Catch Up

I've had this half written for over a week and just now getting around to finishing it so here goes.

Monday March 10th

I was planning on going out last night to play in Stockport but a last minute hitch meant I would have been last so I decided to leave it. So I ended up playing the $75 late night freezeout on ladbrokes that starts at midnight.

I've been having a good run in this tournament over the last 6 months and with a two double ups with sets early on I ended up winning the tournament for a much needed $1020 addition to my bankroll.

There was one hand of particular interest that I can't decide whether he played it incredibly well played or very badly.

The play involved a limper on the button, me completing the small blind with something like 6h7h and the big blind checking when the blinds were something like 150 300.

The flop came down Q74 rainbow or similar and I checked, the big blind then went all in for 3400 into a pot of 900 and the button folded.

To be honest, I had just over 3000 chips but if I only had 1000 chips I would have been seriously tempted to call.

Anyone care to take a guess at his hand and what your calling requirements would be?

Anyway, I eventually played in Manchester G on Thursday in a £35 freezeout. 60+ runners and it's been too long for m to remember anything significant so I am going to be more diligent in updating this a bit sooner.

I ended up going out when short stacked with KQ against kings and that was that.

I then played the Ladbrokes Cruise Reunion tournament on Tuesday.

The tournament was a bounty tournament with 15 bounties ranging from $12 satellites for the first few bounties up to a WSOP package for the 15th.

This went pretty well for the first half without any bounties being at my table and then I got involved in a 3 way pot after raising with AA with Skalie (John Kalmar) and A N other.

The flop came down T J 7 with 2 clubs which was checked by the other two and I bet out 2/3 of the pot and was raised by the first player who was reraised all in by Skalie.

To be honest I thought that there was more than a 50/50 chance I could be behind but since there was a lot in the pot and half of my stack was in there too I made a crying call and to my surprise I was way ahead of a Q high flush draw and Skalie's A high flush draw.

That put me on 15000 chips and into 5th place.

By this time the bounties were up to $1000 worth of satellite entries and one of them appeared at our table, 2 to my left which was a bonus.

She was playing pretty tight but had 5000 chips and the blinds were 400/800.

I was then on the big blind when Daddymac (one of the top Ladbrokes players sitting on 22000) raised to about 2500 in early position which was reraised to 5000 virtually all in by the bounty.

The small blind (with 10000 ish) called and I considered reraising all in with Qd9d, because the bounty was the majority of the prize pool and this was a chance to take her out. Obviously, in a normal tournament Daddymac would need a huge hand to call that but I felt that he would feel like me in this case and probably call along with the small blind and so I called, mistakenly thinking that the bounty's raise was an underraise - meaning daddymac couldn't reraise.

Unfortunately I either calculated wrongly or Ladbrokes' system allows someone to reraise an underraise (which I know it used to but I did think it had been fixed)

Anyway, Daddymac did reraise and after the small blind called I decided that I was going to call in the hope that I got lucky and had live cards and take my chance at the prize.

Also knowing that if I did win I would have 50000 chips and be in a very strong position to take the main prize.

For the record I was really in a bad spot as Daddymac had QQ and the bounty had JJ. Anyway no diamonds came and although a nine did hit the flop, despite my chanting, another didn't come to give me the win.

I've had a think about whether I should have just played it normally and let any bounties come my way naturally but I still think that playing for the bounty was the best course of action.

Comments welcome.

Wednesday March 19th

Won a lovely $1200 pot last night at $1/2 on Ladbrokes with A 10 in a 6 way minimum raised pot against an overplayed AK and 10 5 saw a lovely A 10 5 rainbow flop.

So with that $900 profit, along with another cash in the midnight tournament for $400 I'm going to play the GSNPL event in Manchester next week.

Hopefully see a couple of people there.

I'll also be more diligent in future with the postings.

Until then…