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My Sky Poker Journey - Probably a bit of a yawnfest...
I started playing poker back in 2007. I'd watched Late Night Poker a bit on channel 4, and figured that as numbers is my thing, and the ability to remember what has gone on, I'd be half decent at the game.I'm not exactly sure why I started on Sky Poker. At the time I was joining a lot of sites to do a spot of matched betting, and Sky was one of them. I began on the "pretend money" tables. By their nature they're very loose, and I soon realised that to play the game properly I was going to have to stick some money in an account and play "for real".So aremd with a £50.00 deposit, off I went. As I'm sure most people do, I began on the lower entry fee tournaments, and found the game exciting and scary - probably in equal measure. In something like my 6th tournament, I won. It was a £50 guarantee scary that started at 8pm (£2.00ish entry). By10 past nine I'd come out victorious, and was delighted to be £56 better off. I was hooked. I told everyone about it. £50 pounds won for a £2 entry. The world was my oyster.I entered the open on the back of that win. In those days the field froze out every night at 600 entrants (it was a 9pm "kick-off"). I didn't cash, and the thought of losing so much money (£10) in one go was sobering. The first time I was all in, I had AQ, and found AK sitting waiting. The flop of QQQ was a help, and the beginning of my luck-box journey began.Way back then,Sky showed the poker each night on (I would say 865, but it wasn't back then) TV, the Open every night, apart from Tuesday's Velocity. I discovered the joy of hearing your name read out, even if it was only "and Eyeman gets out of the way with 3 9". My big break-through came the 3rd or 4th time I played the Open. I just played well all night, and got to the final table. I lost a hand to someone tripping Jacks, but was still alive. Eventually I was heads up with aceacebabe. We had roughly equal stacks, and the blinds were prohibitive. I shoved with A 8 (suited - well it's 1%), and she called with A 6 (off). The flop came with QQ, and it was practically a guaranteed chop, until she hit runner runner clubs to flush to the 6. She had about 50,000 chips more than me, so that was that. Out in 2nd, but £800 to the good. Magnificent, but OH SO frustrating! The guy doing the show on Sky (a chipmunk of a man with blonde hair - did some awful chat-blog thing with Orford in later years) commented "and Eyeman chucks his laptop out of the window". If I had one, I might have.On the channel, they asked for volunteers to be on the TV, sometimes on the phone playing as a "virtual" guest, they also had online regulars in the studio. I applied, and got the call to be on the phone for the show. That night they had "Youngster" and "THESWISS" in the studio, and another phone guest (some teacher from down south - PhilUK something - not sure whatever happened to him). If you got to the 1 hour break, you got a £25 bounty (and they paid my entry - happy days) - typically I got a decent hand last one before the break, and got outdrawn by A5 - well that's poker.As an aside here, I have always taken bad beats particularly well. A bad beat is you getting it in correctly, and being unlucky. You want the call, and most times you come out ahead, when you don't you chalk it up, and realise that tomorrow you'll be the one hitting the miracle cards.Shortly afterwards, I was heads-up in the Open again. Apothecary was my opponent, and again we were similar in chip stacks. The final hand was her 44 versus my Q 10. Following the fop I had the open-ender and flush draw. I had more outs than a gay-pride march, but didn't hit. This was easier to take - after all she went in ahead, and she was a regular. Everyone was thrilled for her - well almost everyone.Primo was a monthly event back then, a £55 entry tournament, but generally with nearly 600 runners and a prize pool guaranteed at £25,000 - first prize was around £7,000 - the stuff of dreams. Despite being something like £1500 ahead on Sky, I wasn't about to fork out £55 for a tournament. So after 2 satellites I was in for about £2.50. Mega-excitement was dashed when my AK was all in v AQ and AJ. The king on the river, was actually a killer card as the AQ hit the straight - I don't think I'd been so devastated since Micheal Thomas scored an injury time winner to rob Liverpool of the championship in 1989.The third time I was heads-up in the open, I was against THESWISS - yes, he of my TV appearance a couple of months earlier. He was also (and is) a Sky legend as he'd won the open no fewer than 4 times. Once more we had a roughly even chip-stack, and I shoved with KJ to find him sitting there with AJ. I was struck dumb. Was I destined never to wiin the bloody thing? When the king came on the flop, I was jubilant (but embarassed), and I'd taken down the Open against Sky's most successful tournament player. The fact that I'd been a luck-box to do it did tarnish the victory slightly, but only slightly - after all who would ever remember?Following my Open victory I got another phonecall from Sky. Would I like to come on the Saturday night invite? Do bears relieve themselves in forest areas was my rough response! The online players only had the one day to appear by this time, it was a Saturday night, and I turned up almost sick with a mixture of excitement and nerves. The presenters (Paul (ugh - what was his surname - Mussel or something) and Matt Broughton) were excellent and put me (and Ollie - the other online prole) at our ease. The first time they came to us, I managed to chew on, swallow and partially digest my tongue before I got a sentence out - nightmare. I thought it might well be the last time they talked to us, but as the evening went on, they chatted with us quite a lot (possibly more than usual) and I came up with a couple of jokes. I went out fairly early with 88 v AK (or was it the other way around?), but did well in the velocity for a while. I still have the DVDs of the evening that Sky kindly sent to me after my Sky Plus box went kaputt.I'm conscious that this is a bit of a dirge and drivel, so I'll leave it there for the moment. There's more to come, if anyone's interested.
