The first big game of the year arrives at last. I look forward to all the games, but the no-rebuy, no-limit games tend to be a more tense affair with no-one wanting an early bath, so is a very different game to the rebuy tournaments.
There are 13 players, with Jock and Trevor joining us for the first time. I really hope they enjoyed the game, but it seemed a brutal introduction to the group, coming in for the first time into the no-limit..
The game got under way and battle commences. My table is mainly tight and/or passive players so there is a lot of checking and calling going on. I start quietly and loose a few chips to begin with and ten win a small pot here and there (normally by raising pre-flop and everyone then folding !) Jock is on my table and seems comfortable, but then we see some fireworks with Darren, Jock and Mick seeing an unraised flop which came A-J-J Darren raises and Jock/Mick call. Another A comes on the turn (or river) and all three players are all-in. Unfortunately for Jock his pocket kings are no good and Darren/Mick split the pot with an A each. Jock's remaining 200 or so chips are soon eaten up, but he actually lasted longer than Alex who was first out on the other table (not sure what happened there !)
At the first break I am still at my starting chip level and see to be struggling to accumulate more! I start to get some good cards but still end up winning the pot pre-flop by raising, but suddenly find myself bubbling along at average chip count rather than starting chip count, so that was am improvement. Steve is getting very low on chips, so bully him off the small blind, then a couple of hands later we are all-in together and my hand holds up to give me a good stack of chips and the final table!
The final table starts out with a rash of bush outs. Trevor came to the table with only a few hundred chips, so is all in on the big blind and gets busted on the first hand, but did very well for a first show. Next hand I bust out Mick with Ax against Kx (I think...) as Mick was low stack. My good run continues and a couple of hands later Simon is low stacked and goes in with pocket 9s but runs into my pocket A's which leaves me as chip leader !
Five are left for the last round and the pressure is on everyone with 10'000 the average stack and blinds at 2'000/1'000 no one is safe.
Couple of hands in and Jon's good hand run's into Derek's better hand on the flop and we are down to the bubble. Incredibly I get pocket A's again and Roger obligingly goes all-in with AK, and despite a good draw on the flop, my A's hold up and I have half the chips.
It isn't over yet but we only have four hands to play until the end of the tournament... Darren raises and Derek calls all-in. My Q7 doesn't look that good, even with 2000 already committed, so let them fight it out. As it turned out, Darren was ahead and won with pair 4's... I would have made pair 7's ;-)
The final three hands are heads up, with the chip counts incredibly close... actually only about 500 chips between us (to my advantage) so everything to play for as the blinds need to be won. Unfortunately for me, I get dealt 8-3 twice in succession so Darren just needs to fold on the last hand to win... although we see the flop he duly folds to a bet on the flop so wins by around 500 chips.
It was a hard fought game throughout and very enjoyable. I am happy to cash in and be top of the leader board quarter way through the season, but with Darren, Jon and Derek all snapping at my heels, it should be an exciting season
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