Blind Leading The Blind

With a quick re-evaluation of my chosen league night, due to finishing higher on Thursday than i did Wednesday last week saw me play last night at Circus to try to get myself some more points.

I arrive and find myself two seats to to McGuigan's right, but also two seats Rosco's left.. not great, assuming Rosco's range hasn't shrunk in the wash.

What began right from the off was comical. A certain player, whose image i don't want to destroy, begins to raise every hand and to be honest, flat out owns the table for the 1st hour, finding himself on at least 25k before we've played 3 short levels. His strategy was simple, (re)raise pre-flop and proceed to bet the pot on every street should anyone show an interest. Which worked every time.. until he got caught. Within the first 5 hands he'd been handed a gift when he flopped aces-up against the monster that is top pair-bottom kicker (the hand plays itself, obviously.. doesn't it?). Player notes updated: "Mentalcase"

So having raised every hand so far to 200, he now finds himself with twice what he started on and to everyone's delight, he decides to loosen up a little bit, raising to 400, or 600. Raising without fail every hand preflop regardless, if it's been raised, he re-raised and as i say, it worked.. winning what must have been 18 out of the first 20 hands.

Sitting with final table chips after an hour you'd expect him to slow down, but he did quite the opposite.. mostly because he was back in the car earning a living before we reached the break. What could have been a brilliant strategy, soon turned into a pretty bad one. Betting so big post-flop that he was priced in to call any shove from the shorties (i.e. everyone else) meant his stack seemed to have a use-by date on it.. and it was running out sharpish.

Last weeks winner buys in late and joins our table, but conveniently both he and Rosco are both out well before the final table, leaving only Trett (Steve) as a higher place finisher last week.

Having played 3, maybe 4 hands i reach the final table with 10k in chips, but with plenty of time on the clock to pick my spots i manage to reach a peak of 50k+ until the hand that done the damage. Holding K4o blind on blind we (Tubbs) see a flop of K 6 5.. I bet 5.5k into a pot of about 7k only to see Tubbs shove for 31k more. Hitting my head on the bottom of the tank as i jump in, im in there some time. Knowing this is the first hand Spoona has dealt, this could be fireworks. I couldn't really see Tubbs pushing with anything that has me beat, knowing him, he's likely to min-raise me if he's flopped the joint. Leaving me with 15k behind I call after what seemed like 10mins, deciding such a huge bet means he's on a draw and he tables his cards, 56.. FFS! At least i was partly right.. a fucking full-house draw!. Knowing Spoona wouldn't let me down he snaps a 4-bomb down on the turn.. my Kings-up was immediately shattered to pieces though when he flips the 5 on the river. Ho-hum.

The very next hand it's Trett vs Trett and papa-bear flops the nuts against Steve's Kings, much to my delight as he's now left even shorter stacked than me. My big blind follows, and Steve pushes (as expected) and i look down at AQo, sending my closest rival to the rail (or bed as the case may be).

George finally sent me home at 3am as his 5s hold against my AJ suited, i flopped a jack, but the 5 on the turn ending any hope of a double up.

5th place, more points in the bag, and now 4 final tables out of 5.. long may it continue.