Bear Stearns Poker Tour Event II 13 th July, 2006 at the Gutshot Poker Club

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Collin Bridges
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1 Bear Stearns Poker Tour Event II 13 th July, 2006 at the Gutshot Poker Club An Auspicious Start After our successful first event in April, there was appetite for a rematch. The 30 seats on offer were quickly taken up and despite late cancellations, replacements were easily found. With more runners, and increased stakes by popular demand, we were due for a significant prize pool. Take Your Seats By 7:40, we were ready to go on 3 tables with 32 players (a tight squeeze). The feature table was Diamonds home to Richard Gee, VVP, Ed Steel and Alex as well as action-amit, previous money-winners Tao and Tom Doris, unlucky Tom Picking and unknown quantities Pavel and John Chukwuma. At Clubs, we saw the most new faces Tim Lock, Jose, Mark Latham, Bruno and Jin and two out of the three ladies playing this time (Linsey and Jin). Hearts started with the most final-table players from last time (HVS, Mark Ekins and Valer) and also hosted dark-horse Jeremy Dyer, and Sasa Coach Ratkovic. The Action Begins Early play was cagey at Diamonds despite the aggressive pedigree of the players. Some players, though, were found to be stealing blinds. Literally. You know who you are. Some play was unusual. One remarkable hand saw VVP and John Chukwuma go all the way to the river with identical K8 hands; good enough for a split on the 25QQ6 board. Meanwhile, at Hearts, I decided to demonstrate that it s not all about the cards with a blind call in late position against 4 limpers. When the mixed flop was checked around, I raised the pot blind, finding a call only from Mark Ekins. His weak check on the turn prompted my all-in raise (still blind) and a call from Mark. When the cards were flipped up, I handily found the T7 for middle pair and Mark s A9 was no good. Double-up for me, double-down for Mark. Early rebuys also for Guru, unlucky to see his pocket Queens make a set but still lose to a straight by Soujit (from the unpromising K7). Luis also finding trips (6s) in this hand no good. Guru had some better fortune when he boldly called Soujit s all-in with Ac2c. Soujit held 2pair on the QKJ8 board but the river-ten allowed Guru to take this one down. Big pots were becoming commonplace. In a 4-way monster, the A67 flop drew an all-in raise from my AQ; Valer s AT and Jeremy s 87 called as did Irina s K5. My top-pair, top-kicker looks good until Irina found runner-runner 2pair as the final board showed A67K5. Over at Clubs, the early leaders were Hamish, Anand and Mark Latham. Mark paired a King to run over Jose s pocket Queens, whilst Hamish had seen his A2 improve to an unlikely straight, taking out Jin s paired-king and Bruno s pocket 8s. Linsey also started to make progress when she was four-paid on pocket Aces.

2 Fireworks Initial caution gave way to some interesting pots. At Hearts, Mark Ekins cashed 4-ways when his bullets eventually provided the nut flush and took chips from Sasa, Richard Pemberton and Soujit. Soujit then suffered from more never mind the cards play from me. Strangely Soujit did not believe my blind over-bet on the flop. After the turn put a third high diamond on the board, I peeked at my cards and saw 2 more diamonds. My check on the turn and all-in on the river for 3,000 chips happily found Soujit with some kind of hand, and somehow he felt compelled to call so I could show the cinch hand. Meanwhile, Irina found more success on the river her KJ eventually made broadway as the river fell a Ten to go with the AQ on flop. Soujit and Sasa holding high Aces were out of luck whilst Irina triples up! Over at Diamonds, VVP was paid handsomely with KK in the hole. Tao, Pavel and John Chukwuma all staying around to see VVP improve to Kings full of 7s. Quad-up for VVP and the chip-lead at this stage. At the Break At the end of the rebuy period, VVP is in the lead with around 9k in chips. I have around 8k and Irina, Mark Ekins, Hamish and Anand have useful stacks of around 4 5k. Linsey is also in a good spot having made trip-5s just before the interval. A count reveals that an average 3 buy-ins per player yields a 2,040 prize pool up 150%. Early Fallers Mark(s) Latham and Nagle find no cards and make a quick exit. Amit then finds a new strategy to take out Dave Richard and Tom Doris with slow-played pocket Aces. Irina continued to make chip-progress but Luis, who had earlier set a new buy-ins record, started to find his form. On the dangerous 9Q89T board, his flush was good enough to double up facing Irina s straight. Irina, though, was far from finished and soon took out Richard Pemberton whose AdJc became a busted flush whilst Irina s K9 was good enough for 2pair and the chip lead. Mark Ekins was also stacking up the chips, though. At Clubs, Oli made a move pre-flop. His all-in was called by Hamish and Bruno. Oli shows QQ. Hamish with AQ and Bruno with KT-suited look in trouble. However, the flop brings a King for Bruno and the turn is an Ace. No Queen on the river sees Bruno to the rail and Oli badly dented. Just two hands later, Oli pushes with KK and again Hamish calls with a live Ace; AJ in fact is good enough for a full house Aces over Jacks and Oli is gone. Meanwhile, Pavel loses out to Alex and is out of the tournament and Sasa is gone in a 4-way pot which Irina takes down.

