No Luck for the poker festival and tells in the blinds

40 runners for the satellite last night with 4 seats awarded.
There were no maniacs on the table which is unusual but I did have a couple of interesting hands.

Early on I was in the big blind with TT when it was raised in late position by a girl who is pretty competent although she had been playing pretty tight and I had seen her check a couple of hands where she missed the flop but also seen her check top pair and play it on the turn so she was mixing it up a bit.

Anyway, she raised from 50/100 to 700 in mid position and I considered reraising but opted to call and see what she dd on the flop.

The flop came down Q52 rainbow and I checked and she threw her remaining 2100 into the 1600 pot. So I asked her if she had hit and she replied that it would cost 2100 to find out. The reason I played it this way was to get some information on her if she did bet but I wasn't really getting anything either way. I felt that the way she bet all her chips in that was was similar to the way players sometimes will bet if they have hit the flop but not necessarily the best hand eg a Q with a bad kicker or like some players will bet with a Q on a QJJ flop. Anyway, after a bit of a stare down I didn't get a tell I was looking for and so opted to fold.

In hindsight I think now that she either had AK or a smaller pair which would narrow it down to JJ beating me and 8s or 9s that were behind so maybe I should have called but I felt I would have better chances later on.

Shortly after I raised to 600 with another pair of tens and was called by the big blind who only had 1200 behind. The flop came down JQ7 and he went all in on the flop asking me the question again. Now I had about 3500 chips at this point whith the option of the rebuy still available so a call is not going to cripple me but I like to make the right decisions in these spots as it is great practice for when the pot is big. Anyway, I stared him down expecting that the flop has hit a lot of his range and thinking that I would have to fold but he did not look at all confident so I called and he turned over 78 and I picked up a nice small pot and some confidence in my reads.

I was then in another blind situation with 99 with the blinds at 100/200 and there were 3 limpers so I opted to call in the small blind and look to hit a set (raising will often get me to the flop against at least 3 others in that sort of situation out of position in these tournaments at the circus)

Anyway, Ted, a local player with some ability checked in the big blind and the flop came 256 with 2 spades. Figuring I was probably ahead I lead out for 700 into the 1000 pot and Ted promptly raised me 700 more after which everyone else folded.

Now Ted is more than capable of doing this with 2 pair, a set or a flush draw and he could easily have suited connectors in this spot. So I decided to call and see what happened on the turn.

I checked before the turn came out which was a 4 of diamonds and Ted bet 2000. Now it was decision time, based on the betting I'm erring on the side of being behind now so I had a look to see if I could read anything from him and I turned to him as if to say "you haven't overtaken me have you" to which he sat there with his arms crossed but he smiled the old bluffer's smile.

So I went all in and Ted promptly folded and I showed him my 2 nines and he turned over his K6 telling me that he though I had an overpair.

I lost a fair few chips later calling a raise from 600 to 1800 and a short stack's reraise to 5100 all in with AK that is ahead of a lot of people's ranges in these games hoping that my flat call would freeze out the initial raiser (which it didn't by the way even though he had AQ)and the reraiser's QQ held up.

I eventually busted out pushing my last 5 big blinds with 66 into TT so no festival for me, I'll have to make do with the football team fundraiser on Friday.