sorry guys bad news
went down at the start of the tournament and there were only 9 players registered which looked terrible value so i waited an hour before jumping in. i got put on what was undoubtedly the toughest table with elky, bryn kenney, luke schwartz, eugene katchalov and 2 online high stakes players i recognised. this table really wasn't a fair refection of the tournament tho, the other 4 tables were much much softer. this table probably had the 4 best players in the whole comp on it! i did have position on the one fish tho and had no power over the table draw so just tried to play my best. this comp also offered a single €10k reload if u busted early which i saw several fish take on the other tables, boosting the prizepool that little bit extra.
i started well, first hand i played i got 3 big streets of value with bottom 2 on AK579sss. then got paid off for my river overbet with JJ on A964J. schwartz busted elky and bryn kenney got moved, so the table wasn't as tough anymore.
i had chipped up from 25k starting stack to 35k or so when i lost my first big pot. luke opened utg and i flatted KK in mp. one caller behind, then luke cbet big on J96dd. i called. all fairly standard till now. the turn was another J. not a great card but luke checked and i felt like he would actually c/r here a lot (both for value and with his draws, of which there were several). he could also be trying to pot control or bluff catch with some showdown hands. overall i decided to bet, luke did indeed c/r and i called. we now had a sizeable pot but i was still pretty confident with my hand. there are plenty of bad rivers, but tbh i thought he would shut down a lot when i called this turn c/r, so whilst i was hoping he would just give up on the river and check and my hand would be good, i thought this was going to happen the vast majority of the time. unfortunately the river was the
completing a couple of the draws out there and making it really difficult for me to win this pot. luke bet big, almost full pot, and i sighed and folded
without making this post too long i lost a couple annoying pots after this, 2 pair vs the fish who peeled a 3b out of position with K6off, then check called twice with an idiot end gutshot that got there lol, AdJx on QJT3dddQx, AxJs on A985Qssss. i was getting to river with a marginally worse hand than my opponent each time.
then my bust out, i peeled AQs from the bb off 14k @ 100/200/25 vs luke's cutoff open. i decided to c/r the AATr flop in hopes of building a pot, which he called. turn K i bet small to try and induce him into not folding. we now head into river with 9k effective stacks and 10k in the pot. the river was a brick and i checked to him in the hopes that he would either value bet a worse hand or turn his hand into a bluff and shove me in. i actually really like the way i played this hand vs him as i think it works in what i was trying to get him to do. i could of just 3b pre, and i probably would have if it was later in the tournament. but meh anyways he had ATo for the flopped boat