Not much to report on on this one. In the first 10 minutes of the tournament I lost half my stack in 3 hands. First I lost with pocket 10's on a 5 7 8 flop when 2 players flopped sets (55 & 77) and the other player flopped an up and down with 66. The 9 came on the turn and the 6's made a straight and tripled up. The second hand I lost was with QQ, I re-raised preflop and the player who just lost with a set of 5's went all in with AJ offsuit. I called and the Ace came straight away on the flop. The third hand I had AK which lost to A4. I never really recovered after these beats and was short stacked for the rest of the tournament. I made it down to about 25 players and then I was forced all in with A5 and ran into KK. No help for me and I was out.

Ottavio ended up winning the tournament. Well done buddy, Its been a long time coming!

Played some big deuce with G and Cynthia, lost 80 bucks and went home.

What a game! We were 2-0 down and came back to win 2-4. John O'Shea started us off after the Everton keeper fumbled the ball. Then, our ex-teammate, Phil Neville scored an own goal, Rooney put us in front and then substitute Chris Eagles sealed the deal in injury time. Coupled with Chelsea drawing at home to Bolton, we are now 5 points clear at the top of the premiership with only 3 games to go.

Bring on AC Milan in the 2nd leg of the Champions League Semi Final on Wednesday.

The curse continues!!!

Early on in the tournament, I am in seat 7 (blinds are 50/100) I limp with 77. 7 players see the flop (the number 7 features alot recently in my cursed period). The flop comes 7c 2s 3c. Small blind checks, I check and the next guy bets 500 fold, fold, call, small blind goes all in, I go all in and the origional bettor folds. We turn over the hands and I show top set. He shows bottom set. Qs on the turn and the 2h on the river, QUADS! I got rivered buy a 1 outer, a 43-1 shot.

All I can hope for is that all of my bad luck comes out in Ontario and I take down the big one in BC.

What the fuck is going on with the number 7?

Busted at the RiverRoom last Thursday 7th
Busted at Topflight last Saturday 7th
Busted at Bennys last Tuesday 7th
And todays story....... When will it end?

Tournament Date: 24 April 2007
Buy-In: $150 + $50 Re-Buys + $50 Add-On
# of Players: 60
Prize Pool: $17,000 APPROX

I see a pattern emerging and I find it very disturbing. I finished 7th at the River Room last thursday, I finished 7th at the Topflight Monthly Tournamnet and guess where I finished last night? Yep, 7th!

I had no hands in the rebuy period last night and ended up busting a few times trying to make moves and building a stack. I ended up rebuying 5 times (lucky Mo gave me a free entry for helping him with the tournament director software) so it cost me $250 plus another $50 for the add-on. At the break I had 8800 in chips.

I folded the first hand after the break and I was the BB the second hand, I look down and I see JsQs. I was in seat 5. Everbody folds to seat 1 who calls, the button raises to 1200 (blinds are 200/400). Ottavio, who has 10 10 in the small blind, calls as do I and seat 1. 4 to the flop and 4800 in the pot. Flop comes 9c Jh Qd, Ottavio checks and I move all in for 7600, seat 1 calls all in for 7500 and the button and Ottavio fold. I nearly puked when I saw his hand, JJ! 10 on the turn and the button tells me he had AQ. As you can see from the image below, I have only a 2.5% chance of winning this hand, a whopping 39-1 shot!! I have 1 card left in the deck to win (the case Queen) and 8 cards to split (4 x 8's and 4 x K's makes a straight). I almost left the table when the river came because it paired the board and I thought I had lost. It was the the case Queen and it was the only card in the deck i could win with. Sweet! I now had 19800 in chips. The very next hand I had 55 in the small blind and flopped a set on a A 10 5 flop, I trap checked on the turn and manged to commit him to paying me off on the river too. All of a sudden in 2 hands I was up to 42K.



