Circus £50 (+£5) NLH F/O w/£500 Added

Back over Circus for my 2nd live MTT of 2010 & this time it was the monthly £50 F/O w/£500 added which almost always attracts a field of 100+ however due to extremely bad weather conditions (notably 6 inches of snow) you could expect this game to suffer. So after iamgaryr was inundated w/phone calls explaining they were behind schedule he made a decision to delay the start by 15 minutes to give people a chance to navigate the deadly roads at a snails pace & by the time the 90 minute late BI had finished 94 people had created a prize pool of £5,200 (inc £500) which although below their AVE for this game is still very impressive all things considered. The £5,200 was divided between FT;

1) £1,625
2) 1,000
3) £635
4) £470
5) £375
6) £310
7) £260
8) £210
9) £170
10) £145

I was the only representative from FTP & was drawn T5-S8 w/NPS regulars;

1) Jnr. Lataif Aziz
7) Batman
9) Alex “CrazyChef” Brown AKA Cheffery Darmars on NPF

Along w/5 others as we began 9 handed & I became increasingly frustrated w/amount of hands seen per hour vs. TEHE villains, anybody familiar w/me will know I make all my decision almost instantly & very rarely deliberate but 50% of this table were taking on AVE 90 seconds per a decision & I don’t mean making a river decision for all your chips w/2nd nuts (which is obviously standard) but tanking on whether or not to call a 2.5x open PF at 25/50 after they’d EPC & then tanking again after a ¼PSCBET OTF, sigh FFS hurry up was going over & over in my mind but I soldiered through & didn’t even flex my rights & ask for clock (largely because I consider it unethical but it 100% wouldn’t have been in this case) which many would have especially considering structure is volatile as it is in this MTT. So moving on 1st few level’s I caught up w/Jnr. Lataif who is a good friend of mine who travelled up from Teesside which helped relieve the boredom whilst TEHE villains deliberated. I was completely card dead before the break w/AJo being biggest ace I seen which was UTG so I didn‘t even come in & 77 my biggest pair which I won blinds after a PFR & I CBA to get creative (mainly because I CBA to wait for TEHE villains to make their decisions) so just folded winning a couple of small pots to increase my stack from 9,000 to 10,000 which was marginally below CA & goes against my “go big or go broke” line I usually adapt in this MTT which basically means I have 20,000 by the break or I’m on the rail but NVM. I caught up w/CUBS affiliates Scotty, avkid, & BOTR during the break discussing plans for 2010 & how everybody’s Christmas was before being called back after the break & I had made ante stage of this MTT for 1st time in approximately 6 months LOL. We didn’t have a Circus employee dealing & just a player who very kindly dealt (IDK his name but he’s a nice lad) & I noticed he was struggling w/ante’s which coupled w/TEHE villains could potentially slow the game down to 15ish hands per hour so I volunteered to be an ante monitor to save the dealer a job & hopefully speed things up a little which w/help of table sort of worked. I managed to build my stack over 14,000 playing small ball over next hour when at 400/800/50 I come in from MP for 2.5x w/88 & got min 3BET from PTL+1 & it was folded round to me so I make the call w/PO of just shy of 4/1 & IO of stack’s if I find a set which TBF I wasn’t relying on to win the pot as this was 2nd time villain had 3BET me so I didn’t think he was particularly strong. Kx8r OTF which went CC & another blank OTT so I fired ¼PSB to induce a bluff which I thought worked as villain 2BET AI & I called to be shown KK for top set, sigh FML & when case 8 doesn’t arrive I’m crippled to 3,000 (3.5BB). Very next hand I’m UTG & squeeze a nothing across club to find it’s Ac & w/3.5BB that’s all I need to get AI & when Jnr. Lataif isolates AI from LP I’m delighted to see it paired w/Qc giving me AQc to race vs. Jnr. Lataif’s 88 & when flop fell KTTr I had 50% hand w/ISD, 2 O/C, K to counterfeit, 9c OTT meant I was still 50% w/ISD, 2 O/C, K+9 to counterfeit, & FD so despite 24/44 cards giving me the winning hand 6h OTR wasn’t 1 of them & I hit the rail at approximately midnight w/50% of field still remaining.

FTP GIM: I almost forgot to incorporate this into my summary mainly because IDR anything worthy of a GIM & TBH I pretty much just played ABC, so I guess I’ll use a J/K GIM for this edition. It’s around 8:00pm & the MTT has been delayed 15 minutes w/60ish registered & I have a £3 PBET w/1 of my good friends about how many runners will be registered by end of BI period, he opts for 80 & I (call it tactical or unethical w/e you wish) chose 81 FTW & with final number reading 94 I scooped the £3.

Congratulations to 2-cats (who is a 1st class guy & was very instrumental in liaising w/Gala Teesside management on my behalf to help get my membership reinstated so TYVM for that M8) & Jnr. Lataif who both travelled from Teesside in the terrible conditions & were rewarded by getting on FT & ITM, so N1 VWD lad’s & I’ll catch you’s down your end for “Gala £100 NLH F/O w/£1000 Added” on 16th January. I’m considering playing the £10+R over Aspers this evening to hopefully get 1 of the 5 remaining seats for the SPT (Sky Poker Tour) this Saturday but IDK if I CBA so will decided this afternoon. If I play this I’ll not bore you w/MTT satellite summary & just incorporate something into the SPT event summary but if I don’t play/qualify like I said earlier I’ll be down Teesside a week on Saturday so I’ll endeavour to report that.

DT “TTYAL”