Poker: Ladbrokes Cruise... some progress !

Since our cruise holiday (http://sceaga.blogspot.com/2007/06/general-cruise-holiday-round-med-week1.html) I decided I had to try and win a place on the Ladbrokes Cruise again (http://poker.ladbrokes.com/pokercruise)

Of course I had tried and failed once before (http://sceaga.blogspot.com/2007/01/poker-ladbroke-poker-cruise-iii-journey.html) but really want to get on the ship again (it was a fabulous holiday!)

As before I decided to win my stake into the Daily Final (£66 buy in plus one £25 rebuy and one £25 add-on) by playing Cash games. I soon found I am still rubbish at cash games, although some of it may be not having the right bankroll to get into the large stake games.... the low stakes games really do seem to be a lottery ! In the end I decided to stick to what I am best at, so went back to playing Single Table Tournaments (STT aka Sit and Go's). As luck would have it I had a string of money finishes.... so it only took me 2 weeks to get my stake together for the Daily final

I played the Daily final this evening. 24 players started, and most seemed to be playing fairly solidly.. so I was playing my normal tight game. I had a few ups and downs, but managed to get to over double the starting chips (around 4500) towards the end of the first hour when the rebuys stop (thats £25 saved I was thinking to myself) On the last hand before the break I had 3-4 suited but decided to invest 100 chips in seeing a flop, mainly as I wanted to run down the clock to the break... the flop came A-5-J and the three players checked so I checked as well... the turn came 9 and we all checked again. The river was a 2 to make my straight, and to my surprise one player went all-in .... I had the nut hand so called and of course doubled through ! This meant I did not need to add on either as I as near the chip lead (so had only spent the original £66)

Whilst this was a result in itself, I continued to accumulate chips, partly by solid play but also a little bit of luck and people reading (most people were playing ultra-tight or were playing too loose when short stacked..

Making the final table was a breakthrough for me, and was in about 5th place at the time. I managed to take out a short stack which took me to 3rd place, where I stayed more or less all the time right to the end of the game.

The top 3 finishers win a ticket into the Weekly final on Sunday, in which 1 in 10 players will win a ticket to the cruise itself !! (it is a £660 buy-in normally) At the moment there are only 10 players in the final (although this may well go up)

So I will need to make sure I am fit and fresh for the game on Sunday evening... and will be crossing my fingers for a good game and have a chance to win that cruise