Well I really enjoyed it and that's a surprise as I got so close to the really big money and came up just short. When that happens I'm generally more hacked off than when I bust early but I really did enjoy the 2 days at DTD.
My initial day 2 table felt pretty easy as I only had one tough decision the whole time I was on it, and yet it looked a really tough draw as I was surrounded by a lot of players with excellent results. In fact apart from Seat 1 who has only this current tournament rated on the Hendon Mob database every other player has done something of note poker-wise.
63 1 Suruj Miah
63 2 Stuart Fox
63 3 David Griffiths (me)
63 4 Daniel Ward
63 5 Gregory Garrett
63 6 Malcolm Muskett
63 7 Richard Simmonds
63 8 Derek Rowland
63 9 Kevin Pearce
First to mention is seat 4 Daniel Ward who I recognised from the G Coventry where he used to play quite a bit. He doesn't go there so often any more as perhaps he thinks he's above that level now. He has played some reasonably high buy in events without yet getting a really big score. His most notable performances have been 16th at one of the (£1,000) Monte Carlo events and a Final Table at the £300 monthly Deepstack both at DTD.
He either didn't remember/recognise me or is just naturally ignorant as he barely responded to me when I spoke to him.
Next to him in seat 5 was Gregory Garrett a really nice guy. I've never met him before and yet he was a top guy to have on your table. With $65,957 (46,389 Euro) for the winner we were playing for large chunks, yet he was more than happy to chat to pass the time. He has had some great results the biggest of which was winning the DTD Monthly Deepstack for £26,000 in Sept 2010.
A late comer to the table was seat 2 Stuart Fox. He has had loads of notable scores including two 2nd's and a 3rd in WSOP events over the years and about $1.4million in tournament winnings.
I have to confess I had no idea who he was until on the break a friend of mine (Dean "Bulldozer" Pearson) from the Eat My Stack poker forum said "you've got a tough draw" and told me who he was.
It was so funny as to be honest he had done absolutely nothing to show me what a good player he was. At one point he went to put in a raise and dropped a chip in by accident and the dealer made it stand as a call so he looked like a complete novice!
He was apologetic about it after the hand (he had KK) to his opponent as he assured him he wasn't angle shooting. To be fair I actually argued to the dealer that his intentions were very clear (he'd counted out the call and then added the raise on top and picked them all up together) and he had clearly just dropped a single chip from the bottom of the pile by mistake. I could see it was genuine.
He also seemed a nice talkative sort of guy and so I was very happy at my table. You (hopefully) spend hours at a poker table and I really don't see the harm in chatting to people nearby. I've always done it and for 99% of the time it's genuine. Sometimes when I know someone well I do try and gently needle them, more for fun than to put them off their game.
Occasionally I am trying to get some general info/background on my opponent, but you just normally have to listen to get all that info anyway.
I'm happy to chat to pretty much anyone, though when I spot someone who is trying to size me up I enjoy deliberately giving them misinformation.
Also at the table was Malcolm Muskett (Seat 6) who has Final Tabled a DTD Monte Carlo and finished 2nd in a Virgin Poker festival when they used to run them.
Richard Simmonds was in seat 7 and he and I ended up sharing a table at Nandos during the dinner break. Richard is from Bristol and plays higher buy in events and finished 2nd in a Broadway Festival £300 side event.
Derek Rowland according to the Hendon Mob database has played a lot of poker in Italy and Kevin Pearce has Final Tabled the DTD £300 Monthly Deepstack on 2 separate occasions and you don't do that by accident.
So on paper a tough draw but as I say it seemed a breeze to me. I played small pots and won virtually all of them (that helps) and moved steadily from the 15k starting stack to 18k by the 1st break at the end of level 3.
After the first break it was as if the table suddenly caught fire as we had 2 quick bust outs and the pots were all getting big. I won one big one and lost a medium sized one so came out ahead on the 2 and was up to 23k when the average was 18k.
Sadly, as I was enjoying it so much, they broke our table and I got moved to another one that seemed easier. These guys were all playing ABC and it was just a case of waiting for hands or good spots.
I got AA and had to fold them on the turn, it was one of the wettest boards you've ever seen. 4 to the straight and flush and me with the aces of the wrong suit.
The guy who won that hand severely tilted me as he was wearing shades and looked a total knob. He then opened his mouth and confirmed it. As he got more and more chips he became more unbearable talking a complete load of shite.
