Second NPL Final Table Appearance

A week after I took second in my first NPL appearance tonight I again made the final table. Unfortunately due to a pretty cold run of cards I was only there for one hand, all-in on my big blind, where my K7o got beaten by an ace. But still… final table! Gotta count for something?

Pretty boring tournament overall, didn’t get too fancy with many hands and was card dead for a long time with a short-medium stack stuck in between a couple of monster stacks so didn’t have much room to move (hence hitting the final table with one big blind!). Still, was a fun night and I did manage to play a couple of interesting hands, for example:

UTG+1 I’m dealt:

UTG folds and I raise 3xBB to 300. I have around 4000 in chips and everyone else is around a average on 2000-2500. Everyone folds to the button who calls as does the big blind. The flop comes:

The big blind checks, I bet 1000 which is pretty much pot. The button folds and the big blind pushes all-in for another 1500 chips.

Damn.

The pot is 3000, it’s 1500 to call and I know nothing about this player though earlier this evening I’ve seen some crazy play and I think that may have influenced my eventual decision. I can fold aces here, if I think about it there are very few hands I can beat. Somehow I convinced myself that for 1500 more the chances that he was playing a queen were good enough and I called. Of course he turned over:

I didn’t improve and was back to 1500 in chips. I repeat, I can fold aces here. I should have thought longer about my situation and then mucked those aces face up, it would have given me a whole lot of bluffing equity I could have used when those cards went dead. Ah well, next time maybe?

The next hand was a strange one… blinds were 300/600 and I was in the big blind with around 2500 in chips after posting. UTG calls, it’s folded to the small blind who completes and I check:

The flop comes something like:

Everyone checks.

The turn is:

Everyone checks.

The river comes:

And it’s checked to UTG who bets 2500. The small blind folds and I take a look at the UTG player. We’ve been sitting next to each other for a while, actually we started at the same table and were moved to this table at the same time. He seems nervous. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was, in the end it was just gut feel… he was weak or bluffing. I called with my 7d and he turned over:

For the smaller flush and I took down the pot.  That one felt good and was probably the reason I made the final table at all… I think I’ll be back next week and try to go deep again. It may be a free roll but it’s fun!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under My Poker Game, Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.