Playing to a minimum

I have kept my play to a minimum this week as I start to regain my strength following whatever illness hit me the previous week.

I have played a number of fixed limit cash games, to try and improve my understanding of this game, ahead of the online Golden Cup games on Cryptologic in June. I have come out level for the week so far, winning some and losing others. I still need to work in this area.

Tournament wise I have played one game a night for this week. Two WSOP qualifiers, where I have bubbled twice, river troubles unfortunately. I also played in the £12k last night, where I am happy to report I reached the final table, but dissapointly went out in 8th for £360.

I was determined to do well last night, after one of my dream team colleagues predicted that I would not! I had an up and down game, moving forwards nicely early and getting up to 10k in chips, before losing half with AK to A8, when I tried to get too clever for my good.

I fought my way up the leaderboard and got fully paid when flopping a straight, against top pair.
As we approached the final table, I made a couple of moves, which did not pay off. I ended up putting my stack in with AT and thankfully hit the required Ace to beat KK. How nice to actually win when behind.

The final table was quite evenly balanced and although I was in 9th place, my 35k was not too far behind the leader on 65k.
The table was quite aggressive early on, with the top 3 locking horns nearly every hand. Opportunities to get involved were very limited. I put in a couple of reraises to keep up with the blinds, but found little cards and opportunitues to do so.
After we had lost two players, my stack had diminished to the mid twenties and I found 88. I moved all in on an early raise and found myself up against AK. The first four cards were blanks, but the inevitable ace made an appearance on the river.

If I had won that hand, I would have been sitting comfortably with 50k+ and in a great position to move forwards. I am happy with another final table appearance, but would liked to have gone further. The way the table was playing, I felt that I would get paid with any reasonable hand and therefore a more patient game was the right play. I do question my tactics in all games I play and look back on my game to see whether I needed to play more aggressive. I always find that the most profitable way to play is the opposite to the way the table is playing and therefore I am comfortable with the way I played it.

I feel that I am still playing well at the moment and have reached ten final tables in the last week from not that many games. Lets hope it all continues.

ClintonO