Well after a few days reflection after dusk till dawn I am pretty happy with my play. I sure learned a lot. 11 hours has to be my longest session of live poker, and it did take its toll! Out in 30th by my own mistake which I hate but good run out 157 i guess
So thought I"d post a few hands. So sitting down I recognised a few faces. I decided pre tourney small ball was key. That didn"t last long, first hand in button raise with 4 5 suited into kings in the blind with me firing bet on flop and turn with nowt. Time to get back to plan well maybe. I decided to start playing solid and raising in position, Which I did and managed to take down pots with not much action, so clawed back the chips I lost. The look of the table seemed to be that, blinds would be getting raised lots, i decided to defend when I could and try to take pots away when if flopped any part of it on a dry board. I managed to do this quite successfully getting myself up to 12000 ships in first level with no big hands.
Nothing to exciting happened in early stages pockets king seemed to be flooting around a lot seemed to be pretty standard play by the most part. Key hand came i had King queen hearts I decided to raise 3x to 600 chips, button, small and big blind call flop comes qh
:
:. top pair good kicker, it goes check check to me I lead out for 1200 half the pot, fold and small blind, Kevin Smith raises all-in for say 4500, he didn't get off to best start. I gets back to me not worried about button, im think pair and big draw, set
or bluff??? "im making a Mike Matasow lay down." lol .I decide to fold and he says I had pocket
. Im not sure if I believe. But I did feel a bit tilty lol.
So few hands pass with not much happening next hand im in first position with jh jd. I make standard to 600 folds to small blind who reraises to 1800, Iain Overtoun nice guy made final table. I decide he thinks I'm tilted and that ill lay down big hand. But im in first pos thinking now he would only reraise with premium but maybe ace king. So I finally repop for 3400 total and he snap shoves and I snap fold. Nice play Kenny down to 6600. Still plenty to play with I guess. But not my greatest play ever!!
Blinds go through me with not much action, folds to me on button I decided i need to make something happen. I look down at
, so I raise to 800 this time, big blind calls flop comes
kc. Nice open ended straight flush. its check to me I bet 1000, guy reraise 2500 and I shove for 4800 total. He think for a while and folds. I could not belive that at all I was expecting an insta call for 2300 more but noooo. Im not complaining as play went on that player folded to reraise all the time.
So back in business, now time to play solid poker and I start to hit some cards, queens,jacks,
and set of
managed to take down some decent pots with not to much problem. Get up to 15000 quick from my early exploits.
Next big hand I have Queen on button, Card rack lol. I have been raising a lot of pots so small and big blind call. My 1200 raise. The flop come, queen , 3, 8 rainbow im like bingo. It goes check check and I bet 1200 again. Small blind calls, Turn is a harmless. Small blind check and I check I don't think I'm getting call if I bet here so I check. The river brings a 3 and im like bingo. I Hollywood it, was nice acting, I bet the pot and guy think for ages and says I put u on ACE KING and finally calls. I flip over full house and whole table laughs after his speech but he was a good guy.
Few hands later I look down at ac :as: getting a rush now, I raise and Kevin Smith re reraises on button, we seemed to tangle quite a lot, maybe cause he kept raising my blind, Our battles where fairly even tho, I maybe sneeked the bigger pots, but he was a very good player, I guess i just hit the harder when we played. He did great making final table. So back to the hand, I don't know why but I shoved allin. I hate myself for this such a school boy move I just got excited I guess but not good. He fold and says jacks. Maybe I should raise small or flat call, but if jack comes im out, but if under cards come I win it all, but I don't think the allin was the right move, but lesson learned.
Blinds are getting Higher and antes starting to kick in I have over 20000 chips, well above average stack. I manage to take small pot here and ther to keep stack up but nothing to major, we start losing player from our table so new players come and go. New guys at table raises from early position and has say 8000 behind, folds to me in button, I have Ace King, been card dead for 2 levels so I set him in and he take a while and calls with ace king, we both miss and my kicker plays. That was the first time ace king won at our table all the smaller pairs where winning the races. Up to say 30000 nice, 30 min later we get split up,
I got moved between a rock and a hard place, I had 140000 on my left chip leader and a super agro player with about 70000 on my right. I see a familiar face of derek liddle at table. I sit down to qq first hand and get no action, hopefully the card drought was over, well maybe not the blinds ante and the big stakes where eating my pre flop raised. I did manage to win a couple of battles with the big blind supper stack. But I am wounded and drop back to 24000 first time bellow chip average with 2 levels of total junk., I did get down to 16000 at one point, but I started to shove into the serial raiser and when ever late position limped to pick up the valuable chips. Play had started to tighten up at this point around 1.30-2.00 am so this play was getting through. I never once raised with a premium hand I just had to start forcing it to get chips back and hope to get lucky if I could.
This table was broken 40 players left, im pretty short had 10 big blinds left blind were 1000/2000. I sit down at new table with Iain Overtoun again at the table we had played for life 7 hours together. I managed to get some pre flop shoves through getting up to 30000 again. Another lap of rubbish, and my worst play of the night come, why oh why I don't know, but I did this maybe a laps but im still not happy with it.
Iain rasie to 6000 in first position, he did do this a lot early and fold to reraise. So I look at ace 8 on button and take time, and I re shove for 20000 more. I guess hoping I could get it through but no he had kd kh and im out in 30th after like 11 hours play. What a donk I am, If it had taken my time or though at this stage in tourney he aint raising light in first position. I think I got excited by the ace, of was tired and not thinking. If i hit i would have been laughing but I wasn't not happy with my move. I had 13 big blinds left, I wasn't not quite panic stations and I was on button. AHHH hate it so much. He said he would have prob folded queens and bellow because I played solid earlier and it was a lot of his stack. I dont think I would do it again. I was stupid and I think most of u would think the same??
Well done to derek and neil for their cash and congrats to the winner.
I also went deepish in the £50 on the sat night out in around 20th with my flopped set
to Tim Magnus, Turned set of kings for a decent size pot. So did ok out of 97 player with some solid play.
I have learned a lot and was great to chat and get to know some of u guys better. Great Tourney and venue giving me more hunger to focus on poker more and that I can compete with a decent standard of player.
Cheers
Kenny
