Mistakes Were Made

Long before the demise of PKR (RIP) there have been community organised meet-ups far and wide. The PKR community spirit has outlived the ghost of PKR and continues even now. One such weekend of punts and pints took place at the Manchester 235 Casino, where I made many mistakes.

Mistake #1
After making the now long standing mistake of drinking far too much on the Friday night and suffering the effects the following day, the £50 buy-in Main Event was scheduled to start Saturday lunchtime. Or at least it was supposed to but there were not enough dealers on hand for our 60+ strong contingent. We were offered a small discount on food and drink to compensate us as we waited for over an hour before the casino staff finally readied themselves but that gesture was quickly forgotten when the tournament director changed the blind structure to reduce the tournament length to offset the time lost. Suffice to say people weren’t happy, the general consensus was it was bad and no-one wanted this shallower structure. I’ve never really been a structure nerd, so I find it difficult to envisage what the changes really meant and was just pleased that things were finally getting underway.

The table draw placed me at Table 1 Seat 7, with a mixture of familiar faces from previous PKR events and many unknown ones too, but I guess that’s what happens when you meet a group of people off the internet. From a young aggro Barbie to a friendly tablemate who spent much of the day attempting to imitate my accent, from boisterous blaggards to shy quiet retiring types, there was a real mix of characters coming and going at the table.

Mistake#2
The turning point of my tournament came midway through the day. A player known as TangentTed shoved for his last 8 big blinds. At a guess, Ted is approximately 100 years old, some speculate he could be many hundreds of years older than that, and in keeping with the old man stereotype he has a reputation for being a tight player. It folded to me in late position and I looked down at the king and queen of clubs, with a stack of about 16 big blinds I pondered a call, I felt like I should call. I had never played against Ted before but I knew he had a tight reputation and was undoubtedly behind his range. But here's the thing, and I know, I know, I'm fully aware how stupid this is, I could feel it was coming, I knew it was coming, and yes yes, I know, stupid fish thing to think, I know, I KNOW but... but... I just... I believed I was going to win this hand. Knowing how stupid that line of thinking was, I decided to fool myself into justifying the call with some sound logical reasoning. What was Ted's range here? Pocket tens and above? What about 9s? Maybe not. AK, of course, perhaps AQ? what about AJ? Probably not. But he only had 8 big blinds, it couldn’t be THAT tight a range, could it? I felt like I was flipping much of the time, a 30/70 dog a fair bit and occasionally crushed. All in all, I think we can see that best case scenario I was flipping and yet I convinced myself that my current stack was shove or fold anyways, if I lost the hand it was still shove or fold, so therefore there wasn't a great deal to be lost, while a much more comfortable stack size could be gained. Look, I just wanted to call, alright? I did and he tabled pocket kings, which I’m later told is the absolute bottom of his range. Apparently Ted's shoving range is exactly AA and KK, it doesn't get any wider, not even queens, never AK. As testament to that, in the following day’s tournament he literally got blinded out as a result of not having any shovable hands. But I didn’t know this at the time and as it was I was crushed. The flop brought rainbow rags and I realised what a silly fish I was. However, the turn brought a second club and with it a flush draw. River…? ANOTHER CLUB! Flush on the river for the lucky fish! Ted was eliminated, possibly left to reconsider shoving so wide. At the next break, a few people were congratulating my call, so ballsy to call against Ted's shove despite knowing just how crushed I would be, I told them how I knew it was coming, and how they laughed.         

More faces came and went, some familiar, some unknown. I have found that when you’re on a table that never breaks, it’s difficult to get a sense of the tournament progressing, you're just playing cards, one hand after the other, some people sit down, some people leave, more people sit down, more people leave. With a bit of commotion, the last bunch of people sat down, somehow, it was the final table and the tournament director had cards to draw seats. Still on table 1, I drew seat 7 and stayed exactly where I’d been sitting all day.

The final table line-up included PKR community stalwart 'Hokey', a young Gus Hansen, a charming 'HandsomeScotsman' , a disarmingly friendly 'Wookie', 'MrsResDes' faring better than her other half and 'PKR_Jake' who I think was the PKR VIP manager or something but was a right miserable sod. Despite earlier grumblings about the tournament structure, the final table allowed for plenty of play, with pretty deep stacks. Who would have thought it, the professional tournament director knew better than the baying poker masses?  

