More bubbles in Manchester

Bolton
£50 rebuy satellite to GUKPT Manchester
42 runners 6 seats
4000 starting chips

I decided on taking another shot at the Manchester GUKPT event last night despite my diminishing bankroll.

Afterall, Bolton is still my favourite card room and the chances are I'm going to be playing in Birkenhead tonight as well since I can't play 5 a-side at the moment.

My first table was very interesting as Nick Slade was there doing his best to make sure there were a lot of chips on our table by having 9 rebuys.

It was really good fun though although it didn't start off too well.

Third hand in and I have kd9d on the button after about 6 limpers as there usually is in this sort of rebuy event so I called the 100 and the big blind raised to 500 which was called by two others before it got back to me.

So I called along with the small blind meaning there were 5 to the flop which was K96 rainbow.

The bid blind lead out for 2000 leaving him 1500 behind and it was folded to me with the small blind to act.

I felt that in this spot a flat call was the best option as it lets the small blind call with a wider range of hands and the big blind was probably committed to the pot if I raise now anyway and is likely to still call on the turn.

Unfortunately the small blind folded and then the turn was an ace giving AK a better 2 pair.

Big blind bets and I call expecting to be behind a lot of the time but resigned to the fact that this would have happened regardless of how I played it.

He did have 2 pair and no miracle on the river meant I was rebuying hand no 3.

Anyway, things got a lot better from there on as I started to get a few hands and with Nick on the table there was always going to be action.

He had a bluff at me when I was holding top 2 pair on one board after betting flop and turn and checking the river and I also managed to get him to raise what I made look like a blocker bet on the river when a 3rd club arrived but I actually had the nut flush.

It was good fun though and I decided to have a bit of a laugh with Nick who was calling most raises in the hope of building up a big stack.

Since he was trying to size his bets so that would be left with 2000 chips post flop and then be able to rebuy (For the non players who read this - you can only rebuy when you have less that half the 4000 starting stack)

I decided that next time I raised it would be to 1900 - leaving him 2100 chips and so not able to rebuy.

Anyway I got AJ on his big blind and, as expected he did, call cursing me, but then he bet 200 on the flop so that he had only 1900 left and could rebuy and let me raise to take the pot down.

I had 22000 chips at one point and was down to 14000 at the end of the rebuy period.

So I topped up and then the serious poker started.

After that things went along well with me staying at or above average chips for a long while until we got to the last 2 tables.

There was then a big hand involving KK v AA where the player to my right doubled up to 40,000.

The very next hand and he raised again to 5000 (blinds were 600/1200) and I looked down at KK so I reraised all in to 22000 which was folded back to the raiser.

He dwelled up and asked me a couple of questions which I ignored and eventually said to me that he was going to pass these for the first time before folding.

I showed him KK and he retreived his QQ and was very happy with himself.

Thinking back on it maybe I shouldn't have showed him as he was very relieved that he made the right decision but my plan was to use this later on whenever it came to sb v bb as I know that he passed AK earlier to a solitary raise so I knew that if he limped against me I would be able to raise with any two cards safe in the knowledge that he would almost certainly pass.

Unfortunately I got moved tables almost immediately.

I did get some nice cards on the next table including KK twice in 3 hands as well as AA and TT in a short space of time but the only time I got any action was when I raised with AK and had one caller who said that he was calling because I had raised his blind every time (with the good cards I might add) and when the flop came 9T4 he went all in meaning I had to pass, only for him to tell me he had KQ - if you believe him!

By now we were down to 11 players with 6 seats available and I raised from 4,000 to 10,000 with AQ on the enormous chip leaders big blind - he had 120,000 of the 460,000 chips in play.

After an age he decided to raise it again to 30,000 setting me all in.

Given his chip lead and that even though he had been betting almost all of the flops that he saw, he hadn't been raising much and there was no need for him to get involved withough a good hand so I folded my AQ face up and he showed his AK meaning I would have been dominated and almost certainly out - good decision.

Anyway I survised as the small stack until there were 9 left and after stealing a couple of blinds I was eventually all in for 13,000 on the button with the blinds at 3000 - 6000 with K9 which was better than average and the big blind called the extra 7000 without looking and turned over 5d4d which inevitably spiked a 5 on the turn to put me out just short again.

So, off to Birkenhead, I've got to cash soon.....