National Poker Championships

Stanleys decided to hold the National Poker Champioships at the end of March, it was held across three venues - Southend, Manchester and Nottingham.

With Poccer being held in the Midlands for season 1, I decided that Nottingham would be the best place to start our live events.

It was a £500 entry and I took part alongside two players representing Poccer, Robbie Jones, Poccer 4 winner and Ian Overson, Poccer online winner.

I had only previously played an APAT event in this country, it was Robbies first real live experience outside Poccer, whilst Ian had also played the APAT and the Virgin Poker Festival.

Unfortunately the numbers in Nottingham were a lot lower than the other two festivals. So we ended up with just 93 players and a £50k prizepool.

The organisers informed us that they were going to play down to the final table on the Friday and come back on Sunday, this was fine by me, as I was making the 4 hour round trip to Nottingham each day. Also Saturday was a difficult day for me to play due to family commitments, so I was pleased that this was the case.

The day started with 10,000 chips and I started well and soon moved to 14,000. Two hours in, they announced they were going to put Saturday back on and play down to 50. This caused me major issues with organisation for Saturday, so I was not best pleased.
10 minutes later I was out!

First up I had QQ I raised and got reraised. Flop was ten high, all the chips went in and I was up against JJ, unfortunately the turn was a J and I was reduced by 8k.
The next hand I had 55 and raised with one caller. Flop 57J. I thought it was christmas, but so did the other guy holding 77!

So only 2 and a half hours into the tournament I was out.
Lessons learnt, whenever I play in a live event, dedicate the time to play it. Stay overnight. Forget about everything else going in your life, as you can't play your best.

Both Robbie and Ian did better than me (Not suprising!) However both players did not make Day 2, Robbie lost with AA to KK, K on river. Ian lost to an open ended straight draw. So our first venture and nobody made it back to Day 2.

We must do better!

ClintonO