IPO 2009 Day 2 Diary

I folded for a lap then picked up KK. Rupinder duly raised, as he did pretty much every other hand and why not he had the chips to do it. His raise pot committed him and thankfully he had to call my ship even if he had raised with ! Poker is never easy, even when you get it in miles ahead and by the turn he had picked up a flush draw and a gutshot! Paul Spillane was behind me shouting "ah, don't do it!".

The on the river was too close for comfort and it took a split second for me to breathe a sigh of relief. Within a few laps, I made a few steals and got myself comfortably above average, however, that wasn't to last for long. I drifted back again a little bit, which was the case for most people with the blinds getting up and people just hanging on longer than they were expected to.

Even average stack at this point was starting to look short. Rupinder was decent enough to double me up once again when my TT held up against his overcards. I was starting to flip well, something I had been pathetically bad at for the last 4-5 months, well hopefully my good flipping was a sign I was to run better.

The guy to the right of Rupinder, who was at the time and remains completely unknown to me, became incredibly aggressive. He was showing good hands often enough, but was just too aggressive and it looked like only a matter of time before he raised one hand too many. We went on a break and this unknown guy was the new chipleader with 600k. He won a lot of his chips off Rupinder when he went out of his way to clash with him. To be honest they were both happy to take each other on which seemed madness given their stacks but in a contest of ability there was only ever going to be one winner.

Within one lap and two consecutive hands Rupinder had knocked his arch enemy out and regained his chipleader title with a massive stack of just over 800k! He was way out in front and had an absolute mountain of chips in front of him. With his now even bigger stack he was completely running over the table and I went through an utter card dead period meaning I could only hang on until they broke our table, which looked like it would be happening soon.

By the time the table broke I was short, which became even shorter after I got a positional raise snapped off by a Frenchman with a big stack, so I folded my 33 knowing I wouldn't be folding the next time whether I liked it or not. A lap later the same Frenchman opened in late position, and I look down at J2 on the BB. I don't have a choice in this one as the BB was just over a third of my stack so I reluctantly called hoping to have two live cards which thankfully I did. So my J2 vs his AQ, J on the flop and it held.

That was the first time I'd been all-in with the worst hand and it didn't feel good, time to get a stack together and not let myself get that short again, regardless of big stacks playing aggressively. That J2 was a huge turning point for me. Just before it I had told Rob not to bother registering for the PLO side event as I was likely to bust fairly soon and couldn't be bothered hanging about all night after a long session the night before too. Luckily enough after that J2 hand I managed to work my way up to 270k which was my new high point. Now I wouldn't say that 270k was anyway big, but felt like it was a super stack at the time and I hoped the forward momentum would continue.

Down to two tables, I discovered I was the last remaining bounty. I have to admit this definitely felt good. So many well known pros were bounties and when Paul approached me with the jersey the first thing I thought of was, ah I'm going to make a fool of myself here, I'm likely to be the first bounty out. The likes of Marty Smyth, Andy Black, Neil Channing, Padraig Parkinson and Rob were all bounties . . . I was out of my league here. I admit it did feel good firstly to not show myself up and secondly to outlast them all, I do realise how pathetic that sounds but no point writing a blog if I'm not honest right?

Two tables out it was time to get down to business. I was now seated to the left of a young Frenchman who had quickly become known as the guy who called two all-ins with KQ and got extremely lucky. The one consistency of the tournament to note - aggression! We had a couple of blind on blind hands, where straight from the off he showed he was happy to bully when he thought he could, so I had to start playing back.

One pot I remember well is when I bet him off a J9x flop with K4os. Had that move gone wrong I would have looked very silly and done nearly half my stack. After that point he seemed happy to leave me be, which to be honest didn't last that long as the blinds were accelerating things and it wasn't too long after we were down to nine and final table.

I'll be back on Tuesday with my final table diary.