The last couple of weeks in 2007

Well 2007 has finished slightly better than my previous post suggests.

I was involved in a "league" type competition at Luton, where by the top 128 played a heads up comp for £10k first prize.

This was my shot to turn around a bad year. I was fully focused and determind to win this and I was confident in doing so.

Yes I got very lucky in my first round match where I held AQsuited on a Q rag rag board and all the money went in only to find the guy holding AA! , Q on the river saw me through the first round. Now with only 2500 chips to start and blinds of 25/50 it was always going to be a bit of a luck fest. But after the first round, the stack sizes doubled each time, with the starting blinds only rising now and again. This was the point at which you could play poker.

My 2nd round match was relatively easy. My oppo would only play "good" hands (for MTT situations) I was raising and re raising alot and winning lots of small pots uncontested and it did not take much time to take a commanding lead and an eventual victory.

My hardest match was either the 3rd or 4th round (cant remember which) where my oppo was ULTRA aggressive. He raised all but 3 of his buttons in the first 3 levels! AND always CB (over the pot size) . He also over re raised my raises alot of the time. This made this match very hard as I was totally card dead. He quickly took a dominating lead and I knew I would have to "gamble" with him with a mediocre hand or two - This I did, and won both of the crucial 60/40's and I eventually won.

My quarter final was the hardest mentally as it lasted 3 and 1/2 hours! It ebbed and flowed back and forth, I even had the guy with only 10xBB (I had a massive lead) only to call an all in with a weak ace to double him up then I doubled him up again - I was so sick with myself as to me, these were the only 2 mistakes I had made so far. I did manage to recoup and eventually won.

So onto the semi's and I was facing Danny Samson - who I rate highly and tbh would of preferred to avoid. Deals had been mentioned as early as round 3! But I was having none of it.
Deal talks were again started, and again I was having none of it, but then money took over. You see, the prize structure was £10k for 1st, £3k for 2nd and £1k for 3rd and 4th.
So with £15k in the pot a deal was agreed that we lock up £3k each leaving £3k for the final.

Danny was tired and was only a matter of time before he wore down and pushed with marginal hands - which he did and I took my shot with KQ - which won over his 99.

So onto the final, but with no real time to play, we agreed to chop up the £3k.

So I took £4.5k - not bad for what was in effect a freeroll!

As I have said, I was confident at winning this from the start and was totally focused. My driving force? Well I had promised myself a new motor. The one I have now has done 154k miles and is showing its age - however it still drives like new (Audi 2.8 quattro) . Germans certainly know how to build cars.
My new car? Yes its German again, this time a BWM 330i.

The new car purchase was only possible after another success at Luton 3 days after at the £50 one rebuy/add on event where I again chopped 4 ways.

So, with no money left for Poker, I have not played since - either online or live and will not be able to for a couple of weeks.

But I am itching to get going!!

2008 here we come!