3 On the feature table Ed puts a huge hole in VVP s stack. The flop is 99A; the turn is a Q and all the chips go in. Ed s AT is well ahead of VVPs Q6 and a 3 on the river sees Ed double through. At the same table, John Chukwuma eventually falls when his up/down straight draw does not hit; he paired one of his cards, but Tao takes the pot down with AK to go with the A45T7 on the table. Back to Hearts. A massive hand develops as Jeremy raises all-in with TT from the UTG position. Mark Ekins calls and also calls my big re-raise with his A6 (?). The flop comes T56 and I decide to push my AK. Mark makes a huge call and the turn (Q), and river (9) change nothing. As a result, I lose more than half my stack and Mark moves into the top 3. Jeremy meanwhile trebles-up. Just three hands ago, Jeremy has only 2 big blinds left but is now back in the hunt. Ace high Hamish saw the end of Amit when his A5 turned into trip-5s. Jose, short-stacked, was taken out by Linsey creating a space at table Clubs which I moved to but not before seeing Valer double up via Irina. Valer s KK is easily good enough, finally making a KKK77 house. I sat down next to chip-leader Linsey and decided I needed to move quickly. First hand I re-raised all-in with A9 and this met a call from Linsey s A6. The board fell KJT54; my 9 just plays and provides a useful double-up. Linsey was involved again in the pot that finished off Anand and Antoine. Antoine pushed with K8 and found he had the best hand when called by Linsey s K7 and Jin s even weaker K6. Anand saw enough value to put in the rest of his chip, with 24suited. The community cards were KT636 making an unlikely full-house for Jin. We were down to 2 tables, with Linsey the only really big stack (14k chips). A Painful Moment Everyone knows that I only use 2 plays raise and all-in. I felt 77 was plenty good enough for a pre-flop raise of 5 big blinds and it was good enough to chase away all but Linsey s skyscraper. When the flop came Q56 I felt Linsey would prefer to keep her ammo for later and I made the All-in move. Linsey called though, with the feared Q in her hand. Although I had some outs, an Ace and Ten were no help and I exited to regret playing against the big stack. Someone generously suggested that I had sacrificed my chips for the good of the team. I can deny this. More quick fallers Guru and Tim Lock were not able to beat Valer s King-high flush when a fourth diamond hit the river. The Law of Averages Part I Earlier in the evening we saw AA stand up time and again. Of course we know that pocket rockets are only 80% to win against a lower pair and Tom Picking balanced up the averages when calling Alex s TT pre-flop move. A Ten on the river (again) left Tom with less than one blind and he was out moments later. Jeremy meanwhile continued to sow the seeds for his final-table appearance when amazingly his 79offsuit against Mark s KK blossomed into a satisfying ten-high straight. 6638T spells pain for Mark. That Ten on the river again.

