Jon Kalmar says...

Jon skalie Kalmar at the Cardiff GUKPT

Monday 14 Sep 2009

Saturday

Adam called me to meet for breakfast. Well lunch I suppose.

“Ooops, slept in. Quick shower, and I’ll be down”

The shower was fitted with a really handy seat, what I great idea I thought. I might get one fitted at home. These handicapped rooms have everything.

I met Adam and his better half for lunch. He had got through but unfortunately he was nursing a small stack of around 13k.

Plymlegend and potsteal had both made it to day two also and were in pretty good shape. New1Home had exited after a sick set up hand. He had pocket Kings on an A K Q flop against the 10 J of Iwan Jones. Iwan also holding a royal flush draw. Having not seen Drewster at the end I thought I should call him.

“Hi Andy, how did you finish up last night mate, did you get through.”

“No! You knocked me out didn’t ya!”

“Oops, I totally forgot. Sorry mate.”

He took this little faux pas with good spirits and wished me luck.

(Never used this phrase before, I like it and may use it again. Hope it’s spelt right.)

People quickly dropped out and I was far from chip lead now. Although I hadn’t increased my stack, my chip count was still way above the average.

I raised with K9 of diamonds and get 2 callers. I am delighted to see a flop of 8 7 5 all diamonds. I bet out and James Martin moves all in. I make the call. The pot is around 130k, a massive pot for this stage and I would be cruising if I could win this. He flips over pocket sevens and when a seven arrived on the turn, I was needing the 6 of diamonds to beat his quads. It never materialised and I was down to less than 20k. Gutted!

I find AJ of clubs and raise. The big blind pushes. With 14k left I have enough to pass but I wanna go home. I call and he turns pocket 10’s. The board comes A 9 7 A J. With the blinds it was nearly a 40k pot, I was back in with a shout.

Potsteal (Aka Jonathan Kemsley, the Ladbrokes MTT Leaderboard qualifier) had been quietly going about his business slowly gathering chips. He raised 3 times the blinds to 3000, and the chap to my left re-raised to 12. After a dwell potsteal pushed all his chips in the middle and the decision was back on his opponent. He thought for an age and eventually called with his AQ of diamonds. potsteal was in great shape with AK and looked like he would win an 80k+ pot. However the all diamond flop was to all but knock him out. An outstanding performance and a player to watch for the future. I was surprised to hear this was one of his first major live events.

By 10.30pm we were down to the 9 finalists. This included 2 other Ladbrokes players in Andreas Hoivold, a fellow Ladbrokes pro and relative newcomer Craig Swatton (Aka Plymlegend).

Had potsteal not got so unlucky and indeed Richard Sinclair (aka daddymac) who also went deep, more the half the table could have been Ladbrokes regulars.

Sunday

After another long drive across the car park to the casino I was ready for the final. Although 7th in chip count the difference between us all was minimal and easily recovered.

I picked up a few hands early but got no action and was simply able to steal the blinds. Daniel Nutt had been knocked out and I was sitting on around 175k. James Martin limped in with the blinds 1500/3000. Big Karl Mahrenholz (bakesand) limped behind and I found A 10. I decided to try and steal and made it 13k to go. James made the call and after a dwell Karl raised to 50k. This stunk of a squeeze, I didn’t have him on anything too strong, not after limping behind James. I thought most likely a middle pair so I decide to push. He can only really call with aces or kings. Unfortunately he had kings and made the call after James passed. Luckily for me an Ace came to the rescue and I was fortunate to now be sat on a chip lead.

After making the move I decided to make the most of my kamikaze image and proceeded to raise every pot. It worked and no-one seemed to want to get involved. On my big blind with the blinds still 1500/3000 James raises to 9000 from the button. I look down and see pocket kings. I know he won’t respect a re-raise and I hope he will push back. I quickly make it 21k and after a dwell he falls for it pushing all in for 90k with A5. I make the call and when my hand holds up I have over 500k, nearly half the chips in play. At this point I really thought it was to be my day.

Papa fell to Iwan Jones and Tristan to Andreas we were now five handed and I still had a healthy lead. We were to play five handed for the next 4 hours. Every time the short stack was all in, he would survive.

The sickest of these was plymlegend getting outdrawn from Iwan Jones. Both all in pre-flop, plym (Craig Swatton) has 88 and Iwan 66 the board comes 8 7 5 9 Q. And Iwan doubles up.

I called a raise in the big blind from Iwan with 10 7 of diamonds. When the flop can K J 6 with 2 diamonds I check raise him all in. He makes a brave call with a queen and that’s enough.

I call Karl’s all in with AJ, he turns K9 and spikes a king. Iwan passed a king.

I raise Andreas’ big blind with A9 spades he pushes with A7 and I make the call. The 7 comes to his rescue.

I do get lucky pushing with K10 of hearts from the button when short stacked, getting called off Andreas with A8 of hearts. I spike a king and double up. It was short lived though. The very next hand I pick up pocket 10’s and run into the pocket Jacks of Iwan and become the fifth place finisher.

Iwan continued to hit. Next knocking out Andreas with Q 10 to pocket eights, making a full house. Then A5 to poor Plym’s AQ, a sick 5 on the turn ending his tournament.

It was heads up with 2 evenly matched players in Karl and Iwan , however Iwan had a 3 to 1 chip lead. Though despite what most people think, cards dictate most finals. And after Karl doubled up all the chips went in pre-flop with AK vs Iwans AQ of spades. A cooler to be sure.

Karl kept his cool after the earlier beat he took off me and picked up a very deserved win.

I drove home feeling quite ambivalent. It was good to be in the mix again but nothing felt like it ran for me once I got the chips. However had Karl justly won with his pocket kings against me I’d have been home by now and considerably worse off. Then some news came on the radio that cheered me up.

Jordan had been knocked out while watching a cage fight. Sweet!