Kings vs Queens

British Open, London / £750 No Limit Hold’em

Yesterday I played my first event at the Vic having decided at the beginning of the year to concentrate on No Limit Holdem events. It was great to see all the usual faces and of course there are now a lot of new faces at every event. A minutes silence was held for Ramin Sai who sadly passed away 2 days ago, a surreal experience as I was upstairs at the time and there were 60 of us standing heads bowed as the pianist played music for the restaurant goers and the rest of the casino continued as if nothing was happening.

Simon Trumper ‘Aces’

As the game commenced I sat down just as Joe limped in under the gun and everyone passed round to me on the button. I looked down to find pocket Kings and as the blinds were only 25 / 50 I decided to flat call, both blinds called and the flop was Q 5 6, everybody checked and I bet 200 which Joe flat called, the turn paired and we both checked. I was hoping to trap Joe for a bluff on the river by showing weakness on the turn. Joe checked the river and I bet 275 which he raised to 550; who’s trapping who? I now reluctantly called hoping to see Ace Queen but Joe had pocket Queens for a full house, well played mate, I’m glad I didn’t raise pre flop! The point of all this is 8 levels later with the blinds at 1000 / 2000 and an ante of 200 having survived 7 hours with below average chips I look down to find pocket Kings in first position. There is 4600 in blinds etc, this time I move all in for 8,200 and get called by Keith Hawkins on the button. The blinds pass and we’re heads up for a pot of 21,000. If I win this it will be the most I’ve had all night and the average at this time was 30,000. Keith turned over Queens and like the first hand earlier the first card on the flop was a Queen! I was really pleased with the way I played and know on another occasion the Kings will stand up and I will have a chance to win, this is what I love about poker, if you play well and survive to get lucky in the long run you will succeed, I tapped the table said well played and good luck and can’t wait for Saturday and the £1,250 main event; I just hope Joe and Keith are on your table, not mine.

Full Result
Wednesday, 17 March
£ 500 Pot Limit 7 Card Stud Freezeout

73 Entries / £ 36,500

1st N Kheradmand £13,680
2nd Mick Cook (England) £7,560
3rd Charalambos Xanthos (Cyprus) £4,680
4th S Randall £2,880
5th Ram Vaswani (Hendon) £1,800
6th Mike Magee (Ireland) £1,620
7th T Mann £1,440
8th P Evdokiou £1,260
9th Sonny Osman (England) £1,080
10th J Grech £500