Ups and downs

I played my first decent tournament under the Irish Eyes banner at the Macau end of month game in Cork last night. It’s a €250 + €25, €10k gtd game, with as decent a structure as can be allowed for in a one-day game. With 49 runners, it generated a prizepool of €12.25k and a good first prize of over €4k.
I decided going in to play a pretty standard ABC tag game and see how things developed. I got a few hands from time to time and chipped up to 40k by the end of the 300-600 level and felt well in the zone.
My stack took a severe knock in the 400-800 level when a young guy in mid-pos open pushed for 15k and I woke up with 2 black kings in the sb. I made the call and he showed 2 red nines. 4 hearts later and I’m back to 25k. In the not too distant past this would have triggered the tilt monster in me but I’ve done a lot of work on this problem and took a 5 minute breather, coming back still believing I would do well. Before the end of the level I was down to 11k!! My 99 no good for A7 aipf.
I stole from the button once and tried it again next round having seen just an A. The sb called with 99 and I hit runner-runner 5 to my kicker. Talk about swings and roundabouts.
The table wasn’t too difficult, with the exception of Nicky Power and Trevor Dineen and I was able to pick out my spots quite well. I took out the A7 guy with 99 (again) against his A5 and found myself up to 55k. There were 12 left at this stage but the blinds had gone to 1500-3k, so it was pretty much all pre-flop ninja stuff.
Nicky had been pretty active with his big stack and 2 hands later he raised to 8k. I looked down at AK in bb and dropped 22k over the line with the full intention of calling a shove. He shoved and I beat him in. QQvAK, classic match-up. A on flop K on turn, nice. Q on river not so nice and I’m walking. If I had to give them to anybody at the table, then Nicky is the man. Not only a great poker player but a gent as well.
With the blind structure, the hand played itself as limping to the final table short is not my style. A pretty standard tournament really. A few downs, a few ups and I felt did as well as I could with what I was dealt.
Following my 3rd place in the Cue Club last Sunday and this game, I know my game is in good shape and with a bit of luck at crucial times I’d be hoping to score sooner rather than later.
Nicky went on to take the lion’s share of a 6-way chop, with Connie next in line. With his confidence restored, Connie is going to be a major force for the next while.
Watch this space!