New Month New Beginning

Poker does ultimately come down to your results. My results for April make pretty grim reading:

6 Tournaments played. £295 entry fees. Winnings £0

Really not good.

3 hand implosion - Hero to Zero

I could probably elaborate a little more, but I think Tonights tournament bust out can be summarised fairly succinctly:
Played solid for 4hrs, steadily built my stack.
Ran AK into kings and didn,t improve. Crippled.
next hand I did a nice preflop raise - c bet - fold move with pocket 3,s.
Next hand I repopped a raiser for my last 12bb with pocket 6,s, he flips over AK and a king hits the flop.

Thats pretty much it. Onto the next..

Sent to the rail by 5 3 offsuit.

40 players made it through to Day 2 in total. I was about 36th in chips so it was always going to be a bit of a struggle, it started off brightly enough, I got a few chips early on to give me a bit of time, but the blinds and ante,s starting catching up, I was at under 10BB when I shipped a low pocket pair on the button and got it through to get up to about 20k.
Next hand I picked up A 10h, I raised to 8,000 with blinds at 2000,1000,200, only the big blind calls. Flop comes down J 6 3. BB checks, I shove, he calls and shows 5 3 off for bottom pair 5 kicker, no redemption on turn or river and I,m ash. Hmmm.
27th place from 120 odd. Not quite how I,d planned it.

Simon Appleby took down about £10k for first place.

Scraped through to Day 2

The two casinos seems to have shot themselves in the foot by running the competing events. Numbers were down drastically at the Genting on previous tournaments with only 51 players entering the Day 1A event and they,ll probably  get a similar number for Day 1b today.
There will still be in the region of £15,000 up for grabs, but there was basically no point have two day 1,s!

Edinburgh hosts competing main events.

Big weekend for poker players in Edinburgh. The 2 main casinos in Edinburgh, the Maybury and the Genting at Fountain Park are both having competing tournaments for the Easter weekend.The Maybury Scottish Poker Tour started yesterday and had a 117 turnout for day 1A with a £250 buy in.

I,m playing the £110 + £50 add on, 2 day event at the Genting Casino I,m free rolling as won a couple of seats but I made a mistake selling my 2nd seat - should have used it as insurance, if I get busted out today.
 I could have entered day 1B tomo. We,ll see how it goes..

Another decent cash and a boot in the nuts.

I should really be delighted after getting my 3rd cash in the last 3 tournaments:

I finished a respectable fourth from about 75 runners for a decent payout of £350.
I,ve already made nearly all the money I need for this years Vegas trip.
I also won another seat for a promotional £110 game in April.

Not bad right?... but no poker journey is ever complete without the bad beat story, poker does get under your skin a bit, and I left a bit steamed after getting launched out of the tourney at 5am after a weird turn of events .

Good run continues.

I managed another decent result in last nights tournament. I got 3rd place out of about 70 players.

I got a real help about half way through the tournament with 1 big hand where I raised with pocket 4's.
The board came down jj8, I c-bet the flop and got 2 callers. turn card was a 4 so I bet again, one of the guys calls again and the other guy reraises.

 I flat his raise to keep the other guy in and then the last guy shoves all in, as does player 2 and I call as well. one guy turns over AJ and the other KJ!! River bricks and I,ve got a decent stack.

I got to the final table, as one of the short stacks-as usual, and basically ground my way through until we got down to the last 3. The chip leader who I had been picking off quite nicely for most of the night, limped in the SB to me and I picked up AQ. I put a decent raise in up to about 60k blinds were 12000/6000/500 and had about 140k so I was pretty much commiting myself anyway. He calls, the flop comes down 9, 10, j. He checks, I c-bet, he shoves all in and I call the bet.
He turns over 10, 8 of hearts so we,ve both got the same straight draw buts he,s already hit. Turn and river bricks and I,m busto in 3rd.
Its been a good week - I,ve got another £430 towards the Vegas battle fund! Thats about £1400 this week, This is accumulating quicker than I had envisaged! I also picked up another free seat for a promotional £100 game in April so I,ll get to sell one of them as well.