Weekly catchup

Crikey I'm tired. A couple of consecutive late nights and I'm as much use as a chocolate teapot. I do like being in the dopey zone though, I think it's my natural state. Work has been a real pressure cooker lately, but it's good stuff, we have to get some new software upgrades in by the end of September so it's a tight deadline but the benefits are huge. It has meant that I've been reduced to just a couple of nights of poker a week though, so stuff to talk about was a little thin on the ground until Wednesday, when I had the pleasure of finishing 4th out of some 1600 in the $3 rebuy event on Stars. To be honest with you I was gifted a ride to the final table when 3 tables out I was deat AA on the button. UTG raised 4x the BB, MP pushed, I pushed over the top and UTG called. They both had AK and after busting them I had over $1.5M in chips. At the final table things went very well until we got to 5 players. Me and another guy had more than $3.5M each, everyone else had less than $1M. Unfortunately we each doubled up one of the shorter stacks and in a couple of throws of the dice it became a very even game again. I lost an arm and a leg of my chips when one shorter stack pushed a flush draw against my paired ace on the flop, the flush turned and I became on of the shorter stacks. Shortly after that I paired the flop again and pushed into the big stack, he called with two overs and a gutshot - I turned two pair but he rivered the gutshot straight to bust me in 4th for a $1100 score. I think I played really well, though I'm still looking at the final table hands and trying not to be result-oriented.

The added bonus from this score is that I now have ample bankroll to support $100NL games again, which is nice after grinding at $50NL for the last 10 weeks or so. I played the same tourney last night and finished ITM again, it all came down to a turning point hand that was going to bust me or send me to the final table again. UTG+1 raised 4x the BB, loose big stack (200k) in MP called, I looked down at QQ on the button and pushed, I had 70k in chips and there was already 25k in the pot, which I was happy to take there or let the cards fall if anyone called. To my surprise the BB called allin, the original raiser called allin and the big stack also called. I was up against AQ, AK and the big stack who had JJ. The Jack of Clubs flopped first and it was all over. I don’t know how anyone can think JJ is ahead there but it was a huge pot and the guy had a hard time laying down any pretty cards.

Nowadays, even at moments like that I love this game.