What a way to come back after missing a month !
The first couple of hands I got good cards so raised it up and took down the pots without showdown. Couple of hands later, I got A-To, raised but Andy had stopped believing me by now and called. I guess we both missed the flop, but Andy decided to take a wild lunge at the pot so let him take it.
Things went a bit downhill for me and ended up having to take a buy-in ! but soon built my stack up again by selective aggression (mostly having a decent hand). The table dynamic was a bit weird, as we were playing 5 handed due to Sean and Karen coming late, so were lots of blinds to be stolen 
Sean and Karen arrived halfway through Level 2, having taken their Rabbit to the vet, but both lost no time in making up their stacks back above starting levels. At least we had two more active players and the chips were flying around much more now….
At the break I was just about average chips and feeling comfortable.
Things started getting a bit ugly on the restart, with Darren and Karen going head to head on an A-x-x flop. The turn came 4 and another A on the river. Darren led out for about 1/3 his remaining stack but Karen shoved all-in. After dwelling up, Darren decided to call as the pot was huge, showing A-6 for trips. Sadly this was not enough, as Karen had A-4 for the boat, knocking Darren out and getting a huge pile of chips.
My luck seemed to change for the worse, letting Andy bluff me out a pot (again) and Lee not only bluffed me off a 4 spade board (I had made a str8 but no spade) but later he made a light call on the turn to hit his flush on the river to reduce my stack significantly.
It got to a stage where the blinds were at 400/200 and I was left with only 1000 chips. In the SB, it folded to Sean on the button who limped. I was happy to get my 8-6o all-in with my remaining 800 going into the 1000 pot, expecting Andy and Sean to call. As it turned out, only Sean called and actually had a decent hand of A-J. The flop brought a 6, then another 6 on the turn sealed it and hitting quads on the river just rubbed it in At least Sean lost the minimum.
I was not out the woods yet though, as still only had 2’400, so a couple of hands later, decided to shove into Karen’s big blind (hoping everyone folded behind me) with Q-Jo Karen quickly called, so knew I was in trouble, and sure enough her A-K was well ahead. What she hadn’t factored in to her decision was my hot run, and hit Q on the river to double up again!
Things settled down a bit for a while, but as blinds were increased the action hotted up as well. Despite his earlier good play and run good, Lee was the next one down on our table against Sean.
A few hands later, Sean “accidently” raised by throwing in two chips thinking it was 600, but was actually 1500. With both Andy and Karen calling, Sean was in a bit of a strop, but with K-x-5 flop all three players got all-in and Sean was way ahead with 5-5 and took out both players… so it worked out alright in the end !
We were now down to the final table, although Bill had busted on the last hand as well, so were only 7 sat down.
I was just under average chips at this point, with Sean being chip leader. Trevor and Simon were the short stacks.
It all started out cagey enough, then Derek took out Trevor and Jock in one hand to kick things off. Couple of hands later we saw Sean take out Simon and we are down to four players. Sean is chip lead by some margin, with myself, Alex and Derek all roughly the same.
With the blinds up to 1’000 it gets busy and the chip stacks level up. Can’t remember much about the details as there was so much going on, but when we get to the last blind level (4’000/2’000) I think Sean has lost a fair chunk of chips (possibly to me?), then shoves next hand with 3-2d against Derek who calls and takes Sean out.
The chips stacks are incredibly even now we’re down to the last three. All of us are pushing equally hard, looking to get the chips in but something was always going to go wrong for someone….. lucky for me, I raise A-7 into Derek’s BB who shoves with J-5s The board is no help for Derek and I take 2-1 chip lead over Alex with only 2 hands left to play. Alex decides to keep his £5 bounty rather than go for the win and the last hands are folded.
Woooohoooo, another win for me
With two games left to play, the leader board is incredibly tight at the top, with only 4 points between me, Derek and Alex… and it’s still mathematically possible for Karen, Jock and Simon to catch up and take the league title as well…. so all to play for !!
Can’t wait…..
