the blank chip and say, 'how much is that one worth?' He says, 'a lot' but sounds embarrassed which confirms my hunch. When he bets again on the river I call and he turns over pocket kings. As I pile the chips I wonder if I should have raised. He might have made the crying call for his last couple of thousand.
This hand gets me back to a little over the starting stack of 10k. After the second break the restart is delayed as they are consolidating tables and bringing players up from a side room. We get underway again and the next hour - blinds 100/200, ante 25 - passes in a blur. A couple of loose players go out and suddenly the blinds are up to 150/300, ante 25, and they are breaking our table and I am moved to table 8.
First guy I run into introduces himself (after he has taken a pile of my chips with a scary resteal) as 'Punkfloyd'. I've played him online enough to know he is a good solid tournament player, and I watch him and a Danish guy at the far end play a couple of big swinging pots. The Danish guy seems very loose and very aggressive, and he is the one who puts me out.
It happens on the the very last hand before the dinner break. I have around 9,000 chips and figure that when the blinds go up next round I will still have enough to play two or three aggressive pots. There are 21 tables left - i.e. around 210 players. I'm in the cut-off. There are four limpers in the pot when it gets to me, and I find TT. I think about raising a couple of thousand and just picking up the blinds, but TT isn't that big a pair and I decide to see a flop. My plan is to double or treble up if I get lucky and make a set, and get away cheap if overcards come. I think that's a reasonable play, given that my chip position means I don't have to go out on a limb just yet.
Punkfloyd limps on the button. SB calls, no action from BB. The flop is KK5.
The blinds check and the aggressive Dane puts in a smallish bet. The flop isn't too bad for me, and I call the bet. I think this was a mistake. I should have folded or raised. Folding is probably better because I don't have an overpair and the Dane is way ahead of me in chips. He can afford a mistake here, and I can't, so why get involved? Or I could raise to find out where I stand. If he reraises or calls I can get away from the hand. Calling is the worst option because it throws off some of my few remaining chips without giving me hard information. He can afford to continue a bluff, if he is bluffing, and I know he is aggressive and tricky enough to come out betting with or without a K in the hole.
The players behind me fold and go off for their dinner break. Only the Dane and the dealer and I remain at the table. Turn is a 5. The Dane bets 2k, and brainlock sets in. I just can't think straight, but I know he is loose and could have shit so I... go all in. For fuck's sake. What was that all about? He has bet again into a caller. If he was worried about me having a king he would slow down because I have position and could be milking him. His bet says that he isn't scared of the kings, so he either has nothing, in which case I would be better off just calling and let him bluff again, or a king or an underfull.
It's a king. KT, to be exact, and I am out.
Why did I play so badly and stick all my chips in with a weak hand against a bigger stack - a mistake that I have 95% cut out of my online game? Well, on Saturday 14th January I got up at 5.45 am to get myself down to Heathrow. At 9pm UK time - 4pm US - I landed in Miami. By the time I'd boarded the ship and attended Jesse's briefing and gone to bed it was near midnight US time and I'd been up for 24 hours. I slept in snatches because during the night the ship sailed into the tail end of a tropical storm. All night wardrobe doors and drawers flew open and shut with a slam; things rolled off the desk and hit the floor; the next day the talk was of dealers and players in the supersatellite reraising the contents of their stomachs all over the pots. I wasn't sick, but I got very little sleep. To cap it all there was the mandatory lifeboat drill. An hour before the cards hit the felt I was heading for my allocated muster station, the Mayfair Casino on Fantasy Deck (I kid you not), dressed in a fluorescent Fozzie-bear-coloured lifejacket. Given my exit, there was something prophetic about the fact that if the boat were to sink my instructions were to dress like a muppet and head for the craps table.
I was of course thoroughly pissed off. It's not losing that does it. We all know that multi-table tournaments come with large variance and I could have gone out even earlier playing perfect poker. But it's annoying to go all that way only to play worse than I do in the 9pm GetMinted fishfest. Next time I travel long-distance to play I'm taking a supply of pre-tournament sleeping tablets so I can knock myself out for as long as possible before play starts.
