3 in a row?

I was heading up to D4 on Thursday with the hope of making it 3 in a row for final tables in the deepstack game, with the day starting off as it did a small part of me new maybe things were not going in my favour aswel as that there was over 700 players to beat out this time. I could not get a lift to Dublin that Thursday so instead I had to settle for getting the 12.30 train from Athy to Dublin which of course ment I was going to be late which even tho it's 50k starting stack game I was still not happy about, I finally got to Hueston station and hopped into a taxi which of course was being driven by a forgein chap who had small grasp of english but worse had no idea where the Balls Bridge Inn hotel was, after about 40 mins we finally arrived at the hotel, (he even brought me to bewelys hotel, prob only hotel he knew I'd say) I jumped out and proceeded to the poker room unable to check in as I had lost so much time.

I had shrugged all the mishaps off and sat down to play relieved that I had got there in time to play and get use to my table before the first break. Unfortunately for me I managed to run into bottom set twice before that break came but I was still just so relieved to get there so I didn't mind that much plus I had gained alot of info on the players at my table in the 40 mins I had. I had tough time all throughout the day I didn't even manage to flop top pair once in the whole time I was at that table, very frustrating as the good players on my table which was about 4 players were all cleaning out the donks whilst my stack proceeded to dip down to the 30k mark, I was involved in many big hand and probably only for my reads on opponents I would surely have been sent to the rail early.

It came to the 300-600 level and we just had a break, I was going to change gears and apply maximum pressure even with fellow friend and brilliant player Fergal Nealon to my immediate left, I was pounding on the guys to my right pretty fiercely I must say and my image had change from being tight to almost reckless lag, I did not mind tho as it was working my 3bets getting threw and cbets if necessary, this hand came up where the guy I was pounding on most raised n I 3bet once again but this time with my best hand of the day AcJc and was expecting to be played back at, sure enough it was folded back round to villain who then 4 bet me, I then 5bet him and was going to call off a 6bet shove only that it screamed a huge tell, he took 10 seconds, sighed n immediately shoved all in, I had been watching him before when a hand played out he had top set and did the exact same thing the sigh and instant shove so I was left between a rock and a hard place call off the rest of my chips leaving me crippled even tho I was just about pot committed or fold and keep my 35k stack and use it to outplay this weakish field, imo considering all the points I made it was a pretty easy fold which is what I did after about 10 mins of deliberation but I feel I was hard done by as this player would have 4bet regardless of his hand. Pretty funny also very next hand and same guy opened and I 3bet once again...lol his face was priceless and he still called and I managed to win a nice spot to soften the wounds from the previous hand.

I finally got moved from this table with just 1 blind level left, it was still same story to start I picked up Aq raised and whiffed the flop and had to give it up to the donks pot bets. I finally picked up a real hand AA ha I almost didn't know what to do with it, I came in for my standard min bet and sure enough got 3bet, all the money went in preflop with my opponent holding kk so I was in with a great shot of getting back into the game if my AA held, unfortunately it was not to be as the chap flopped a boat on me and it held to knock me out with a couple of mins left before we finished up for the night. I was little heart broken as making final table 3 times in a row would have ment alot to me and more so to win it, I know to even make it 2 in a row is a great achievement but I am my harshest critic lol well almost actually my harshest critic so I felt pretty down about it but what can you do ay, just sometimes it just not ment to be and Thursday was surely an example of that, oh well we always soldier on.

Amazingly I must add that this is the 5th tourny in a row that I have gone out holding either AA or KK v AA or KK and queens once ha but 4 out of the 5 I got it in ahead so hopefully I can get the bad run off my back it's been kicking me ever since Vegas itself so I just relishing having a hand or 2 hold up and maybe take down a big tourny soon because I know I am much better than my recent results suggest.

Role on the next round of tournys, so everyone knows here is a list of my future tournys to come I'm going to be playing Silky's western poker open for start then Ept Berlin, Irish open and soon after that will be Ept San Remo. I will be putting up a thread on Irish Poker Boards soon where I will be selling % of myself for Ept Berlin and if that goes well I will probably do the same for San Remo assuming I don't hit a big score between Berlin or the Open. One of my good mates has already taken a nice chunk of my action for Berlin so always nice to get the ball rolling. So hopefully my next blog comes with thanking ppl for buy % and getting a huge return :).