Aspers Festival £300 (+£20) Main Event

I was back over Aspers on Saturday (19th) for the main event of their summer festival, I chose this tournament in preference to my usual trip to Teesside for the ‘Gala £100 (+£10) NLH w/£1,000 Added’.


They were both ran simultaneously so it was one or they other & needless to say I’ll not be reporting on Teesside this month, however I'll be back in Teesside for the July event. A disappointing turnout of 44 runners created a prize pool of £13,200, because of the low turnout the start time was delayed an hour until some more players came through the door. Chris decide to give us a 50% increase on our starting stack, so we got underway with 15,000 & a one hour clock which is a mega deep structure for a £300 buy in. A small elite field including;

Hamid Jnr. ‘Toghyan’ & Snr. ‘Rowshanaei’
Steven Liu
James Browning
Jamie Dale
Marc Foggin
Dave Stephenson
Syed Zaidi
Michael Joyce
Alex Joblin
C.T. Law
Tom Dunwoodie

Amongst others who took too the felt however their was enough spots to accumulate chips if approached correctly. I was drawn T1-S7 with Steve Sung (1) & Hamid Jnr. (6) with Ian Bertram (2) & C.T. Law (4) joining the table late. So moving onto the tournament & no two way’s about it I played very poor, which given how I’d been playing in the build up to this event was extremely disappointing.


I lost around 50% of my starting stack after getting the right price to call four draws in position;

KQcc on TxJxx
J9dd on JKxxx “2 diamond flop”
A3cc on 2x4xx “2 club flop”
T8 on J9xxx

So with around 8,000 by the second level I find a nice spot to get them in;

KK vs. AQ vs. Q8: 50/100 “16,500” (Villain opens H/J for 600 & the short stacked BTN goes all in blind for 1,000, I then reraise it to 2,200 out of the BB. Villain 4BETs me to 5,000 so I make the simple shove & find myself 70/30 needing to dodge an ace which I do.)

I hover around this mark for the next two levels as I can’t seem to get anything going with a combination of;

1) I can’t run a successful bluff or even semi bluff for love nor money
2) My thin river value bets are being called by slightly better holdings
3) I can’t get paid when holding the nuts or almost the nuts

Then by level four I decided I was going to get proactive with my BTN, oh well good game;

79o vs. 66: 150/300 “35,000” (Three limpers in front so I decide to speculate & limp the BTN ‘1st mistake’, SB makes it 1050 which forces out BB & initial limper. Two other limpers & me call ‘2nd mistake’ so I take a four way flop with 4,800 in the middle. Flop is KT6ss giving me nothing more than a gutshot, SB leads for 1,500 which is called by one limper & I decide to float ‘3rd mistake’ looking to take it away on most turns. Turn is an off suit 6 which see’s the same action 1,500 bet/call so now pot is 12,300 & I have 15,000ish behind so sensing weakness from both opponents I go for the money & move all in ‘4th mistake‘. SB tank calls I assume to try & induce the limper behind to come along but he folds, so we open our hands to see I shoved 40BB’s holding 9 high into quad sixes.)

I know it’s a high variance play & it’s difficult to justify with the amount of play in the tournament but never mind, there was some method to my madness & given the relevant chip stacks I had a load of fold equity vs. both villains range. I guess since I boasted about correctly calling a river bet with nine high at the start of the month, I should rub myself down in the same casual manner;


I’m a little frustrated with myself & how the tournament went but cest la vie, I understand the final table is flooded with a host of the players I mentioned above all of which are friends so I would like to wish them all the best of luck for this afternoon. On a different note I would like to close by congratulating Aspers & Chris for hosting this festival, I found Chris & all the Aspers staff to be very welcoming & accommodating. I for one hope to see this festival ran annually with a couple of tweaks in regards to dates & advertising to help increase traffic, both of which I mentioned to staff over Aspers. Despite being a fabulous card room (décor wise) it has no weekly tournaments in it’s standard weekly/monthly schedule that appeal to me, so for the time being I don’t see myself back anytime soon.

Now over to the newly decorated Grosvenor next week for their summer series, I’ll be playing the opening event on Thursday 24th which I hope will be well attended. I’m really looking forward to playing in the newly decorated casino/card room & know Varzee will be working hard to make this a success so I hope it’s well attended, hopefully see a few of you guys their.

Grind on the mind