Poker: Home Tournament – May 2009

I have had a bit of a mare for my last few sessions in April and first few sessions in May… felt I was playing well, but the cards were running against me.  However against this backdrop, my feeling of foreboding did not stop me from looking forward to the monthly game as normal :-)

As it turned out I got pocket 9’s a couple of hands in which held up and gave me a good chip stack early on, always nice when that happens !   Unfortunately Sean started out playing tight, so didn’t give him enough respect for a hand a little later and ended up giving him half my chip stack !    Easy come easy go…..

After that I kept bobbling along with around 500-1000 chip level and not much happening for me so as we got towards the end of rebuys, an opportunity came where four people was going all-in and as I only had around 600 chips went all-in as well with my J-8 but the gamble didn’t pay off so had to take the double re-buy to give me 1000 in chips for the first level after the break.   Jon, Jock and Karen also had 1000 chips, with Sean and Andy having the larger stacks

The first hand of the new levels sees Jock on the BB and managed to double up against Sean, so taking the pressure off him a bit.   The next hand I find myself on the BB with A-J but Jon sticks his stack in and everyone folds to me.   I guess I am in a race, but Jon could also have a better A than me, but have to take a chance.  Luckily Jon has pocket 8’s and I hit a Jack to take the pot and take out Jon !

With the blinds going up and more action going on, the chips start moving around the table as people have to play pots to ensure they don’t get blinded away.    A couple of people get knocked out on the other table, then Andy takes out Jock and we are down to the final table.. nice and early for a change !

On the Final table, Roger has only 300 chips (blinds are 300 / 150 !)  I have around 1600.  Karen and Steve are also fairly low on chips.   Bill is probably the chip lead but Alex and Sean also have larger sized piles.  The big surprise of the night so far is that Lee has not made the final table for the first time !!

It is inevitable someone will be knocked out early on with so many low stacks, and it turns out to be Karen who is busted out by Bill, who seems to be his normal aggressive, happy go lucky self tonight (some may say very happy and very lucky :-) )  

This seems to trigger a rush of people going all-in as Andy raises all-in on a flop of Q-T-9 (2 diamonds)  Everyone folds round to Bill who agonizes for quite a while, but decides to call (which was no great surprise to everyone else) As it turns out the pot of around 7000 will go to Andy unless Bill can hit another diamond, as Andy has A-K and Bill has 5-3 of diamonds.   The Turn brings a K for Andy, making him even more of a favorite, but the river is K of diamonds    As Bill calmly collects his chips, Andy has a bit of a moan, although in fairness his first of the night and not without provocation !

The next hand sees Roger all in against Alex (again!) but this time Roger gets knocked out, despite going in favorite.   I am starting to get excited now as I have only 1300 chips and the blinds are now 500 /300 so am climbing up the points by staying out of the action !

Being on the BB, Steve is short stacked and decides to go all in when a couple of other people call.   Unluckily for Steve, Alex is on a hot streak and takes another person out !

I have to fold my BB and SB leaving me down to 500 chips, 4 players left in and the blinds just gone up to 1000/500 so looks like 4th place for me…. however to my astonishment, Sean and Bill start re-raising each other and end up with Sean all-in on the flop.   Even more amazing (to me anyway) is that neither of them really has a hand and both missed the flop.  To my great advantage Bill is ahead and wins the pot with his A high, taking out Sean and gifting me 3rd place – what a result :-)

Even more surprising is the next hand with Alex on the BB he raises pre-flop and Bill calls.   With 7000 in the pot, Alex bets the pot and gets re-raised all-in by Bill.   With only around 1000 left behind Alex calls… and Bill inevitably takes out another player and I am 2nd with 500 chips left !!

Although everyone (including me) thinks it is all over, I double up on the first hand heads up….. then again as I am BB anyway.   When I double up the next hand as well, I am starting to think I might have a chance and Bill is feeling vulnerable and folds a couple of his SB… suddenly I am up to 8000 chips, then 10’000 !   We then get a hand where I have J-6 and flop comes A-5-4 then the turn comes with a 3 and crazily the 2 comes to make a straight on the deck on the river, so I decide to go all-in to represent me being desperate.  After some thought, Bill decides I have a 6 but calls anyway with nothing, so I now have 20’000 of the 25’000 chips !     The final hand is quite funny, as Bill is on the SB, looks at his cards and sighs/gesticulates as if he isn’t happy and calls.  I have got Q6s so push all in believing he has a poor hand… as it turns out Bill had something like T-4 but called anyway and I take a very unexpected victory !

To be honest I should not have won, but a mixture of patience and luck, along with Bill’s over zealousness gave me the victory (but I will take it anyway I can !)