This was always going to be a great festival for many reasons but in particular it was inevitable to run like clockwork, have plenty of sat winners & a decent prize pool. The venue turned out to be pretty good, handy parking, fair sized room & the food was also better than average. My first table was a bit of a mixture, some good players mixed with complete dunkeys. Needless to say everytime I got a run going I would suffer an equally sized set-back. I survived the first day albeit short, but a new day, new table & hopefully a new run of cards.
The next day I had a tough enough table, several good aggressive players which would always put me under pressure. I managed a double up early enough on but card death & aggressive players to my right meant that there weren't too many stealing spots available. In the end I crashed out finishing on the wrong side of a flip.
As predicted the side event would prove to be too tempting to miss, so I duly jumped in. Few players on my table to note included the likes of Fintan Gavin, Wes Farrell & Lorcan Dooley (who was diretly to my left). In saying that I was comfortable enough in chips, & bar Loran & the French lunatic going mad at eachother the table was playing mostly fairly sensible. I busted late enough in the day when I got it in once again AK vs Lorcan's QQ. This time I held the AK & managed to hit, until he rivered a 4 flush, damnit!
I was pretty deflated after that. It's hard to imo play good poker for 2 whole days & still manage to bust out of 2 tourneys. Rob had busted out of the main event a lil while before my exit from the side so we headed home more or less straight away, still not decided on whether or not to return the following day for the remaining 2 side events.
The first of the side events on the last day was the shoot-out which Rob was very keen to play given his STT experience. In the end he decided he'd rather head in & play it therefore I tagged along as usual. We both played the shoot out. Rob got dunkeyed out fairly on by a Fenchie & I made it down to the last 5 on my table. The structure meant that the top 3 went through to the next round, with 5 left I was just below average but comfortable enough for blinds. There was an early position raise (from someone I would have deemed as very solid) which was called by the Frenchie. I looked down at AK, time to sink or swim & the chips went in. The initial raiser went into the tank, I know by this point he obviously doesn't have AA or KK, a couple of minutes later & I decided he didn't have QQ so I'm thinking perhaps he has JJ/TT or the like & is weighing up his chances of racing or whatever. Eventually he called, Frenchie folded & he shows me AQ. I'm not going to lie, I was so gobsmacked I nearly fell of my chair. He had me covered but not by a huge amount, I'd been very quiet in this tourney & couldn't for the life of me understand how he could make the call. In saying that I was delighted, no Q & I'm laughing . . . well there was a Q & I guess you could say I wasn't laughing. Rob started his usual outburst until I silenced him & we headed upstairs to see what numbers they were expecting for the short-handed event.
A guy I work with, Tony, had been raving about this short-handed events for a couple of weeks, reckoned it was a great tourney for him & at the time I remembered thinking that it would probably not suit my regular tourney game. That said the IPO didn't suit my regular tourney game & I was getting a lot more confident at adapting my aggression levels so perhaps it would be a good tourney to experiment with.
I only knew one player on my starting table, Chris Cooke, who was seated directly to my left. I was very active from the off, playing all sorts of hands with any potential. I was also raising quite a bit in position. Perhaps because I was so active, & in nearly every hand I made my own luck a bit. I hit a few flops early on & managed to win a few nice pots meaning I was always comfortable in the early stages. I also managed to bust Chris mostly over 2 hands which helped as he was by far the better of my opponents. From that point onward I kept up the aggression & to be honest it seemed to work for me.
The tourney seemed to fly in, before I knew it we were down to 2 tables, & I unfortunatly managed to end up at the same table as Rob. I hate playing with Rob, obviously we don't collude or anything, my morse code is pretty non-existent! The reason I hate playing with Rob is he always knows what I have, it's like a game to him, anytime he's railing he can name my hand which is very bad in a way. I've since tried to mix my game up a lil more so as to try to confuse him if nothing else. And unfortunately, I don't know his game anywhere near as well as he knows mine, that doesn't mean he'll ever beat me though ;)
The short ending is we both cashed, he busted in 5th & I was involved in a 3 way chop. I wasn't pleased with how I played 3 handed to be honest & really felt like I wasn't aggressive enough. There's no excuse for that, I'm normally quite aggressive on final tables in general & I'd been aggressive the whole way through this tourney so I have no idea why I tightened up. It probably cost me the outright win if truth be told, but I have definitely gained from the experience & don't plan on playing so passive at future final tables. Another cash & another hendon mob entry though, something I'm happy to report I'm managing on a regular basis these days :)
No comments:
Post a Comment