"Do you speak English?"

Dream Team Final

So the dream team final was held in Birmingham on Saturday and Sunday with a big starting stack and loads of play. We had a team of 5 players who had played enough tournaments to qualify for the final and we started with 13000 chips, blinds at 25/50 and a 45 minute clock.

Teams played for points, with the winning team being the team which had the highest number of points from their top 4 finishers.

Unfortunately nobody told Andy who must have assumed that going out 1st in 110th place would give our team a huge advantage!

Anyway, at least he won a free monkey (pictured above) - Andy is the one in the white t-shirt!

As for the poker, it started off really well.

I started off winning a few small pots and quickly got up to 15000 chips before losing a few reraising a serial raiser (who had shown down k9 etc) with AQ only for him to reraise again before showing AA after I had folded.

By the time the blinds were at 150/300 I was sitting on 7500 chips and so when I raised with AK and was reraise I took the race against QQ and hit an ace on the flop.

Shortly after there was a string raise from early position which was classed as a call so I took the opportunity to see a cheap flop against someone who could easily get attached to his good starting cards. The flop came down T 9 4 and the player who had wanted to raise bet 1300 into the 1050 pot and when I questioned him I decided to set him all in with my Q9 which he called showing AK and my pair of nines held.

The next pot was my the biggest of the tournament.

A girl on my right raised to 1000 which I flat called with two tens looking to use position to my advantage.

Everyone else got out of the way and we saw a real action flop of Ac Td 5d. The raiser lead out for 1500 which was great news as she clearly had an ace so I raised to 6000 to which she responded by pushing with her AdKd giving her top pair and the flush draw against my set if tens. The turn and river were both black and I was not sitting on 35000 chips.

I did make a couple of bad reads in the tournament, one in which I held AK and was reraised by the tightest player at the table. I should have just folded there and then but decided to see what came on the flop.

The flop came Q high, I checked and he bet his remaining 5000 into the 5000 pot and after asking him if he had AK he looked like he subconsciously nodded so I called be he actually had KK and I didn't outdraw him.

For a large part of the tournament I was sat on the right of Nicklas 'ymermeddrys' Hindsberg who's style I like, especially the bit where he raised blind in seat 4 and then when he was reraised look to find that he had QQ which held against JJ.

Anyway, we had a fair few battles throughout the day which I really enjoyed. One of those came after I had had a fair few hands and had raised about 8 times in 20 hands. On this occaision I raised to 1200 with QQ and he reraised to 3000.

After another player had a good think about calling I dediced to flat call and see what came on the flop since there was a fair chance that the guy who tanked could have had one of his aces.

Also, we both had 25000 behind and I felt that was too much to push and I didn't want to play a huge pot for a race if he had AK.

Anyway the flop came down K high, I checked and he bet out 5000 I folded and he showed AK.

Eventually the table was broken and I moved to the right of a guy called Terry from Liverpool who was telling me that the rest of his team was out and so he didn't want to sit around for another day and a half to try to win the tournament so he was going to go all in all the time.

He didn't actually do this but he did call a raise and reraise with AT.

Anyway, I was in the small blind of 800/1600 100 ante when the UTG , who had lost most of his chips 2 hands before went all in for 3500 before he even got his second card. I then decided that if it was folded round to me I was going to push my remaining 17000 in with the intention of going heads up against a random hand regardless of my cards.

As it turned out I had A2, but the plan went badly wrong when Terry called and turned over AK with the UTG having A7.

The flop came down a hopeful QJQ giving the possibility of a split pot, the turn was a 7 and the river was a lovely J.

A couple of hands later there was a raise in early position and I looked down to see AQ. At this point I knew that there was a fair chance that Terry could reraise a huge range of hands so I flat called with the intention of calling a shove if the original raiser folded. However Terry just called and we saw a flop of A 4 7. The original raise checked and I decided that I was almost always ahead here but that if I checked Terry would almosty certainly bet.

As I hoped he then went all in for 30000 into the pot of 10000, the raiser folded and I snap called with AQ to see his 34 well behind. The turn was a ten and the river was a pretty horrible 3 giving him 2 pairs and sending me out just before the end off the day.

So that was the end of the Dream Team.

I lasted longest of our team after Darren had gone out with JJ against TT amd AK but I really enjoyed the event and will definitely be getting a team together for the next one, although I will be looking to make sure that there is more committment from the other team members as there was only 5 of us that played enough tournaments to qualify. Why people say that they are going to play and then don't is a mystery to me, but thanks to the lads that did take part, Andy, Chris, Tim and Darren.

The highlight of the day though was when I overheard Neil Banks asking a member of one of the danish teams where he was from. When he duly answered Neil then went on to ask him if he spoke English, to howls of laughter from the rest of his table and then a few moments of head scratching whilst Neil tried to work out what he had said!

I'm off for a week now and playing the side event at the Circus tomorrow so hopefully better luck will come there.