Ariston - Irish Christmas festival review

The Betfair sponsored Cork Christmas festival is one of my favourite tournaments of the year and although I missed last year’s Christmas one, I had a record of 4 cashes out of 4 in the festivals I have played there. It’s probably the only casino in the world I can win in (before someone else says it) and I missed the big final in London to play this one instead.

Ok, I will admit I got very lucky with my starting table, with a 75 minute clock I was always going to play a lot of pots early on and take advantage of anyone who was just happy to be there. Quite a few of my table had won seats in live satellites and you could see they were worried about being out early or first out (something that’s never bothered me as I have proved in the last 18 months). The table was very passive and it suited my game down to the ground and I played small ball for the first few levels. There were quite a few interesting pots but by the end of level 2, I knew which players I could speech play and which I couldn’t and this allowed me to have fun and accumulate chips. I talked one guy into calling a river over-bet with a bit of chat and it seemed whenever I had the hand I could talk them into calling and if I didn’t have it I could talk them into folding - a very nice situation to be in. I quickly spun my chips up to the chip lead of 60-70k. I then played maybe a few too many pots and bounced a little between 50 and 70 a few times but going into the last level of the day I had 85k. Do I sit on my chip lead or do I go for the magical 100k at the end of day 1? Obviously I never sit on a stack which left me ending day 1 on 72k. There were two very good hands on day 1 with different outcomes that I would like to share with you.

Hand 1

Level 3, blinds 100/200 and UTG makes it 500 to go, seat 2 calls and I call behind with AT off. Button calls as do both blinds making the pot 3500. The flop comes JcQc2s and the original raiser checks with seat 2 betting 700. Now I’m out of position here but he has a stack and I just can’t resist the implied odds here (add to that I have hit a few turns when they have allowed me too and then paid me off). The button calls as does one of the blinds. Turn card came 5h and all 4 of us checked. Now on the river I didn’t look at the board I just looked at the man to my right to try and get a read as I was going to try to steal this pot. The river card came and he fired out 3k. Ok that’s me done in the hand apart from the fact the river is a lovely red king (yeah yeah… luckbox, haddock etc). I pump it another 5k and the others fold. He now says I’m not good enough to fold this and calls leaving himself about 4k left with 9cTc. Nice pot Russ- it’s nice to be golden for once.

Hand 2

The final level of the day with blinds of 200/400 and a running 25 ante. UTG limps as does seat 2, sitting in seat 3 with AT again, I limp and three others join the party before the big blind makes it 5000 to go. Obviously this is a big hand but UTG and seat 2 call and I have 80k so what the hell, lets have a look (as does everyone else). The flop comes AcQhJh and the BB now bets 900? Seat 2 calls and I am now trying to put both of them on a hand. I have the BB on AA or KK or possibly AK but seat 2 is very useful and I didn’t know whether he was floating the flop or had hit big. As I had been a station all day I call and three of us see the turn which is the 3h. They both check to me and I have the bare ace hearts but instead of betting I decide to not bloat the pot and check behind. The river is a blank and the BB now bets 900 so I am now sure he has KK (a few things he did told me this apart from the strange betting pattern) and seat 2 goes into the tank before making it 4900. Here I made my only mistake of day 1 and gave him credit for a hand that beats mine when I should’ve known better. I thought for not long enough before mucking and left a nice little pot out there with not long left in the day. He flashed the Kh and said flush and at the time, I thought nice hand. In the car on the way back to the hotel I had a moment of clarity when I replayed the hand in my head and realised he had KQ off with the bare king. He confirmed this to me the day after.

