The casino was pretty plush, but the card room was a real squash with ten tables... not great for me, getting up every half hour for a smoke, and having to negotiate an assault course of drinks tables to get out the card room!
The tournament itself kicked off about about 8:15, a little later than planned, but fairly promptly. I was sat with Phil (DropTheHammer) directly on my right, and picked up Ace King on my first hand, made a raise and hit top pair on the flop my flop raise was called by someone who'd made two-pair with King Jack... fortunately a flushing board on the turn made this cheaper for me than it otherwise could have been.
After having resolved to play a nice snug game to let myself get the feel of things, I proceeded to play about 30% of the hands during the first level, and quickly ran my 10K starting stack down to about 4.5K. Fortunately giving so much action, meant I ended up getting paid off nicely when I was dealt pocket kings during the second level, and I was able to work my stack back up to around the starting level by the first break.
I had a big stretch during the second session, where I didn't get any playable hands but managed to hang in around the 10K starting point by picking up a couple of pots here and there that went begging.
My table was one of the first to be broken up, and I was drawn for Table 1. When I sat down the dealer asked me if I'd played at the feature table before (obviously not!) and I tried to hide my surprise as he informed me that it was being streamed live over the internet. I sat down and looked at pocket Kings (again) for my first hand, but only managed to win the blinds, which was a bit disappointing but at least gave me a chance to settle down.
The feature table was boisterous, but friendly. Genting Pro Daiva Barauskaite (Baltic Blonde), was sat at the other side of the table, along with several other players that gave off a collective sense of poker ability. I alternated between smiling and scowling, and generally felt a bit silly! I can only hope my unease wasn't as palpably obvious to my opponents, as it felt to me; but my brother did have to tell me to relax as I smoked a[nother] cigerette and my hands visibly shook!
Then, I made my first divvy move of the evening. The blinds were about 400 / 800 and I was sat on the button, with the short stack in the small blind to my left. The action was folded round to me and I stuck in a couple of thousand and the short stack shoved for another 3.5K. I think I'd just lost my concentration for a second, but holding Queen Three off, I was left in a bit of a damned-if-I-do, damned-if-I-don't sort of spot. It was a stupid position to put myself into, but I made the call thinking I'd probably have two live cards, and that there was a chance my Queen-high could even be good... unfortunately the small blind turned over Queen-Ten and I wasn't able to luckbox my way out of the dominated position I'd put myself in.
This was a low point for me. I'd lost about 40% of my stack on the last hand, and with the blinds soon increasing, I never really had a playable stack from that point onwards - I won several key pots afterwards, but I was always playing catch up. Next pot I played I held Queen King raised pre-flop and continuation-shoved into a low, rainbow, flop. I got an almost-double up shoving Queen Jack and getting called by Daiva's pocket nines (huge relief to me when I realised I had two overcards after the call), and had my 'one time' piece of luck for the evening hitting a queen with the first card out on the flop.
My cards then went dead-as-a-door-nail, and the price of poker went stratospheric. At Level 12, with the blinds at 1,500 / 3,000 and a 300 running ante, I finally had to shove my last 13K in with Ace Eight, only to get called by Gary / Sean Foley with Ace Ten in the Big Blind. An Ace on the flop did me no good, and I was out in 25th place at around 2:30am.
Hugely disappointing to bomb out, but I didn't feel I played too badly (with one exception). I hadn't made a hand above a pair, all night, so it could have been a lot worse than it was! I had a great evening and met some really nice people. Big, BIG, thanks to my brother for all his morale support, and [obviously] a huge thank you to Al (Bogus from the forum) for backing me in this event. Al couldn't make the tournament due to last-minute work commitments, and I'd have really liked to have gotten a little further into the tournament to repay his faith in me (and more importantly the dollar!)
I left the casino around 4am as my brother and I were just about dead on our feet, with a drive back to Nottingham ahead of us.The tournament staff were just setting up the final table and Gary (SeanFoley) from the forum was still in, with plenty of chips to play with (including some of mine!)... as I write this, I still don't know where he finished, so fingers crossed for a big result.
