Alea £30 rebuy

Sunday i played the Alea £30 unlimited re buy. I only decided to play the tourney at the last minute and made the trip to Leeds. With only 26 runners on 3 tables and a fairly tight easy field i thought i would do well in this tournament. A generous 5k starting stack and 2 x 45 minute levels in which you can re buy allows some decent play and not an all in fest.

I started off well and i had built my stack up to 15k thanks to being paid twice with KK in the first 2 levels. I had a slight blip near the end of the re buy period after i had been caught up in a hand with K 7, the board running out K X 8 X 7, facing a bet of 600 on the flop i flat called, i called a bet of 600 on the turn and a 1200 bet on the river after i had made 2 pair only to be shown trip 8's, so i lost around 2500.

I added on 5k in chips for another £30 at the break and was sat with a stack of about 18k. A nice juicy £1740 pot had formed rewarding the top 5 players with payout. After the break i became card dead right until around the final table bubble, at one point i was down to about 10k and with blinds at 500/1k i had to move in a couple of times to steal the blinds in order to survive.

I found A 9 in mid position and moved in and was looked up by pocket 6's, a blank flop and turn was looking bad until the A came on the river saving me and doubling me up to around 28k, soon after we were down to 9 and a final table.

My mum also made the final and started of well taking the blinds with AK. I managed to take the blinds with a hand before my first key hand of the final table, Graham Wilks pushed in the seat next to me for 27k and i looked down at pocket 8's, i felt that my hand was good and decided to move in after him for around 31k and everybody passed and he flipped over pocket 6's so i had him dominated, an 8 on the flop sealed the hand and i was now in contention with a decent stack to play with.

After the next player was eliminated it was agreed that we would take £50 off of 1st and 2nd place and pay the next player out £100 so we were all now in the money. Then came my next key hand, I looked down at AA UTG and decided to limp in hoping that somebody would raise, they player on my left raised to 16k leaving himself with roughly 16k behind, it was folded round to the BB who had a think but folded then it was back to me so i set him all in and he called with pocket 7's, Aces held and we were down to 5.

I then eliminated my Mum in 5th when she pushed her short stack in with Q 10o I had Ah 4h in the BB and had to make the call, I hit 2 pair to seal it and she left £120. I was now the chip leader with 125k out of the 290k in play with 4 left.

Then came my first big hit to my stack, i had 8 9 in the BB and the SB raised it up fairly small so i decided to take a flop, the flop came 8 J X and the SB bet out around the size of the pot, i thought he was trying to steal the pot so i put him all in for the rest of his stack and he called with AA, the turn brought me a straight draw but i failed to improve and doubled him up.

Then after i had blinded down a bit Tim (played against him in Merrion and Charles home game) moved all in for his stack, i had him covered and looked down at KQ suited on the BB and made the call, he had AK which held, i was left with 7k of which i had 5k in the SB next hand when Charles (played in his home game and at Alea and Moortown) moved all in from UTG, I called blind with my 2k and Tim folded the BB, Charles flipped over KK and i asked if i could reveal my hand after all the cards had been dealt which he agreed to. The 4 5 6 7 9 board was quite good for my blind hand and when i turned over the mighty 8 3 off for a 7 card straight Charles was nearly sick LOL.

I then folded the next hand as i was the button, the following hand i shipped my 21k in with Qd 5d and was called by the BB for the extra 11k with 4 5, first card on the flop was a 4 then 2 diamonds, turn gave me a straight draw but i missed all of my outs on the river and was eliminated in 4th place for £175. I was happy with how i had played and was glad to have cashed in 4th for a decent profit. Still a win at Alea eludes me.

Buy ins (inc rake): £86.50

Cashes : £175

Profit/Loss: £88.50