Waterford. As I was the short stack of the five remaining players it was clearly to my advantage to agree to the suggested deal and accept the €3200 on offer.A high class field showed up for leg two of the new tour and it was great to see legendary Irish players like Mick McCloskey, Scott Grey, Don Fagan and Rory Liffey playing in my home town but the amount of runners was a little disappointing overall at 47.
This was always going to be a social occasion for me coinciding with my birthday and after doing my best Oliver Reed impersonation on day one I somehow managed to get back with 50,100 chips for Sundays final table which was in decent shape. I got extremely lucky in a hand against Rory towards the end of play on Saturday when I got all my chips in with a gutshot and pair against his bottom two pair, so I was drawing to three cards for the chop and four for the win. Luckily a rivered Jack chopped the pot for me.
I lost most of my chips allin pre with QQ against Paul Warrens AA early on Sunday. This left me severely short and when the blinds passed through me I had 6200 of the 470,000 chips in play with eight players remaining and five getting paid. I look at one card an Ace on the button and shove, the big blind calls with Kd9d, when I turn the other card it matches and I double. After picking up the blinds a couple of times I double up again winning my customary race against Sideshow with 22vAJs and I'm up to over 30,000, still short but the blinds are still low so back in it.
Paul finds the Aces again and knocks out Rory and Rob Taylors girlfriend Cat who held QQ and KK so were down to six and its agreed to pay the bubble €400. My good mate John Weaffer finishes in 6th next and I get another double up this time from Big Al shortly afterwards. I bet the cut off to 4500 with KJos and AL calls. Flop is 99x and its checked; turn brings a K and Al check shoves holding 44. It's a pretty easy call for me as I don't ever think he plays the nine he is trying to represent this way.
Play went on for another two hours generally very tight and with the structure being so good, ( 90 bigblind average at one stage of the final table ) it was a very cagey affair. An even chop was suggested and agreed, at the time the largest stack was Paul with 125k and I was the smallest with 77k so quiet tight. Sideshow made the chop this time which pleased me. All in all another good all be it very fortunate result for me but you take your luck where you find it in tournament poker. Off to Bolton for my first GUKPT this weekend so hopefully my decent run continues.
