Best To Come Second?

Friday was Claire's night out so once I'd settled the little one I sat down to play some poker tournaments.

I the first one I got knocked out after about an hour when my QQ came up against AA. The guy had shoved all his chips in, which would have suggested anything but Aces. I couldn't put the Queens down so called. A possible straight threatened to say me but never appeared so I was out.

Never mind I thought. There's another tournament starting soon so I joined a $5 2nd chance turbo tournament. I normally don't like this very much due to the faster action but I started off well and got a good start in chips and was in the top five at the break.

With the blind escalating people dropped like a whore's drawers and pretty soon there were only a few tables left. I found myself in a bad situation. The blinds were $10k/$20k and I had $24k after posting the small blind with 75o. One guy went all in with less chips than me and I bravely called from the small blind and the big blind checked. A five hit on the flop and I went all-in pushing the BB to fold and going head ups against the all-in guy. This meant that I had a few chips returned and had won some from the BB. Unfortunately the guy had a pocket pair of nines but I got lucky on the river with a 5 for a set to take a big pot and leave me looking good for the final table.

I lot a chunk just before the FT started as I was in the blinds and on the BB had a good hand but 2 people went all-in before me so I backed out knowing that the FT would be starting the very next hand.

I started the final table with $55k chips and was immediately rewarded with pocket Kings to win the blinds. A few hands later I got them again and doubled up on chips. With most people desperate I waited out the hands I didn't need to play and people got knocked out very quickly and soon I'd got into heads up. Unfortunately the cards dried up and against an aggressive player I surrendered my blinds on a number of occasions. Although I managed to be chip leader at one point the end came when I called an all-in with Q9 only to see K4 prevail when we both missed the board.

So second place was rewarded with $352.62 and I immediately took out £100 from the ladbrokes account. Before this tournament a lot of the good work I had done was spoilt by losing it all. Currently I'm £40 down overall, including the spend on poker books but not the laptop.

Christmas is here now so hopefully I'll get some more opportunities to play some Poker and win some more!!