16th January - $500 +$40 NL HE freezeout
What a difference a night's sleep makes. I didn't make the money in this event either, but I went out to consecutive bad beats placed 43rd out of 250-odd runners, and I played okay. At every point that the money went in I was ahead, and you can't do more than that.
I got into the tournament as an alternate. My only superstition in big events is to assume I am going to win, so being entered in the main event I didn't bother registering online for any of the side events. The alternate list opened at 10 am in the ship's library, so I got in the queue at 9.30 and got my name down 15th on the list. By the time the tournament started - 2 pm - I was promoted to 8th due to preregistered people who had survived in the main event dropping out of the side event.There were already ten seats up for grabs, so I got in at the start and didn't miss a hand.
The structure was 40 minute blinds, 25/25 to start, moving up to 25/50, 50/100, 100/200, then the antes kicking in. Not as slow as the main event's structure, then, and with only 2,000 starting chips you had to get busy reasonably quickly, but with fast dealers there was still a lot of room in which to play.
My first table started with a bang, although I wasn't involved in the hand. Preflop, player A limped, player B raised, C reraised. The blinds folded. A called, B raised again and C and A both called. Three players saw a flop of AKx, the Ax both hearts. A bet, B raised, and C went all in. A and B called. A turned over 68 of hearts - not sure where he was coming from preflop! - B had AA and C had AK. The turn was a 5 of hearts, making A's flush, the river another five, completing B's full house and giving him the chip lead on hand one. As an aside, B was on my table all the way until he went out five rounds later. He frittered his chips with weak raises preflop followed by postflop folds.
The most interesting/best player on my table was a guy called Richard, who I know better from Ladbrokes as strummer9. He's a professional who's had some good results recently in European events, and I've played him a fair amount online. It was interesting to see him at work in the flesh, and he played a small stack for much of the event in very good style, driving people out of pots with well-judged raises and all ins. He had a nose for weakness and pushed people out of pots without having to show a hand. He played draws especially aggressively. I actually beat a stack of chips out of him in the end, but had to make a big hand to do it - TT in the hole with a Txx flop (I called his raise and hit my set on the flop - ironic given yesterday's ending) - so wouldn't claim I did more against him than have a very good hand at a very good time.
At one point he said something that I thought was quite 'deep' in poker terms. He was talking to another very good player who he clearly knew from live games, and saying that since his last big tournament win he'd been running bad. 'The better you play the closer you are to playing really badly,' he said. 'It doesn't take much to tip you over.' I thought about this later and it makes perfect sense. Imagine Phil Ivey raising with xx offsuit and then being just a little off in his post-flop reads. The result would be a complete amateur - a player much worse than any weak-tight beginner with a hand-ranking chart in his pocket.
Anyway, back to the tourney. Some notable hands apart from the set of tens were:
* In the first round, raising with AK and getting called behind. Flop came AKx, I bet about half the pot and he called. Turn a blank, I checked and he went all in. I called, of course, and he turned over AQ.
*Raising with AQ suited in about 4th position. A guy two behind flat called, and a young Swedish guy moved all in from the blind. It was a big all in, but you know what Swedes are, and I was sure he was trying a squeeze play and could have anything or nothing. I couldn't put the guy who called me on much of a hand or surely he would have raised, so I called the Swede's all in for most of my chips. My caller dwelt up for a long time then folded. The Swede had AQ suited as well, and we split the pot. The guy who folded claimed he folded AK suited - but as a Q came on the flop he would have been destroyed. I guess he only had himself to blame because if he had reraised me preflop I would have been likely to let AQ go, and he probably would have shut the Swede out as well.
* Raising in late position with 77 only to have the button announce all in and stick a wodge of chips in giving me pot odds of about 5 to 4. The blinds folded, and after a little reflection I did the same thinking I was at best 50/50 and at worst way behind. The button turned over 72 offsuit and said, 'I had to raise just for the comedy value.' This didn't hurt me too much because at the time I was well chipped up, and I think my fold would be correct most of the time. Anyway, you have to admire the heart behind that kind of move, even if you are on the wrong end of it. The funny thing was that the same player did a few other all-in reraises in similar spots later on and always got respect. He was probably at it at least some of the time, but I guess people were thinking he couldn't possibly make that move twice.
