Raise blind!

Leos, £10 rebuy - 74 runners.

Another good start saw me up to 5000 chips inside 15 minutes (starting stack is 1000) - the beauty of the rebuy is that no-one believes you so no need to bluff, just value betting all the way.

So once again I hit the break with a healthy stack, having had no rebuys.

Unfortunately, once you hit the middle phase of these tournaments, unless you have a big stack, you generally need to find a few hands at the right time.

I frequently found myself looking at A8 in early position or It'll be late position after an earlier raise. Both situations that it is difficult to call with even though quite often there is a fair chance it will be ahead of the raising requirements of a lot of the field.

Anyway, I did not play many hands due to the raising machine that was seated in seat 2 when I was sat in seat 10.

I lasted to the final 2 tables when I picked up AhJh on the button and made what looked like a button raise, all in for my 8000 chips when the blinds were 800/1600. Unfortunately the big blind called with his pocket sixes and no improvement saw me headed to the cash game.

Unusually for Leo's there were 2 cash games running with one of them no limit so I joined the 6 handed table. I had an excellent seat to the left of the two loose players with Mr Rock sat to my right.

Unfortunately that is all that went right about the night.

The game was quite enjoyable and a good spot for some out of the ordinary play from myself.

Other than calling a small raise with speculative hands I generally play very tight in the game and if I reraise pre or post flop people will expect me to have the goods other than the occasional semi bluff to the nut flush etc.

However, I sometimes like to play the odd session entirely differently to create some doubt in people's mind.

To add to this, the player to my right took to raising pre flop blind and then following that bet through on the flop blind. Perfect for my position.

So on to the significant pots: Carl - the seat to my right, raised to £12 blind and I reraised to £30 with 9s7c which he called blind.

Heads up, the flop came down Q83 rainbow and Carl bet £50 blind so I reraised all in to £220 only for Carl to check his hand, find a Q and call me, winning the pot when no miracle arrived to help me!

Next up came a similar situation when he raised £12 blind again, which I called this time with 8To. The flop comes down AT6 and he again bets £25 to which I flat call this time.

The turn is an A and he bets £30 blind again to which I raise another £50. Now he checks he cards and calls.

The river was a J and Carl goes all in - covering my £200 odd and I fold, for him to show …. A6!

Talk about walking into hands!

The third time he did me was when I had a 9 and he had flopped a set of 7s on an 9s7As flop and called the turn card saying that he was on a draw.

I find that normally people who say things like that are telling the truth more often than not, so when an offsuit 2 hit the river and he checked I bet £20 into the pot of £90 telling him that he obviously didn't hit his draw then and he reraised me all in again.

Here I made the mistake of believing my first instinct and I thought he was bluffing again like he had quite liberally all game! As he said afterwards, he can change his game and he played that hand very well.

I did manage to win some of the money back with a pair of twos in the last hand of the day when I had straddled to £8 and Carl had made it £16 pre flop (5 handed at this point) I limped the extra £8 and Carl checked. The flop was something like J58 which he bet £16 into and I called feeling he had nothing. When another 8 came on the turn and he bet the same again I called hoping to be ahead with the expectation that a 2 would easily give me the best hand. The river was a 3 giving a possible flush and he went to bet something like £40 but did it in two stages and so the string bet was not allowed. When he protested I was sure he probably had nothing and called to win the £100 odd in the middle with a pair of twos.

So, although I lost £260 on the night it was all good fun and great experience as well as adding a little more deception to my play for when I do bet big with good hands in the future.