Saturday, September 27, 2008

I Run Good... Against Spaceman at Least

I'm relaxing on the balcony of my London flat, eating Thai noodle salad and waiting for Pauly to arrive from Amsterdam, after his flight was unfortunately delayed. Both of us are playing in tonight's six-handed Grand Finale of the Poker Listings Run-Good Challenge. Earlier this week, I duked it out with Spaceman heads-up to see which one of us would advance to the final, as we were both tied in points from our preliminary event performances.

I jumped out to an early lead in the HU match, courtesy of flopping two pair with junk hands on two separate occasions. From there I switched into small-ball mode, not wanting to get too out of line with marginal hands as I know Spaceman plays a very aggressive, often tricky game. It wasn't too hard to keep playing small pots when I couldn't flop a pair or even a draw, and my lead eroded a bit before I doubled up Spaceman when his A-8 of hearts made a flush on the turn against my K-Q. I ground up my stack a bit more before I shoved over the top of his opening raise with A-7 and he made a great call with A-9. We were back to where we started yet again. I managed to suck out spectacularly when I shoved with K-5 and Spaceman called with A-K, rivering a 5 in dramatic fashion to double up. The final hand came when I pushed with A-6 and Spaceman, called with J-T, having only 5 BB or so and despite him picking up half the deck in outs on the turn, I ran good and survived to advance to the final.

It was a challenging match for sure and Spaceman played great. It was also probably the longest $1 HU SNG in history, clocking in at 83 hands.

The Grand Finale kicks off at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT/7 p.m. GMT on Poker Stars. I'm also delighted to see that poker blogging women make up half the field, as I'm joined by two tough Texans in Amy Calistri and Michele Lewis. Rounding out the field are Poker Listings' strategy guru Dan Skolovy, Short-Stacked Shamus and the one and only Dr. Pauly. A $3,000+ prize pool will be divided among the six of us. Come rail and see if I can run good!

2 comments:

Pinky said...

No apartments in London - they're all 'flats' ;-)

Btw, I'm very much hoping to meet you this year after missing you when you were in town last year. I've dropped Pauly a line about meeting up, but I'll probably just try and come and say hi in the Empire, or something like that.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm also interested in poker games.

To be honest, I like your stories very much.

Let's to be good friend, share ours stories and emotions to each other.

Waiting for your reply.