GUKPT side event report..

Thursday 23rd April was my first glimpse into the GUKPT world, playing in the £100 f/out. Met up with Claw from Blonde about 6ish, had a bit of a wander sampling the atmosphere and meeting a few Blondes around the place... then to kill time...

£20 each in a fruity.. Claw wins £75, I win £110... we stick £20 each in another one, similar results :)

feeling flushed, we go and play 3 card poker... never played it before.. started with 40 quid, and just continued winning... came off the table with £100.. so was freerolling in the tournament already. Obv Claw and myself swapped 10% and we were off.

Started in seat 2 on table 9, noone recognisable on my table, so went about playing my own game. On my 1st BB I get KK, only limper is the SB, so I raised 4bbs to 200. He calls, flop is J 4 3, he checks I bet 350 and he calls.. turn is a 2, again he checks and I pot bet, again he calls. Turn is a 5, pretty big danger card, to which he checks. Weigh up carefully, am behind to any A and even with just 2k back, I don't want to go out on 1 pair.. so check.. he shows 42os. Sigh. It was the sign of things to come from him, I just knew I had to get in my chips at the right time.

At 50/100 after multiple limpers he raises to 700, don't even look at him as I shove with KQ, he has KJ and calls, J turn and Q river weeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Only one other time was an all in of mine called in the first 4 levels, raised UTG with 66, s/stack shoves so I call, he has QQ and I hit a 6 river ( although I did have many more outs). From then I on, I just quietly accumulated chips, picking on the weaker members of the table, still trying to bide my time to bust the guy on my SB, however he got knocked out with 2 tables remaining, calling all in on a K J 9 7 flop with J3, and was drawing dead.

We were down to about 16 at this point, with 13 paid, and the table noticeably tightened up, apart from 3 players, myself, and the 2 guys to the left of me. Shoved all in on my SB a cpl of times with nothing, causing agony for the BB, both times he folded however. The pivotal moment for me came when, on my SB I had 88, I had about 42k at 2k/4k, and UTG had raised to 12k. He'd been playing a lot of pots with suited cards, KJ, Q10 etc so decided I could get him to fold with a shove. He called however with KQs, 1st card out was an 8 and had safely housed up by the turn.

Once the bubble had gone, we were playing 6 handed, so started opening up a few more pots, and eventually made the FT with 70 at 3k/6k.

Was pretty card dead during the 1st 2 orbits, managed to get a raise through twice to keep my head above water, and eventually we were down to 6. At this point, get chatting to a guy opposite, he's only tommymfkinC from Blonde, so we have a quick chat, wish each other gl gl, and he goes out next hand, QQ into KK!!

5 way, there's a deal proposed. CL 3k, 2nd CL 2.5k, other 2 2k and me 1.5k, I'm s/stack so happy to take as thats higher than 4th pays, but one guy isn't interested in seat 4 ( as he was on my other table) so we play on. I manage one double up, shoving with Q9d UTG, getting looked up by A2os, hit my Q, he hit his A, but I hit a diamond river. Am still fairly s/stacked tho, so when it comes round to me with no raises on my SB, I sneak a look at a card, its an A, I shove, BB eventually calls with AJ, my kicker was a 5, and I was gone. Was shoving any 2 in that position with the blinds + antes what they were.

Happy enough with my first foray into the GUKPT world, probably will play the £100 bounty on Sunday, but as of yet am undecided.

I'll update this with names of opponents etc when the results get posted