Circus Grand Final £4,000 Freeroll

Sunday 16th May played host to the ‘Circus Grand Final £4,000 Freeroll’ which was by qualification only & was the culmination of their 4 month league ran between Monday 19th January - Sunday 9th May. Despite being able to count on one hand how many times I played over Circus (excluding £500 added games) during this period I managed to bag myself a seat, also joined by fellow FTPer George.

George has now qualified for back to back league finals with the previous one held on Saturday 12th December 2009, finishing 5th for £300 so he was looking for a repeat performance. Read the review of this tournament here;

Circus Grand Final £4,000 Freeroll (Saturday 12th December 2009)

So our starting chips & seating positions were predetermine before the day to correspond with where we finished in the nightly leagues, George & I were 3rd (Thursday) & 7th (Monday) respectively & Gary released the final seat draw/chip counts late Friday evening;

T4-S3) George Trett w/12,500
T7-S10) Daniel Trett w/9,000

There was a number of recognizable & friendly faces including NPFers & Circus regulars with far too many to mention, but I will say I was familiar with a minimum of 50% of the field. George was drew the tougher starting table of the pair of us with Peter ‘stumpy’ Newton (1) his biggest threat & over table 7 with my good self was family friend Rob Flett (5) & Trevor ‘txstrevb’ Brewis (6).

I wasn’t looking to hang about with my short 9,000 stack so played my usual LAGGY style to accumulate or bust, this paid dividends as when our table broke I took 22,000 largely due to flushing out Trevor’s T2P. I was moved to T6-S6 with Mark Brewis (D) & Russ Taylor (4), but only spent approximately 5 hands here before being spilt again heading over to T4-S4. I’m sandwiched between George (3) & Alex ‘Crazy Chef’ Brown (5) with the delightful Gladys ‘Dark Horse’ Jarvis (10) also on the table & Mark Brewis (D) had followed from table 6.

Here I was unfortunate enough to listen to Alex Brown berate my Dad (George) for making an absolute standard call, I don‘t remember blinds/stack sizes identical but below are approximates;

George AJo vs. Alex Brown KQo: 400/800 “17,000” (George opens the C/O to 2,400, I fold the BTN & Alex moves AIPF for 7,400 which prompts BB to fold. Pot is now 10,600 & it’s costing George 5,000 giving him 3:1 on the call. George thinks for around a minute before making a call which I would have made without a moments thought, his AJ holds & sends Alex to rail.)


All obviously standard & I wouldn’t usually blog it, however Alex’s uncalled for exit has prompted me to summarize it. He initially said “You called me with ace rag?” (Which for the record I would have instantly, but I guess we just look at things differently) & as George tables the best hand (AJ), Alex begins to sarcastically say “Good call”. I don’t blog to berate people, I’m sure regular readers will know I’ve never moaned about a beat, cold deck, bad call etc. But I will say the guy is ironic & needs to understand unfortunately in poker you don’t win them all, that’s just the way it goes sometimes & venting your emotions towards players who make standard calls/plays will do him no favours. One last thing on the guy, as I understand he is leaving Newcastle soon heading off for the next stage of his life in Manchester. We’ve had our differences but I’m not one to hold grudges & I would like to take this opportunity to wish him the very best of luck in his future endeavours both on & off the tables, take care Alex old boy.

Anyway after a couple of levels here my stack plummets from 28,000 to 18,000 as I lose a 20,000 flip with;

AKo vs. Yevginey Timoshenko look-a-like 66: 400/800 “”17,200” (I open 1,700 UTG+2 & get 3BET from MP to 3,500, it’s folded around to me & I 4BET him all in for approximately 8,000 total. The guy goes into the tank & eventually calls, for me once I’ve got 1/3 of my stack in it’s an easy call but what ever. Board gives me no help & he collects the pot, all pretty standard to be honest)


So as with the Alex hand I wouldn’t usually have reported this hand, however his comments after over committing himself pre-flop & being priced into call off his tournament with marginal holdings are why I have. Rather than gracefully accepting he celebrated by saying “That’s what I put him on”. I of course didn’t respond but anybody with any understanding of poker & particularly my style, know I play 99+/AQ+ in that spot with stack sizes/blinds identical. So he’s flipping vs. 2/8 & dominated by 6/8, anyway I’m not moaning & obviously accept your going to lose 50/50’s. I guess I just found his reaction a little unethical (Not that I think he knew that or did it on purpose), & think it’s comical how people deliberate over a decision then finally make one then when they see the hand that’s what they put the villain on. He’s a nice enough lad though & I know think he got ITM, so well done young lad & keep up the good work.

