May 26th - £250+£25 No Limit Hold'em FREEZE (Gros. Victoria)

Back in Black!

Tonight I decided, rather late in the day, to troop down to the Victoria to play in the £250 NL Hold'Em FREEZEOUT event being held there. I left the house at 6.15pm and it took me 75 mins to get there as the A40 down into town was reduced to one lane cos of roadworks! Bugger!

Anyway I managed to be the last entry in so sat down, with 46 others, for a pop at the £4k first prize.

The event was a 'double chance' one. This is where you get half your chips up front (in this case 2k) and you can have the other half (2k) at any time during the first hour.

There are many schools of thought about what the proper strategy is in these events but I don't play enough of them to have an opinion either way. Tonight I decided to wait it out a while thinking that I could make a move or two with my 2k starter stack and, if I lost a coin flip, could get the other half at that time! I wish I'd have taken the full 4k up front!

My newly devised tournament strategy seems to be working well at the mo and suited connectors are a great source of chunky pots. Holding 4d-5d and with blinds at 50-100 I flat called a raise to 300 from across the table, as did one other, and we saw a flop of 3-7-8 rainbow. If a bet came in here I was done with the hand but we all ended up checking.

The magic '6' came down on the turn. I, being first to bet, bet out 500. Next player dropped but the last player moved all-in. Of course I called. 'I have a straight', I exclaimed. 'What???', said my opponent looking rather perplexed and flipping over A-A. I took him for 1800 and I was on my way. The bugger of it was was that he had ANOTHER 1800 left over. Now if only I'd have taken that extra 2k up front!

I was seeing a lot of duff starting hands with plenty of 2-7's, 8-3's, 4-9's etc to keep me out of bother. My chip stack had climbed to 9k when my next action hand came about.

Blinds were at 300-600 and I looked down to see K-J in the BB. I, and four others, saw a flop of Jd-2d-4c. Not wanting to give freebies out I bet out 600 but the player to my left suddently went all-in for about 8k. All other players passed and it came back to me.

The flop texture screamed flush draw as if the guy had flopped a set he'd be more inclined to flat call at this point surely? Putting him on the flush draw meant I was 65/35 fav so called. He flipped 8d-5d.

No more diamonds arrived to save his sorry arse and I was upto 17k with about 18 players left.

Not a great deal happened after that for a while. The final table arrived (9) and with only 6 getting paid a deal was done whereby 7th, 8th & 9th got their money back and so off we went. I had 13k.

Of course it helps to get good hands at the final table and for a short while I could do no wrong. I doubled up my stack when my A-K beat off A-J. I doubled AGAIN when my A-K beat out 10-10 on a board of K-K-7-7-3 and I knocked out another player when my A-A beat up Q-K on a board of A-2-3-4-3. I was chip leader on 70k and supposedly cruising. Ha!!

Blinds were still tiny compared to stack sizes (1k-2k) but the opening bets were either all-in or a minimum of 10k. A couple of times I called these opening bets but then couldn't continue after duff flops.

Suddenly there was 3 of us left and I'd got 40k left (out of 188k).

I just couldn't find a hand!

Raising to 10k with As-9s I get a call from the now chip leader. Flop is Kc-10c-Jc. Not exactly ideal. I check as does my opponent. The 9h falls next. It looks risky. I check again. My opponent bets out 20k. I pass and he kindly flips a King.

So now I'm the one on life support. With blinds moving to 1500-3000 its costing me almost 6k every 3 hands. On the button I go all-in with 9-10 and get called by the chip leader with A-2. Ho help on board and I'm out in 3rd place which is good for 2k.

I'm back in the black for the first time in a good while and on form too.

Its a busy week next week with events at the Western (Tues), Gutshot (Thurs, Fri & Sat) and Orient football club (Sun) in the hope of qualifying for a seat at this years Ladbrokes Poker Million!

Stay tuned for regular updates!!

Entries -> 47 - Place -> 3rd - Win -> £1725 Profit/Loss for 2007 -> £1213

(As from 20th April 2007 rate of exchange is calculated at £1 = $2.00)