Day 2 and I went in as chip leader and lost a third of my stack in the first hour when my KK failed to outdraw coco’s AQ. He was already the stack on the table everyone was looking at, as it was only a matter of time before he made a mistake and although I was the first to get him to make it, this can be a cruel game at times. I then had to grind and nick and steal every chip I could all day. On day 2 I didn’t have another pair bigger than 9s and never played a single big pot until the last hand of the night. All my chips had been won with suited connectors etc and betting missed flops with position. Everyone was in the money and we had to lose one more player to end the days torture (we had been playing for 11 ½ hours). I limp in the cut-off for the 89th time (behind other limpers) with 78 and the SB short stack makes it up. The flop comes down Q56 and he bets out 10k into a pot of 15k, the big blind folds as do the others and I take the turn. Same as day 1 I don’t watch the board I watch my man and he pushes allin for 15k so I ask him if the turn was a 4 or a 9, he says neither its an 8. This now makes things trickier. The pot now stands at 50k so I am getting more than 3-1 if I call. I know he has the Queen as he hadn’t stepped out of line but if all my outs were live and I could win with 2 pair then I had 15 outs. The reason I called though was because I had 90k and to be honest the difference between 90k and 75 is very little to me but if I won the pot I would be up to 140k and be able to get some kip. I called and hit the 9 on the river and that was day 2 done with.

Final day with 20 left and I was above average with 140k but nowhere near the chip lead. I immediately had to lay down a couple of pots to re-raises before getting stuck in and quickly getting up to 200k. With 12 players left I had to fold the nut flush draw with a pair on the turn when my opponent sent me all-in with his set. Even though it would’ve given me the chip lead if I called and hit I folded and was left with a little over 100k. I rocked up and made the final table as the short stack. The first orbit on the final table and we lost 3 of the big stacks. A couple of cold decks and dubious plays and the big stacks wanted to bump heads suiting me and my other 2 fellow short stacks! We kept looking at each other with every exit as if to say, oh well that’s another grand guaranteed. I finally got stuck in and built my stack a bit before the sick pot to give me a chance of the win. The now shortest stack pushed all-in for the 3rd time in one orbit and I look down at JJ. He is the only man at the table I have covered but if I knock him out I move to a very playable stack. I push all-in and it’s on your backs time. He flips over 56off and the flop came a too good KQ7 rainbow. Someone on the rail muttered he’s drawing dead and I knew when the turn came a 3 what the river was going to be as I’ve had a couple of years of this. I didn’t see the river as I was already on my way out of the card room muttering to myself. I heard the groan and calmed myself down before sitting back down to my massive 21k stack. The one thing I was happy about was that Stephan and David from Betfair were there to see if for once as I’m sure they read my articles and think I’ve just donked off my stack most of the time lol. It was strange but I was thinking at least they’ve seen it for once and it kind of helped calm me down. I trebled up and we lost another player then we negotiated a deal. I was more than happy with the €8250 I was now guaranteed as we were still playing for another 10k. I got my stack up to a high of 240k before finally losing a 3way all-in preflop with QQ v A9 v 67 . The final board was A359A. The guy who had dominated day 3 was the guy who played the KQ against me on day 1 and he was a very worthy winner, well played Big Al.

The festival at Cork is a must for any poker player as not only is it a very good action venue for cash games, it’s also a very friendly crowd and Ken and his staff really know how to look after people. There was a nice moment on the final table when seat 10 raised and I was in seat 1 trying to make a decision so I asked the dealer (one of the best looking dealers you will ever see) if she could lean back so I could try and pick up a read. I jokingly said I couldn’t see him well enough as she was too big and getting in my way (she was probably 7 stone at most). She glanced down at my non-existent six-pack as if to say kettle and pot mate, every player on the table as well as the announcer spotted this and immediately pointed how much the dealer had managed to put me down with just one little look. As Betfair sponsored this event and ran the satellites, three of us received a threedom pass for reaching the final table, which means we all play the next 3 years events for free! This bumps up all our prize money by at least another €3240 worth of free entries but with the chance the buy-in may rise it could easily be worth and extra 5k or so. I am intending playing most of the UK circuit next year in these types of events as they are certainly beatable. The passport stamps can also be used for most of these types of events so I’m going to be playing plenty of passport stamp sats this year.

Good luck at the tables and hope you all have a good Christmas.
Ariston