Weekend report

Friday night: played two satellites I'd qualified for. Ladbrokes Poker Million daily final: bombed out on the cusp of the final table, all in with AJ v QJ. The Q hit on the river. Never really got going in truth but played decent short stack poker to survive as long as I could.

Better luck in the GJP satellite for the GUKPT in Newcastle this week. Got off to a barnstormer and was a massive chip leader from about 40 out until the final table. When you get the big stack early, satellites are easy. Unfortunately, got an awful final table draw, in that the second biggest stack was to my immediate left and apparently clueless. He didn't seem to realise we should be either cooperating to put pressure on the medium stacks, or at least avoiding big confrontations with each other. Infuriatingly, it seemed like he was only coming into pots if I did. Worse, he was inflating the pots and sucking out on me. After a few suckouts, he was up to my size so I had to tighten right up. The fool did likewise, which meant no big stack was putting pressure on the medium ones. All of which meant it was a lot tighter in the end than it should have been, but I got there in the end, so myself and the brother are off to Newcastle at the crack of dawn on Friday. Looking forward to it already.

Saturday, myself and the brother found ourselves in Cool Hand Luke's, having made it in to town to late for either the Emprium or the Fitz. CHL's has a great "authentic poker club" feel to it, and a friendly atmospgere. 20 starters, and to be honest, I didn't exactly play my A game early on. To be even more honest, I was absolutely terrible. I only won one pot before the break (but it was a double up so I went into the break ahead), then immediately after donked away most of my stack with a terrible call with an overpair (barely). I managed to convince myself that there were enough hands that could account for the SB's all in check raise (a possible flush draw, a possible straight draw, top pair top kicker) that my minimum overpair was beating, but a bigger overpair was always his most likely holding. And even if he was flushing, he'd probably have two overcards as well and thus be favourite to draw out on me. So, awful call.

There were a couple of extremely good players at the table: Gavin who I've been locking horns with since day one and usually dogging (he was third in the very first live tournament I played, in the Fitz, when I was second and Smurph was first), and an exceptional LAG who I'd never seen before in seat 10 who was keeping up a steady stream of consciousness commentary that was both funny and brilliant. Both exitted early due to doggings (not by me).

Meanwhile, down to 3 big blinds, I was working on a remarkable recovery involving some doggings of my own. I cracked Aces (with jacks), and a couple of dominating aces to arrive at the final table in reasonable shape. Meanwhile, the brother had been coping with card death at the other table to get to the final table to thanks to some brilliant poker.

Thankfully, I played a lot better at the final table, with one hand in particular against a hyperaggressive LAG where I slowplayed top pair top kicker and managed to get him to donate over half his stack to double me up that I was particularly proud of. Notwithstanding that, it took a few more doggings before I was headsup with the brother. Headsup lasted all of one hand: I made a loose call of his allin with QJ, partly because it was a freeshot as I had him outchipped 4:1, partly because I just wanted it over quick either way at that point and would almost have been happier if he won than if I did. Almost. As it was, he had 8's, but I hit on the turn.

Sunday: took a shot at the Ipoker WSOP satellite. Went pretty deep, but went out in 17th. The hand that did the damage was pushing KJs into pocket rockets.

Meanwhile, the running has been going crap. The speed sessions are all ending with me dry heaving on the in field not having got next or near to the times I should be hitting. Coach reckons the poker lifestyle will take a bit of habituating too, and I'm not fully recovered from Brno, so the recommendation is two weeks of lighter offroad training.

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