I was so nervous entering this for several reasons . . .1. My record in female only events is abysmal!
2. The standard was much higher than originally expected, attracting more pros than ever before.
3. $3k is a large buy in for me, regardless of selling %s, and didn't want to let down stakers.
4. It was a fully televised event . . . therefore making any poor performance for any of the above reasons a million times worse!
I was in heat 6, the last heat. It appeared to be one of the tougher ones with last years winner and runner up both figuring. Smurph had unfortunately had no luck in her heat but her words of advice were certainly a help to me. She'd advised me to keep a count of the hands so I knew when the next blind level was due, and right enough this helped a great deal when making my decisions. (Thanks Smurph!)My tactics were basically to waste no chips at all, and pick my spots to literally go with a hand in the hope I don't run into a monster. I got a stack together earlyish on when I was fortunate to pick up AA and have TT ship after my raise, obviously an easy call and my AA stood up. From this point onward I stayed above starting stack.
When 3 handed I seem to stay out of the way more than anything bar one hand when all in against Soraya Homam (last year's winner) holding QQ vs her AK. She hit her K but I rivered a T giving me a straight . . . phew!
I then got HU with Soraya without playing another hand. She had a very decent chiplead at the time but it wasn't long before things started turning. There were 2 massive hands for me HU, 88 holding against her AK, then 22 holding against her A3 for the game.
I was so shocked at winning that heat, really didn't expect to, and I'm sure the look on my face would have spelled it out very clearly. I was reliably informed by the others in the Green Room that Rob had several near heart-attacks whilst watching the live feed and they were apparently on the brink of calling an abulance at one point when he was on the floor with his head in his hands not able to watch the screen! Meh, men, typical! My heat is on Channel 5 on 30th September, but I am supposed to be getting a DVD sent, which I'm sure I'll manage to watch whilst cringing at every opportunity.
The final was the following afternoon, a lot of money at stake and the bar raised quite a bit more in terms of standard of players. As well as Rob watching from the green room I know a lot were following on boards and getting regular text updates from Rob . . . thanks to everyone for their support.
The main problem with the Matchroom posts was that they never detailed everyone's position when detailing what they were dealt. This meant that people only able to follow online updates weren't necessarily getting the full picture.
One hand in particular which generated a lot of opinion was me open folding 66 when still 7 handed. The 66 hand was sick alright, Jen was short, she was UTG, and whilst I'm fully aware of how capable of making moves she is, I knew that raise was never a move. I was playing about 65k at the time, Jen makes it 10k to go. Calling is not an option to me, we're playing 6 handed, I'm on the button but the BB (Kim) had been extremely active, she was also quite short and I would certainly have preferred to have not had her to act behind me. So I had a decision to make, do I ship it and take my chances knowing I'm racing at best or do I fold and wait for a better spot? Well rightly or wrongly I decided to wait. As predicted Kim called and unfortunately we got to see a flop. Sure didn't I know at that point that the 6 would have to hit, ouch!
Nothing really went right for me after that. Perhaps I was too aggressive with hands or maybe not even aggressive enough, but my strategy going in was to play relatively tentative early on and play as aggressive as I felt I would be able to get away when the blinds started to go up. I did start to get busy, forced into raising light when the opportunity arose but raises got snapped off more than they got through. I was pretty card dead, which was sick given the structure and when my late position shoves with 62 and K2 were called I knew that people's calling range was widening! That said I couldn't let QT pass when on the button next time around and it's folded round to me. Kim calls with A4, happy enough with that, at least I was live and I needed a double up to survive the structure. So I hit the T on the flop, nice one, although I wasn't prepared to feel any relief just yet, I was half expecting to see an A soon enough. Well my gut was right in that the T wouldn't be enough, but not for the A hitting, for the runner runner gutshot straight with the 4! Even though I got it in behind, that was a sick river for me alright.
So the dream was over, well for this time around anyway, close but not close enough in my own opinion. I gained the experience, (I think) I gave a good account of myself and held my own in a well respected international field. A huge positive I took out of it was winning my heat and beating the reigning champ HU even though I was fairly out-chipped when we got heads up! Soraya Homan has a great record in this event, I've been reliably informed that she has never finished out of the top 2 in any of her heats. I would recommend playing these to anyone that gets the opportunity, great experience and there is value there. The one downside is the crappy structure, especially for a $3k buy-in. I guess there's always next year . . . well maybe!
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