Friday 28 December 2007

Bubble trouble

Sunday December 23rd, 2007
Leo's
£20 rebuy

The tournament Sunday was less eventful for the poker than a few other things that happened.

The most interesting hand I got before the final table involved me with only just over 2 big blinds meaning that almost any big blind would call if I raised.

However, there was one tight player called Frank who is a good player and he is the only player that could possibly fold if I went all in.

So I got 74o on his blind and decided to raise all in even though I was relatively early position. Unfortunately I got 2 callers before it even got to Frank, one with Kings, however a rivered straight was enough to give take me from 5000 to 20000 chips in one go!

Anyway, this was enough to get me to the bubble.

Now, about a year ago on of my goals was to qualify for the Grosvenor Grand Prix.
I played a few satellites and in one of them at Blackpool 7 of us turned up which meant there was one seat up for grabs.

I managed to play my way down to heads up and when we got there I realised that this was only the second time in almost a year of playing live that I'd played heads up poker live!

So I decided there and then that I didn't want to do deals any more. As well as stopping the game before it has finished it also changes the game.

This is also true around bubble time when a saver is made.

On top of this I find that people play very tight and scared around bubble time so I want to take advantage of that.

So on Sunday when someone wanted everyone to put £10 each for the bubble I said that I didn't want to.

Unfortunately everyone else did but I stuck to my guns.

I even had to object when everyone else wanted to do the saver excluding me which is not right since that could lead to people colluding to get me out.

So , even though I objected to the saver I managed to survive the bubble and make the final table.

The final table didn't last that long though as my big blind hand of 5s6s was met by a flop of 7s8s7d.

I check raised all in and my opponent quite surprisingly instacalled with 8T.

Despite being 50 50 to win, none of my outs arrived and I was out in 9th for £150.

And so it was off to the cash table where I was met by a couple of friends of the lad who went out on the bubble.

I've encountered these players before and one of them who was drunk gave me some stick.

This player can play very loose and one hand that involved him and his mate before arrived involved £600 with J4 and QJ as the hole cards on a board of AKQ!

We got involved in a couple of hands, one where he raised, I reraised, he reraised all in and I was committed to calling with AJ against his QQ.

I felt that I was ahead of his raising range and when he went all in he was begging me to call which is good info for the future.

The other hand involved me calling what I thought was a move on a board of JT8 T. I only had an 8 and again he stood up but this time he was telling me to call if I wanted to. I took this as being different to the last time and called. Unfortunately he had a ten and took great pleasure in showing me but also made a couple of nasty comments which I replied to.

Being the sort of person he is he offered to take it outside but I stopped wanting to fight people when I was still in school. But I wouldn't have expected anything else from him as he plays poker the same way - ie any raise when he has money in the pot is a test of his "manhood".

What I have taken from the session though is that he was standing up both times he had me beat and I'm pretty sure that he is playing good holdings against me and the rubbish hands he is playing are against his mate. - Something I will be able to use against him in the future I hope.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone reading this and happy new year.

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