*Later on, being short stacked after a dry spell of cards and a couple of beats, and reraising all in from the button with 44. I knew I was gambling here, but he was one of the guys who had laid down to the 72 man's raises and so there was a good chance he would fold. If he didn't I needed chips so was happy to have a call from big cards. He called with AQ and the 4s held up.
By the end of round eight and the start of the dinner break I was below average in chips with 9000. The blinds after the break would be 400/800 with 100 antes - i.e. 2,200 chips per round - so I knew I would have to make moves when we got back. We were given 60 minutes for the break, and I made sure I was in place in plenty of time. Others were slower and in fact four players were still missing from our table when the 'shuffle up and deal' order came from the TD. Both the big and small blinds were absent, so when an early position player with a shortish stack (a bit more than 7000) went all in I read it as an attempt to steal the unguarded blinds and called with my AQ suited. Excellent call! - because he had AJ suited.
Now, you know the way pro dealers turn over the flop, by dealing out three cards face down then turning them in one go and spreading them? Well, I was in the no. 1 seat and had a bird's eye view of the first flop card as the dealer turned the cards. Jack of clubs. The plus side was that my cards were both clubs, and one of the other flop cards was a club as well. To make it even more interesting, the third flop card was a ten. So with two cards to come I needed any club to win with a flush, any K to win with a straight, and any Q to outpair his JJ. A lot of outs then - but the turn and river were two red rags.
This left me with 1600 in chips, i.e. twice the big blind. Very next hand I got Q5o and it was folded to me in mid/late position. I went all in. Everyone folded to the BB, who reluctantly called. I turned over my cards and said, 'I don't have much unless you've got absolute crap.' He said, 'I have absolute crap,' and turned over Q2. In a just universe I would split this pot, but there is no justice in poker. You know the way dealers.... etc.? The face-up flop card was a 2, and I had the privilege of seeing it smirk at me before anybody else. Nothing else came and I walked.
I felt differently about this loss compared with the day before's. I felt I played better and did myself some justice. That's not to say that I played 'perfect poker', though. Here's an example of the kind of thing I need to do better.
At one point there was a Swedish guy on our table - not the one with AQ who I mentioned earlier, but another younger guy who looked about fifteen. He had short legs and reminded me of a dolphin for some reason, so let's call him Flipper. Flipper was very quiet for a long time, but then seemed to turn a switch and become hyper-aggressive. In particular he started raising and reraising with any A regardless of what action had gone on before it got to him. He went all-in a lot, so much that he built up a big stack while at the same time becoming a bit of a table joke. If he didn't have anything on the flop he tended to call and hope to hit something that he could scare you with.
In one particular hand I got ATs, and being in mid/late position I thought it was worth a raise to pick up the blinds. Flipper called the bet behind me. The flop was Axx and the turn a J, river a blank. I bet the hand throughout, but he ended up reraising me all in on the river. It was a big all in, and would put most of my chips at jeopardy. I dwelt for a bit then folded, irrationally thinking he must have AJ, although of course that was the hand he was least likely to have had: with AJ he would have raised me all in preflop. After I folded he showed QT for a busted inside straight draw. I murmured 'nice bet', as you do.
I remember reading an article about Isabelle Mercier where she says that every time she goes out of a tournament it's because she did something wrong. She takes this line as a way of assuming responsibility for her results and not just moaning about bad beats. She's right. There is always something wrong, it's just that you sometimes have to look back to find it. In this tourney, if I had called Flipper's all in I would have won a stack more chips. I could have lost the AQ bad beat later on and still have had enough chips to carry on playing. I wouldn't have had to go all in straight away with Q5.
17th January - $200 +$20 NL HE with one rebuy or add on
This was a 'double chance' tournament in all but name because you could buy your second stack at any time, whether or not you were up or down from your starting stack. The structure was relatively unkind but not horribly so, with 1500 chips to start and 30 minute blinds. Once again I got a seat straight away, so being an alternate wasn't a handicap.
