Gala Leicester £60 Double Chance

It has been a while since I played live so thought it was about time to visit the Gala Leicester again last Thursday night.

The tournament is a £60 buy in with 4000 starting chips plus 4000 more to be had by the end of level 2 (oh and a £6 meal voucher). With blinds starting at 50 / 100 and 40 minute blinds this gives for plenty of play.

All the card room regulars were there including our own APAT and GBPT champion Neil Blatchley. The only down side was that the Gala had capped the tournament at 30 because of a lack of dealers even though there were plenty more who wanted to play.

Well I started on table 2 (which turned out to be the table of death) as this table had many knockouts. As happens in these circumstances this resulted in our table having more of the fair share of chips to play for which would put any survivors going to the Table 1 final table in good position.

The table dynamics were absolutely excellent; 1 very loose aggressive player and about 5 other very experienced players.

I have to say I was very happy with the way I played only really making one bad play in position attempting to bluff someone off of a board showing A33 on both the flop and the river after my opening raise then having to fold to his large river bet.

I had a little bad luck early on when my top pair Q's (holding AQ) saw a short stack all in with an open ender for him to hit his 8 outer.

The loose aggressive openly stated to the table he was trying to dictate that I, [i.e. me!] only played with an ace in my hand. This information was put to great effect as I used the board cards to take him off the hands when premium cards showed ... lovely. Equally nice as he always had a stack to draw from as others folded in his wake.

So I hit the final table with a stack of about 32,000 with blinds at 1000 /2000. After a couple of rounds my exit hand came.

Finding AK suited on the button I open raised to 6,000. The loose aggressive who was now on my left called (as I knew he would) and then the BB went all in. Now this guy had only made this move with AJ and better as I had been playing with him on table 2. The LAG then helped me out by mucking his cards out of turn (despite trying his best to get them back). I decided that this was my moment, either I am crushed or I could win this hand and get to the top 4 places for the prize money.

I called and he table the same AK. However he went on to hit his one card flush on a board of 4 diamonds and I was out stunned and shocked.

Still it was a great game and I was happy to finish 8th in the freaky way I did to that field.

Until Next Time

Keep it Tight!