#144: “Galway UKIPT Review, Part III” aka “Clock-Tourettes”
By the second break of Day 2, I had built up a 140K stack with the blinds at 800/1600. My image was pretty terrible though as I had run and shown several bluffs. I had flatted from the SB with K10s and then 4bet shoved when I sensed the BB’s 3bet was light. I had also shipped a King high flush draw on a Jx-6s-7s board after a bet and a raise, getting the ace high flush draw and AJ to fold. My image was so bad, in fact, that I got 10J to 4bet shove his 27bb stack into my QQ. The ladies held and I had 180K. Disaster was, however, lurking just around the corner.
I opened AKs from EP, was flatted by the button and the BB put in the squeeze. I put in the 4th bet, hoping to induce a light shove. The shove came but the villain had pocket Kings which held for a humungous pot that would have given me a massive chip-lead. Losing that cooler meant I was back to an average stack and I was eventually eliminated in 104th (81 got paid) when I 3bet shoved A4s after a button raise only for him to have woken up with QQ. It was the right move at the wrong time and I left the hotel to lick my wounds over a pint with Jono ‘GAWA9′ Crute who was weirdly delighted that his elimination from the tournament had been at the hands of his idol Mickey ‘mement_mori’ Peterson.
I got back to the hotel just as the bubble was bursting and was happy to see that my friend Nick Newport had snuck his way to the min-cash despite rocking a shorty. Nick is a very talented cash-game and tournament player and he was particularly generous to me over the weekend, offering me the spare bed in his room after I moaned about the snoring of one Mick McCloskey with whom I had been sharing.
I late registered for the $300 side event and within minutes made a target of myself. Two players were taking it upon themselves to deconstruct every hand at the table. They thought they were being clever, using all the poker lingo but their comments ranged from the blatantly obvious to the downright ignorant. Eventually, I had enough. I looked at the dealer and said “I thought it was English only at the table”. She looked at me curiously – “They are speaking English”. “Are they?…”, I said, “Coz I’m pretty sure they’re speaking donkey”.
Ten minutes later, I flatted my BB with A10c after a CO raise and a Button call. The flop came Kc-7x-3c and I check-called the Button’s half-pot bet. The CO went away and the turn came the 9c. I donk-lead for 900 into a 3K pot. The button called. The river came a red 4 and I tank-shoved 8800 into a 4800 pot. He looked at me puzzled as I did my best Patrick Antonius impersonation (People often mix us up!). I remained dead still for about 2 minutes and I could see that my polarizing bet confused him. The break was called and my friend Dara O’Kearney was hovering behind me, having come over from an adjacent table. Players from our table were getting up and I looked at the dealer – “CLOCK”. She called for the floor and he snap-called, slamming his chips over the line. I turned over the nuts and he left the table in disgust.
I turned around to see Dara laughing – “I can’t believe you called Time on someone again”. “I know”, I said, “I think I might have developed Clock-Tourettes”.