So after watching George take a few hits & bust out around 19:00, I wasn’t far behind as I had far to much unnecessary gamble & lost a 45,000 flip vs. same guy mentioned above with my OESD vs. his top pair. Then got my remaining 7,000 all in blind as with two players away from the table it was a good blind stealing opportunity (500/1,000), Gladys called me with QJs & I turned up with 23o which missed & Q high held. This was almost exactly 20:00 so as I busted I registered immediately for the ‘£20 (+£2) +1 Rebuy’ & got straight back on the felt joined by my brother Mark.

Before moving onto the ‘Circus £20 (+£2) +1 Rebuy’ I would like to close of the league final by recognizing a few of my friends who made the money, of which there was a many with Ally Mooney (2nd £965) the highest place finisher, also Ifrikher Ali (5th £280), Gladys Jarvis (6th £240), & Phil Nelson (11th £70). So congratulations to those guys, nice to see you all cash.

Circus £20 (+£2) +1 Rebuy
So after 5 hours grinding the final I had to regroup & prepare for my 2nd live tournament of the day, something I try to avoid because I don’t like readjusting to the smaller blind levels. I was seated over T1-S1 (Dealer, FML) with brother Mark (3) & Jed Conway (4) the only recognizable faces, the tournament surprisingly didn’t reach the £2,000 guarantee with only 40 runners generating a £1,320 prize pool.

The table was good crack & both Mark & I accumulate at an electric pace as we both got our initial 7,000 stack to north of 20,000, so things all going very well. Later in the evening we were joined by T.J. who kindly volunteered to take over dealing duties from my good self & a totally inappropriate guy over seat 10 who practiced bad etiquette including betting out of turn several times & even trying to claim 400 of his 2,000 bet back by saying he said 1,600 which nobody else on the table heard. Both mine & Mark’s stack had took a couple of hits & we were on about 12,000 by the break (after add-ons), shortly after the break our table was split & I was T1-S10 with Mark T1-S9 & also our good friend Joe Peel. I didn’t last long as I’d already lost 5,000 of my 12,000 on a bluff, so got my short stack in;

AQo vs. Joe Peel A9d: 100/200 “14,000” (Two callers (one of which Joe) so I squeeze to 1,100 with AQ, both blinds fold as does the initial limper. Joe 3BET’s me to 3,300 & I 4BET shove for a total of 7,000(ish), Joe priced into call shows up with A9 & collects the pot as the board runs xx9xx.)


Joe was very apologetic about the beat, but to me it’s not even a beat & just what you come to expect from poker. Everybody in Circus knows how nice a guy Joe Peel is, for example he’ll regularly buy in additional players if were only 2/3 players short of the guarantee. So I’m happy to see my chips head in his direction & I’ll say this much about Joe whether he wins or loses he always conducts himself in sporting way, a trait I admire in any poker player given the volatile nature of the game. I don’t have any details on Mark’s exit hand but I know he made quite a deep run only to bust either two or three spots away from the money, sigh unlucky bro. I would like to finish this short ‘£20 (+£2) +1 Rebuy’ review by congratulating FTP follower Emma Fullarton on her 3rd place finish in this event, taking home £190. So after spending the full day over Circus I left emptied handed but the atmosphere was great, marred slightly by incidents mentioned above but that wasn’t a big deal & certainly didn’t spoil the day.

Moving on & the forthcoming ‘2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa’ has seen a number of card rooms spread either a schedule or single one off tournaments in recognition of this, so I’ve added a few lower buy in games to our calendar between May-July which have either added cash, large guarantees, or some kind of attractive gimmick;

Gala, Leeds: £30 (+£3) +1 Rebuy “£2,000 Added” (Saturday 29th May)
Circus: Staff Bounty Bonanza (Thursday 3rd June)
Circus: £20 (+£2) +1 Rebuy “£2,000 Guaranteed” (Sunday 6th June)
Grosvenor: World Cup Tag Team (Saturday 12th June)
Circus: Heads Up Tournament (Sunday 25th July)


You will see some of these clash with already established games/festival events or are a considerable distance away so unfortunately we can’t commit to all these for the time being, however we will of course endeavour to support these games when possible. On a different note I caught up with Gary Ramsay yesterday who explained to me that the monthly (2nd Saturday) £75 freezeout is postponed for June (12th), the tournament is under review & could potentially be dropped from the schedule. This would be a great shame as anybody that has played the tournament agrees it’s the best structured monthly game available, so I for one hope it has a future at Circus.

So that concludes our schedule for May (unless of course I make the 2 hour drive south to Leeds next weekend) & our next for sure trip over to the Casino will be to Circus on June 1st for their monthly flagship ‘£50 (+£5) NLH F/O w/£500 Added), where I will look to build on my already impressive record. The break this weekend for me personally is quite refreshing as I’ve been on the felt 4/5 of the weekends since I returned from Asia, so I’ll be looking to use today to catch up with my non poker related friends & have a few drinks.

Hope all is well on the felt.