Rehab is for quitters and the Fitz EOM

Well as people may have guessed my retirement isn’t exactly going to plan. I think I finally understand the meaning of the phrase” the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. I genuinely thought that giving up would be easier than it has been so I’ll definitely put that down to naivety on my behalf. Since my official “retirement” I have hit some run good in some small donkaments and a couple of drunken spins to the tune of 2.2k so I’m after making a bit of a dent in my overall lifetime graph. Iv been feeling good about my game lately so when I bubbled a sat for the Fitz EOM on Paddy Power I decided I was going to take a shot.

This was only my second time playing the event and thankfully I was a lot more relaxed this time around. I had a plan in my head and I just kept telling myself to stick to it no matter what. The numbers were a little disappointing at 72 but that is to be expected with the WSOP and Killarney. I drew table 6 seat 6 and just spent the first couple of levels feeling out the table. Unlike my first shot at the EOM I had a very favourable table draw this time around with a lot of weak passive players, one yank who I thought was good until I seen him spaz in a ridiculous spot for a massive pot and one young lad who I think was Starvin Marvin from IPB? Starvin was possibly the only good player at the table and I think (hope) he thought the same about me so we just stayed out of each others way. I actually had no interesting hands for the first 3 levels apart from getting a couple of my c-bets raised where I had to release.

I came back from the break with about starting stack and decided to get moving. I think this is probably where I played my best poker of the night and just used my position to chip up to 24k without showdown. I just found it really easy to put players on hands so I was more than a little disappointed when my table got broken up. I was only at my new table for about 3 rotations before it got broken up too. Nothing really happened apart from some old dude taking forever to make every decision and then going ape shit when he makes the wrong one – it probably didn’t help that everybody started needling him after :).

So at this stage we are down to 25 and its getting harder to find the value spots. Im now sitting on a table with Denis O kane (loose cannon) Sean Prenderville (Mr Monkey) Starvin Marvin and Barry Donovan (Wallop nuts). There is a lot of 3 betting going on and its easy to see that the better players are putting the pressure on. Then this hand comes up;

With the blinds at 400/800 Some randomer min-raises in late position. I 3bet on the button to 4k with QQ. Denis flat calls in the small blind and original raiser folds.

Flop is Jc 7s 2h

I bet 7k and Denis goes into the tank – asks me how much I have left. I say about 13k i.e. I have 40% of my chips in the pot already. After looking like he was folding for an eternity Denis moves all in. Now Im in the tank here. Its such a dry board and with 40% of my stack in there Denis knows Im not doing this with air. After what felt like an eternity I mucked my cards. I was feeling really shitty about this but Denis turned up KK to give me a bit of a boost. I know most people will say this was a retarded fold but I genuinely had a good read in this spot and I think it was the correct thing to do – also I didn’t want a big mistake (my flop bet) to cost me the tournament.

I was now nursing a short stack and after stealing a few blinds Im up to 18k. I then got to cold 4-bet all in after a raise and a re-raise with QQ. I had a monster Hold against AK considering that the villain flopped a straight draw and a flush draw but thankfully the turn and the river bricked out. I then won a couple more chips when I called a reship from a shorty with my AJ getting there on the river against his 66.

So im up to about 55k at this stage with the blinds at 600/1200.
Sean and Barry are getting very trigger happy with the 3-bets and stack sizes are really awkward. I raise and sean re-raises enough that I can’t peel and he can still fold if I ship but he will only call with a strong range – how do you like your A8 - AJ now?? :). I also noticed that Sean was stealing an awful lot from UTG – perhaps this is because he wanted people to think he had a strong perceived range but more than likely its because he seen my BB as a soft spot :( and barry would be oop in the SB.

We played down to the final table without any real incident to be honest. Some guy on the opposite table was really pushing hard to pay the bubble but Sean refused – and understandably enough considering that he had the stack and a decent edge over the field. I actually didn’t really want to pay the bubble because I thought it would have been a good opportunity for me to chip up a bit. Sean then lost a flip and agreed on the deal.

Final Table was quiet enough with a lot of players sitting tight. I used my run good to suck out when at 2k/4k I shipped 38k with A5 to be called by AQ. I was in trouble with no help up to the turn but then I used my skills. I shouted “5 ball” and then did my Doyle Brunson Impression by shouting “BOOM” as the River was turned over. 5 of hearts you little beauty :).

We got down to 6 relatively quickly and at this staged I had chipped up to 70k with the blinds at 2.5k/5k. Sean min raises in the Hi-jack and the button flat calls (button seemed like a bit of a drooler to be honest) I look down at A10s and ship the loots right Bam into the middle of Sean’s Aces – bleh standard I think.

So all in all Im happy with how I played but a little disappointed not to go deeper. I think I need to practice my 3 betting because its really what separates the good players from your average joe soap.

Thanks for reading

Tony