Mistake#3
The game carried on, and to my surprise I realised I was humming a tune. It had started as just a song in my head but unknown to myself, it had physically manifested itself to an audible hum. My body was leaking information. I was enjoying the song though and thought as long as it's consistent, surely it doesn't give anything away? So I carried on entertaining myself. This was the song: 

(yes, I'm a wrestling fan, another mistake?)

Mistake#4

Players slowly begin to disappear and as we got down to four handed play, a player known as 'Mkenbaker' opened, I had been dealt pocket kings and was very happy to 3bet. Mkenbaker considered his options before 4betting, giddy with excitement I gleefully 5bet all in, assured my opponent was priced in. Only, Mkenbaker didn’t call, he sat back and laughed, “You were so keen to get it in there, weren’t you?”

Oh shit, I had given the game away. Unless he was trolling me, he didn’t have aces, he couldn’t be folding kings in this spot either, so I must have him crushed and he knew that, because of me, because in this friendly game with drinks, jokes and chat flowing back and forth I appear to have lost control of my body.

“I know you’re beating me but I don’t know if I can fold…” he says.

What do I do? I already appear to have given the game away, too late to recover the situation with a blank poker face, if anything I think that would make it worse, I smiled and shrugged, and took another drink. Mkenbaker agonised over his decision for a long time, trying to convince himself to fold, I knew he was right, he knew he was right. There’s a lot of criticism for ‘robot’ players sitting stoically in silence at the tables these days but I bet those guys don’t have this problem with tells. Eventually, against his better instinct’s he called and tabled pocket queens. I got my double up despite my bodies apparent efforts to sabotage me and Mkenbaker was eliminated depsite his better instincts.     

The final three players consisted of myself, the clean shaven Wookie and young Gus Hanson. Gus had my number for the entire final table, whenever I was bluffing, he called, whenever I value bet, he folded, it was like he could see my cards. Looking back I have to assume my body continued to give me away and sitting directly across the table from me, Gus was reading me like a book. So I was doubley glad to see Wookie eliminate him.

Mistake#5

Heads-up for the trophy and top prize! The Wookie had me out chipped but the stacks still offered a good level of play, there was a bit an back on forth but the stacks remained the same until I reraised all in with a raggy ace only to be called by a bigger ace. Not for the first time today I got it in bad, but for the first time today I wouldn't say this was a mistake this time, just unfortunate timing I guess. Dominated, all in for my tournament life I should have lost there and then. But I didn’t. I got lucky, spiked my raggy kicker and the stacks swapped around. 

Mistake#6
My rail cheered but soon they began to regret it. As they egged me on, it spurred some sort of disagreement behind me. Bizarrely, Mrs Wookie took umbrage at my one sided rail cheering on their man, and not just their man, but their horse too because we'd all swapped action. The community was always PKR's unique selling point and I have met so many genuinely friendly and fun people as a result, so it was oddly unique to PKR that a disagreement should break out on how best to celebrate the community spirit and not being too competitive. My rail argued the case in vain, all they wanted was their guy to win, apparently that was not in the spirit of the event. I wanted their guy to win too, so I tried my best to ignore the ongoing argey bargey behind me and focus on the game at hand. 

Back at the felt, we once again got all the chips in the middle with Ax versus Ax, only this time I was the favourite and this time the bigger ace held. I had just won my first ever poker trophy, and all it took was cracking kings with KQ, being on the good side of a cooler and getting it in bad and sucking out.

The thought had crossed my mind how unlikely it was I was sat in the same seat all day, but perhaps I should really be thinking about how unlikely it was I won the whole thing. I mean, what are the chances?

Mistake#7

After taking down the tournament, Mrs Wookie offered to buy me a congratulatory drink, having lucked my way past her husband to victory I thought it only right I should buy the drinks. I then spent the next 30 minutes and more attempting to get served at the bar in a mobbed Manchester casino at what appeared to be peak drinking time.