I went into this tournament determined to concentrate, remember what hands people played and how they played them, and generally try to make better reads. The good thing is I did this, and made some good moves early on that built me a very nice stack. The bad news is I then threw away my chips on a stupid, too-fast all-in reraise. I'll get to that in a minute. Let's do the good stuff first, and here's one that I remember in particular.
I'd had a run of good cards just prior to this hand and had taken down a few pots without having to show, so I was aware that people were thinking I was playing loose and overly-aggressive. I was in the cut-off with KJo, and there was one early limper - a Scandinavian - before me. (As you will have worked out, Ladbrokes is very big in the Scandanavian poker world.) I called along because I was chipped up and could afford a small speculation. The button and SB folded and BB declined the option, leaving three of us to see a flop of AJx.
BB checked, and straight away the limper went all in for his last couple of thousand chips. The blinds at this stage were 100-200, so he was betting into a 700 chip pot. I took my time and tried to think what he might have. I couldn't put him on any kind of set because given my current table image it would be natural to check and let me bluff into him, or bet smaller to try to get a call. A rag ace was possible, but he didn't strike me as a loose enough player to be first limper with a small ace in early position. A big ace was unlikely, again because of the limp. So the only A it could be was a middle A like A9, which would be bad news but not unbeatable. If it wasn't an ace it could be a J, in which case I had the better kicker. But then, he might think that I limped with something like suited connectors or a suited K - remember, I had appeared to be playing very loose - so he might have a small pair or even a draw. The longer I took to think the less comfortable he looked, and I grew sure he didn't have an ace. I decided I was favourite in the hand so I called. He made a face and turned over pocket 7s.
Okay, enough self-congratulation. It's flaggellation time. I was destroyed by the table drunk. He was a young guy from up North somewhere. He was on vodka and Red Bull, which he needed, he said, to stay awake, because he had been drinking and not sleeping since he got on the boat. He swore a lot - at one point being warned when a lady dealer took exception and called the floor over - and you could see from his eyes that he was only 50% present. I hope I'm not running him down too badly - he was actually a pretty good drunk, shaking hands and so on and wanting to be everyone's friend - but there were the usual drawbacks of playing with drunks. He had to be reminded five or six times a round to post his ante and was always surprised when it was his turn to post a blind or take an action.
In retrospect what I did was very stupid. Drunks usually throw off their money, but he was actually playing tight. In truth, he was barely interested in the game and more into talking about women, football and drink. He had shown down one hand - KK - in about an hour, winning a couple of other small pots with raises. So although part of me was thinking 'great, drunk guy, easy money' another part of me should have been thinking 'rock, respect his raises.'
So, I'm in the BB, it's folded to him in late position. Blinds are getting big, so his standard raise is large. I find 99 and WITHOUT THINKING say, "I'm all in." He calls and turns over KK and I lose most of my chips.
The really dumb thing about this - apart from the obvious dumb thing of reraising a rock with 9s - is that I hadn't taken time to work out how big his stack was. He had chips all over the place, with many of his bigger chips buried. When they were counted down and put in their proper stacks by the dealer he had about 80% of what I had, and if I'd known even for a moment how big a gamble this was I would have passed the 9s and waited for a better opportunity, or flat called at most. Online I would have known to the cent how much he was playing, and this wouldn't have happened.
The sad end came half an hour later. The blinds had gone up and I found myself in desperate straits, so lumped it with Q9s. The caller in the BB was in fact the same guy who destroyed me in the $500 tournament when his AJ outdrew my AQ. This time he didn't need the flop - he had QQ.
Later I made a small amount back in a a $60 sit n go that I played at 2 am. The short stack after two rounds, I fought back to 2nd in chips with four left, and ended up in 3rd place after KQs made a flush to beat my AKs. Small consolation indeed.
20th January - $1,000 + $60 NL HE Freezeout
I took a couple of days off, hit the onboard gym, and looked around St Johns, Antigua and Philipsburg, St Maarten, the two places the ship stopped off at. Basically both places live off the cruise liners. The 'real' shops - you know, food and stuff - are in the tatty back streets. The main shopping areas are full of luxury duty free places. If you want a Rolex or a tiara made from Colombian emeralds, come to the Caribbean. You could throw a stone and hit more jewellery shops than you could in Zurich. It's crazy when you see the state of the roads and the poverty of the 'real' people. Tortola (which we visited a couple of days ago for a couple of hours) was the poorest, followed by Antigua. St Maarten is comparatively well-heeled, at least in the parts I saw.
