Hendon Mob League: Game 3

Did better than I expected in the Hendon Mob League Game 3, finishing 4th out of 55 players. A little disappointed by the fact that I made a couple of big mistakes with the decisions based on the aim to preserve chips rather than accumulate them.

Some of the responsibility goes down to the amount of time given to make a decision on the Prima skins. In my opinion, they need to give players an extra 5 seconds to act. My hand has been forced folded quite a few times or I have been rushed into making an incorrect play way too often on the Prima sites.

The tournament started and I was lucky to be sat on BarnyBoatman's left. I felt that at some point I'd get a chance at collecting his bounty and the extra 5 league points.

Just 30 minutes into the tourney this hand occured which had me steaming for the next 60 minutes! I missed a great opportunity to build a big stack and almost knock out Barny:

Date: 4/7/2005 9:29:18 BST

Seat: 1 MrsSplash
Seat: 2 Getariako
Seat: 3 Joe_Jaggers
Seat: 4 Belgariad
Seat: 5 Cerebral_UK
Seat: 6 BarnyBoatman (Dealer)
Seat: 7 DaMatrix
Seat: 8 THE_THIEF
Seat: 9 RupertE
Seat: 10 alexadamou

***DEALING HOLE CARDS***

DaMatrix dealt down As 7s

DaMatrix : Posts small blind 25.00
THE_THIEF : Posts big blind 50.00
RupertE : Calls for 50.00
alexadamou : Folds
MrsSplash : Folds
Getariako : Folds
Joe_Jaggers : Folds
Belgariad : Folds
Cerebral_UK : Folds
BarnyBoatman : Calls for 50.00
DaMatrix : Calls for 25.00
THE_THIEF : Checks

***DEALING FLOP***[Qs, 9s, 5h]

DaMatrix : Checks (Initially I thought about betting, but I didn't want to limit the field)
THE_THIEF : Checks
RupertE : Bets 250.00
BarnyBoatman : Raises for 600.00
DaMatrix : Folds (Barny's raise throws me of-guard and whilst I am deciding whether to Call or Re-raise min/all-in, time is running out, and I choose to fold! I had about 2600 chips and to call was 600. Doh!)
THE_THIEF : Folds
RupertE : Calls for 350.00

***DEALING TURN***[ Ts ] (this is when I started kicking myself! lol)

RupertE : Bets 600.00
BarnyBoatman : Calls for 600.00

***DEALING RIVER***[ 8h ]

RupertE : Bets 1200.00
BarnyBoatman : Calls for 1200.00 (Barny said that he intended to raise but made a mistake)

RupertE : Shows cards [ 10c, 10h ]
BarnyBoatman : Shows cards [ 5s, 8s ] (I didn't have Barny covered, but he would have been left with just a few hundred chips if I had stayed in the hand)

BarnyBoatman wins 5000 with a flush.

Despite that terrible fold, I navigated myself to the last 2 tables. I had the chance to push my short stack all-in with 88 in middle position after two early position limpers - but thought it was a little too risky. The two limpers both had Ace rag, and Barny's A3o caught a 3 to win the pot.

The big blind was quickly approaching and I would be in trouble with only 4 BBs in front of me. UTG I get KJo and decide to fold (would have flopped a gutshot, but two players had 77 (Skalie) and JJ (Ironside) - Skalie's 7s won with a bet on the Ace high flop). No big blind special when I get dealt 72o and I fold to a pre-flop raise.

The very next hand, I get AA in the SB! I manage to quadruple up and make it easily into the final table in about 7/8 chip position. The unfortunate bubble boy was BarnyBoatman who got rivered by Skalie.

It was very close between the 4 shortest stacks but I noticed that the opposition was playing quite loose and so I tightened up even more to gain a few places. Doubled up during a battle of the blinds when filthyweasel in the Big Blind (who had me covered) decided to try to bluff me on the river with ace high by going all in. I had flopped an 8 on a QQ8 flop and was pretty sure my opponent had nothing by the time he bet on the river. Filthyweasel was reduced to less than 1k chips and he was next out in 10th place.

Soon, we were down to 6. My last mistake occured when I raised UTG with QQ but then folded, after some very little thinking that Prima give you, to an all-in from the button. In that time I thought I was up against AK/KK/AA, didn't have time to add in JJ and maybe AQ/TT, otherwise the call would have been automatic. Belgariad kindly told me later that he had JJ.

With practically no chance of winning the tourney after that QQ fold, I concentrated on gaining a few more places and was very happy to finish 4th instead of 6th. Going out with KJo from the big blind against Skalie's all-in raise with 96o from the small blind.

That left Skalie, zxcvbn002 and Belgariad to fight it out.

Hendon Mob League Game 3 Results.

Congrats to Skalie who had the skill and the luck to win on the night.

Hendon Mob League Top 10 Players