Aspers Festival £50 (+£5) NLH F/O

SUP Guys. Aspers opened it’s festival with a slightly smaller £50 buy in to attract a wider audience & it certainly achieved that with 137 runners (after late registration) creating a pot of £6,850. Me & Mark were representing FTP in the very decorated field which was a who’s who of Newcastle poker, we caught up with Hamid Rowshanaei outside for 5 minutes who tells me he hasn’t played in three months which I joke is a first in 20+ years.


Then speak with Marc Mulhern momentarily who tells me he won his seat earlier in the day before were called to our seats, I was drawn T3-S9 along with recognizable faces Teessider Snr. Lataif (2), Circus regular Joe Morris (3) & later joined by 2005 WSOP $1,000+R NLH runner up C.T Law (8), & Dave Knight (10). So a tough but very enjoyable table, I managed to build my stack to around 15,000 by the break playing some speculative hands from position pretty strong. Because of the early start time (18:00) both Mark & I decided to have our dinner at Freya’s & dine with Dave Stephenson who is always good crack/company before getting back on the felt.


So I returned after the break with almost a double chip average stack & was completely card dead from 100/200 all the way through to 3000/6000 with AT/55 my best hands, I had to play pretty creative to ensure I stayed alive & in comfortable chips which I managed with around 80,000 when I get coolered;

AKo vs. Daniel Oliver TT vs. Stu Costa KK: 3000/6000 “175,000” (Daniel open shove’s UTG for around 50,000 & I make a standard reshove UTG+1 holding AKo. Unfortunately the short stacked Stu Costa finds KK behind & of course makes the call, the board runs blanks & Stu scoops the huge pot with only 15 players remaining.)

No complaints & I’m marginally still alive with approximately 30,000 (5BB’s) & a tiny bit fold equity if I shove in the right spots vs. right villains. I manage to win a 30/70 when my K3 outdraws 55 to get me a slightly below chip average to go onto the final table which was as follows;

1) Unknown “6th £410”
2) James Browning “10th £170”
3) David Hudson “Split £1,200”
4) Unknown “Split £1,000”
5) Steve Sung “8th £270”
6) Daniel Trett “Split £1,400”
7) Stu Costa 5th “£480”
8) Ed Yau “9th £210”
9) Paul Johnstone “7th £340”
10) Bob Mercer “Split £1,000”

I ran pretty well on the final table finding JJ when shoving from the BTN onto Ed Yau’s BB who called with Ax, then flopping two pair vs. top pair ‘Steve Sung’ blind on blind, & finally setting up a stop & go vs. Stu Costa only to flop trip nines so check raise instead. Four handed & I had approximately 330,000 vs. Hudders 280,000 vs. 110,000x2, after some negotiating we decided to split based on chip counts.

Sorry for the short synopsis guys, with such a busy month I don’t have the time to recap every tournament in the detail I would like to but still aiming to get my reviews out in good time. I’m back over Aspers on Saturday for the main event before my attention turns to the Grosvenor where I’ll be playing the opening £200 & the main event of their summer series. Finally I would like to wish my brother & fellow poker compatriot Mark happy holidays as he’s flying off to Tenerife tomorrow with his family for a well earned week in the sun, enjoy bro. Mark returns to the UK for the Grosvenor summer series main event but unfortunately misses Aspers main event & Grosvenor opening event, never mind I’m sure he’ll get over it.


Thanks for reading, see you around over the next fortnight.