In this context there is something obscene about all these chav gamblers lurching about (some through beer, others because of the choppy sea) and chucking in tournament entry fees that would keep a family in food for a year. The louche and evil side of me loves it, let's be honest.
There are no games spread when the ship is in port, so most of the 18th and almost all of the 19th there was NO POKER. Well, officially, that is. You would still come upon groups of players gathered in far corners around chips and cards. The ship's casino opens a couple of hours before the poker starts, but apart from that there's not much to do except wait around for Ladbrokes to get its act together. 'This is so fucking boring,' one bloke in the corridor said to his girlfriend. 'There's nothing to do except gamble and drink, and I can't even drink because the boat is going up and down.' There are shows and stuff, of course, but the line-up is aimed at your average 92-year-old American. I don't wanna hear the Celebrity Singers doing Songs from the Shows, thanks, and nor did anybody else. Apparently the theatre has been empty all week. Cash games started up on the 18th in the evening, but I hung on for sit 'n' goes which never materialised. Then on the 19th we didn't leave port until 10pm, so there was no poker at all until midnight. I played a bit but went to bed quite early to get some sleep before today's event.
Today's structure is slow but not as slow as the main event. Fifty minute blinds, 25/25, 25/50, 50/100, 100/200, then the antes etc. There were no satellites so everybody in it has had to pony up their own money. This will probably make for conservative play, and there will be a higher percentage of solid players involved. It starts in 20 minutes.
***
I wasn't joking about the percentage of good players. My first table started with four 'faces' I recognised, though I only knew the name of one - Mark Godwin (or is it Goodwin?), a pro from the Midlands who finished fourth in the $500 tourney. The seat on my right was empty for the first 15 minutes or so.
The first hand I get involved in is from the SB. There are several limpers around to me and I find 63 of hearts and make up the blind. Flop comes J62, the J and 2 both hearts. I check. The BB bets about half the pot. One caller, and I call along. Turn is a blank, BB bets again, limper folds. I count my outs and decide to take a chance and call. River is a 3 of clubs. I check, he bets, and I come over the top with a pot-sized bet. He goes into the tank and I concentrate on twiddling chips around. Eventually he turns over a J and folds. I show my 3, but not the 6, and he huffs a bit. Goodwin says, 'Good fold. He had 63 of hearts.' This is scary - am I really that transparent?
A few minutes later another of the pros looked up and behind me and said, 'They're setting us up.' I look round and its the 'fish himself, Dave Ulliott. Nice man to have on your right. Sure enough, when it gets around to my BB there he is with a raise. I find A7o. I bottle raising and decide to just call and see what comes on the flop. AKJ is the answer. I check, he bets and I raise. He calls. Turn a T and now I really don't like my hand. I check, he checks. River a blank, I check, he bets smallish and I call. He turns over JT for two pair. I don't know whether to be pleased or unhappy that I didn't raise preflop. If I had I might have won a small pot on the flop, or lost the lot on the turn.
Funny enough the Devilfish showed how to play A7o just a few hands later. He limped in early position with it and got a raise from a Scandinavian kid in late position. Blinds folded, Devilfish called, the flop was A high rags. Fish bets and the Scandinavian does that thing that they do so often, and goes all in. This is a big raise. The Fish studies him and then says something like, 'You're saying you have an ace, are you?' The kid makes a mistake by answering, and even I can tell from the awkward response he gives that he isn't comfortable. Devilfish says, 'I call, I'm pissed off with this tournament already.' The kid has JJ so the Fish wins.
DF's only other notable contribution is to walk around the room a lot - he sits down for a minute, plays and wins a pot, then he's off again - and to tell a joke of the kind that would have got him lynched in the North London Polytechnic student bar. It involved a girl with a tattoo of a seashell, and that's as far as I go.
