The Gutshot Challenge

Hyzepher

Well last weekend saw the return match between the Gutshot and the Fitzwilliam Card Clubs. This time it was held in London and the Fitz were travelling with the intention of retaining the cup. Joe ‘It’s not right’ O’Neill declared himself team captain and we all duly followed the sound of his unmistakable din.

Although unremarkable on its own, the meeting up at the airport on Friday morning had the baggage of the previous night’s €250 game and there were many a red-eyed, sleep depraved traveller looking for a quite spot.

As expected someone came prepared and Dev had his KEM’s and chips in toe. The aircraft hadn’t made the runway by the time a ‘friendly’ card game had broken out mid-aisle. A combination of trays, laps and armrests doubled as tables as shorthanded games followed each other across the Irish sea, into Heathrow, onto the bus and into the lobby of the hotel. We hadn’t even made the Gutshot club and we were moving money around.

Once we eventually checked in, it was off to the Gutshot for some hot cash action and maybe entry into the £100 rebuy tournament. Well I say maybe but I really mean definitely. The Gutshot club is over two floors and has nothing but poker tables, a bar, some sofas and a internet café – no table games like roulette or blackjack to distract us. All in all the club is really cool, lots of staff and great facilities – but an expensive rake (5%).

The Fitz crowd were about 25/30 strong and had come via plane/boat/car/parachute or any other means of transport to get involved in the challenge.

Most of us decided to enter the £100 tournament – others decided alcohol was a better pastime. Myself, Dev and my mate Gavin decided that one rebuy was more than enough to spend – sterling makes you think twice about the entry fee. 96 players started the tournament giving a 1st prize of £7k – paying down to 10th.

I was doing ok and had survived to the break without going broke. Decided to top-up and had about 6k from a starting stack of 2k. Some players had already topped up 5 or 6 times – rich bastards! Then I got moved and my AK didn’t hold up[ against AQ – who decided to call my re-raise twice!

Anyway – on to the cash games to try and recoup some of my losses. Started to play a dealer’s choice game of Hold’em/Omaha/7 card stud/Irish. Irish is like Hold’em except you get three cards and discard one before the turn card – madness.

Saturday saw the Gutshot challenge and a great atmosphere was building up. The Gutshot sensed that they had a good shot of taking the cup. My game at this stage wasn’t getting any breaks – I seem to suffer hands especially if I had the best of it. Anyway I knew my day was jinxed when after a raise on the first hand I laid down 44 only for the board to show A44 and two all-ins.

I was up and down until I got done with top pair against a runner-runner straight. However, the challenge was great craic and each Gutshot player got eliminated to the sound of ‘Another one bites the dust’ from the Fitzwilliam crowd. The Gutshot had such a bad showing that with 20 players left there were only 6 of them – the way the scoring went they would need to finish 1st to 6th to have any chance of winning. Needless to say they failed and we took home the trophy. Gavin eventually took the honours in first place and we celebrated with a great steak dinner. By the way – while he was handing a whipping to the rest of the Gutshot guys, I successfully won an online tournie on VC – so my weekend wasn’t entirely a waste.

Saturday night saw a lot of cash action with some famous faces taking part as they crashed out of the main £500 tournament.

On the whole the trip was a brilliant experience and I am longing for the return match in the spring.


Hyzepher

DeVore

Aye, was a great weekend. I blew out of the 100 game when I walked into top two pair with a bluff. Ah well!

Joe O'Neill was made captain after Neil couldnt go.

Watchin' Hyzepher play an online tournie at the Gutshot after the day we'd had of poker just seemed overkill (he got jammy at the last table being dealt QQ and other premium hands short-handed too )

Flu muddled my brain and I made a good bit of money at the cash games only to blow about 300 sterling of it later


DeV.