4 Lady Killer Another player making waves was Luis. AT in his hand was enough to take out both Irina and Jin in the same pot QJ for Irina, KK for Jin. Flop A99. No help on the later streets for the ladies. The Law of Averages Part II VVP now made his contribution to the law of averages this time his AA prevails against Ed s A9, doubling up VVP and restoring him to the top ranks. By now, we are close to the final table. Richard Gee saw pot-odds for his T5-off and Ed s raise chased away the rest. Ed faced K9, the board missed everyone, and Richard was out, just short of the target. Last to fall was Alex; KJ vs VVPs AQ; an Ace on the river made sure of VVP s place at the final table. Final Table This is how they lined up: Mark Ekins Jeremy VVP Luis Valer Tao Soujit Linsey Ed Hamish Chip counts: Linsey VVP Ed Hamish Luis The field 24k 18k 14k 11k 10k 25k total, with no outright short-stack Linsey continued to bully, crippling Ed with her AT over Ed s KQ. A King on the flop was neutralised by an Ace on the turn. Ed was then first to leave the final table after getting it all in with K9; he was unfortunate to find Jeremy with QQ and Linsey with AQ. Soujit was next out when with A3 paired the low card, but Valer s A6 of hearts made top flush.

5 Key Hand Jeremy (99) is all-in, called by Linsey (AT) Flop: TJ7 Linsey is well in front Turn: A River: 9 a huge swing to Jeremy More Fallers Hamish is next to fall to Mark s AA Narrow escape for Linsey when Luis (A8) and Linsey (A5) are all in and the board eventually shows 33A7J. The Jack on the river plays, and robs Luis of the outright pot. Bubble Trouble Tao is out one-off-the-money in 7 th when he s forced all-in in the big blind. In this hand, both VVP and Linsey are all-in with A7-suited. VVPs clubs match two clubs on the 347 flop, but in the end the pair of 7s split the pot and that s the end for Tao. In the Money The final 6 left are fairly level in chips. Jeremy again moves with 99 and is called by Linsey s K5; the 9s are good and with the chips to spare, Jeremy soon eliminates Valer (6 th 100). An Ace on the flop is good enough to improve his Ah8h over Valer s TT. Linsey finally saw her chips run out when Jeremy s QQ is far too good for 96off. Linsey picked up a gutshot straight draw on the flop but the turn and river are no help. A great performance from Linsey though (5 th 160). Mark Ekins doubled up pairing his lowly 2 (K2) and besting Luis AT. This success was shortlived, though, as Mark s 9s2s failed to complete a spade flush-draw on the Ks8h5s flop. Instead, Jeremy s KJ was good. Mark out (4 th 250). Short-stacked, Luis finally called with Q2 vs KQ and VVP takes him out, regaining the overall lead. (Luis 3 rd 310).

6 Heads-up. Hobbes, paraphrased, said that heads-up poker is nasty, brutish and short. Since neither player was short, the reader must decide who, respectively, was nasty and brutish. Play was steady at first, and the chips were virtually level when Jeremy picked up 66 in the small blind. A pair is a big hand heads-up and Jeremy quickly pushed all the chips in. VVP thought for some time, and was heard to say yeah, let s get this over with or similar, and called with Jd8d. Now, J8-suited is only 1% behind 66 heads-up to the end but when the flop read 5T5, Jeremy was nearly 3/1 favourite to take the title. When the turn came an irrelevant 4, VVP had < 10% chance to survive. But, the miracle Jack on the river effectively ended the contest as VVP scooped 95% of the chips in play. Jeremy (2 nd 510) was out on the next hand we have a new champion (VVP, 1 st 710)! And finally Thank you to everyone who came along. It was great to see such a large and diverse turnout. I hope you all enjoyed it, and I will surely be asking whether there is interest in BSPT III. It may be necessary to do so if only to attempt a disproof of the conspiracy theory that the boss must always be allowed to win. As I did last time, I have picked out a few other winners from the crowd: Turnaround-King from 500 chips to Most Promising Newcomer if we don t count VVP... Crash & Burn Cup if I don t award it to myself then... Unluckiest Player as awarded by self-assessment... Unluckiest Player with QQ and KK busted consecutively... Best Artistic Performance you all know why... Most Improved Performance is clearly from... Most Consistent the only player with 2 money finishes... The Greg Raymer Award for deceptive appearances... Man of the Match solid, persistent, aggressive in turn... Most Valuable Player you know it makes sense... Jeremy Dyer Irina Idrissova Tom Doris Tom Picking Oli Jonsson Vincent Van Pelt Linsey Cobban Valer Zetocha Vincent Van Pelt Luis Otton That Ten-on-the-River Thanks again to everyone for making it a fun evening, Howard

BSPT4 20 Rebuy, No Limit Hold em The Gutshot, Clerkenwell. December 4 th, 2006

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