Poker, Golf and drinking.

As you may be able to guess from the title, this blog is going to be about 3 of my favourite things; poker, golf and drinking. In truth this is pretty much all my blogs are ever about so it shouldn't be to hard to write and certainly not to hard to follow.
Before i move on to my WSOPE event 1 report i'll just mention a few things from the night before. Jonn Taba organised a birthday party for reigning WSOPE champ Annette Oberstadt and very kindly invited us along. We had a few drinks before hand but seeing as the boys had work the next day and Will and i were playing i didn't plan on staying to long or drinking that much. This plan changed very quickly when we found out the drinks were free and most of us decided to take full advantage. Long story short after about 10 double vodka and Oranges and a bad night sleep i arrived at the empire feeling a little worse for wear and looking a little fragile. I was however dressed amazingly in my pink headband sunglasses and a rather fresh looking shirt. Just going back to the party for a sec Greg thought it would be funny to ask Phil Hellmuth if he was Phil Ivey, it was funny. It was even Funnier when he asked him again 10 minutes later, that boy cracks me up.
Anyway i took my seat in the upstairs section of the empire which was away from the main pit and got down to business. Folded for the first 10 minutes and was just having a look at the opposition and soon realised that i'd drawn a pretty weak table and everyone was playing quite tight; if its 1 thing to get over a hangover it's a weak table. So i raise the 74 soooted to 150 get 3 bet and fold, he shows AA. Raise the 10 8 off a few hands later, get 3-bet, fold. Wait a few hand raise on the Co with AJ get 3- bet, fold and get shown AK. So i'm sure you can notice a theme going on here but i wasn't to worried about this and just hoped that this pattern would fade out sooner rather than later. Managed to chip up to 6800 from a 6k start and felt like things were going rather well when this hand took place: UTG limps and i look down at 77 in mp so opt for the limp in behind and flop a set tactic. Folded round to the bb who checks before we see a rather sexy Q 7 6 rainbow flop. BB checks as does the limp and i bet 125 into a pot of 175. BB raises to 350 and limper folds. At this point i was sure he had atleast a queen and maybe 2 pair. He also was over 30 and seemed quite nervous so i'm not gibing him the straight draw as i think would check call in that spot. So now i'm thinking how can i try and get it all in by the river and raise to 900, he insta calls. Turn is another Queen which seems a great card for me considering his range and he bets 600. For some reason i just insta flat called, not sure why. Anyway river is a 9 and he bets 1500. At this point i have 2 options, call or go all in for another 3800. Online i would have just moved in in on the turn but the guy looked quite relaxed so i knew he though he had the best hand but obviously it's been 30 mins and i have no idea if this guy can play, he may think KQ is the nuts in this spot. Going back through the hand i made a desision that Q6 was a massive part of his range and decided that just a call was the correct play, he flipped Q6 and i managed to survive an absolute cold deck and still have over half my starting stack, very happy with that.
After about 5 orange juices the hangover was totally gone and i was feeling in the zone. Got my stack back up to 8000 during the 50/100 level witha few good bluffs and a some decent hands before i got the dreaded table move. The 100/200 level was a bit of a blur slipped down to about 7K and then got moved again to Will's table which was funny. This table was looking very serious and despite my good natured banter the rest of the guys were pretty much in the zone so i just tried to quite down a little bit and get on with it. The standard was certainly better on this table and as soon as we started playing 100/200/25 the aggression was a lot more noticeable. Soon got my stack to 11K when i won a flip with 88 v shortstacked J10 and then this went down: I look down at AK sooted on the Co and raise to 575, button folds and then the Sb (young American guy who just yelled online player) made it 1900. He had been looking for a spot to 3 bet me and i was sure his range was massive. I thought about smoothing but i thought he would bet most flops and it would be hard for me to call unless i hit so i thought 4-betting all in was the better play. I know he is unlikely to call with much but thought he would call with 1010+ and maybe even AQ, AJ considering the table dynamic, He did call but the bad news for me was it was with AA.
It turns out that young guy was Yuvgeni Timeshenko and he is a pretty big deal, he ended up finishing 3rd and has had some other big results as well:

http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/91983/yevgeniy-timoshenko.htm

We talked the hand over and he agreed it was just standard, seemed like a nice guy though and is clearly a great player. Overall i'm happy with the way i played but there was nothing i could do. Was a miracle i survived the first cold deck but surviving 2 in a structure that isn't the best is next to impossible.
Not sure when i'm going to play live again. Maybe the GUKPT Thanet if my 6 month ban is over, was thinking about going home anyway so would be a double whammy. In the Online world it's been a solid month, up about $4K ish and took down my first ever PLO comp last night on full tilt. It was only a $30 rebuy with 120 runners but the $3.3K was nice and i was surprised how bad the standard was. Twice i got donked on by other big stacks and had a big chiplead from 3 tables out. I didn't push quite as hard as i would have in a holdem comp as i wanted to avoid to many marginal spots but i played an aggressive game and in all honesty think i played quite well.
Finally its time for Oakhampton on friday and can't wait to get down there. We're leaving at 6am which sucks and i'm pretty sure i'll play crap but there are other sports down there as well and i just shot a 59 on tiger woods 2009, that had to be a good sign.