So close, yet…
Last night I played poker for the first time since my effort at the WSOP event at the beginning of May. I played in the $200+25 no-limit event at Canterbury and finished 16th out of 137 entries. Unfortunately only the top 9 were paid so it’s sort of like finishing 137th but with five hours of additional work.
The night started out pretty well as I got A
A
on the third hand of the tournament, led in with a 4x BB raise from mid position but saw it get folded around for a whopping take of T75. That sucks.
I feel I played pretty well but got crippled on one bad call that I have blocked out of my memory and then spent the rest of the night shorthanded. I ended up going all-in 14 times over the course of the tournament, one time chopping when a flush hit the board, one time the bad call I already mentioned that I lost, one time the hand that knocked me out and every other one a winner - including three times when I was behind pre-flop but caught up by the river. The best of these was my 6
6 getting called by KK
and me flopping the set. That pot helped get me the bankroll needed to get to the final two tables.
As happy as I am with a decent finish it ended really stupidly. Really badly. Terrible. Blinds were T3,000/T6,000 and I had about T15,000. I had stolen the blinds the previous two rounds with AT and saw it folded around to me in the SB with Q8. The BB had a fairly small stack but easily had me covered. I had just looked at the other table and noticed four other small stacks about my size. I knew that even if I went all-in I was probably going to get called with any two cards. Yet I still pushed in, rather than give myself another half dozen hands to at least catch ace-rag. Her A5 held up and I got busted out close to the bubble.
That’s me, bubble boy. Still, not bad and I learned some things I can improve on for next time.