Soon we were ina break and when we got back our table was broken. I moved around the room and took the 1 seat opposite John Kabbaj, who looked half asleep. Again, other faces were familiar but I couldn't tell you names.
Blinds were up to 50/100 now. Not long after I sat down I found KQ of diamonds in the cut-off. I put in a standard raise to 300. Button and SB folded, the BB came over the top making it 900. I didn't know anything about this guy, but he didn't have to have much to make this play against what could be a steal, so I called. Pot is now 1,850 and the flop is 8d, 9d, Jh. He goes all in.
At least I took my time, and tried to think it through. I had 2,700 chips left, and could win 4,550. My rough estimate of pot odds was a bit better than 6/4. If he had something like AJ in odd suits I had at most 18 outs (9 for the flush, 3 Ts for a straight, 3 Ks and 3 Qs) and was a favourite. If he had something like AT of diamonds I could only win with one of 6 cards. On balance I figured I was getting about the right odds to make the call. A lot of good players had already doubled through and were picking up chips, and I wasn't. I decided to gamble and see if I could double up. I called, and he turned over AA, including the A of diamonds. This gave me 11 outs and made me about 6/4 against to win the pot, so at least I was getting the right odds. I caught a Q on the river but it wasn't enough and I was gone.
I wandered off to my cabin and when I was sure I wasn't tilting went and put my name down for a 1-2 NL HE cash game.
It ran true to form. I had a set of 4s busted by a flush, pocket 9s busted by a rag straight. My trip As (2 on the board) held up but were too obvious to make much money. In my last hand I limped on button with KJs and the BB raised. Everyone called so I called along too because of the pot odds. The J high flop, with two clubs, was checked around to me. I can't see any made hands slow playing with so many people in and a flush draw out. I have $125 left, about the size of the pot, so lump it all in. SB and BB fold. Finally one of the limpers lingers then calls, saying, 'OK, let's gamble', which makes me think he either has a draw or second or third pair. In fact he has J9. Turn a blank. River a 9.
In the late evening I hit the sit 'n' gos. In a $110 entry I end up in 2nd place, so get $300 back. The next one starting is a $60 job so I sign up and get the last seat available. One of the guys looks familiar - I think it might be Anthony 'London Tony' Holden, author of Big Deal, but I'm not sure. Rather than do the tourist thing and make him self-conscious I say nothing. The guy's here to play cards. But I pay particular attention to how he plays, and get a good feel for what he is up to. Basically he is very tight early, but when the blinds get big he gets very aggressive. I am chip leader early on thanks to some good cards and I let him steal my blinds most of the time. Then I hit him twice with big all-in reraises and he lays down at once. Okay, Tony, got your number...
When we are down to three players it's me, Tony and a straight ABC player with what must be the worst poker face in the world. He literally lights up when he has a hand, and his mouth turns down every time he folds. When he is gone and it's down to two I introduce myself. He's a nice guy, and is very chuffed that the 3 English players beat all the Scandinavians to take the money spots. I end up winning the heads-up, which is nice.
Now here's a quiz based on a hand in the day's final event for me. This is another $110 sit 'n' go. There are eight players left. The blinds are 50/100 and you have about 2,000 chips, so you are one of the chip leaders (players got only 1,000 to start). The player on your right is under the gun. He is a very aggressive gambler, likes to make things happen, but is far from being a muppet. He has about 1600 chips. To your surprise he goes all in. You peek at your cards and find JJ. What do you do and why?
21st January - $200 + $20 PL Omaha - unlimited rebuys for first three rounds
I was in two or three minds whether to play this. I've been buying in above my usual limits all week but the rebuys could make this very expensive, and Omaha high only isn't my favourite game. For half an hour before it starts I deal out Omaha hands, ten at a time face up on the desk in my cabin. Out of several hundred hands I see maybe ten that you would consider even marginally playable, which doesn't bode well.
In the tournament room I check the runners - only 150 - and again the pros and big-time online players are out in force. My table is fairly tight, although by the fourth hand we have all rebought once just to keep up with the Joneses. The table behind us, featuring Actionjack in very vocal form, is much looser. Three players are all-in on the first hand, which takes some doing with 1500 chips and 25/25 blinds. Over the next half hour cries of 'rebuy' come from that table after every hand. One guy already has pink 500 chips stacked up to his chin.
