After about an hour of play we had Doyle seat 1, Howard Lederer on my right, Eli Elezra seat 10, and all the other players were also good, so the table was a monument to a very high standard of limit holdem
I came in with 36k and was building steadily as my hands held up in the early levels and I pulled some good bluffs. One bluff was where I held 4-5 of spades and called a raise before the flop on my big blind. I check raised on the flop of 10- 9- Q, with two spades, and bet the turn which was a blank and was given the pot. In this game it’s always best to have the last betting action or the last raise and then you always have a shot to take pots down that don’t belong to you; or you can still hit your hand. It’s a bit of semi bluffing, but try this play of three bets with any two random cards – as long as the pot goes heads up you will be in good shape to take it down with no show down most of the time.
I built my chips to 80k and was in cruise control. The dinner break was coming up soon and I was enjoying things chatting with Howard – we get on well with these days. Then a series of small losses followed by two big ones and I was done. OUT! It was so, so sick I felt really bad. I did nothing too much wrong, but levels were 3000-6000 and you need things to go your way and can’t take 2-3 pots that go bad or it’s over even with an average stack.
Today – Tuesday – is a day off for me. I will take it easy and play the 5k NL holdem tomorrow.