With 2 tables to go I have 38K in chips and I look down and I see AK. I raise to 12K (blinds are 2000/4000) and the small blind moves all in for 40K. I was tempted to lay the hand down but I felt he was weak and I also thought that if I wanted to win the tournament I would need chips, so I called. King on the flop and I was up to 80K. I reached the final table with 65.5K

I am in seat 7 on the final table and on the 5th hand in, I am the BB (blinds are 3000/6000/500). I have 52K in chips. Seat 9 goes all in for 57K, seat 1 calls for 42K, seat 3 smooth calls the 57K and still has 22K behind. I look down and I see QQ. FUCK! decision time! The first thing that came into my head was Sarnia when I lost with this hand. The second thing that came into my head was Topflight on Saturday night where I also lost with this hand. After much deliberating I decided to lay the hand down. In my opinion, I have to lay this hand down because I figure there is at least one person with AK out there and maybe somebody has Aces or Kings. I can only call this hand if I want to gamble and those of you that know me, know I don't gamble in tournament poker unless I absolutely have to. Anyway, seat 9 has JJ, seat 1 has 77 and seat 3 has AK. The Jacks held up. If I called I would have won and I would have had close to 200K with only 600K in play.

Eventually I went cold and had only 17K in chips (blinds were now 5000/10000/1000). I pushed it all in with AcJc and was called blind by the BB, he had duece five offsuit. Flop came 3c 7c Qd, turn was 10s giving me the nut straight draw and the nut flush draw and the rest of the deck except a deuce or a five. 5 on the river and he hit one of his 6 outs. I cashed for $400.

Tournament Date: 21 April 2007
Buy-In: $350 + 1 optional rebuy/add-on $150
# of Players: 49
Prize Pool: $20,700

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!
When will I get a break at the right time in a tournament? Are the poker Gods punishing me for something?

I think I played an excellent game today, from not getting many hands during the tournament, I think I did great at keeping my head above water.

Early on in the tournament I doubled up when I hit a straight on the turn up against top 2. About 40 minutes later I lost a lot of my stack when I flopped the nut straight and Jack Levy got runner runner to make a full house. I finished at the break with 8800 and took the add on giving me 18800. After the break I doubled up with AK against QQ and I just stayed above the average from there by stealing blinds and taking down small pots. With 14 players left I had about 55K and found KK, a raise behind me and I decided to go all in. I was called and he showed AJ. Nothing hit and I had 115K. At 11 players I made a great bluff with AK against pocket 5's on a 9 9 10 flop and I was up to 160K.

There were 1,000,000 chips in play so I was sitting above average. 3 short stacks got knocked out reletively quickly and we were down to 7 players. The blinds were 3000/6000/500, I had 150K and I was on the BB. Everybody folds to the small blind, who raised to 20K. He had about 240K in chips and was the chip leader. He was not a very good player (in my opinion) but he was hitting a lot of hands. I look down and see QQ, nice! I think for about 10 seconds and announce "all-in", without taking even a second to think, he called and turned over AQ offsuit. I like the situation. He has 3 out in the deck, I am 70% favourite to win the hand and become the chip leader. Guess what, An Ace hits the flop straight away and i become a 19 to 1 dog. FUCK. Sarnia all over again. I don't think I played the hand wrong, if he folds preflop I increase my stack to approx 180K if he calls he is only beating me with 2 hands (AA & KK) and is only racing with one hand (AK), every other hand I am dominating. Why would I just call in that position and let him hit his hand. At that stage of the tournament and with only the blinds remaining there are a million hands that he would raise with in the small blind hoping I have nothing.

I left the room without saying a word, got into my car and cursed all the way home. These are some of the questions that came into my head on the way home:

1. Why did that donkey call 150K (over 60% of his stack) preflop with AQ offsuit?
2. Why am I cursed?
3. Why can't the best hand hold up for me?
4. Why do the poker Gods hate me? What have I done?
5. Why do bad calls from bad players get rewarded?
6. Why can't I get a break?

Anyway, I have ranted on long enough, I am going to go bang my head against the wall.