#182: “Adventures in Doughville – Part I: Playing With The Big Boys”

My uncle Henry tells a great story about a trip he took by train to attend a conference given by the late John Derek Crozier, the man who made the Irish Times cryptic crossword from 1943 until his death in 2010. Henry fancied himself as a pretty good ‘Crosaire’ solver, deriving disproportionate satisfaction from its completion and subsequent boastfulness about said completion on an almost daily basis. And so, it was understandable that Henry would be excited by the prospect of meeting the great man whose little puzzle has given him so much enjoyment and cause for self satisfaction.

Sitting on the train, Henry was joined by another man, a few years his junior who picked up his Irish Times and went straight to the crossword page. Henry politely inquired: “Are you attending the conference?” The man nodded: “Yes, I’m very much looking forward to it.” The man scanned the page and after a few moments, he put the newspaper down and exhaled deeply. Henry couldn’t resist taking out his copy and displaying his completed crossword: “It was a pretty tough one this morning”, he said in a patronising tone, “I spent quite a while on 7down and 15across.” The man looked up at him. “Oh, you still write them in.”

Last week, I played my very first EPT in the beautiful seaside town of Deauville. The home of France’s most eccentric film festival, it is an exclusive getaway destination for the rich and famous, a mock-Tudor DisneyLand for aristocrats and the nouveau riche. It is therefore the most perfect and simultaneously the most ridiculous place to hold a big buy-in poker tournament series.

I, much like Henry, have a fair amount of ego and attach a decent amount of pride in being good at what I do. However, I, unlike my uncle Henry, was keenly aware that I was going to play with the big boys. I fully expected the standard to be a massive step up (it was less of a step-up in reality but I would put this down to fortuitous table draws and Deauville being one of the softer EPTs) and the mere fact that the 5K buy-in is a butt-load of money in my world could (but hopefully wouldn’t) put me at a psychological disadvantage against the ballers.

Day 1 went well as I navigated and small-balled my way to an above average stack. Day 2 was a shorter day and played until close the money bubble. I suffered one small setback early on but thanks to the terrific structure had ample time to recover to an average stack by close of play. Day 3 started very well as a little card rush coupled with a terri-bad call from Freddie Deeb helped me jump to a biggish stack with the bubble looming.

Hand for hand took a full level as short-stacks refused to lose races and I was joined on the rail by my friend Dara O’Kearney and girlfriend Saron. With each hand taking 10 minutes, I was able to go over and chat to them, receiving inspirational pearls of wisdom like ‘Don’t do anything mental now!’ and ‘Just don’t bubble!’. Fortunately, I didn’t but sitting at a stacked and aggressive table, an entire level of rags saw me slip back to half the average by the time we were down to 80 players. I was laddering but I was also getting short and even though the money jumps were nice, they were not a priority. With 23bbs, I was all-in for the first time in the tournament and got my double-up as QQ held against JJ. From there, I navigated my way to the end of the day with 65% of the average and 54 left. It had been a tough few levels but I was very satisfied with my play.

Scoffing several pain au chocolats with Dara on the morning of Day 4, I made it clear that my approach was going to be different. For 3 days, I had refused marginal spots, taken lots of pot-control lines and waited for situations where my edge was substantial. That is not to say I played very differently (There was plenty of trademark sick stationing) but I did play a modicum tighter (especially out of position). Going back with 27bbs, I signaled my intent to open tight, reshove selectively but look for good cold-4bet shove spots. I was playing with the big boys and it was now time to make some big boy moves. In the first two orbits, I found three such spots, reshipping KQ twice for 23-25bbs and cold-4bet shoving 27bbs with 10Js over an active UTG open and Jason Koon 3bet.

Mucking my hands and quietly pulling in the chips, I felt like the man in my uncle’s story who didn’t feel the need to show off what he had just done. That feeling didn’t last long, however, as two minutes later I was over to the rail to tell Dara what a clever spot I took. I guess I’m more like my uncle after all.