Solverde Season #4 - Vilamoura - 5/6 Abril 2008 by JayJay

Solverde # 4 was a weird tournament for me. I was very comfortable at the first table although I didn’t play too many pots. Actually I wasn’t involved in any big pots, which are crucial for a stack development through the tourney. I remember having AQ at level 2, blinds 50/100; I raised from MP, 1 caller. The flop came 984, I checked, he checked (I didn’t opt for the cbet as I was trying to control the pot size); turn X, at this point I decided to bet and try to take the pot there as my opponent seemed to be passive, he called; river A, I check, he checks and mucks a pair of 10s (I probably should had bet the river for 2 reasons: value bet and not showing my cards). As I said earlier the tourney developed and I wasn’t able to connect flops with my holding hands. However I managed to stay at least on the average stack size as I changed table later on level 6.
At the new table the first hand I played was a pocket of 8s on the cut off. Someone raised MP, I decided to just call and the BB also called. The flop came QJX, BB check, initial raiser bet and I folded. I wasn’t very happy with the way I played this hand, probably should have raised pre-flop as I later knew that the initial raiser wasn’t holding such a big hand. I then got aces on the bb, a short stack raised, I re-raised and he folded pre-flop…Unfortunately after this hand I had a cold deck and found myself short stack after a few orbits. When there were 5 minutes left for the dinner break I was on the button with 108off and a stack of 6k, blinds 300/600 with ante. It was clear to me at this point that I had to make a move before I got the blinds as they would be 400/800. So as everybody folded to me I moved all-in and was lightly called by the BB with QJ. Flop was Q10X, turn and river brought no help and I was out. Hope to do better next time!