Much like last week I was card dead for the first half of the game. I had an entertaining table with a few of my friends on it as well as some active/interesting players to mix it up. There was an older lady next to me that was being aggressive and no one really knew how she was playing because she was getting away with it and not having to show down too many hands. After the break this came to an end when she got busted in a few raised pots betting strong with marginal hands when first to act. Thankfully I got to take advantage of it as she limped the small blind when it was folded around to her and I checked the big blind with king 9 off. One of my friends gave me shit for not being aggressive pre-flop but I was fine with the play since I knew she'd call with most hands. Luckily for me the flop came 4, 7, 9 and she lead out with a bet. Not going to muck around with my hand I re-raised all-in and she ended up calling with jack ten off on the gutshot straight draw. Thankfully she missed and I doubled up knocking her out.
I then started to get some cards and took down a few blinds with them. A little while later I had kings under the gun and took my time deciding how much to raise. Once I decided with 2.5 times I got instantly re-raised all-in by the player next to me and there was a caller from a shorter stack on the other side of the table. I wasn't about to fold and had them both covered so called, turned over my kings much to the pain of the guy next to me who had queens and the other person had jacks. Cold deck for them as the king was the second card out and I took down a massive pot with my set and took out two players at the same time.
Our table was then broken and we were down to 2 or 3 tables left. I got a bit more aggressive on the other table, stole a few blinds and cruised on to the final table with a decent stack. The blinds were quite large by this stage but I drew a good seat starting as the small blind. I took out a shorter stack with queens in the small blind, flopped top set and then rivered a boat. The action on the final table was fast and furious and before I knew it we were down to 4 players. One of my friends took out the other two players who were the shorter stacks by that time and he had a strong chip lead when we got to heads-up.
I took down a couple of the opening pots and since the blinds were so high I had clawed my way back in to the match. With the blinds at 10K/20K I limped from the small blind with 4 5 suited and the big blind checked. The flop came queen, 8, 2 with two diamonds and with the big blind first to act he overbet the pot putting me virtually all-in. I decided it was now or never and called much to his disappointment as he thought he was busted when he turned over 2 6 off for bottom pair no kicker. Unfortunately he dodged another diamond and knocked me out to take the win.
The second place finish after my fifth the previous week actually puts in me in to the lead for the venue, admittedly after only 3 weeks in to the season. So with that in mind I'll definitely be back on Monday to hopefully put in another good performance and attempt to qualify for States.
My friend Paul who beat me heads-up with 2 6 off ... ouch ...
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