Final Tables
Following on from my recent post about taking up live poker again, Chris and I headed to Alea last Sunday to play in a £15 freezeout tournament. The session started off with a little excitement as a colleague of mine from the AHS had just called in a panic to tell me she had missed her stop at Reading to change for Guildford and was almost in London. Now, to be fair, she hails from a land with no trains and where everyone has personal drivers so the whole public transport thing is a bit new to her, but it did mean that I started the night coming up with rail related jokes (and a little concern that she may end up travelling around the home counties for all eternity) rather than focusing on my game.
The first few hands were fairly tense affairs as a few players were in fold or shove mode despite us having relatively large starting stacks (10k with 25/50 blinds). I made some inroads early on and had trebled my starting stack by the first break by being quite aggressive and trying to force folds preflop or before the turn. I had to calm down after the break following a table move as the tournaments most aggressive player was sat to my left who was happy to shove all in with rags. Luckily for me, I managed to call his bluff when I hit my flush to his middle pair. This set me up nicely for my first live poker final table.
I started to play very defensively on the final table waiting for other players to knock each other out. Within an hour we were down to the final three, but with us all having even stacks we got bogged down in small pots and defensive plays. In the end I reraised a value bet with KQ suited and was not toally upset when they turned over A6. I flopped a straight and flush draw but they turned their Ace and it held. I was done in 3rd place for a £55 payout. Not bad for my first final table. Means my overall live career is in profit.