Sunday 20th of February At the Mountain View Hotel National Pub Poker League held a $50 Teams Event 2K guaranteed in the prize pool. A lot of people are getting confused by the 2k guaranteed; it basically means is that you don’t have to win the event to get cash. They space it out and with this event it was from 1st to 6th and 1st gets the most % of the 2k and 6th got the lowest %.
The event rules where that your team of two swap playing every 20mins witch was every blind level and had a 2mins in between to talk with your team member. One player of your team sits down with 5k and when you swap your partner brings another 5k adding to the teams stack.
First of all I’d like to congratulate my friend Josh Bourke on becoming a Father at 9.15am on Sunday and I’m very happy for him and wish him all the best in the future, I’m glad the baby girl is safe and healthy.
Sunday morning my Mother convinced me to go down to the Mountain View even though I didn’t have a team member. I think she just wanted to get out of the house. As I walked up to the tournament host I told him my situation that I wanted to entre but had no partner and immediately he referred me to this guy Luke. I wanted to play so bad but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this with someone I didn’t know but it was only $25 per person so I jumped at it. But I kept positive and told him where going all the way and made the host realize that the wild cards will see the final table for sure.
After we signed up me and Luke started chatting about our poker styles and from what he was telling me………….. He was a Rookie. He told me he doesn’t read players he isn’t advanced in poker and he just plays his cards. I then thought that’s Great!. We had the game plan of he dose his thing on the felt and keep our stack healthy and ill pull the moves on to juice it up.
We decided that he would sit down and play first then I would come in second. And I watched him play on the sidelines and he was playing tight and getting chips here and there.
Luke was a very happy looking guy and just kind nature which was a bit of a down fall when I saw some players bully him but he didn’t tilt.
He had a huge hand when he held J8 and it came 3QQ,Q,J and one guy raised 300 he called then the next player went all in. I saw the look on his face and he didn’t look happy. I’m pretty sure if this wasn’t a team’s event he would of shoved all in. But something told him to fold and lucky enough one had the Full House the other had Quad Queens. After I saw this big laydown my I thought for a rookie to lay that hand down is extremely impressive. At this stage I couldn’t be happier with my team mate.
20mins was up and I told him that the laydown he made was epic and I boosted his confidence but I also told him be real careful when you play high cards with a low card. I caught him playing some a rag and getting bullied to fold. But we were on the right track with around 4.3k
As I sat down and started to play I came to the 2nd hand in the game for me and was delt QQ so I raised and was then reraised from someone in middle position so I just called. Flop came down something like Q J 8 . I think checked and he raised big on me at least 30% of my chips. At this stage I thought he had either AA, KK, JJ. So I called him. And lucky enough the next card was a Queen giving me Four Of A Kind. I bet he goes all in and I call. My read was correct he had Kings and made him really short stack.
Next Hand I had AK so I raised 2k and had 3 callers and one all in for under 3k. Flop came AA9 I checked with a player raising and the third player folded I went all in and he folded. The player that was all in mucked his hand and didn’t bother but I turned my cards over and hit another Ace on the river... Four Of a Kind 2 hands in a row. My luck has paid off huge with around 26k
As the day went on we stuck to our game plan and it was working I build the stack and Luke maintains it.
On the bubble for final table blinds got really big and our stack wasn’t big enough with the blind at 4k/8k and we had 40k. I needed to make a move.
I was on the button and I needed to steal the blinds so I raised to 20k to steal with A5. The small blind then takes his time in acting on his hand and after a few mins his all in. I had slightly more than he did but I felt committed. If I folded then I won’t have many blinds left to see and put our tournament life at risk. Or I could do what poker is all about …. GAMBLE!!!!! I was all in.
I was shattered to see he had 66 as we saw the flop I took a deep breath and screamed when I saw an ace down on the flop. He didn’t end up getting another 6 and he wasn’t happy with me but I didn’t care I had his chips and where still in it. And off to FINAL TABLE.
Just as soon as we entered the first hand I was after a few small pots and build up a bit before change over. During the change over I told Luke to keep the same game plan and its raise or fold mode no calling because we cant afford to. This player that they call “donkey” ran a bluff against the chip leader and I was extremely impressed. This rookie has some game. 8 players left 3 short stacks and im about to sit down.
I let Luke know his doing great because I knew I had to build his confidence up if I was to take it all the way he might have to go heads up.
Within time the 3 short stack where gone and where in the money !
Everyone on the table is playing tight real tight that the only move that was done it was a raise on the small blind to take the big blinds chips. I was first to act in this hand with A10 of diamonds.
I decided to raise half my stack and I assumed that was enough to grab the small and big blinds but a player on the button raised me all in. Yeah I trapped myself. I assumed that the player had an ace wasn’t sure about his kicker. This player is your typical pub poker player ( anything with an ace is good) so after thinking for awhile I decided to go all in .
He had Ace King ……. I was stunned. flop came down with two diamonds so there was hope but I still know I was fighting for our tournament life. Next card was a king. And I called out “Give me one diamond just this once “ and the poker gods must of heard my shouting plea. A diamond on the river.
We were saved! Got a great stack and took out a player with 4 remaining. Shortly after that there were and all in and another player eliminated.
With 5 mins left I took out another player I cant recall what I had it was written down and ill chase it up and post all the hands on final table later but I cant recall what I had but it didn’t matter to me. We got heads up.
We where heads up for 2 mins and I managed to take most of his chips away from them and he only had 35% of what we had until it was the swap. I quickly turn to Luke and ask him “do you know how to play heads up ?” he response was that he has played heads up a little bit. I still had faith in the man his impressed me a great deal and if he bombed out well hey 2nd isn’t the worst thing in the world. I gave him some pointers on heads up play and he took it on board.
As he sat down I got nervous real nervous. He was playing his game he would raise on his good hands and fold his rubbish except for this one hand he must of taken in what I spoke to him about with heads up play and he bluffed the opponents raise. After seeing that I got really excited and nerves weren’t there anymore. He went all in with 69 against AJ he hit a 9 on the flop but lost on the river to a Jack. It was up and down and a really good battle. He managed to get the opponent short stack ( only had around 3 big blinds left in him) and he decided to give up and the opponent went all in with 10,6 against our AQ. Sadly he had got a 6 on the flop but we took the lead on the turn with an ace and it was game over. I was stunned and proud of Luke for sticking to the game plan and listening and learning throughout the tournament. He had a huge smile on his face and I could wipe the smirk .I haven’t been that noisy in a poker game before but I guess I just had my head right in the game and wanted it so bad. We were the wild cards and we took it down.
We also won a $400 nppl main event 80k guarantee seat and a cash money prize.
There are photos that I need to chase up and I will post them when I can.
But to sum it all up the so called donkey played fantastic poker and I hope his mates get rid of that title because we beat them all to it lol. I’m really happy that I won my first team’s event.
I will post hand history and photos when I receive them so stay tuned and feel free to follow my blogs.