Clearly playing tight is no way to compete with the big bankrolls, so I drop my starting standards on the floor and look for something to gamble with. Three callers around to me I find a double suited hand at last, and it has two Js and a K in it as well, so I stick in a raise. The loosest player on the table comes over the top and I raise the rest of my chips. He turns over some horrible rainbow mess with a single Q as highest card. The flop is QQx and I get no help from the turn and river. I have two $100 chips ready to rebuy but decide not to bother, and walk.
There are no sit 'n' gos tonight, which is the last night of poker except for the final of the main event and Omaha tomorrow, and a $500 buy-in crapshoot with 20 minute blinds doubling every round. $500 for a turbo is beyond the pale, and I haven't entered it. There are cash game, though, running until 4am.
I sit again in a 1-2 NL HE game, and again I lose, about $300 when the smoke clears. The table is very loose, mainly due to a young Swedish guy who is so good-looking that if I were a woman... anyway, he's an excellent player in the super-aggressive mode, playing crap hands very well. His constant raising - about 75% of the time - means that instead of calling for $2 to see a flop most of the players are now happily calling his standard opening raise of $16.
Looked at in one way, one 50/50 is the difference between winning and losing. I am in early position and find AKo. My first thought is to limp and let him raise everyone to me, but I have already slow-played a couple of hands against him so I decide to play it straight. I raise to $8. Next player folds, then the Swede raises $16 making it $24 to call. Four players cold call the reraise by the time it comes around to me. I bump it up by $90, because I want to lose some of them. The Swede ices me and folds, and I get one customer, a very loose French girl who has a vast repertoire of chip tricks and about $120 left. She sticks it all in and I call, of course. She turns over TT, which holds up to win the pot.
Looked at another way, I make a couple of poor calls when I get married to top pairs early and end up losing to big made draws. If I had avoided those I would have been in clear profit.
The Swede leaves with a stack of chips and then an Irish guy joins the table. I had a chat with him a few days before while we were waiting for SnG seats and know he is a landlord who runs a game in his pub. He's a big, blown-up guy, like Hagrid on steroids, and sits down with $500 in chips and orders a vodka and Red Bull, plus a beer and a White Russian chaser. First hand he is dealt he raises blind, bumping the pot to $25. The Scottish guy on my left - the same guy who cleaned me out in cash when his K9 beat my KJ - peeks at his cards and pushes all his chips in the middle - about $270. The publican checks his cards and calls. Publican has AJs, Scot turns over 88. 88 holds up and the publican is on tilt. Two hands later he manages to get all his chips in the middle with top pair against somebody else's flopped A high straight, and he's gone, leaving three drinks on the table.
At about 3.20am my table is down to three players and we agree to break it up. There are other games, but people are pissed and aggressive and chomping on stinkburgers, so I cash my chips in and go.
That's it for the poker... or almost. I spent the next day watching the final table of the main event, which was won by a Norwegian kid called Norflush ahead of a Swedish kid called Eskobet, with a Brit called Skalie in third place after being chip leader since day 1. The very first hand of the 6-handed final, Skalie gets AK and gets it all in against another guy's KT. Exit other guy. Two hands later there is a massive all-in between three players, Skalie with KK, Norflush with AQ diamonds and the short-stack with A9. Short-stack hits A9 on the flop, and the Norwegian kid rivers his flush to cripple Skalie and take out the short stack.
Fourth-place player went out 40 minutes or so later, then Skalie got his leaving Eskobet and Norflush heads up. Jesse May provided the commentary, passing it on to Norman Pace of Hale & Pace fame [sic] and from there to Mad Marty. I don't know, but if I was trying to concentrate with a top prize of about $350k on the line, I could do without Norman Pace saying out loud that I didn't know what to do, or Mad Marty referring to me once as 'Eskimobet' and once as 'Eskimo'.
