DTD 321 & Dortmund EPT
I’m fortunate enough to live just a ten minute drive away from Dusk Till Dawn & when I’m around I love playing their big monthly £300 freeze-out. March continued the recent trend of big fields with another 300 plus players prepared to travel for a shot at the 100k prize pool. I picked up one or two small pots in the first two levels to pad my stack a little but came a cropper at the beginning of Level 3: It seemed a bit early to head home so I stuck around & dribbled a couple of buy-ins away playing some 1-2 NL. Jumping from a tournament into a cash game is something I’m always wary of doing, as both disciplines have very different skill sets. I’ve been determined to improve my cash play this year &, to be frank, so far having played eleven sessions it hasn’t gone particularly well. I suspect some time away from tournaments & a consolidated effort might show some different results, but at the moment there aren’t any obvious breaks in my calendar - I guess I need to perform better in the comps then! Day 1 was a real slog as I had to nurse a sub-10k stack for the first four levels before I managed to get doubled up when my kings held up against jacks. I stayed pretty steady on a 20k stack right up until the last level of the evening. With one hour to go I got moved to a very passive table, enjoyed a refreshing beer & managed to run my stack up to 32k, putting me 4k above average. I only recognised one player on my Day 2 starting table, a young guy from Holland & he was the only one to have me covered, with a stack of 40k. A little while later I made a move on a short stack who had opened for 5xBB - he’d just lost a pot & was clearly rattled - I shoved on him with K-Q, but he called with J-J & never went behind. The 500/1000/a100 level started & I picked up jacks under the gun & with just 15k raised it up to 3k. The BB called & when he checked the ten high flop I over-raised all-in for 12k - he snapped me off with a cutely played pair of aces & I was soon in a taxi heading back to the hotel. I’m off to the Vic in London for a weeks poker at the third leg of the GUKPT this week, updates to follow.DTD 321 & Dortmund EPT - By Julian Thew
At 75/150 the aggressive player sitting on my right opened to 450 on the button & I re-raised to 1300 from the SB with K-K. I led out for 1700 on the J,10,3 flop & he re-raised to 5000. This was all shaping up very nicely I thought & as I re-pushed all-in for another 6500. He called pretty quickly & no wonder really as he’d flopped top set with pockets jacks.
Dortmund was my latest stop on the EPT tour. Not the most dynamic of destinations, it’s one of those places that demands you get the first flight outta there as soon as you bust.
One orbit in, at 400/800/a100 I raised to 2000 from middle position with JcQc & he fairly quickly re-raised me to 5600. My instincts were screaming out that he was just setting up some boundaries & making sure that I knew he was the one who was going to captain the table - & I kid you not, two years ago my chips would have over the line & then we could have seen who was moving on who. These days though, I guess my game plan is a little more conservative & I let my queen high go. It didn’t, & hasn’t stopped me thinking about that moment in the tournament, a moment when for sure, I could have busted sooner than I did, but perhaps a moment of missed momentum.
