Trip Report (Tuesday)

The Trip Report (Tuesday)

I wake up the next day and to my surprise I’m not hungover. I don’t know if this is just me but I’ve only ever been hungover once or twice in my life.

Maybe it’s because I tend not to drink in excess or maybe I’m just lucky.

It’s about 10am and I’m thinking about what to do in the morning. I go out to get some fresh air and grab some fruit from the supermarket to eat.

I always feel like cupped fruit is a pretty big rip off but for me this trip was more of a holiday, I was more than happy to make some -ev finance decisions.

I have that, make some tea, play some more chess and then I head off to Aspers.

So as I stated in my last post I’ve been to Aspers a few times, mainly in the evenings, the Friday nights etc.

One thing I’ve yet to have much experience with is the afternoon crowd. What do they even do for a living, where do they come from, how many fish actually are there going to be etc.

Anyway I rock up, make sure I have my water and banana’s with me, get ID’d and walk over to the poker area.

I had plans to play in some £30 afternoon bounty tourney they run which is normally fun, I checked the site, it’s all up there and..

“Sorry sir we are running only satellites for the 888 tournament in the afternoon and evening”

I ask if I can roll the potential seat over to when I’m here at university, he said it will just stay in your wallet and it’s fine.

I decide to play it, it was a rebuy thing but I was happy just to take one bullet, in all honesty I had a bit of an itch to play live.

I sit down and it’s one of those where the table has just started, I look around, pretty much a lot of young/middle aged people, some know each other, seems like a friendly atmosphere.

Some guy just lost his job and was laughing about it, another was saying how he just plays for fun now etc.

My initial assumption was obviously a bit misguided. About 30 seconds in this guy who is a twenty something white guy who seems local starts talking in this annoying put on Russian accent saying stuff like..

“Fish fish what are you doing here fish” in some awful Russian accent to some players at the table.

I thought he’d stop a minute or two after no one even laughed at it but he just kept going.

He seemed like one of those players who had a vague idea of the game but was probably pretty terrible..

“Just like you OP!”

Ikr :heart:

He was making comments like..

“Why are you checking top pair here”

He spoke a lot about other poker rooms, about how he loves 25hh..

(“Why not 25s Tom?”…Idk probs lololive, some of them have favourite suits.)

because he was at the “Hippo” last week and he was playing 1-2 with a
straddle and he peeled and flopped the nuts and kinda got paid off.

Pretty mind numbing stuff I know.

If this guy is legitimately a re-..

(I’m sorry I can’t bring myself to say that this guy is a reg, he was talking about how Kassouf was an idiot and that if he was in that spot he would of just folded his way to the final table, easy money)

..he’s probably doing so much damage to the games.

I’m pretty sure that might be the worst “fish catering” I’ll ever see, this guy just didn’t shut up, he was annoying, pretty arrogant and it was a relief when he got moved.

Once he left I actually was enjoying the table talk, I’ve always had a pretty dim view of live but I was actually having a pretty good time, there was this Irish guy to my right who seemed pretty good and whilst we didn’t talk much we always winked or smiled at each other when someone at the table was saying stupid stuff.

Even the guy watching White Collar on his iPad next to me made some decent conversation, I think I’ve bumped into him before too like a year ago. Don’t ask me how I remember him.

Yeah I was grilling the guy above for having annoying table talk but I’m going to be open and admit that mine is pretty terrible. I’m generally pretty social and have definitely got over the first nerves you get whilst playing live but at the table I’m pretty awful table talk wise.

Some guy was complaining about how cold it was in the casino and how stupid it was and I make one of the least funny and-

Urgh I’m just going to cut myself off and say it was ****ing terrible, it doesn’t even make any sense.

I responded with something like..

“they should sell jumpers outside”

This is just bad on so many levels, the only reason I said it is because I know how the RIO trolls everyone by making it a freezer which leads people to buy a $80 WSOP Hoodie.

However even with that given context it still makes no sense.

In the casino area there is no outside of the poker room bit, it’s just a bunch of slots and a bar, even worse than that, we’re in a Westfield where there are probably thousands of jumpers being sold.

