Monday

I had a wild go of it in today's $300 NLHE at the FPC. I should have known when I arrived at my table to see a guy bet 300 into a pot of 60 and get two flatcallers. There were several horrible players at my table, the worst players I have played with since Westminster in the summer. But I couldn't get any hands and my stack steadily dropped down to about 400 with 25-50 blinds. Then I hit two pair with the Beast T8s and doubled up against a flush draw/gutshot with the money going in on the turn. The victim claimed he had "19 outs" before being informed by the Fall Poker Classic Best All-Around Player Award Points Leader that he was in fact wrong. Then I won the blinds a couple times. Then I went all-in with TT over the top of a raise and a call and won uncontested. Then I called a raise with AJs and won the pot after an A high flop (won nothing more). Then the play of the day:

Blinds at 100-200 with a 25 ante. A loose, weak player raised my big blind the minimum and too tight/weakies called. When it got to me I immediately pushed all in for over 2000 with J2 offsuit, and no one even thought about calling. I picked up 1750 chips with this play when the average stack was only about 2000! Moves like this are what separate the top players from the rest of the pack. I'm not a top player yet, but I am at Canterbury.

Unfortunately I then lost most of my chips when I moved to a new table and decided to call Norm Ketchum's cutoff 600 raise with JT of spades on the button. The flop came QJ8 with two clubs and a spade and he immediately moved all in for about 1600. I beat him into the pot. When I called the raise, I was expecting him to move in no matter what the flop was, and had pretty much decided I was going to call if I liked the flop. I should really think harder about decisions like this that are for a lot of chips (this is one thing that I have gotten much better at since Borgata). I think I would have probably called here anyways, but I should have at least thought it over. Anyways, he had QJ of hearts and I was in bad shape. The turn was a spade but the river bricked and I was knocked down below average. Not long after that I was forced to move in with 77 in middle position and the small blind had aces.

I played some ultimate frisbee with the team before I got the dreaded call from Kwickfish, telling me he was out. He had cold cards all day long but hung in there before finally crapping out with around 50 left. At night we played some high-level foosball and watched the Cardinals' impossible comeback.

Tomorrow is the $500 NLHE which should attract only the Cream of Canterbury. It is the last event before the championship.