My first GUKPT

Have come down to Thanet in Kent for Leg 8 of the GUKPT tour. Is a £1k buyin which is my biggest yet. Will try to keep my blog updated with chipcounts etc

Killarney and winning the tournament!

I got into a €500 tournament for free by winning a rake race on ladbrokes. Another of my friends also achieved this and another bought in. We got there on the wednesday (tournament started on friday) and it was completely dead with the hotel being full of old people :( It soon picked up though and we met up with another ladbrokes cash game player (Alexdb). We played some cash game but the rake was pretty rediculous and got some beers.

At the start of the tournament I was feeling quite nervous but played pretty tight and won a few pots whilst being 600bb deep! The whole day was quite a drag and made me remember why I don't play many tournaments. I finished 1.5x the average and was pretty comfortable with such a good structure....2 days to go!

I got off to a fairly bad start dropping down to 1/4 of the average just not winning any pots but managed to win a coinflip 77 vs A8s and catapulted my stack from there. I got moved to a new table and opened the 1st 2 hands and got 3bet twice by the same guy. The second time I decided to slowplay my AA as I felt he was doing it light and with my stack size couldn't really represent a 4bet bluff being 1.2x avg. The flop came 662 and I called his cbet and the turn was a A, this was a great card not only giving me pretty much the nuts but was a great card for him to continue a bluff. He bet about 2/5 of my stack which was a pretty small bet and then shoved the river and lended up having 64o, thank god I hit that ace! Finished day 2 with a healthy stack of about 1.4x avg.

Day 3 was just my day, everytime I did anything wrong I won anyway. I lost quite a few 50/50 and 60/40 but won all my 85/15 wether I was ahead or behind. I played quite aggressive on the bubble but never really went to showdown, accumulating quite a big stack. Once the bubble burst everyone loosened up and I played quite tight. With 2 tables to go it was pretty exciting trying to hold out/accumulate chips for final table. I doubled up with AA vs 88 with 14 to go against a guy I had been particularly pounding on throughout tourney which put me in good stead for final table.

The final table was pretty crazy with around 50 people watching, cameras and the comfortable chairs!! I got off to a bad start losing with TT vs AQ but this was fine as I didn't lose another all in. It was all a bit of a blur with me running very good and the entire crowd standing up every time someone stated ''all in'' and then I was HU. The guy I was playing I had played earlier in tournament and was a very good player. I didn't expect him to be so good at HU as well and he brought back a 4:1 chiplead. In the end we got it in with AQs vs AKo for pretty much the tournament and I spiked a flush on the river :D

I had an interview and a ridiculous amount of photos taken and some champagne! Was pretty tired as it was 5am and the bars finished last orders just after that so we didn't get too merry. All in all very happy with the experience and the result (obviously) and the £64k I got after the deal and splits with friends.