WED- 26th April
Really wish that late at night when its crunch time I could engage the grey matter with a little more control. I player a little on VC last night. 2 $15 SnG’s resulted in a 1st and 2nd. The second place was unlucky as when even stacked my JJ was no match for his At all-in preflop. So I decided to reward myself with a bash at the 15k gtd, a tournament that epitomises value. It was a $27 rebuy so I thought I d just have 1 go and let it die if I didn’t pull it off. Well the form that has been lacking of late flipped and boy did I get some luck. I snapped AA with KK all-in preflop. I thought some guy was making a move for my blind and went all-in with 88 against his AA, spiked an 8 and BOOM. Then I started hitting hands and getting a stack. AK vAQ bang, 99 v 55. Again. Then card dead when we got down to 50 players. Stole a bit and maintained my healthy stack status. Bubble approaches so I use my experience and start switching gears. 3 successful blind steals in one orbit, so I show the Q8s on the last one to generate action. Unfortunately I don’t get anything in the way of a hand for AGES. With 28 people left and only 27 get paid I know now is the BEST time to get my stack up to stratospheric levels. I get 88 in late position, I raise to 7k (blinds at 2.4k/1.2k respectively- my stack 35k) and the BIG stack calls me in late position. ALARM BELLS SHOULD HAVE SOUNDED. For him to call my raise he must have a good hand. 99+ or Aqs minimum. He also snt worried about the bubble as he is the BIG chip leader on about 130k. Flop comes 6,7,J with 2 diamonds. Now instead of making a reasonable bet, say 8-12k and making a judgement after, I decided that he would (rightly) want to protect his stack and as id seen him make big laydowns before, I went all-in. He called in a heartbeat with 1010 and made a set on the turn. The thing was, I was gutted as 27th won $160 which aint really important but it is when you are rebuilding your bankroll. And there were a couple of stacks with 2/3k around. Damnnit. Next time gadget. Must remember not to fuck with big stacks around the bubble.