New Blog: Grand

After a couple of years of trying and a couple of years of not trying I finally had my first 'official' tournament win.

(I've qualified 'official' but being over £50 and in a specific poker premises (won a couple of tournaments in bars but don't count them)). I'll get to the details in a minute but will first backtrack.

This week saw some more exciting news for the OnGame network as one of the biggest Entraction skins signed a contract to move their players over. This means one thing, more fish and lots of them. PokerIdol also started its October Rake Race with $14,000 in prizes (http://bit.ly/cXQNEX). If you've not tried the site yet, this really is the month to do it. Mail me today for details and deals chris@pokeridol.com.

The Ryder cup was excellent, especially watched through my families 55inch 3D TV! An amazing machine and watching golf in 3D is great. They have some things to work out in the broadcast -- rain on the camera gave you a headache -- but overall it's definitely the future of TV. They also showed a bug documentary which is without a doubt the best bit of filming I've ever seen, totally knocking my block off.

My first live poker room review for GX Magazine came out last month without me realising, very exciting, I'm finally a printed journalist! This review was for the Circus in Stoke which I wrote after cashing the in £150 event they had:

For the next review I was invited down to 'Shuffles' in Portsmouth to play their £250, £10,000 main event. I was excited about this as most people I knew were off to London to play the EPT Charity event.

The journey to the club was without stress mostly to using Google Maps the night before. The last few journeys I've taken now I've looked on satellite and streetviews to get a visual of the area and to look for parking before I arrive. An extremely powerful tool!

The club itself was easy to find on the main road and I was let in early to meet the owner Jason, a very nice guy with a big passion for the club. I'll paste the review of the club in the next blog after it's been published.

I was confident when sitting down. While my game is always quite rusty as I don't play much these days, I've definitely been learning from the deeperstack tournaments I've played, namely being much more aggressive and opening much lighter. I started off well, hitting some big hands and by the first break I was upto 29K with the Ave being 16k:

I was actually upto around 35K, but 3-bet a button open from the BB as I thought he was weak. He wasn't an shoved over my c-bet.

I then got a little card dead and, I admit, a little nervous and had a few boring levels. Hit the second break with just over 32k with the average 30k:

Single towers are never good! Chips are light blue 25, yellow 100, red 500, green 1000 and blue 2000 -- a strange chip!

The next level I really started gaining momentum and before I knew it were were close to the final table, and money, bubble. I was the chip leader at the table and busted second in chips with KK vs JJ. Ended at the third break with 117K with the average being 60K:

Now THAT'S a chip stack. I busted one player and another busted from the other table, so we got to the final table. Going to paste my updates now from the site:

'Almost immediately after, chip leader Chris Edwards and fellow big stack Issa Ali got their chips all in on the turn. Chris with pocket 9's and Issa with A Q, the board showing A 9 3 2 and the river bringing a second ace. Issa places 8th, and wins £350.'

This guy was SUPER aggro, so was happy to bust him. That put me to chip leader for all but 2 hands! Another guy was busted leaving the best player on the table (http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=43988), other than me of course, second in chips. Then this hand happened:

'The biggest and sickest pot since Shuffles opened last year, saw a 3 way all in on a 4H 2D 5H board. Current chip leader Chirs Edwards turns over pocket 2's for a set, while second chip leader Ryan Fronda turns over A 3, the second nut straight. Meanwhile Ali Morharrer has put his 80K stack in with A 7 of hearts, the nut flush draw. Innevitably, the 6 of hearts arrives immediately on the turn to give Ali the nuts. Ali wins the main pot, trippling up to become chip leader. However Ryan Fronda profits from the hand and now is a close second in chips. As a result of this hand, Chris Edwards drops from the chip lead, to less than 100K.'

That was quite frustrating but there's nothing I could do. Still pretty deep though so I continued pressing the action and had a nice double up:

'After very little action for the first few rounds after the break, Ali Morharrer doubles up Chris Edwards on a Q 3 J flop, Chris holding Q J and Ali A J.'

I then apparently busted someone else, although I don't remember this hand!

'The very next hand sees Andy Craddock pushing all in pre flop with K 10 and Chris Edwards calling with A 6. The board shows 2 6 2 J A, Chris winning the pot and Andy walking away with £750 in 5th place.'

We got down to three handed and I ended up flopping my 6th!! set of the tournament:

'Shortly after, there is a 25k raise from Ali, with a re-raise of £135k from Chris. Ali flat calls leaving himself only 30k behind, with the flop coming down 5 10 6. Chris goes all in on the flop with pocket 10's, top set, and Ali calls with A J. The turn and river comes Q 2 to see Ali leaving the final in 3rd place with £1600.'

I had roughly 3/1 in chips heads up but was exhausted (been playing 12 hours) so made a good deal for Ryan, £3900 for me and £3300 for him. Was happy to lock that up and go home.

A real nice win and I (obviously) had a great time. A very tired picture of me: (I didn't win with the deuces but for some reason we decided I should use them for the pic. 10's would of been the obvious choice but meh, we were all exhausted!)

So what now with that nice little cash injection? First things first, no it won't become my poker bankroll! I got lucky but still have no desire to play any more, it's going to go to better uses. The first was updating my work set up, buying a new monitor to replace the 32" Samsung TV which hurt my eyes too much. I settled on the 28" HanngG and absolutely love it. Great picture and great resolution, all for £250. I also bought a new mouse to replace the Magic Mouse which I didn't like. I settled on the Razer Orochi. Here is them installed and a better picture of both:

I'm going to get my car fully serviced, valeted and the stereo sorted (have most to go in, just need a sub and labour). I also want/need a new pair of headphones (Monster Beats) but will wait to see what the car costs are first, otherwise the Bose will last a bit longer.

The rest will go into my business as I was going to get a small business loan, but don't need to now. Exciting times for that still.

Have eaten out a couple of times this week with disastrous results. Firstly on Monday I ate at the Lebanese place we go to smoke Shisha. The food was good but the portion was tiny! Tuesday we went to 'Jamies', a new Italian restaurant with the Jamie Oliver name. He should be ashamed, the food was mediocre but the portions were smaller than Monday and the prices were ridiculous. I'm still hungry!

This weekend is going to be a bit of a lads one I think as Anna is not coming down and other gf's are away.

Thanks again for reading!