At last I can forgive Jim McMahon

I can’t believe I forgot to mention yesterday the New England Patriots becoming an authentic dynasty, with their third Superbowl win in four years. I think back to the Mike Ditka Chicago Bears and the Parcells New York Giants, both of whom were touted as ‘dynasties’ and failed to deliver. I hated both for various reasons (Superbowl XX being an obvious reason), so am most gratified by the Patriots achievement.

I didn’t tempt fate in here, but I was extremely confident about the game on Sunday, based on what I have seen of the Eagles over the past couple of years. It seemed to me that they are capable of playing really badly and making big mistakes that aren’t in the Patriots make-up – the Eagles’ dismal time management in the fourth quarter springs to mind, as well as managing to wind up starting on their own 3 yard line at the death instead of at the twenty. Never mind McNab’s interceptions.

I watched the game with several cans of strong lager, lots of cigarettes and a nice log fire. It was absolute bliss, even after spilling lager over my mobile phone (it died for a while but – like me – was recovered the next day).

I had another decent session last night, playing a two-table sit and go and the usual PLO 6-handed game. I got rewarded for different qualities in each – more aggression than usual in the tourney and a lot of patience in the cash game.

I have read quite a bit about tournament play recently, one way and another, and certain things have really started to sink in. These things helped me take 3rd in the sit ‘n’ go, after a distressing beat on about the third hand when a chap called my chunky preflop raise and then called my all-in flop raise on a 955 flop, when he held KJ. (He hit the river to beat my AQ).

Actually, I really should have got heads-up at the end, but rather than wait for the 2BB third stack to die I took on the chip leader with KT versus what proved to be his AK. I very, very nearly got him to lay down on the turn but it wasn’t to be.

In the cash, patience worked out for me. Whilst I like to raise quite a wide range of hands in PLO (position willing) I just couldn’t pick up even a sniff of a hand and also had to contend with a fella who liked to reraise persistently. So I battened down the hatches after a couple of lost pots, stole a decent one on the river against a weakie, and waited… Eventually I picked up one of those lovely multiway flops for my hand; a made straight, higher straight draw and small flush draw. The result was that I doubled through thanks to an opponent who was drawing to the straight I had already made and had no other outs. Love it!

I’m playing well at the moment, definitely. I’m thinking more about my actions than I have done for a while, and that is starting to come more naturally. I really would like to move up to bigger games; I haven’t always played quite as low down the food chain as at present, but my constant cannibalisation of my bankroll precludes me moving up for the time being. Part of my deposit on my new living-space is coming out of the poker account tomorrow. Which makes me both happy and sad, at the same time.