Visiting Friends and a Third Place Finish

As the rain bucketed down, I made my way up a wet Geelong Highway to visit a friend in the south-eastern suburb of Aspendale.

Just a few days previously she had received some terrible news that a family member passed away, and consequently I decided to pay her and her family a visit to express my condolences. I picked out an arrangement of white orchids, lilies and roses before driving around their block a few times trying to work out what exactly to say at a time like this (because honestly no one is good at these things, and there is only a handful of things that you can say!). Eventually I manned up, pulled over and knocked on their door before staying there for just over an hour catching up before making my way into the city.

I swung pass Alex's house and picked him up to grab some dinner, but instead we decided to go play the Crown $60 Turbo tourney for shits and giggles.

Arriving just a few minutes before the tournament started, we registered then grabbed a quick snack before joining the tournament a little late. The $60 Turbo not only gives you twenty seconds to act on your hand, but the structure is rather fast too, meaning it’s more of a run hot / gamble up kind of tournament instead testing out your superior poker skills.

I won a small pot within in the first orbit to move above my starting stack of 1,500 before Alex's table broke and he was moved to my direct right. He shoved one hand, then another before his third shove would find action from an under the gun limp-caller with against his Jacks. An Ace dropped and Alex was of course upset at the level of play he was witnessing.

A few hands later I jokingly made the dealer aware that he was using his phone at the table, and after losing that hand and grabbing his phone for some comfort (?) he was pinged with a ten minute penalty. It wasn't the ten minutes that were the major problem, or the fact he was about seven hands from the blinds, but the fact that he only had three big blinds left! Alex immediately stormed off saying that he was leaving blah blah blah. The ten minutes went by and I called and messaged him before he eventually made it back just in time to see the blinds go up only to bust to my when I rivered an eight to crack his pocket fours.

I was still short - well not in comparison to the table - with around fifteen big blinds, and consequently Alex decided to stick around and wait till I busted so we could head out for dinner. Unfortunately for him I kept hanging around picking up a pot here and there - including a nice triple holding Kings vs Ace-Jack vs Sevens - to see just two tables remain from the original 88 starters.

Once that twenty was reduced to sixteen it became a game of who had balls and who didn't. I of course did and started raising and raising and raising to put pressure on the players who were sitting tight in an effort to make the final table and min-cash. This one guy on my left folded to my button shove with and then folded those same sevens when I shoved with . Although I was chipping up fairly well - I still barely had fifteen big blinds due to a pretty crapshoot-style structure - I decided to ask everyone if they were interested in chucking in $10 each for whoever was the bubble boy. Everyone agreed and about an orbit later the guy that continued to whimper at my button shoves hit the rail as the final table was formed as the clock hit 10pm.

Alex and his mate David decided to vacate the rail to find some action for themselves as they ventured up to the Craps table as we kicked off with my stack in about fourth or fifth position. A full orbit went by before I played my first hand when I shipped it all in from the big blind after an all in and a call holding Ace-King to be up against Ace-Ten and Sevens. I dinged a King on the flop and tripled up nicely to sit in second place with only seven players left. Soon enough we were three-handed with some old guy holding the slight chip lead over me and long-time Crown player Andrey.

Three handed play astoundingly went for about forty minutes as we all exchanged chips from our average ten big blind stacks. With blinds at 3,000-6,000 I shoved the small blind for around 31,000 holding the powerful and was snapped off by Andrey's . I bricked out and picked up $615 for my third place as Andrey went on to be bad beat for second and see the $1,025 first prize head in the direction of the old man.

Me and Alex had swapped 25% so I shipped his share of $136 before I dropped him and David off in the city to grab dinner. Originally planning on playing some cash instead of the tournament, the win was good enough for the day, and I decided to make my way back home a little happier then when I ventured up early in the afternoon.

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