Sucker punched

The short version: finished second in my Late Night Stars of Poker heat, losing headsup to Jim Rock. Effectively it came down to a 70/30 all in pre, my ATs losing to his K8o which he limp called a shove with. Flop missed us both but gave me the nut flush draw meaning he lost a couple of outs and I moved to almost 90%, but he managed to hit not one but two of them. If he'd hit that good when he was a boxer he'd have been world champ.

Some very bizarre hands along the way: one hand he called big bets on the flop and turn for a gutshot, then checked behind when he hit the nuts on the river. In another, he checked the second nuts, a K high flush, telling us afterwards he didn't realise he had a flush as he only had one spade in his hand. In fairness, he admitted to us to having played the game for the first time the previous Sunday and not really knowing the hand rankings so he did very well in the circumstances.

Was obviously disappointed to lose in the end, and also disappointed for Big Mick, a quality player and guy and the one I felt was by far the biggest threat. I was hoping he'd win if I didn't tbh, and when we were three handed with roughly equal stacks I thought it was long odds on one of us would win, but it wasn't to be.

Will be interesting to see what hands make the cut and how they're presented. I'll write a longer report on the game itself and surrounding hoopla after the show airs and I've had time to digest what was actually shown and commented on.

Also, Irish people make the world's worst consolers. I hadn't even exitted the room before John O'Shea tells me "At least you played every hand. Only difference between you and Rock is he is in the final" and barely made it down the stairs when Parkinson offers the opinion that it's better for RTE and poker that Rock won. Probably true but not really what you want to hear while you're still processing a 6K in equity bad beat.

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