Comments
I started playing poker back in 2007. I'd watched Late Night Poker a bit on channel 4, and figured that as numbers is my thing, and the ability to remember what has gone on, I'd be half decent at the game.I'm not exactly sure why I started on Sky Poker. At the time I was joining a lot of sites to do a spot of matched betting, and Sky was one of them.
nice story but very long
It is a peculiarity of this software, or at least for me, that when I type something into "WORD" first, (which is a FAR easier writing medium) then C & P it across to the Community, it messes with the paragraphs & line breaks. Maybe that happened here.
Great story there, Mr Eye, so many evocative memories, thank you.
The Presenter "Paul" you were trying to think of was Paul Mussell.
Apart from being a great story, it shows how difficult it is to read a long Post without paragraphs, the eyes positively bleed, so we've all learned something there, & fair play to Alan for paragraphing it.
Good story Mr P, & good to see you at the weekend.
Soon afterwards I woke up with AK. Before the action got to me there had been a raise, then a re-raise. I thought long and hard, but folded. They showed the hand on TV and Caspar berrated me for my nittiness - "in a tournament like this, and a blind structure like this, you can't wait for aces to come along". The other 2 hands were AQ and 99 - 9 on the flop. "The point remains", argued Caspar," that you shouldn't fold such hands." He was sounding slightly less convincing, and my decision looked preety good (AK IS NOT THE NUTS).
Once again we were on the cash bubble, and I was in a comfortable 2nd place and got aces. A player raised with a low stack, Bigshann re-raised, and I shoved. Theguv (the short stack) called, and so did shann (I had them both covered). Theguv showed 22, Bigshann QQ. The flop came with a 2, so theguv survived from small stack, and shann bubbled on a cold deck. Despite losing the hand, I actually won a significant number of chips and went to the final table chip-leader. Eventually I was heads-up with Theguv (just goes to show) and was pleased to see him shove into my made straight. First prize was mine - £1500 - my biggest win - less, of course the £375 I had to send to Jimbo31 - was I disappointed by this? Not a bit of it - he was absolutely thrilled, and so was I.
Very good effort. Any chance you can write one for me?
I won the Monday night Bounty Hunter for my 3rd Sky main event win (basically any of the big nightly events at 8pm) 10 10 v K 10 heads-up. And that month (April 2009) I discovered dyms, and defying variance won over £1000 in the first month. On the back of this and my BH win, I paid the entry into the SUKPT final in Nottingham.
You may notice that I have mad eno mention of "live" play at all - that's because I'd never played live in my life. Maybe Nottingham was a baptism of fire, as I din't last so long, and blew a sizable number of chips away by not realising you can chuck a 500 chip in and say "raise to 200".
There then followed a considerable downswing. Well, you can't win every month, or, it seems, every 6 months. I foolishly put it down to paying the high Nottingham entry - something I'd always tried to satellite for until then. In truth it was too much play, too much poor play, and a little bit of variance. It comes to us all...
Wouldn,t mind a nice run like yours myself tho
When will you get to your SPT Luton 2011 exit hand?
b) you just reminded me of this! you folded your way up the ladder while i went for the win with my 99 and promptly donked out...
nice posts eyeplop more pls. I wonder how long i will keep hold of your jumper btw... its nice but it dont fit lol
Really cracking read, you need a blog!
MIRROR what Mike says, genuine good guy!
Was awesome to chop that Friday night in Newcastle, SPT glory awaits!
TKP FTW
Firstly I'm happy playing the Open and TSP a couple of nights a week or so. At the beginning of the year, I was aiming at a win and a couple of final tables, and that's happened already. I really enjoy the Sky live games, but probably haven't got the game for them yet. I'd love to get to Vegas (ironically the twice I've been in "finals" I bombed, only to finish top 4 in the open on the same day) with Sky.
Being honest, if I never won another big tournament, I couldn't complain - I'm really not such a great player, but have managed to sneak under the radar a few times.
If I had to give 2 pieces of advice for any poker player (like I'm in the position to be offering advice), it'd be...
1. Always play your opponents. Take note of what they do, who the fish are etc.
2. Never play a tournament you can't afford to lose - I've played badly myself in tournaments (the £220 deepie being an obvious example) because I haven't been prepared to commit my chips in case I lose. You can't play poker like that.