Fishy Engfish fish and the fishy fins they fish ffs

Oh you do need to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes in life and in this game in particular. And I was almost doubled up in self mockery as I pondered my position towards the end of level one in Dusk Till Dawn's 20K starting stack 2 hour clock 1K buyin £250K guaranteed £80K overlay mental value tournament.
After a sleepless night in Malahide, I grabbed about an hour's kip in my hotel before heading to DTD. Armed only with my Googlemap printout, I was confident of finding the place on foot. Overly confident, since it's in the middle of an industrial estate surrounded by other lookalike industrial estates by a motorway, and therefore like trying to find Unit 1B in a Sandyford Industrial Estate after some knackers have tampered with all the signage.
So, an hour late, and still quite knackered, the plan was to nit it up and lie pretty low while I evaluated the table. 45 minutes of patient folding and loving my table because there are no big names and a few really really really bad players and only two half decent ones, I'm in a 6 way unraised pot in the small blind with 8's. Flop is a lovely A84, checked to the cutoff who min bets 100. Button - worst player on the table by a few lengths - min raises. I know I have the nuts right now since AA is clearly not out there, so I make a begging for action reraise to 600. Folded to button who obligingly makes it 2200. Back to me, 6500. He calls looking annoyed. I figure he's either been coolered with bottom set, or possibly he just has a flush draw, because yes he is that bad, so the plan is to ship any non club turn. The jack of non clubs hits the turn safely and in they go. He tanks it before saying "I can't fold, I've put too much in" and calls with A5s, top pair nut flush draw. Before I have time to process just how bad that call is, boom, club on the river, and I'm down to 900.
There's three ways you can go when you take a big beat like that: I manage to take the middle path, stoic silence, and hold my tongue and counsel through the subsequent "Well, you've got to gamble to win tournaments" lecture on fishy poker strategy. The two good players at the table go opposite routes: the "don't tap the tank" school of sarcasm ("Of course you have to gamble. Getting your entire stack in on a 4 to 1 shot? Great call") and the "lecturer in fishology" approach ("God how can you call there? So horrific").
One minute before the end of level 1, I ship my remaining 900 with AK, and get looked up by tens which hold. So once again I manage to get myself effectively busted by the worst player at the table. Must be doing something wrong (seriously though, while I may sound like I'm whining, I do accept that this is poker and players like this are the ones who pay my wages over a decent sample size). So all the way to there to bust out of a 5 day deepstack after less than an hour by a lotto player. Quality.
Brief chat with John at the break who is down to 12500 after getting his aces busted by a fishy James Browning call as I ponder my options. Do I really want to hang around for that night's £75 freezeout and tomorrow's £250 side event? Resounding no.
Get Mireille to book me a flight for tomorrow (today). She manages to mess up and get me one for the day after (tomorrow), so now I'm booked on the same flight twice. Lovely. She comes through with another one for today (tomorrow yesterday) so here I am, sitting in East Midlands airport.
Last night in the hotel, I fired up Boyle's (the only Ipoker skin I can get to work with my dongle). Devore was online looking to play our Boards HU match (very enjoyable, I ran well to win 2-0). I figured while I was there I might as well play the $50K guaranteed. A few hours later I'm on the final table for the second time in a row. Ultimately I busted in 6th for $2K (another jack ace no good, this time sooted v K8o), some measure of consolation for an ultimately pointless trip to Notts.
Lovely illustration of how human stupidity will always find a way to triumph over technology. Getting to the airport early and remembering that in Newcastle they sent me back to the Ryanair desk because faxed boarding passes don't scan, I joined the back of the checkin queue. Only to be told about 30 minutes later that they didn't scan passes in East Midlands. By now a sizeable queue had formed at the gates (there was none when I had mistakenly joined the checkin queue). 30 minutes later, I'm looking at a security person unsuccessfully trying to scan my fax and telling me I have to go back to the Ryanair desk. 30 minutes later I'm at the front of that queue again being told I have to go to the ticket information desk. Which has a queue of people with faxes. So, whole morning wasted queueing, times 5.
Big congratulations to Cat O'Neill for winning her heat and final tabling the Ladies tournament. Only a matter of time before she gets a breakthrough gigantascore hopefully. I'd say definitely but we all know at least one top class player who has been around for years without getting the requisite luck needed at the right time.
Footnote: Obviously knackered when I got in to Dublin this morning and in dire need of a piss, I absentmindedly wandered in to the toilet, and looked around surprised to see nothing but women in the men's toilet. Took a second or two for the absence of wall urinals to register. Oh dear. Luckily as I swivelled in embarrassment and covered my eyes, all I heard was mucho femle giggling and other mirthful sounds. As opposed to "Security!".

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