Pocket Queens and pocket queens.

It was good to reach another final table last night, after a pretty long session, as results haven't been great lately.

 The field was about 80 players. £3000 in the pot.

I,d been playing pretty solid for a few  hours and I was gradually increasing my stack till I hit the key hand:

There was an early position raise to 2200 from a pretty loose guy - blinds were 800/400 - the button calls and I look down at pocket queens on the big blind.
I,m out of position, so no point mucking about, I raise it to 7200, the LAG mucks pretty quick and the button whose a pretty weak player eventually calls - he's basically all in with a couple of hundred behind..
He turns over Ace Four - I show my queens - Ace Ball on the flop and I,ve dusted about half of my chips.

I then built it up gradually again to about 20BB over the next hour or two - then bluffed off half of it on a flop with 2 aces on it. I lost my balls on the river and folded my 7 high.

With 11 players left, the chip leader was in the BB with a mountain of chips and I was SB with 4BB - about 15,000 chips at 4k/2k/200. It got folded round to us and we both agreed to play the hand blind - I went all in and he called.
We ran out the cards and he turns over 7-2 off and I,ve got A 2 - sweet - Ace high is good and I double up.

82%  - "One Time"

I ducked and dived, for a few hours just managing to stay around the 6-12 bb level, and when the final table bubble burst we were down to 9 with 7 places paid.

FINAL TABLE

I was one of the 3 short stacks with about 35k with 6000/3000/500.
1st hand and a fellow shortstack busts out, he jams with suited J , 9 guy calls with A Q and we,re one place from the money.

Next hand I,m dealt junk and fold.

Next hand, I,m UTG +1 and I look down at pocket queens - not bad - after a bit of tough soul searching  I push the remainder of my modest stack into the middle...
 CALL!
I,m snapped off by an Italian player, he flips over pocket jacks.

Perfect - 82% favourite - finally some chips to play with - in the money etc...

Ah, you know the rest, jack on the flop and the money bubble boy is toast. Bah.