Defending Titles - Part 2

I was in a very comfortable situation and feeling very confident, when I tried to get a bit too cute in a pot which cost me dearly.

I'd raised with AT and got called by a very loose player behind me. He seemed to be thinking of re-raising pre-flop and I was pretty sure that he had something like AQ, AJ or a medium pocket pair. The flop came ten high and I decided to try to win a big pot rather than just picking up what was in the middle.

I thought that given his play up to this point, he would definitely bet if I checked to him and he had one of the hands that I'd put him on. Also I thought that he only had 2 or 3 outs, so I didn't think I was risking that much even if he checked and took a free card. Unfortunately he did check and the turn came a Jack, which I wasn't overly happy about. I bet out this time and he called me and immediately I feared that I'd let him catch up. The river was a blank and it was checked down, and he showed JK.

I think if I was certain he had AJ/AQ or a smaller pair then it definitely makes sense to go for the check-raise on the flop, but I probably should have taken into account that there was a fairly good chance he could have QK/JK/JQ, and I should have just played it safe and took the pot with a bet on the flop, rather than risk getting outdrawn. I still had a reasonable stack after that, but it was that hand that probably caused me to bust shortly afterwards. If I'd had more chips then I probably would have just called with my 88 when Mike Sexton raised pre-flop or else re-raised a little bit to find out where I was. Instead with the stack I had left I decided my only move was all-in and his 99 held up. I was pretty disappointed after I bust and I was kicking myself for not betting the flop with the AT, but looking back now, while I think it was a mistake, I don't think it was as stupid as Iwas telling myself it was afterwards.

Since then I've had two more tournaments, in which I had pretty good runs, but ultimately disappointing finishes. I say disappointing, but really I wasn't that disappointed at all. I was the actual 'bubble' in the Boylepoker IPO and finished 3 off the money in the Irish Winter Festival main event. The reason I say I wasn't disappointed is because I feel I played really well in both, and also because if you have to bubble a tournament then it's best to do it in a relatively small one.

I was pretty sickly unlucky in the IPO, when I moved all in from the BB with 99 and got called by the guy who had raised from late position with K3 o/s. He wasn't remotely pot-committed with his opening raise, but I think he just didn't want to pass and come back the next day with 45k and decided to gamble to get a big stack, which is fair enough I suppose. Unfortunately for me he turned a K, and that left me with 3 BBs. Even more unfortunately it was the very last hand of the night and I knew I would have to come back on Sunday to, in all probability, bust in the first or second hand... which is exactly what happened!

I think I played pretty good in the IWF too, and was a bit unfortunate to keep running into hands when I tried to get busy around the bubble. Myself and Nicky Power were doing the most raising at the table, and it was no surprise when we ended up all in against each other pre-flop. What was a surprise was that he managed to beat me in a 50-50, with his QK flopping a straight against my 99. While I didn't enjoy getting beat in the hand, I was kind of relieved that I wasn't going to be handing Nicky 7k for beating me at golf (we played golf for 5% of our action the day before). We'd also swapped 5% with each other on top of that, so I still had a small interest in the tournament, which lasted about 30 minutes into Sunday when Nicky found the aces. Unfortunately he found them 3 seats to his left after he had moved all in.

Both the IPO and IWF were great fun though as usual, and I really enjoyed playing both tournaments. I've a pretty quiet couple of weeks now before I head to London for the GUKPT final.