50,000 Chips!
Yes, you read it right, the start of the European Deepstack competition held in Drogheda last week had an astonishing 50,000 chips for each competitor. I say competitor, instead of player, because as with any poker tournament these days you get the people who are there for the gamble and get knocked out within the first level! It astonishes me how at the 25/50 level with 1000 big blinds and such a great structured tournament that people can get eliminated without a horrible bad beat being the cause. An overplayed AA was rather ironically the main culprit. My 1st day gave me a decent table draw but no cards to play with. Rocky McRockson could have been my name as i was happy to sit there and get blinded the massive amount of 75 chips a round of the table for the first hour!
Indeed it was the 2nd level where I got involved in my first hand to note when there was a raise to 350, I called with AJ suited as did 1 other from the blinds. Flop comes J high and initial raiser bets out 500 and I am the only caller. Turn is an A and another bet of 850 that i raise to 2100 which is called. River was a low blank card and I bet out and take it down which settled me for the day. I was moved shortly after to a table of death! There was no comparison to my previous table, this was bad. Jen Mason, Paul Fitzpatrick, eventual winner Dara O’Kearney, English player “Snoopy”, Conor Doyle and of course sitting to my right my brother Dan! I lost a few chips on this table and learned some lessons that set me well for the rest of the tournament.
The most interesting hand of the day was where I raised to 1500 with QsQd at blinds 200/400, got 3 callers and then a raise to 8500. I think for a minute and call, everyone else folds. On a KsJs7s he led out for 9,000. I thought about it for 2 minutes and then he quipped “You’re Queens are shrinking now”. Good read sir, good read! I thought about it for another minute and went all in for 29,000 in total and he folded showing the 8c of course! I finished day 1a on 92,275 chips after getting all in preflop with QQ vs the mighty K2o.
Day 2 was painful, very very painful. I dislike when people complain about being card dead in a game but I was. I had a good seat draw and started off well enough but the cards dried up and new players came to the table and any move I made was cut off. However I nearly doubled up with a short stack 3 times through various preflop reraises and pushes. After just under 16 hours of poker I was eliminated in 34th place. Another short stacked pushed in for 60k with 1010 and I called with KhQh for 55k and the guy next to me said he folded a 10. K on the flop and I thought I was doubling up but a terrible 10 on the turn and my game was over! Just to show what a cruel game poker can be .. I was 86% favourite on the flop and drawing dead with 0% chance to win the hand on the turn! C’est la vie!