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Virgin Festival - My First Live Event: A Review

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04-16-2008, 06:14 PM Post subject: Virgin Festival - My First Live Event: A Review

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Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: England

Posts: 561

Hello, hello.

Last year, I qualified for the Virgin Festival (online qualification only) and on Friday, I travelled to sunny Newcastle to take my place.

How did I find it all? Strange but good. I love it waaaaaaaay more than online play, for sure.

The whole thing was surreal as people couldn't wait to leave the tournament. As someone on my table commented, it was being played like a short stacked turbo. Even Tony "TK" Kendall, who was compering, made a sarcastic remark with "and we have an all in between 2 monsters, Q6 off and A5 suited". Our table was far more sophisticated and rather tight.

I went in with the obvious mindset to play tight, see cheap flops and not get too involved too early. And this became of more importance when, taking my seat, I discovered I had a known pro (been on TV and all that) sat next to me, on my left. However, that outlook didn't last as 2nd hand in I was dealt AQ and had to play. I won 2000 and had increased my stack by 20%!

That hand was won against a guy who I took an immediate dislike to. He had a face I just wanted to smack. If any of you have seen "Snatch", he looked just like the character Brick Top. He was wearing a Golden Nugget jacket and seemed to know the pro on my left so I assumed he was a decent, seasoned player. The pro later confirmed they meet on the tournament circuit.

What was interesting was as I played that AQ, against Brick Top, I felt my tension rise, and as he bet on the flop, I felt my pulse thundering in my neck - and this was with a genuine hand so heaven help if it was a bluff. It was a unique experence as I never felt this way playing online. I controlled my body and brought my pulse and breathing down and won the hand. From that point in, I had no nerves at all and ran bluffs and strong hands quite nonchalantly.

It was a surprise to find out that the levels didn't allow for as much play as I thought as each hand took a fair bit longer than online play so the levels seemed to change quickly.

I struggled a lot with the betting and once or twice thought I was making a significant reraise when in fact I wasn't even making a minraise! And it was hard to keep track, especially when the antes kicked in. This is just an attention issue, as I am used to a poker site calculating it all for me.

So I started well but a few hands after that AQ, disaster struck, with one limper at 25/50, I lookded down at JJ and raised to 200 which was called. Long story short, and convinced I was being tested, I lost 7000 and was down to just under 5000. And by the 100/200 level I was starting to panic.

I'll be honest and admit I couldn't read anybody - though I did "know" when someone was weak and/or bluffing and so I made raises with air as a result. And won. What was also nice was that I pwned the pro for pretty much all of the opening day, which was nice. The last time occured when both of us missed the flop, the pro took the lead and bet 2000 on the turn and I raised to 5000, to which the pro frustratingly replied "am I here just so you can spank me?"

As I have never read Mike Caro's Book of Tells I had no idea what to do with my body language. I always adopted poses that signified confidence and strength but was unsure whether that was good (because our body language usually reflects our strength/weakness) or bad (because its a game of deception and weak = strong and vice versa).

From my early stack of under 5000 I played really good and I was very happy. I had only 4 good hands all game: AQ, JJ, AA and JJ. The first JJ cost me 7000, the AA only got me 1000 and the 2nd JJ knocked out a 3500 chip short stack so I never got the chance to double up. Despite being dealt trash, I played the player for the most part and took my 4500 to 8900 at the 1st break and to above average with 13100 by dinner. I continued my play and dragged my way up to 24,000 - well above the average of 14,000. I was really proud and chuffed.

The pro, who had won over £125,000 including £25k in a recent event, seemd to just be playing ABC poker. Of course, I am not an expert but it just seemed to be typical ABC TAG with a few moves thrown in. I didn't see any hero calls with bottom pair or awesome reads and I found that very refreshing because if that play can win you £25k at a time and enable you to go pro then it's not quite as out of reach as the mystical, telepathic level that Ivey, Negreanu and Hellmuth all enjoy.

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