On the positive side he lasted about 40 minutes after that, though sadly I didn't get chance to get any of my chips back off him before he departed.
On this table I had one of the eventual "Golden Chip" winners sat by me Ian Turner who seemed a really nice guy. He copped an additional £15k just for making the FT which must be nice.
By now I was well above average with 30k (av24k) when our table got broke again and this time I really got an unlucky break.
I was seat 10 and in seat 1 was the eventual tournament winner Tom Bingham. This was not good for me at all as I knew straight away he was clearly a very good player and a dangerous opponent.
He was not frightened to gamble and was happy to 3 bet light so I had to play even tighter than normal though this did work to my advantage later on and in day 3.
To his left in seat 2 was a complete maniac who was prepared to call almost any bet with almost any 2 it appeared so he was another reason to tighten up and seat 3 was a young lad (about 19) in a hoodie who felt it necessary to confirm my initial guess as to how he would be playing by raising with all sorts of garbage.
If I'd drawn seat 4 or 5 I could have rocked up a bit initially then started 3 betting and won loads of chips off them. From my seat draw though it was near impossible for me to successfully play pots with them out of position and I think I'd have been daft to try.
In seat 4 was Marios Arkadiou who also made the FT. He was playing ABC from what I could see, but in fairness to him he always seemed to know where he was in a hand and made some very good lay downs on day 2 and 3.
I therefore had to tighten up and wait to play something stronger than normal. This plan then started to look like a mistake as I just didn't get any hands at all! So I started to open a few pots on the button and CO and they got through as they were by this point convinced I was a rock.
When an orbit or 2 later I opened with As2s one of the maniacs 3 bet me (not Tom). I figured I had to make a stand or they were just going to run over me, so I 4 bet shoved my remaining stack of about 21k.
He snapped with QQ but I hit an Ace on the flop and doubled up to 50k. This gave me a bit of confidence and I started to open a few more pots on the button and CO and most got through. The whole time I was on this table I didn't play any of the streets it was all pre-flop decisions.
I finished the day on 53,000 when the chip av was 59k so I was OK and looking forward to the re-draw for the start of day 3 as I felt it couldn't be worse than this table.
The bad news was they didn't do a re-draw so I had exactly the same position on day 3.
It didn't seem so bad though as on day 3 the whole table seemed to be in shove fold mode or open then fold to a 3 bet mode and no flops were being played by anyone.
I was totally card dead and survived by shoving 10BB's from the button or CO with complete garbage on several occasions. A few times Tom and seat 2 said things like "against anyone else I'd be snap calling with this" before folding to me so my rock like play on day 2 was helping now.
As time went by though no pots were getting folded to me in late position so I had to start 3 bet shoving light to survive. I did it with hands like 9,10 suited etc. as that was the best I was getting. Luckily I never got called.
I thought I'd made an error when I shoved J9 and was up against Q9 but I hit a J to survive.
We were 7 or 8 handed most of the time and the blinds were coming round very fast it seemed. I was roughly half the chip average for most of the day and it was hard work.
Later when short again and it got folded to me on the button I shoved with 88 and got snapped by Tom in the sb with JJ.
The river was an 8 and this put me over 100k but still I was way below average.
I KO'd the guy in 40th place when he shoved with pocket 3's into my BB I had AQ and hit the Q on the flop. This put me up to 161,000 and although the average was at this point about 199k I felt things were starting to go my way.
Sadly that was the last pot I won and I eventually went out shoving on the button for 80k (blinds 4k/8k/800) with Q8o and Tom had A,10 in the sb.
I felt confident when the cards went on the backs as I'm only approx 40/60 and had been running good but the door card was an Ace and it was game over for me.
Obviously to finish 30th out of 4,010 entries is pretty good but the decent money didn't start till 18th place upwards so I made a mere £460 for 2 tough days of poker. As a whole though I really enjoyed the weekend.
I feel good about this weeks Goliath event which is being held at the G Coventry one of my regular places that I play at. Hopefully I can take my good form from the Grand Prix and add home court advantage to it and run well in it.
I've also entered the APAT main event at DTD for day 1b Sunday the 28th Aug. If I make the final of the Goliath I will have to unregister but it will be worth it.
I've been exceptionally busy work-wise for the last 2 months working on some new websites and have been delivering some 1:1 coaching for people. As a result I have not played much poker but this last week has reignited my enthusiasm for the game once more.
Lets hope I play well and run better in the coming week!
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