Not Plain Sailing

Main event - $2500 f/o
Voyage of the Seas
27/01/2008

The event started at 11am and immediately obvious were 2 empty seats 2 seats to my left. However, 5 minutes in up walks Devilfish to take the first empty seat. Only to be followed by Roy Brindley an hour later. Fantastic, they’ve even got position on me! So every time I raise on the Devilfish’s blinds he’s defending.

The first hand of note came up when I limped with QQ in UTG as I knew there was every likelihood that it would get raised by the big blind if there were a few limpers which there inevitably would be if I limped, however there was one call and a raise from the button. I considered reraising but felt that would give away the strength of my hand so I called and so did the limper.

The flop came down 9TJ rainbow and I bet out 2/3 pot and was called by the limper, turn was a 4 which we both checked and the river was a 7 so, believing I was ahead I made a value bet of half the pot which was called by the limper who had J8. Unfortunately I had allowed him to hit his straight. So that took about 4000 of the starting 10000 chips.

Over the course of the next couple of hours I didn’t play a huge number of hands, and those that I did play inevitably involved either Roy or Devilfish. Unfortunately I never had the balls to reraise them with nothing when the were testing me by raising any continuation bets I made. – Lesson learned there!

By this point the antes were in play and I was down to between 4 and 5 thousand chips. I was able to go all in a few times, particularly when there had been a number of limps, in one case with 33 on the big blind after there had been 6 limpers. Luckily Devilfish, who told me that I was annoying him by doing this, had 77 on this occaision but couldn’t call without risking a large portion of his stack because of the limpers behind him.

Eventually I was down to 2100 when the blinds were 200/400 with 50 ante as I had just passed through the blinds and I hadn’t had a chance to get my chips in first. The table was broken and I sit down on the button knowing that I have to be all in before the big blind gets round to me. I then pick up ATo after there had been a limp UTG. However, before I get the chance to go all in, another short stack with 5000 went all in. So I told him that I was going to do that and he looked very nervous when I said that. Now I know in this situation that I’m dominated by AJ, AQ, AK or a big pair but, figure that his nervousness suggests he probably has a small pair or possibly even Ace rag. So, based on this, and the fact that I have a chance of tripling up in a probable heads up confrontation I called.

Imaging my delight when he turns over Tc6c meaning I have him dominated… until the flop comes with 2 clubs and you can guess what the river was!

So, off for some drinks with Julie and looking forward to the $500 f/o tomorrow.