GUKPT - Cardiff

Following on from my run of form in Live tourneys and online cash (and live cash for that matter!) I decided to buy into the GUKPT Cardiff.

My first day was Friday, so I travelled down on the Thursday night. Arrived at around midnight, dumped my stuff at the Hotel and headed to the Casino.

After a brief walk around, and a beer (or two!) it was time to check out the cash action. One table caught my eye, it was a £2 £2 N/L game with no max sit down.
Having watched the table for an hour or so, I sat down with £400.

The table was quite tight and I soon managed to get up to almost £500 with relative ease. Then the tightest guy on the table (who had roughly £500 infront) raised to £15 UTG.
My immediate thought was "Aces" and decided to take a flop with my KQ o/s.

Flop came Q high rainbow, and tighty bets out £25. I flat call and hope to see a K or a Q - if not, I am done with this pot.
Turn card came a King!
Bingo!
It then went bet, raise, re raise, re re raise all in, call.
So now we look at almost a grand pot - with the river to come - Yep an Ace. (he did indeed have aces)
I spent the rest of the night grinding back (as well as another beer or two) to finish £150 down for the night.

It was a friendly table, with lots of good banter - Matt Tyler was there, also Pab and Julian Yo Yo to name a few.
Not the best preparation for a big event, and I got back to the hotel around 5am, but as the tourney did not start until 4pm this was not a problem.

Next afternoon came, time to shower change, then off into town to buy some new headphones. Having just got a new phone - The SE w850i, I was keen to try out the MP3 player built in. I have to say I am impressed.

Table draw and I am sat with a few familiar faces. Well things did not go too well, had decent cards for the first level but did not manage to win 2 pots in a row. This was the story of the whole day to be honest.
We started with 10,000 chips and an hour clock and it was 7 hours in when I finally had more than 10k in chips! It was that sort of day.
I was continually bouncing from 10k down to 2k. At my lowest point I had 1800 at 100 200 level and was all in fairly early position with AK diamonds, finding another short stack behind me all in for 4k and then a re raise from the Button.
Cards on their back, and I am up against A9 (shortie) and AA (the re raise).
Flop was kind to me as it came all diamonds and I took it down.
Very late in the proceedings, I get moved tables and with about 30 minutes to play for the day, and with 6k chips (blinds were 400 800) I had decided to open push into any unraised pot. This took me to almost 10k.
With 6 minutes left of the day, I find Aces and again push all in.
Vicky Coren decides to "look me up" with her 9 9.
Now, win this pot and I have over 20k and would progress to day 2.
It was not to be as the flop came J 10 7 2 8 giving VC the straight.

Although disapointed to go out, all in all a VERY tough days poker, and I was pleased to survive as long as I did with so few chips.

Hopefully I can continue my Luton form (and Cash form) so that I can buy into the Manchester leg - although this ma not be possible as I will also be playing the Luton Springfest next month.
We will see...........