From Shark to Donkey?

Mark left after our Half-life 2 night and I hit up the tables for a game or two.I bubbled one $11 sng and won another before joining the s-man at Ladbrokes for a little cash play.

Upon checking my Sharkscope stats at Fulltilt for games over $10 I'm the proud owner of a wee shark symbol next to my name.I've only played 83 games over $11 but after a terrible start at that level it's a nice wee confidence booster.( even if it probably should be replaced by a fish in a bowl after my Mookie exit)

I was still up just before 3am and took the chance to play with the ( mainly) US bloggers in the weekly Mookie $10 mtt.There were 44 runners and it was great to see a good few familiar names at the tables.I'm an avid reader of The Flights of Iakris who was at my table and I would probably have told him what an excellent read his blog is however "ghey chatbox comment of the year" is not a title I'm after.

To the game itself and as the blind levels were standard and not turbo I determined to take my time,feel my way in and not make any awfuckit moves.I was also equally determined not to be in awe of anyone and to play my own game.My first hand was 55 and I choose to limp along with a few others.The flop came 4 4 6 and was checked round.I checked too and bet out when checked to me after a 7 fell on the turn.All folded and I'd won my first ( albeit small) pot.A few hands later and I reraise a 120 bet with my Nolan sisters and sigh with relief as I'm not reraised all in and put to a major decision at that early stage.I bet out aprox 2/3 of the pot on a King high flop and thankfully took it down.

I had chipped up a little and was prepared to be patient when I woke up to AA in early position.I've not played a blogger sng with my US friends for a while but I remembered the last one was uber tight so I didn't want to scare off the whole table with my raise and made it just over 4bb to go and got three ( may have been four,it was after 3am!) callers.I was first to act on a 10 high board with 2 spades out.I bet a little over the pot and was reraised all in by krazybangs.

Before it got to me jeciimd had called all in for his last 800 ( aprox) chips.I spent nearly the full 30 seconds trying to do some maths and work out where I was in the hand.I was sure I had at least one of my opponents beaten but reckoned I could be behind to jeciimds rapid all in call.After I'd bet out post flop there was aprox 1130 in the pot.With Krazys all in and jeciimds call the pot was aprox 3300 and I had 870 to call which would leave me just under 400 if I lost but on over 4k if my Aces were good.I quickly Shark scoped my opponents as I had no reads at all on either of them but that didn't help my decision much.Anyways I made the donkey call and was behind Jeciimds's set of tens and ahead of Krazys JJ.I was trying to calculate the sidepot as the J fell and that was nearly that.

Having gone over the AA hand with Miami Mark ( accountant ) I think I made the right call.He reckons if I had folded after the flop bets, then I would be left with aprox 1250 in chips, but beating Krazys hand would have given me 1650.If I had beaten Krazys JJ but lost to Jeciimds set of tens then I would have lost 400 chips on the hand overall whereas if I had folded I would have been 800 down.Obviously with Krazy hitting his Jack on the turn all that's irrelevant but at least I made the right call.



A couple of hands later I pushed with AQ and ran into Iakris's KK.No suckout and I was gone after 13 minutes wishing I'd been smart enough to type "AA no good?" and fold rather than career on into the abyss.All good fun though and the next time I'm off work I'll be looking to play again.

Righty pizza,poker and watching Sky sports for Gers news are the plans for tonight.....