Oct 22nd - €75 + €5 NL Hold'Em - Fitzwilliam Club (Dublin)

Having just sold my house in W.London I'm currently back in Dublin for a couple of weeks before going to Florida for a month before Xmas in Dublin before who knows what!

I thought I'd check out whats been happening at one of my favourite clubs here in town with a trip down to the Fitz club to play in the €75 NL Hold'em tournament and to catch up with some faces of my past!

With so much competition in terms of card rooms in Dublin these days (there are now 4 major card rooms in town) I wasn't really sure of what turnout to expect but at the end of the day there were 43 runners and I finished 14th!

The starting chips were 6k with a 30 minute clock which would point to a well structured event. Of course you still get the 'goonies' who want to go all-in on A-K in level 1 pre-flop but this kind of tournament is excellent if you can sit there and wait for cards to come and flops to develop in your favour!

After 3 levels, and the break, I had 7k hardly having seen a hand I could get involved with but with antes at 100-200, for level 4, there was really no need to panick!

Once again I was was playing good poker, bluffing nicely on a couple of pots, calling down players with King high Winning both pots) and eeked my way upto 9k and the last two tables.

Of course in any poker tournament there WILL come a time when you have to take a chance at doubling up annd my moment came shortly after...

Holding As-Jd, in MP, and with blinds at 300-600 I raised it up to 2500. My stack at this point was just shy of 9k so had around 6400 left after this raise!

All passed to the BB, a stubborn kind of player who would play medium hands like good hands and would refuse to let go if he felt good about the cards he was holding. He called and we saw a flop of Qs-6s-5s. The BB immediately bet out 4k. Decision time!

There was no way he'd bet out unless a piece of the flop but to have made a flush already would be pushing it and anyhow I had the best flush draw with the Ace of Spades in my hand! All-in!

He duly called the other 2400 and flipped Qc-8s.

The turn came the 8d...the river the 9h and that was me done!

Its a very thin line between sucess & failure at poker and I just seem to keep falling on the wrong side of that line at the moment.

Entries -> 43 - Place -> 14th Loss-> £57 Profit/Loss for 2007 -> -£1930
(Rate of exchange is calculated at £1 = $2.00 / £1 = €1.40)