March Poker News

5th of March, 2006 - I traveled to Walsall to play the Midlands Medley last Saturday. I played atrociously, making countless rash mistakes which cost me the tournament and the £1,500 buy-in. Everything was rosy to begin with, I had probably the best table I've ever had in a live event. These people were inexperienced and giving away way too much information through their body language and betting patterns. After returning from the LA Poker Classic it felt that I was stepping down in limits, that priceless sense that everybody's thought processes were transparent. I built up a nice chip lead by stealing multiple pots in position against the very nervous Scottish man in seat 1, his watery eyes and shaky hands basically showed if he hit the flop or not. Roland de Wolfe was moved to my left after about 3 hours, he won the WPT Paris event in 2005. He plays ultra-aggressive, bordering suicidal. First hand at the table he doubled up all-in with 89 off-suit versus Ace Jack of Clubs when he check raised the 9 high flop. Next hand, I raised the 200/400 blinds up to T1200 from mid-position, De Wolfe pushed all-in in a careless fashion to T6200. My stack was near 20,000 chips at this stage and I made an egotistical call with Ace Deuce of Clubs, which eventually lost to Ace Queen.

A few orbits later the player to my right who'd played about 5 hands in 5 hours and only raised once before, pumped it up to T1100 from the small blind position. Without thinking I (in the big blind) put him all-in for approximately T7000, he called with pocket 7's against my pathetically weak Ace. It wasn't until a day after that I contemplated his range of raising hands, which is very disappointing. The sevens held up. Shortly afterwards, I re-raised all-in pre-flop with Ace King and the same player called two thirds of his stack with pocket nines. Well, Ace King is my voodoo hand as of late, I've been knocked out of the last 4 live tournaments with big slick, and of course 99 was good on this occasion, consolation being I was not dominating my opponent. Next venture is to play the European Poker Classic in London on the 23rd.