Originally posted on www.pipes06.com/blog.

Live poker. Well what can I say. There is definitely still money left in the game yet.

My trip to the UKIPT Edinburgh started very casually with an hour long flight, 10 minute bus ride and a 5 minute walk to my hotel, the George. The room was very nice and within walking distance of the castle and some of the fringe festival shows. The bus ride to the corn exchange is about 20 minutes and stars have laid on a shuttle a couple of times a day. The plan is to play a couple of the side events on my own dime, with the main event being played for my BAP.

I met up with Niall/Firaldo87 on Thursday afternoon while Day 1a was going on. We decided to jump into one of the early sides. The first event was a 100 freeze out with 5k starting stacks at 25/50. Within an hour I’d managed to bust and Niall wasn’t too far behind. We got in a couple of beers and played one of the 50 turbos that they were running. Fast forward another 45 minutes and I was out again, lol live poker. Niall had built up a pretty decent stack so I left him to it (he promptly won it!) and went back to my hotel to get ready for the main event in the morning.
Stars had laid on shuttle buses to and from the venue so in the morning my plan was to get down early, have a decent breakfast and arrive well prepared for the Main Event. In true poker player style, I overslept, quickly grabbed a shower and jumped on the shuttle. A few guys from blackbelt poker were on the bus, although still being half asleep I didn’t involve myself in much of the conversations.

Once at the venue I made sure to get some food and drink as we were going to be playing 9 levels of poker. With the additional breaks this equated to a 11 hour day of poker. Myself and Niall were sat on table right next to each other and Kapow and IamtheDisco were also playing day 1b as well. I started off by losing AQ<AK on AAT3J on a rainbow board when we were 5 handed, I still can’t work out whether the guy was good or bad. After the early set back I began to chip up well as my table went from 4 too 7 handed.

The table consisted early on with a few guys that could pose some trouble, but I coolered the guy to my left twice. Once with AT < KK on TxT in a 3bet pot, then with 22>AA where I flop a set and turned a boat on Qx2Q. He played decently so I was glad to have taken some of his chips. By the 3rd level of 75/150 Niall had chipped up to over 40k from a starting stack of 15,000. I had around 24k at this point but my table was getting better and better. By the time 100/200 started I had one good and competent player 2 to my right and everyone else was straight forward lol live players. Fast forward an hour later Niall had gone from 50-12-43k and I’d managed to chip away to hit the 50k mark. Pokerstars bloggers had been paying a fair amount of attention to my table and I got a few mentions on the blog throughout the day.

Later, we found out that the average for day 2 would have been somewhere in the region of 50,000. This meant we could have gone to the pub with 3 hours left in the day and been able to start day 2 with a comfortable stack! Live poker is funny. At around 7 we went on dinner break where I was told my table was going to break soon. Not the best news to hear when you are comfortably running over a table. We played an orbit or so after dinner when I got moved to a table with at least 5 competent players, sigh.

After an orbit or so I have somehow got the most ridiculous image, after 3betting or opening over half the hands I’d seen. We’re at 3/600 75antes and I look down at TT from late position. A german player opens for 2.3 or so and I 3bet him. He thinks briefly for a while before making a smallish 4bet. My choices now are shove/fold and given the crazy image I’d garnered in the first few hands, I announce all in. Before the words had finished leaving my lips I’d been called by QQ. Damn. Oh well. T on the flop one time? Door card is a queen and I’m out.

Saturday rolled around and we had the day off poker, so drinks were on the cards. I met Niall down the pub at 5pm to watch the footy and get some drinks in. Aside from having to watch Chelsea make a mockery of their opponents things were going well. We decided to have a jaeger bomb at 6 or so as we’d begun to lag a little and we needed to be refreshed and ready for the Pokerstars party later that evening.

We ventured down the stars party about 2 hours late, partly due to me taking forever getting across the city, partly due to general poker player laziness. The party was billed as ‘free’ drinks all night, however it didn’t quite pan out how we’d envisioned when given a singular voucher covering 2 drinks. We managed to get quite a few feebies throughout the night but still not quite what we’d been told.

The night was awash with various poker players that I’d never heard of, along with a smattering of minor celebrities. At one point deanosupremo decided he was thirsty enough to order 100 jaeger bombs, he didn’t get through them all but had plenty of willing helpers. EPT winner Liv Boeree was in attendance and is a lot nicer than I expected her to be. It was decided that we should play a little role reversal and see how Liv would take our childish humour. I went over briefly said hello and asked if she would mind getting a picture for a few of us. Being the polite brit she is, she obliged. However as she began wander over for the picture I gave her the camera and said ‘top button on the right’ She took things in good humour and stayed to chat just long enough for Firaldo to try it on (he failed). We also met the comedian, Hardeep Singh Kohli who thought it would be fun to lick my face. All in all a solid night out.

Sunday saw the final table and a small dilemma. There was a 6max side event that would have a weak field but also its lol Sunday so we wanted to do what every poker player does on a Sunday and grind. After some umming and erring we opted for the 6max event. 8 minutes after I late registered and I was out. My total playing time in 3 side events was around 2 hours when I’d lasted 8 in the main event. I went over to see Niall and he was sat next to Aunt Hilda from Sabrina the teenage witch, he had obviously had a better table draw than myself (I had 3 online players at a 5 handed table). I opted to play a Sunday tournament schedule in the hotel lobby and managed to lose more money on the trip. I left Firaldo in the early hours of Monday morning grinding away in the Sunday 500.

Monday meant my time in Scotland had come to an end. I spent the day wandering around the city, checking out free shows at various points and generally killing time. The flight back was a little bumpy but on the whole another easy experience. On the flight back I was thinking about the comparisons between live and online poker. There are some vast differences and it is something I’ll probably put a post together on soon.

Since being back things have been ridiculously busy between playing, coaching and keeping some semblance of a social life.

I’ll be trying to put in very solid volume for the rest of the month, but I will also attempt to keep updating here.