Maybe its the fact there's so much on these days but the thought of staying in the Ballsbridge Inn for last weekends UKIPT just didn't appeal to me. With this in mind I decided on playing day 1-A hopefully returning on the Saturday for day two.My starting table was nice enough but I couldn't get anything going early. It was quiet a strange first four levels as I in fact doubled up four players but never had more then starting stack myself.
A table move in level five when my stack was at 8k saw a change of fortunes. It looked a more difficult table with the guy who won the Cork leg and an Edinburgh finalist but a good rush of cards saw my stack hit 40k within 30 minutes on the table.
I coasted through the rest of the day and bagged up 57k which was just shy of 50 bigs and ahead of the average for day two.
One thing that really pissed me off on day one was that they cleared the main room floor of 20 tables for €100 side event meaning 12 tables from the main event were dumped in a sweatbox room upstairs with no AC.
When I saw the redraw its was obvious there would be plenty action on the new table with the Thomas 'Bomber' Nolan dynamic in play. Bomber is an action player, but he also seem to effect action from others on the table and that was the case here.
One had in the first level of day two, I actually managed to chip up 30 bigblinds ( 60% of average chips ) Pre-flop. Bomber opened, I 3-bet to 7.5x - Padge Barry made it 15x - Bombers calls and I jam to win the pot; I didn't have it.
This brought me over 100k but my momentum was stopped soon after when a relatively shortstack shoved 910 over my A9 button open and got there.
Level 3 of the day with blinds 1k/2k was where my pivotal hand of the tournament occurred. We were about 35 off the money and I was playing about 75k at the start of the hand. Bomber opened and a young polish player who was clearly steaming after been shown a bluff from Bomber a few hands before flatted, I called the button with KdQd.
The flop was 9 7 4 with two diamonds and Bomber lead for a near pot 15k and the Polish player shoved for 40k. My thinking here is Bomber had a hand with one pair probably a nine and was just trying to take down the pot while the shover range was wide enough considering his disposition and contained many worse draws to mine.
I felt I could fold Bomber out and would have 15 outs twice a lot of the time or could even be possibly ahead with King high. Anyway being the optimistic I am I went with it, bomber folded and I was 54.5 % favorite against my opponents pocket tens getting 2/1 for my 40k.
If I had hit it would of given me a lovely stack to attack the bubble with and was well worth the risk, unfortunately I didn't and would exit soon after shoving AJ over the same players AQ cut-off open.
That's the second UKIPT in a row I've basically done for my tournament in a big pot with a draw. I've been entering them with the intention of gambling to get a stack because of the field size and flat payout structure so I cant complain.