Played the monthly £100 freeze at The Rendezvous in Brighton tonight. Again, looking for discipline early and then build from level 3 onwards. Managed once more to get caught up early and lose chips. Here’s a particular hand where I was caught in 2 minds.

There are a few limpers, I have As2s late on and I call. The blinds call. The flop is AhJc9c. The BB bets out. Now I decided fairly quickly that she didn’t have an ace – I did think about it, but something told me that wasn’t what she had, I couldn’t tell you what that something was tho. I also didn’t put her on the flush draw, I had a feeling she had either the Jack or the 9. Anyway, I called, with the intention of betting if the turn was not a club. It wasn’t, it was the 6h. Surprisingly to me she bet out again. I still didn’t give the ace, and she wouldn’t be betting the flush draw now, so in my opinion it was still the Jack or the 9 and she was probably putting me on the flush draw.   I didn’t fancy a raise tho, which is at odds with my analysis. I called.  The river was the 2s, so no change. She bet big. Now is where I’m stuck, coz I still have her on the Jack or the 9, but I don’t figure her to be strong enough to be betting out for the 3rd time without being ahead of me. I decide to call, and she does indeed have the 9, but she also has an offsuit 6 which hit the turn, for 2-pair, and I’m beat. Quite why I’m getting involved in a big pot with a tiny ace is beyond me, it’s what I’ve been trying to avoid doing.

How’s this for a weird one, which didn’t involve me…
There are 3 limpers at 100/200 blinds. The BB raises 300. Yes, 300. Clearly no-one is going to fold to that, and everyone calls it. I now have the BB pegged for aces, coz it’s such a small raise. It’s a terrible raise tho, coz no-one can fold and surely you don;t want to play aces against 3 players. The raise pretty much screams aces tho. So anyway, the flop is 3-4-x, no suits. The BB checks, one of the limpers bets 500 and only the BB calls. The turn is a Queen. The limper goes all-in for about 6000. At this point I believe he must know full well the BB has aces, and so he must have a set. I put him on a set of 4’s. The BB calls. They turn over their cards. The BB does indeed have aces (no surprise there), but the limper shows AQ! Good grief, you couldn’t make it up. He clearly didn’t even think what her pre-flop raise meant.

Down to 6.5k at one point, I made it back to about my starting stack by the 1st break and felt alright, and back in control.

Pocket 10’s
After the break with the blinds at 100-200 I got dealt two black 10’s. The guy UTG shoved all-in blind for 1800. He was pretty frustrated, and with reason – at one point he’s raised 400 (at 50-100 blinds), and got called, and lost on a showdown when his opponent showed J6-offsuit for a flopped full-house! So anyway, I re-raised so no-one else would join in, and he flipped over K3-off. First card – King. One down.

Pocket 10’s Strikes Again
Next hand, the same two black 10’s. This time I raise to 550, and the guy who just beat my last 10’s flat calls. He only has 3000 behind, (having doubled thru me on the previous hand). The flop was A-K-4 with two diamonds and he insta-shoves. Now, it did smell of a stop-&-go to me, but he told me what a great flop it was and I actually thought he was sincere, plus I didn’t like the Ace AND King on the flop. I folded face-up and he showed K8d of 2nd pair and the nut-flush draw. Consecutive losses with 10’s and back down to 6.5k again.

Return of the Son of Pocket 10’s
A new table, and managed to make a couple of thousand back with a set of 3’s. Then, back to 7k again having had to fold a couple of flop’s after being re-raised, and I got dealt 10s, again, this time on the button. Blinds were now 300/600 with 50 ante, it folded round and I raised to 2000, leaving 5000 behind. The BB shoved for 10k and obviously I called. She flipped over AA and I had to force myself to even watch the cards come down.

Pocket 10’s were not my friends tonight.

So, another tournament where I just haven’t been able to build any kind of stack to put myself in any kind of decent position. Next week’s Black Belt Poker Academy might be very well timed, I welcome this opportunity to check my game out. I used to do consistently well in these kind of events, I could almost guarantee that I’m be in there or thereabouts when it down to the business end of it, but in the last 6-month’s I don’t ever seem to managed to get over my initial starting stack size, and it’s a bit of a concern. Let’s see what happens next week, and there’s a £50 freeze at the Vic after the Academy, so we’ll see how that goes too.

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