So as the big stack was to my right for most of the game, I decided just to play tight-aggressive. I was fairly easy to read, A-J would have been the lowest hand I was raising with, and I’m sure they new it. So for most of the game I tried to avoid the big stack.

So after playing solid tight-aggressive poker for most of the tournament, I went to the final table average stacked. There was a re-shuffle at the final table and I was now sitting 2 places to the right of the big stack. So after a few players had went out we where down to 5 players. I had now a decent stack and would have been sitting 2nd chip leader. The chatty man who was previously sitting to my left was still chip leader.

So this is when I noticed it. As usual he was talking away, just the usual banter. I was big blind and went to look at my cards, just as I picked them up, I noticed it suddenly went quiet. I looked up to see the button (chatty man) was picking up chips. He bet the usual, 3 times the big blind. But I noticed something different this time, he wasn’t his usual over confident self. So sb folds and I look down to see 6-7 of diamonds. Usually I would have folded, due to being out of position. But I just flat called. I know there was something different with this hand, so planned to get to showdown as cheap as possible.

The flop came Ad-7s-3d usually with mid pair and flush draw I would have been betting big into a pot, but I checked. He checked after me. So the turn came a 10c. Same again I checked, he checked. The river came 9h. By this point I knew I was calling any bet under the pot, not because I was infront, but to see what he had. So I checked, planning to call a bet, but he also checked. I show him my 6-7, he throws over Ks. I lost a bit in that hand, nothing to bad. But the information I got in that hand was worth every chip.

Later on, I notice he had went quiet again, this time I had 99, but folded for him to through over QQ as if to see I wasn’t bluffing this time. He never realised I already knew that.

Well to cut the rest of the story short, I ended up heads up against him and cleaned him out, with him having 3/4 of the chips when we went heads up. I left getting abuse shouted at me for being a Scottish cunt (all in fun) for cleaning him out on every hand I played against him heads up. I ended the game by calling his allin with A-2 off and calling his hand (well nearly). I called him for King high, thinking he had a weak kicker, when he actually went allin with K-10 slightly better than I thought. My A-2 held up and I walk away £400 up.

I’ll defently be going back to the fortune rooms in Cookstown for a game, probably the best orginazed place to play poker in N.Ireland.