Yorky Pud

Last night, after donking off a stack to my opponent at NL50 I made the decision to play a couple of tournaments on Betfair Poker and I am glad I did as they were a real roller coaster affair.

I've only played a couple of hundred hands of short-handed NL50 but I had been doing pretty well, up around three-quarters of a stack. Last night I initially planned to play an hour or so cash but one hand occurred that made me angry with how I had played it, and it would come back to haunt me later in the night. Basically, the guy to my direct right was making a real nuisance of himself, so much so that I was going to move tables.

Anyway, he raises his button for the eighth time in a row and I re-pop him with ace-jack offsuit, not the best hand at all but way in front of his range. He calls and we both see a flop reading 3c-4d-5s, I continuation bet, he then clicks it back and I'm like WTF? I'd seen him do this dozens of times in the past 30 minutes so decided that I'd shove on him as even if I was called I still have outs. I shove, he snap-calls and turns over 6d7d for a flopped straight, FML! So with that I left the table and looked in the lobby for any tournaments that were just starting and found a couple that were due to begin pretty close to each other.

I've only ever played two MTTs on the new Betfair Poker software and I came 38/899 in that one so I was hoping to follow in that vein and make it deep. The first tournament was an $11 buy-in with a $4k guarantee attracting 463 players, paying the top 80 I believe. I never got going in this one and ended up open pushing king ten offsuit from the hijack and running into the king-queen of the big blind, which held, busting me in 151st place. Not exactly great.

I also played in a $5.50 MTT with a $5k guarantee that saw 1,184 players register for it. Now I prefer fields of 200-400 if I am honest but the occasional big MTT is fine so I got down to business. Nothing much happened until level four when I rivered a straight and got paid off and then had jacks hold against nines all-in on a 6h-5d-3s-7c board to put me in a decent position. Level five saw me add another 2,000to my stack when my queens held up all-in preflop against jack-ten offsuit and it looked like I was on course to make it to the money.

For the next few levels my stack basically dwindled until I found myself down to around 15 big blinds with pocket aces in my hand, hoping for someone to shove all-in on me. Thankfully the guy under the gun shoved for 12bb with pocket tens and I was back in business. Then the defining moment of the tournament. With blinds at 200/400/50a and me in the big blind with AsKs I saw one player open limp then another shove for around 7,500, the action folded to me and I decided to re-shove for about 11k. The limper folds but villain shows TdTs, much stronger than I had hoped. Not to worry though as the board ran out 7c-3s-2s-7s-6d, skill game!

After surviving a scary AK vs AK moment all-in pre where the flop was all clubs and fishy had a club I then won another race with TT vs KQ when KQ open-shoved for six bigs and I was in with a real chance of winning the entire tournament for $960 and change. I then found myself second in chips with around 40 left when the following two hand happened in quick succession. Hand one saw me all-in with AdQs on a As-Ks-2s flop against what turned out to be 7s4s. Luckily I knew the Ts was coming on the river! The ten of spades saved my ass again in the next level after I fell for the over-sized preflop raise trick. Dude makes it 8x to play and I shove with TdTc and he snaps me off with bullets and he seemed smug until I hit a set on the river! Boom!

Then my final hand happened and I should have gotten away from it. Eight handed and with blinds of 2,000/4,000/400a I opened to 8,250 holding black aces after two players folded and only the small blind called, no reads on him. The flop comes down Qc-Kc-5d and I reckon I'm definitely in front here, so when he checks I bet 19,220 into the 22,500 pot but he spoils the party and makes it 48,000 to play. I reckon that I'm about two-third favourite against his range and shove for another 79,516 and puke as he insta-calls and flips over 5h5s for bottom set. He boats up on the turn and the Ts appears on the river, though this time its of no help and I bust out 24,1,184 for thirty odd dollars whilst the guy I paid off came fifth for closer to $270. Nice hand sir, his play is a loser long term but whatever, I can hardly complain when I ran like Jesus to get into that position.

So, four Betfair tournaments, two cashes and two deep cashes at that, I really should play more! I probably won't play tonight as its Christmas Eve in case you hadn't noticed and playing time will be limited over the next few days but I'm really looking forward to 2011, but that is for my next entry.

As always, thanks for reading, best of luck at the tables and have a very Merry Christmas!