[mrmuzeman]

The 8th and final hour


Again the Ladbrokes staff raised the blinds quite harshly compared to the early rounds and they went to 300/600 with a 75 ante. Each round of poker was going to cost 1650 chips.

After a couple of rounds folding I found pocket Jacks in mid position and raised it announcing 2K and holding the chips up before throwing them in. The Irish guy who folded to my KK all in re-raise sighed as he looked at his hand. Probably was the absolute monster of AJ again but he folded as did all the others and I collected the pot. My stack had fallen slightly but was decent at around 13-14K.

The very next hand I picked up the Kings again. Excellent. I really was in a card rush totally. Two big black kings, say 2pac and Biggy. I did exactly the same as last hand and held up 2 yellow 1K chips and announced 2K. The Irishman to my left really rather quickly said ‘Im all in’. I was surprised by this but totally dulling my excitement until everybody else had acted. They all folded to me and I thought very quickly about what his all in raise meant. I asked him how big his stack was to find out whether I was to be all in again. I think he said around 17 thousand. So he had me covered but now I knew almost surely that I was well in front and he didn’t have AA. There is almost no way you would raise to 17K after a 2K raise with Aces. You want action, you would surely raise to 4-6K. I figured the most likely hands for him were JJ or AK or some totally average hand and he was making a play at me. So I said ‘I call’ quickly and flipped my Kings face up on their back. He looked pained before showing pocket Queens.

I think I stood up from my seat here although I cant quite remember. I remember saying ‘Sweat the Queen’ once or twice to myself but out loud. Dodge the Queen. Sweat the Queen.

The dealer knocked the table twice with his hand and dealt the flop. The second card revealed one of the two Queens I had needed to so desperately avoid. I said ‘Ah Shit’ but quite quietly not all loud and pissed off or anything. When the turn put a third club on the board for about half a second I thought I had a flush draw for the river and my outs had jumped from 2 to 11 but then the dealer said it paired the board with 7s and I was already facing a full house. So a 2 outer on the river, surely not?

Nope. And I was out. After all my hard work! After the dealer made me count my chips to check I was indeed eliminated I had to get up and leave to a nice round of applause from the table. Before you think anything of that, every single player eliminated regardless of how was getting clapped by their table at this tournament! Still, I shook some hands and The_Pro told me I was very unlucky and well played which I liked. I could tell I had gained some respect as they probably didn’t think much of me when I was short stacked and folding every hand time after time which I felt good about.

I walked out to a disappointed looking Jezza by the door at my dismissal. He had a bet on me - I guess that was why! I heard people by the door saying there were 13 tables remaining, so I’m guessing I came in around 125th place. That means the average stack at that time would have been about 25K and if my Kings hold up I would have had about 29K and gone from 2K to 29K in 2 hours. I went down to the bar with Jezza to get drunk and actually felt not gutted at all just a little annoyed at a missed opportunity. I cant tell you how much I wanted to cash out in that tourney. Still - that’s poker!





Cheers Alien and no changing my grammar!