IPC Galway Day 3

My stack soared from the 110k up to around 500k after winning a lot of pots uncontested, as well as my KQs holding vs Paul Leckey's Q8off for an all-in and then my AK beating out 22 to take out another player.

Quickly enough we were down to 9 players, but the TV table could only hold eight! So we were joined with the other table and were to play 9 handed until we lost a player. I was second in chips with over 500k and Ben Vinson led with over 700k. Guessing the fact that nobody wanted to bubble the TV final table and given my big stack, I thought I'd turn up the heat on these guys.

After taking down a good few pots preflop, I then played an interesting hand with Ben that gave me the chiplead. I had KK- the action was raised to 25k from early position, I made it 60k and Ben from small blind made it 165k. I had already heard about this young English guy that was playing very aggressive and doing very well for himself.

We easily had the biggest two stacks left in the game, so when the action came back around to be honest I just wanted to fold, partly because this was the only guy that could bust me. I went into the tank and really thought that he could have 3 hands - AA, QQ or AIR (nothing). He was clearly a strong and intelligent player and knew that I would need KK or even maybe AA to continue with him in the hand (also I had already re-raised preflop twice in the last 10mins, which he of course would have noticed).

So I thought to myself, ok if I ship it in now he'll call with AA and fold everything else, so there's no point. If he has QQ and I call, I'll get a continuation bet on nearly all flops and I can shove it in then, and this is again true for his bluff hands.

It should be noted at this point that I didn't mind if he did have AA, I was just trying to maximise the amount I could get IF HE DIDNT.

Anyway the flop came, J83. He bet 165k and I moved in. The flop was just fine as he never had JJ or 88, he later told me he had 74s so I really liked the way I played the hand. I think his play is pretty advanced and there was a lot of merit in it as I was definitely folding QQ and AK to him.

Anyway, I'm going to have to wrap up this post and I'll report on the final table and heads-up separately in my next post. Sorry I dragged it on, it just always seems to take me forever to say anything (both live and online I guess) and I don't want miss out any relevant hands. Don't be afraid to comment if you think I'm rattling on too much or if you have any questions which you'd like answered. Thanks for reading!

Peace,

Reesy