I didn’t do great on my last trip to the Casino tournament so was looking forward to this months journey. This time, Myself, Andy and Alex were the representatives from the CamberleyBoyz out of the 39 runners
Including the bonus chips, I’m starting with stack of 11’500 and with the blinds starting at 100/50 there is plenty of time to ease into the game. Although I made a few rough notes, my memory is fading fast for the key hands, so hope I have remembered enough to give a flavour of the game!
In the BB with T-2s I obviously just check to see a flop with three others. The Txx flop seems about the best I can hope for, and call the min bet from the SB. I pick up a flush draw on the turn and again call a min bet from SB, but everyone else folds. The river brings my flush so I bet out the pot when checked to and get called. The SB had QTo and seemed a little disappointed not to have taken the pot down 
but gave me a nice boost to my stack early on.
I also get lucky to win a decent pot with QQ and AKo early so am in decent position at the first break with 27’500 chips. Andy has 8300 and Alex 10’500
Having Alex on my table is a mixed blessing, on the one hand I know his play, on the other he knows my play When he limped UTG it didn’t seem he would be particularly strong, so decided to raise Q-To The QJ9 flop seemed pretty reasonable, so re-raised Alex’s lead bet but when he re-shoved it seemed I was in trouble, but had to call. Sure enough his J-9 was ahead (so I was right in my estimation pre-flop 
), leaving me needing to hit my draw, but it didn’t come and Alex has half my chips ! (I’m down to about 12’000 now) It looks like it could be Alex’s night, as he gets his J-J in against K-9 and 9-9 when another J came on the turn
The second break sees me with a small recovery to 14’000 chips, Alex on 29’000 and Andy doing well on 20’000 (the average is reported as 23’400 but would be more like 26k) We are already down to 15 players so over half the original number have gone !
With the blinds up, I’m now in survival mode with around 10 blinds left. When I see K-9s on the button decide to shove into two tight blinds, but horrified when BB calls with QQ. Although it looks grim (I’m about 30% to win) the 9 on the flop leaves me 25% to win, but the 9 on the turn seals the deal for me and I’m lucky to have doubled up to around 25’000
Not long after sees Alex shoving all-in from early position and I have an easy call with my A-A Alex’s A-J shows a bit of promise when a J comes on the flop, but that’s all the help that comes and I’ve got my chips back from him and am around 48’000 now.
Alex is down to around 10’000 so shoves all-in next hand UTG. The BB calls and shows A-A and that is Alex’s night over. Talk about unlucky !
This gives us a final table of 7 players. Andy’s table had a double bust out just before, so Andy finished a credible 9th place, with Alex in 8th. Officially Alex made the final table, as there was a place marker out for him, just he had no chips to take to the table !
With the top 5 paying out, I will need to take it steady to ensure I don’t crash out on the bubble. There are a couple of big stacks, about 3 of us with similar chips and two shortish stacks.
The first hand on the final table sees a short stack shove all-in, the big stack call and the other short stack also call ! The short stacks show 7-7, J-J but the big stack has K-K… the the rest of the table all thank him when he busts both players out and everyone is in the money already !! I was expecting it to be a tense drawn out affair to get into the money, but the cards dictated otherwise… phew!
I decide to not sit back and blind away into 4th or 5th place, so when I am BB against the big stack’s SB I decide to lead out with my K-8 when a K comes on the turn (we had both checked the raggy flop) I am not too worried about the call, as the Big Stack is a bit loose and happy to try and hit cards on the river. He checks the blank river and so I push all-in , getting called ! Despite thinking I am out the tournament to 2 rags, he shows K-6 and I’ve got a lot of chips to play with now., (still in 3rd place out of 5 left)
Things do then get quite tight and tense. I try a couple of moves, but seem to always get re-raised, or see a short stack go all-in on the flop, so my stack is a bit up and down. Eventually though, the shortest two stacks get each other all-in so we’re down to 4 players, but I am now lowest chip stack.
I get a bit of a boost soon after though, when our former big stack (who has managed to fritter away a lot of chips) get’s all-in against the really tight former short stack and he is out the tournament and I have crept into 3rd place
Being the short stack and with large blinds, I have got about 5 BB left and decide to shove into the other two players from the button with 6-3o As they have both been tight/passive, I expected to take the blinds, but to my horror they both call ! They also check it down to the river so all three see the showdown. They show 8-8 and A-K which are both decent hands, but (again) lucky for me the board came Q46,6,9 tripling up with my trips I have around 115’000 chips now and am second in chips.
Luck comes around but also goes around, so when I flopped a straight and got all-in against the small stacks flush draw I couldn’t really moan when he hit his flush on the river, but put me back to lowest stack again.
My notes (and memory) get very vague now as it’s getting late, but seems my A-J tripled me up somewhere along the line. I also think I made a move against the tight playing SB with 7-6s but he pushed all-in with A-4 and I had to call. I got lucky again and took him out so we are now heads up !
The chip counts are 230’000 against my 190’000 stack, so actually pretty evenly matched. I did consider suggesting an equal split of 1st/2nd at this stage, but decided against as was feeling OK, albeit a little tired by now.
The heads up went on for a while, as the other fellow was playing very tight/passive and was folding to my raises/bets I was being pretty liberal with. When he shoved all-in from the button I judged he would have a big Ace rather than a big pair, so called with my 4-4 (being about 2:30am may also have influenced my decision though….) As luck would have it, he did have A-K and the first card on the flop was a 4, which saw me safely through to take him out and WIN the tournament !
I ended up winning £445. Luckily for Andy, we swapped 10% of each other (as we went in the same car) so he ended up £5 up on the night as well
It was an exciting game and actually think I played pretty well. Even though I got lucky in a couple of key places, I think my decision making was still correct and played the percentages right.
It’s always nice to win , especially as it’ll give me bragging rights over Christmas
Have a nice one and see you in 2011
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