IPT Glasgow - Trip Report

The newest stop on the Irish Poker Tour is... Glasgow? Perhaps my geography isn't as good as it once was. Or perhaps they've just taken a leaf out of the EPT's book and added a glamorous overseas locale to the tour. Either way, I'm here for it.

With a week of tournaments to choose from, me and some friends settled on Friday for a big day of poker, with the option to carry on into the weekend depending on our potential successes.

For many many years, I longed for some live omaha tournaments and would bang on about it no end but they have always been few and far between. So while there's a fair old range of tournaments on offer, I felt obliged to take part in the omaha events. Alas, the Omaha Championship is a £500 buyin and that goes well beyond my bankroll, so my first taste of the Irish Poker Tour was to be the £70 PLO satellite. 

Obligatory chipstack photo showing THE WORST designed chips I've ever seen. "The Monster" design looks like they've been defaced with a Biro, obscuring the values.

I expected the satellite to be a fast paced volatile event and was not wrong. We lost a player on the very first hand, he very obviously held AAxx but failed to stop it going multiway to a raggy flop, where he got it all in against someone with junk but who still very obviously beat AAxx, and that pretty much set the tone. For me, it was one of those tournaments where not only do you never win a pot, but you wouldn't even win if you'd played every hand. Ultimately, I bluffed off the remainder of my dwindling stack after mistakenly thinking my opponents had no interest in a suited board, after rounds of checking, instead I got nit-rolled by a guy holding the second nut flush. Such was my failure, I went home to regroup before returning to the fray a few hours later. 

My friends and I restarted our so far unsuccessful day with a couple of pints at the Howlin Wolf in the city centre, followed by some stodge-tastic food at Buck's Bar, before making the 25 minute walk back to the casino for the night's £150 hold'em tournament. 

The Alea casino has long claimed to be "Scotland’s largest poker room", I've never understood what metric they are employing to justify that claim, however, tonight I'd say they can finally back that up. The room had come alive, filled with over 30 active tables, with multiple main event flights, satellites and more running. This is, without any shadow of a doubt, the biggest event I've ever seen in Glasgow. 

However, the rake is... steep. £30 of the £150 buy-in is rake. I don't play a lot of live poker these days but that seems like a lot to me. That being said, I  suppose you get what you pay for, the tournaments were well run, the staff professional and friendly throughout and you could attempt to recoup your money in all the free soft drinks you can squeeze out of them (and the dealers can calculate pot in PLO in a flash).

The omaha satellite had went so poorly I had been suffering from a bout of buyer's remorse, and having very quickly lost half my starting stack in the £150 hold'em, the same feeling was creeping in. The first big hit I took came when a very active player was 3bet by a guy whose long scraggly beard and hair and multiple layers of jackets was really embracing the aesthetic of a homeless man. I had ace king of hearts in the small blind and was torn if I should reraise or call. I opted to call, which may have been my first mistake, the active player called as well and we saw a flop of 2♥️3♣️4♥️. With two overs, the nut flush draw and a bit of a straight draw I'm invested, but how best to proceed? It seems a bit weak to check call (assuming we can expect a cbet), so it was between betting out or check raising, I bet out, ironically for pot control. The active player got out of the way and the homeless guy called. Turn was a 7, I bet again and was called again. River was a inconsequential ten and I gave up and checked. The homeless guy checked too and turned over K4... damn, I could have definitely won that a couple of times if I'd taken a less conservative approach. An orbit or so later, it's was time for round two. Active player limps, homeless guy raised it up, once again holdong ace king of hearts, I 3bet but this time from the button. Active player folds and homeless guy calls. Flop is 99T rainbow, it's checked to me and I cbet just over half pot, and get called. The turn was like a 3 or something, but most importantly it was a second heart, giving me the flush draw. So once again, it goes check, bet a bit more than half pot, call. River is a jack, sadly not a heart. We both check and homeless guy shows JQ to scoop another good chunk of my chips.

Despite the initial setbacks, I never felt rushed by the structure and very slowly battled my way back to starting stack over a couple of hours. A key hand of note, having learned from my earlier mistakes, I aggressively played a hand with a straight draw and nut flush draw, getting it all in on the turn. My opponent tanked for a while before ultimately folding. After the hand I heard him confiding in the player next to him that he had the nut flush draw, which he did not, because I had it. Interesting. 

Things were going well for a while until I 4bet jacks, only to be faced with two all ins, I let it go and would have been soundly beat by both pocket queens and pocket kings. I still lost a bunch of chips in the process, albeit not all of them.

I clung onto 20bbs for quite sometime after that. As player numbers dwindled, I was no longer feeling that buyer's remorse from before. The atmosphere was competitive but friendly and I was enjoying the game. There had been 110 entries, and once we got down to the last 3 tables, I began eyeing up the money. Top 11 were paid, and even a min cash would be a decent enough result for the day, given how it started. 

Alas, I didn't quite make the money. With 17 players left, I shoved with ace queen of clubs, only to be bested by a big stacks pair of nines. 

My own personal failures aside, the IPT Glasgow looks to be a great success, it has absolutely smashed every guarantee so far, been very well run and everyone has been in good spirits with plenty of new friends being made at the tables. I also spotted more 'name' players in one night than my entire trip to the WSOP, with Padraig Parkinson, Fintan Gavin and Niall Farrell all in attendance. 

The action continues this weekend and you can follow updates from the IPT Glasgow event here: 

https://livepokerupdates.com/live-updates/