SE Double Chance - €75+5 24/05/2006

The Fitz is having a big festival this week to co-incide with their hosting of the Dublin leg of the Showdown Poker Tour, a €5000 buy-in European tournament series. As a result, the Fitz End Of Month tournament, €250+20 buy-in, was scheduled on a Wednesday night instead of the usual Thursday night, to allow a main event satellite tournament take place on the Thursday. I wandered down to the Fitz, not sure whether I would play or not, but willing to take a STT for a ticket. €30 to play, 9 of us at the table, with 1500 starting stack and 5 minute blinds, true turbo style! I was knocked out in 4th when my BB was raised, I found A7s and pushed, the raiser called with KJo and flopped a K to send me packing. I missed the infamous 1-handed blind Omaha STTs and decided I didn't feel like tackling the strong field this time, preferring to play one of the Citywest side events (€800, €400 and €300 buy-ins) the following Bank Holiday weekend, running simultaneously with the big €3000 main event out there. Lots of poker this time of year!

So I went over to the SE, where I expected a new €60+10+5 Scalps freezeout tournament was starting. As it turned out, the new SE schedule (interesting mix of smaller buy-in events) was not coming in until early June, so the old €75+5 DC was on. Some of the usual suspects were playing, Ianmc and HalfBaked (Peter), as well as Nick from Vegasnights and his brother Chris. No Chief Brody in sight - but I still didn't play well. I bluffed when I should have checked, I folded when I should have pushed, and I ran my AQs into Peter's KTo when we both were shortstacked and he hit a K on the flop. All in all not a good starting 3 levels.

After the break wasn't much better, down to 1800 chips with blinds now at 100/200, I had to double up. There were only 15 or so runners, with 3 gone by this stage, but it looked like I couldn't even hope to make the final table, let alone get paid! I was button+1, when Nick made it 800 UTG+1. Folded around to me, I looked down at AQo. Argh. I knew he wasn't making a move from there without a hand. Could he be doing it with AJ? Unlikely but possible. A mid-pair? Very possible. A hand that had me dominated? Also, very possible. The smart thing here would have been to fold and wait for a better moment to risk my tournament life. But I needed to double up and told myself he had a mid-pair and I was 50/50 - funny the things we tell ourselves when we know we're in trouble and want to gamble!

I pushed my remaining 1600 and he called the 800 more with AKc. The flop came down A77 rainbow...one of the better flops for me, giving me 6 outs (the final A or one of the two 7s to split the pot, one of the three Qs to win it outright)...I still only had a 23% chance of avoiding elimination though! No help on the turn or the river and out I go. Hopefully Nick went on to cash, he deserves it, seen him get very unlucky in that place. I'm off to the West for another stag this weekend so no poker (barring maybe tonight in the SE) for a few days - probably good to take a nice rest. Been playing a lot online these days, though the days I make money on the STTs I lose on the cash tables, and vice versa! Turned the €50 'please come back' free cash on Party into €110 on the cash tables over the past month, gotta come up with some objectives with what to do with this. Turn it into €500 via the lowest stakes cash games?