Southampton's £400 Freezeout Report

By Mel Lofthouse - 3rd November 2004

What a day the Slough Palace trio had! Matt drove David and I down to Southampton and we got there with plenty of time to relax before the tournament started. After we'd registered and took seats, I found that I had been drawn on the Axxemans table so I could have a good chat. Great table to start with, 3 complete rocks and 5 loose cannons, the most memorable hand I can remember is I had AJ in the big blind, at this point blinds 100-200. One of the loose cannons raised to 1000 , small blind calls and I call. Flop comes A J 10 with 2 clubs, thinking not bad flop top 2 pairs, i'll have a crack. Guy in small blind comes out betting, I raise to 1200 and other guy reraises another 2000, small blinds folds saying I folded a monster and I think and think and think to myself, did he really reraise me with KQ, and after deliberating for a couple of minutes decide to fold and I show my AJ, he said "excellent read young lady" and shows me KQ to show the nut str8, other guy said he had flush draw. Talk about female intuition!

Then after a while Koresh comes to our table "groan" and then tables gets split hurray we all shout. Second table was a really nice friendly table, a few people I recognise from other tournaments, except for a young guy who came over from the Netherlands to do the festival. Very early into the table I find Aces in the big blind, one guy raises to 2000, Dutch guy goes all in for 4500 , I reraise all in for 8000 , 1st guy calls says I must be behind with AJ, Dutch guy has pocket 9's and me Aces and phew they stand up, I treble through. Table then breaks up yet again, after people committing haricari with no chips and blinds now 400-800. I get moved to Matts table and sit next him who says "i'm a rock only played 3 hands" and I say go for it and he finds kings against another guy who had aces. Very unlucky as the hand played itself, the flop was low and crappy so even if slow played same result. Stole a few blinds as I was reraising quite a bit but didn't really see anything amazing.

Now down to last 2 tables, and I now get moved to Daves table, and next to him. He's eyeing up my stack and we laugh and chat about he needs a double through, and within a few minutes he doubles through with A10 v A9, result! More muppets get knocked out and down to hand for hand. Daves now sitting on about 14k, i've still got 33k final table awaits

We draw seats and in the break chat about hands to go all in on that would be lively against AK/AQ etc. Both me and Matt say J10 would be good hand and as it happened Dave found J10 against Koresh, and with their incidents from Gutshot it was excellent listening to the table trash, needless to say Dave hit his Jack and doubled through! Matt and I now smug that our judgement worked for him.

I find pocket jacks raise 10,000 and koresh with his 100k stack calls me, flop comes Q 2 10, I bet 6000, he raises me all in, and I think can this pillock really have AQ. I take a moment and decide to fold leaving myself about 15k in chips but blinds are now 1000/2000. Koresh shows me Q2 and I seeth, complete nutter, what the hell does he think i'm raising with. He then tries to wind me up, "haha impossible I fold my blinds easily". He's not tilting me! And then on big blind i've now got 10000 chips, 3 way pot with 2 flat callers, I have 7 9 off, flop comes 9 high, i'm all in. Koresh mutters I let u in cheap, small blind calls he hit 2 pair, i'm out in 7th!

Boo hoo! I can't say I played a hand badly, solid as a rock all day, made lots of moves, played aggressive, smiled sweetly. Played an A game and thought the event was superb. Southampton Grosvenor poker team were great, kept tournament moving, were open to suggestions, didn't need to do rulings other than to shut up Koresh! And all in all we had a great day. Whens the next day out for the Slough Palace massive, come on......!!!

Oh and the gammon steak is superb aswell lol