UPL Trip Report

I probably should have written this a little while ago, but have been a bit lazy recently so here it is, my UPL 4 Nations Grand Final trip report:

Early Friday afternoon I met up with a guy called Nick who was going to give me a lift down to Nottingham. At about 4PM myself, Nick and 3 other eager poker players of whom I had only me one before set off on the two and a half hour drive down to Nottingham. The journey was very uneventful and poker was the main topic of conversation. In the early evening we finally arrived in Nottinham and managed to find our B&B which turned out to be a lovely little pub fairly near the centre of Nottingham. It was decided that it would be a bad idea to go to the poker room that evening and so instead we decided to play some cash in the hotel. Unfortunately, no one had brought any chips with them and so Mav was sent off to the local news agents to change a £20 note into 1p and 2p coins. We ended up playing 5p/10p cash for a couple of hours and ended with a £2 sit n go, resulting in a bedtime of around 4pm... probably not the best of ideas considering the day which awaited us.

On the Saturday morning, we were all up for breakfast at 9.30am and were out of the hotel by 10.30am. Nick had somehow managed to leave all his clothes at Uni and so we had to do a spot of shopping to buy a shirt for him as the Dusk Till Dawn club has a no t-shirt dress code. Having braved the early morning Saturday shoppers, we drove to the club, arriving at about midday. We waited for about half and hour to actually get into the poker room as every player had to register with the club, but it was worth the wait! The Dusk Till Dawn poker club claims to be the 'Premier poker room in Europe' and I have to say, it probably is.

We were issued with our 'Team shirts', England was in red, Ireland in orange, Scotland in blue and Wales in green, and proceeded to register for the tournament at the cash desk. There were then some team photos taken and the start of the tournament became immanent.

There were 153 starters in the tournament and I was seated in seat 8 of table 13, located near the front of the room. The other players at the table all seemed pretty nervous and I am sure that for almost all of them, this was their first big live event.

With a 4K starting stack and 24 minute blind levels starting at 25/50, there was plenty of time to play good solid poker, especially with the Dusk Till Dawn dealers who were very proficient at quickly shuffling up and dealing. It was immediately obvious that the standard of poker was very poor. In the very first hand the UTG player limpcalled and c/f the flop and it very quickly became clear which players could be exploited at the table. About 15 minutes in the first person was knocked out and received the humiliation of a cheering crowd as he made his way to the bar, but after that players were being knocked out left right and centre, especially it seemed at my table where a player was knocked out almost every single orbit. I was playing my usual very tight style and managing to steal a few blinds here and there, keeping my stack around the average size, and about and hour and a half in, I had about a 6K stack, however, the player to my left who was very loose aggressive had managed to accumulate a massive 18K stack and so I had to really tighten up my stealing range as I was pretty sure he was shoving a wide range on me if I raised the button.

As the antes started to kick in, the game started to change a lot, now that the blinds + antes were equivalent to about 1/5 of the average stack, it became very profitable to steal with a wide range and open shoves from late position were very common. About two and a half hours into the tournament I have only seen one flop where I raised AK over an UTG limper, he calls, and the flop comes AT7, I shove for about the size of the pot and after thinking for a couple of minutes he mucks. A couple of blind + ante steals had kept me with a just below average stack but I was running really card dead and only had around 10 big blinds left.

The first break was (I think) around 4.30pm and I met up with the others for a quick drink and to see how they were getting on. It seemed that only myself, Nick and John were left in the tournament as Mav and Sean had both busted with QT. We had quick bite to eat and then returned to the tables.

With so many players being knocked out at my table (3 in one hand at one point), there was a huge turnover of people and so it was difficult to get a good read on any of them. About half an hour after the break, there were about 80 players left and they were dropping fast. The antes + blinds were now about 1/2 the size of my modest 5K stack and I was looking for a point to get it AI. Up to now I had only shown 2 hands and they were both KK and so I was getting a lot of respect when I made an occasional raise. The player two seats to my right was also shortstacked and appeared to randomly shove at some point every orbit seemingly regardless of his cards, so I would have been quite happy to get it AI vs him with any A or PP, and even though he went on to win the tournament, I really don't rate him as a very good poker player. The player directly to my right was the same player who had left our table several hours before with an 18K stack to return with a 3K stack and some story about 'some idiot calling him down with bottom pair' so he was also fairly shortstacked but seemed to now be playing a very tight game.

With about 50 players left, Nick busts out and its just me and John left. About 15 minutes later I get A8 in the SB and its folded to the BTN who limps. I decide its time and shove my 5BBs into the pot and am called by the BTN with 99, the flop comes down.... blank..... A..... 9! Turn is another A, but I don't manage to spike any of my 4 outs on the river. Somehow I cover the BTN and am left with 1.5BBs and by some miracle get dealt AQo on the button. The CO (the player who had 99 the previous hand) open shoves and I call but end up trying to spike and A vs KK. So after 4 and a half hours I busted in 41st place.

I got another drink at the bar and cooled off for a while before getting on the waiting list for one of the 50p/£1 cash games going. About 10 minutes later I was called up to my table and ended up sitting opposite Nick. I bought in for £50 with the intention of not re-buying if I got stacked as I was playing a bit above my bankroll. Some of the players at the table were truly awful, with the player to my left randomly open shoving £25 preflop with hands such as T7o whenever he felt like it and a player 3 seats to my right who's standard line every hand would be to limpcall preflop, call down to the river and then check raise AI. I played very tight, and managed to grind out about £10 by flopping a J with JK and stealing a few blinds. The only interesting hand I played was against Nick, I was UTG+1, the UTG raised and I decide to flat call because he was a very tight player and I think his UTG range is probably ahead of me here. There are several callers including Nick and the flop comes AT5 giving me a set. The UTG player checks and I bet £20 into a £25 pot. Nick tanks for ages and finally folds AJ, and the UTG player mucks KK. An interesting spot and I have to give Nick a lot of credit for folding AJ to my single flop bet, he made a great laydown. I only played a couple more hands, and finally left the table with £46.

John ended up making the money and eventually busted in 18th (congrats to him for cashing) and we decided that it was a good time to make the trip back up to uni.

All in all, Notingham was amazing experience. The Dusk Till Dawn poker club is truly magnificent and the entire day was such fun. Looking back over my actions, I don't think there is a single hand I would have played differently and I am very happy to have made it that deep in the tournament.