Aug 11th - £20 NL Hold'Em - Cavendish Club (Belfast)

There were 56 runners tonight for the tournament. A big increase on last week and of course it meant that there was more a likelyhood of running into some 'beginner' who thought that A-9 would win the pot and therefore raise the hell out of it before the flop thereby making me miss the chance of a triple up to 51k in chips...but I'll get to that in a moment.

Three rebuys and a top up meant I was in for £100 by the time play resumed after the break. I'd lauched into an all-in bet on the last hand before the break for 2k with 8h-10h and had been called in two spots with players holding Q-J & K-5. A flop of A-8-5-8-9 gove me a nice treble up + antes so I set off, with my 4k top up, with just short of 11k.

Blinds increase every 15 mins after the break and steeply too. 200/400 became 400/800 became 800/1600 became 1000/2000 and I'd barely moved in chip count. I'd gotton lucky when my A-J beat Q-Q on a 8-9-10-3-7 flop and gotton unlucky when my 9-9 ran into A-A. All in all though I was holding my own.

By the time blinds had reached 2000/4000 I had 17k and I put out my BB to find 2-2 in the hole. Of course once three players had flat called there was no way I was going to go all-in in this spot but was happy to see the flop. That when this happened...

One from the button Mr Beginner raises to 14000. There are three players behind me so I fold. Mr Beginner gets 1 caller. The flop comes 5-5-2 and I'm fuming. Player A checks. Mr BBeginner goes all-in for another 10k and player A calls.

On their backs and Mr Beginner has A-9 whilst player A has K-Q. A 7 is followed by a King and Player A scoops a nice looking pot whilst I look at my 13k dejectively.

After that I had to move quick. Blinds got moved to 3000/6000 before I threw my load into the middle with 8h-6h. Unfortunatelyfor me the BB wakes up with A-7 and I'm gone in 12th place. Ho Hum!!

56 Entries - 12th - Win $0 - Loss $170 (£100) - Acc. Total -$434.11