Looking at my own bankroll, this trip has been expensive: about £1900 down, which more than wipes out the profit I made online in early January. I've got some food for thought out of it, though, and in one area at least I think I have improved: my poker face. What I picked up from the Scandinavians is a certain detachment that they have when they stick in a bet. It really is impossible to tell what they think or feel. You might find me harder to read in future; if in fact you find it even easier, don't tell me, that way you keep your edge. :0)
Here are some other things I think I need to do if I am going to have a serious chance in bigger live tourneys:
* Take more time to think through decisions. Online I am used to playing three MTTs at a time, and you can only do this if many decisions are reflexes. For example, an all-in reraise from the BB with 99 against a raise from a shorter-stacked button is almost automatic online, when you have limited information and 20 seconds in which to act, but in a live tourney there is more information to process and more time to process it. You can't start again in five minutes like you can online, so you need to treat each decision with more care and give it more thought. Going out with a loose reraise matters more in a big B&M tourney than it does in one of a hundred daily online events. For one thing, it means you spend the rest of the day kicking yourself, and that hurts.
* Put people on hands. I have made some steps towards this over the week but I still don't do it as well or as consistently as I should. A pro can see one of my hole cards and say precisely what the other one was. That has to be my target.
* Rethink my approach to cash play. I think I play too much like the early stages of a tournament, i.e. waiting for big hands and putting in big raises or limping with marginals to get in cheap and see flops. From what I have seen of successful cash players here they are far more aggressive with odds and sods so as to isolate tight players like me. That way they know where they are - and they know they will get paid off when they hit the flop. This is an approach that demands the willingness to lose chips preflop in the expectation of long-term postflop gains. It may be that I won't be able to play good cash until I am happier losing.
* Work on my reading of chip counts. I need to know exactly who is playing what and exactly what is in the pot, all the time, just like I do online.
* Get better at estimating outs. I still have a tendency to count tainted outs as if they were full outs. I need to be more pessimistic to get a clearer idea of whether a call is good or not.
* Get some poker simulation software so I can run over hands after I lose them and try different approaches to see what works best.
* Get some sleeping tablets for my next transatlantic adventure.
22nd January
Last day. We disembark tomorrow. No poker today as such, so just a few random bits.
An announcement from Paul, our Celebrity Entertainments Director, over the tannoy. 'We have many activities on offer today for your enrichment and enjoyment. Our duty free shops will be open all day and evening for your spending pleasure. The Mayfair casino will open at 2pm for your gambling pleasure.' How many different 'pleasures' do people have? It's like you could keep them in a filing system. Here's my sexual pleasure, in this buff folder, just ahead of my shopping and skipping pleasures.
The Ladbrokes end-of-cruise show was a mix of the awful and the unexpectedly good. Steve something-or-other used to be a comedian, and he was very good once he got through the first few minutes. Devilfish made a prat of himself. It's clear he thinks the world revolves around him. I sing and play guitar better than that, and so probably to 40% of his audience. And most of us would know to get off the stage when we're dying. Norman Pace was... Norman Pace. Very unfunny, trying hard, but can sing okay. Elvis Senior was actually quite good in a one-dimensional way. Lucy Porter was excellent. Of the Scandinavian youth: 'They're so young. I don't know whether to shag them or feed them.' Of the Brits: 'We love the British boys too. Greekfish has bigger tits than I do, and that's always attractive in a man. And necks are so last century.'
Norflush, who won the main event, got a job as a fork-lift driver just before he left for the cruise. Would he be taking up the job? 'I'll have to think about that.'
The streaker who ran across stage, balanced on the banisters and then came back across the stage and did a handstand during the finale of 'House of the Rising Sun'. So funny, so strangely British. Now, I wonder if he did it to win a bet...
The casino absolutely packed because there is no poker tonight. Which reminds me to add to the list of things to do:
* Learn to play blackjack basic strategy, and to count cards, so I have something not to expensive (or even marginally profitable) to play when I am in a similar environment in the future.
Finally, Roy the Boy Brindley showed why being a sponsored player can be a bad idea. He had to contribute to the Ladbrokes show, and did an excrutiatingly embarrassing turn as a Jamaican rapper, complete with cod accent and silly hat. Oh dear.
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