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Welcome back guys. I arrived in Melbourne yesterday. I didn't find the journey too bad at all; I think people build it up a bit too much for my liking. My advice is just don't sleep the night before you go and you'll end up sleeping for half of it anyway. Also I'd definitely recommend Singapore Airlines for anyone going that way!
So I think I'd just finished Day 1 at the IPC and now I'm going to give you some details of what happened on Day 2 at Galway. Obviously for the sake of both mine and your sanity I won't go through too many of the hands and I'll try and keep it as short as I can...also this was almost two weeks ago now so I'll try my best to keep it exactly how it happened but no promises!
My new table on Day 2 seemed fine, I didn't know anyone at it apart from The Big C, and he had a small stack so I didn't need to worry too much about him. Another player of note was a Scandinavian looking guy to my immediate left (always with the Scandi's on the left) who had a lot of chips. He told me he was Danish, and since I didn't want him to make my life too much of a hell, I started chatting to him about playing a lot online and stuff, partly in the aim to befriend him and to let him know I was a good player. As it turned out although he was a really good player he wasn't as aggressive as some Scandi's I'd previously played against and thankfully he didn't tangle with me too much either, which was nice.
The table I was playing at seem to suit my style nicely. I was just raising a lot of pots in late position and taking them all down on the flop, it seemed like nobody really wanted to gamble or make any moves so I built my 27k up to about 70k without playing any big pots. I was feeling good and felt really comfortable with my table, so with this in mind I decided to bluff off my whole stack! I raised in the hijack position with 10 9off and the big blind called. At this point I should point out the big blind was sort off loose-passive. He played too many hands preflop and also limped in a lot too.
Anyway this made it hard to put him on hands but I basically thought he had like a medium strength hand like q10ish or a pair of some sort. The flop comes J25 with 2 diamonds he checks and I bet like 2/3rds pot, and unfortunately he calls. The turn comes a 4 of spades (bringing two spades) and he checks again, so do I just give up? I wish I did, but I thought he could either have J10 QJ KJ type hands, medium pairs like 66-1010 and diamond flush draws. With that in mind I decided to put in like a 90% of pot bet and force all these hands out.
However, to my disgust, he called again and I got a little sick in my mouth. This left him with like 25k behind me with like 47k behind and about 55k in the middle. The river was a gross Ace of diamonds bringing the flush and I thought "sick he's gotten there..." and I presumed he'd shove all-in now. To my surprise he checked and I had a decision - I no longer thought he had a medium pair and I thought he basically had to have like a KJ type hand because I don't see him checking the river with any flush (also I think he just ships it in on turn if he had a set to defend against the two flush draws). So of course I decide to push 'all in', thinking that this Ace could potentially be a huge scare card for his hand and it was gonna be very tough for him to call without a flush.
He quickly called after about 10seconds and showed A2 of spades, rivering a filthy two-pair after turning a flush draw. I think there was certainly some decent logic in this hand in my defence, however I'd been pushing this guy around all day and with that in mind I think this was probably bad timing for such a big bluff. With regards his play I probably would have just check-raised all-in on the turn, but fair play to him I guess.
The dinner break was just a few minutes away and when I got back I'd have 26k with blinds 1/2k. Oh and to the guy that said to me, "Wow! That was the biggest pot of the tournament so far!" immediately after I had lost it - not cool - die please.
After dinner I had calmed down, but not enough to prevent me getting all my chips back in the middle on the first hand. I was in the big blind, and it was folded to Derek Murray in the small blind, who made it 6k. I looked down at KQ and shoved. He called the extra 20k (about 40% of his stack I think) with A7off, which is a bit questionable considering he knows that I wouldn't push on him without some sort of decent hand, but as always I could be wrong? Thoughts welcome? Anyway of course I rivered him and was back in business!!
The final relevant hand that I played on Day 2 was pretty standard (in how it played and how the board ran out). I had about 40k, with blinds 1/2k there's a raise and I call in front of me and I have JJ on button so I ship the lot in, which is my only play here I think, the initial raiser folds and now I'm putting this guy on 77-1010 and I'm routing from a call. He does call but I'm sick when he shoves me QQ (this was with 30 left and 26 for the money). I suppose quite normally the flop is J high and I'm up to 80k. A couple of moves made later around the bubble and I'm up on about 110k coming back for Day 3.
Peace,
Reesy
Comments (1)
sorry readers, we got a bit backed up on the blog. The final table blog will be up in a couple of days. Its well worth a read