It’s just awful but let’s just move on.

Of course the tournament structure is absolute aids and before I know it I have like 20bbs.

Before I go into the game itself I’m kind of wary about turning this into a hand review thread, I don’t want that, I’d rather this just be for reflection and people asking general questions instead of..

“Yeah OP in H1 you definitely need to raise a bigger sizing, you can check turn btw”

If you want to see my hands and comment I post a bunch in MTTSNG and have posted some live hands in Midstakes MTT or whatever it’s called.
Long story short I run pretty well at the start.

Get in 79dd on 8T2dxx vs AQsc

I turn 5d which gives me some outs and on the river bink.

“Nice one Tom you got there big deal”

[SPOIL]6d on the river for a runner runner straight flush.[/SPOIL]

Tables erupts people say sick a bunch of times the guy with the AQ seems super ****ing tilted haha. He immediately orders another diet coke and whiskey and double rebuys. It’s like 3:30pm.

Good start so far.

I continue to run pretty well, my bluffs get through and a bunch of people keep rebuying but sadly I run my AQs into AK and A4.

I see a 4 on the flop and consider rebuying, structure is already ****ed though so I think I’m just going to head back home.

Turn Q

Okay then.

Table again says sick and the other usual stuff.

I have about 4-5x starting stack at the first break and still decide to add on for 6k, table seemed really good and spewy so I thought it would give me a much more decent shot of actually winning a seat.

I see a couple people chatting and they look over at me and ask what I had in this spot etc, what did I fold call, how card dead they’ve been etc.

They seem like nice people and we chat for a bit etc.

They ask me if I play online.

This may just be a coincidence but every time I’ve been to play live poker I’ve been asked if I play online.

This could be for a few reasons which I’d actually like to consider.

1. They see that I’m pretty young and assume I grind online. I don’t even know what an “online grinder” is meant to look like (I’m not even an online grinder). I mean I wear glasses and hoodies sometimes so idk.

2. I sometimes calculate at the table with odds and stuff and run through my fingers and look up etc. Although surely this can’t just be associated with online, it’s not like every live player just plays on feel and doesn’t attempt to do any maths right?

3. I may play well, they see me bluff catching and c/c c/c a hand like AA on a dry board which I guess is something they may not see too often. Again maybe this is just my negligence on my part but people often say nh, wp etc but hey maybe in their eye’s I’m just a fish they want to cater to.

Like I don’t really care when people ask it, I often just reply with “yeah”. It’s just happened every time now so maybe I’m giving something off.

I’m thinking about replying “what’s online” but that could come across as a bit hostile and give off the wrong impression.

Eventually I get in a spot as the blinds get even more crackhead and UTG+1 opens 2x (who’s been super spewy as of late).

A guy who I’ve liked at the table who is two to UTG’s left flat calls with about 14bbs.

I wake up with ATs on the BTN with around 17bbs and jam.

UTG folds pretty quickly and this guy goes into the tank.

“I think you have a big pair, I don’t really want to flip though”

This is when I should just stfu and not reply to him because I have no idea what I’m really doing.

I keep quiet for a bit and he’s still tanking away.

He looks at his cards again, back at his chips etc.

I then end up saying something which might be stupid I have no idea tbh.

Scratch that, I know it’s ****ing stupid.

“You seem like a good guy, I’ll show you if you fold”

Long story short 1-2 mins later he calls with AQo, in my eyes this is a massive nit roll but everyone else is saying “what a call” and “it’s not an easy call” etc. Idk online this is a snap even with my relative image transferred over.

The boards runs out I get up and say well played and it’s been fun.

It actually was a lot of fun.

One thing which wasn’t fun, was the structure.

Jesus it has to be one of the most ridiculous things ever, maybe one day I might play a donkament with a decent structure but for now I’m not even sure if I like settling for this kind of stuff.

The tournament itself was great value though, lots of people spewing off, lots of fun. I just felt it turned into a hyper pretty quick. Yeah sure I sat down for a few hours but hands/level wise it was pretty rough.

Anyway I stumble out, take the tube back, buy a kebab (pretty much always have one when I’m up here, I can’t help it) and crash back at Robs.