Three Hands from the GUKPT
Three Hands from the Main Event of GUKPT London Leg
By Hugo Martin 14 March 2008
I recently played in the £1,000 main event at the London leg of the GUKPT at the Vic and witnessed three interesting hands.Hand 1
This was during the last hour of day 1 and the blinds were 600/1,200 with a running ante of 75. A player in early position went all in for about 5,000. Everyone else folded around to the small blind, a strong Norwegian player with plenty of chips (approximately 80k) who made the call after a little bit of thought. The big blind who had around 50-60k in chips also called.
So now there was one player all-in and a dry side pot between the small and big blinds. I must admit that I can’t remember any of the flop cards, but for the purposes of this anecdote it’s not too important.
On the flop both the Norwegian and the big blind checked. Same action on the turn and river. The Norwegian player showed a reluctance to turn his hand over indicating that he didn’t have much of a hand. The big blind now turned his hand over – pocket aces!
When asked why he didn’t re-raise before the flop with his aces, the player claimed that he thought with two of them in the hand there would be more chance of the all-in player getting knocked out. I guess he didn’t realise that at that point in the tournament there were still over a hundred players left in.
Hand 2
This was also on day 1 although earlier in the day when the blinds were 150/300 with a running ante of 25. Mark Friedman was probably the chip leader at this point with a little over 70k in chips.
Keith “The Camel” Hawkins was also at this table and we both agreed that Friedman’s style of play was comparable to dual WPT winner Alan Goehring. Friedman was basically playing almost every pot, employing his large stack well and really putting pressure on his opponents. Going against conventional wisdom he saw nothing wrong with limping in any position, although he was also making plenty of raises in position too. If he had limped he would call a raise and often check-raised when the pre-flop raiser c-betted.
In this hand Friedman limped under the gun and now a tight-aggressive player, who had tangled with Friedman a couple of times already, raised to 1,200. Everyone else got out of the way and Friedman called. The flop came down a rainbow 567. Friedman checked and the TAG player bet around 3,000. Friedman grabbed a bunch of chips and check-raised to about 50k setting the TAG all-in. The TAG player insta-called showing pocket queens.
Friedman turned over the powerhouse that is K3 of clubs and promptly hit a king on the turn, followed by a 3 on the river to make two pair (not that he needed the second pair) and added a very nice load of chips to his already healthy-looking stack.
The player who had the queens looked disgusted, which is fair enough as this was the hand he was waiting for against Friedman (plus he played it and his foe well), but a quick look at the percentages shows that Friedman was only about a 30% dog, so it’s not too bad. Incidentally Friedman claimed that he thought he had an up and down straight draw (to go with his overcard and backdoor flush draw) as opposed to the gutshot draw that he actually had.
Hand 3
This occurred on Day 2 when the blinds were 600/1,200 with a running ante of 100. Alessandro Meoni limped under the gun. Everyone else folded and now the same strong Norwegian player from Hand 1 completed the small blind and Vicky Coren checked in the big blind. Meoni had about 85k in chips, the Norwegian about the same and Vicky had about 35k.
The flop came down 999 and everyone checked. The turn was a king and everyone checked again. The river came an 8 and now the Norwegian bet 2k. Vicky folded and now Meoni had a dwell up and then raised to 12k.
The Norwegian now thought for a very long time. You could see he was trying to convince himself to fold, but eventually he made the call. Meoni showed pocket aces and took down the pot. The Norwegian said he had a king.
Perhaps this hand seems a bit like a no-brainer to experts, but I still found it interesting. I like Meoni’s raise on the river, extracting the maximum value out of his aces. No doubt when he limped in pre-flop he was looking to spring a surprise on a late position raiser.
I know I probably would have just called the Norwegian’s bet on the river, fearing the case 9. Don’t go broke in an unraised pot has always been my motto, but Meoni read his opponent well knowing that a good Scandinavian player would be unlikely to check quads twice.
14/03/08
