24

...as in the last 24 have sucked fairly hard :) BR down about 8% in the last 24 hours. Made a lot of second best hands. But the most disappointing thing was a Stars $4.40 180 man that I decided to play mid-afternoon after the wife was home ... the kids had some friends over so on a whim I decided to jump in a Stars 180 man. Very slow early, but then picked up some hands and got some chips ... then some more ... then some more! Suddenly I was chip leader with 80 to go, and I stayed in the top5 right until it got down to 27.

Then I had one awful hand which didn't go my way. I had the big chipleader on my left, he had about 25k to my 18k, and I was still in the top 5, I think we were 1 and 2 then. I get KK in the big blind, and the CL min raises UTG. A short stack on 2.5k chips raises all in, and I raise again to 5000. The CL calls, and we have three way action with one all in.

Flop comes Ks 4c Qs, I make top set, but there are some nasty draws out there. At this stage the pot is around 13k, and I cant see how my chips arent all going in here. The pot is pretty nice as is though, and I dont want two of them drawing at that board, so I jam. The CL thinks for ages before mucking. The short stack shows Ac Td, the turn is an 8 but of course the river is a J. I still take the side pot of 4980 but the main pot of 8k goes to the other guy.

Those chips would have given me a really big stack ... unfotrunately from there I hit several hands that were likely second best, and with the bubble approaching I took the conservative option. For example I raised JJ in early position to 2.5 bb (I think blinds were 300/600) and got three callers. Got re-raised with K on baord and had to let it go. Couple of similar hands whittled my stack away and then of course we had the bubble grind which went for ages. Ended up going out 12th which is my best finish in a 180 - but I'm really disappointed, I had a great chance to make top 5 at least.

Well I didnt really want to make a bad beat post I guess its the disappointment - so close yet so far. I admire people that specialise in tourneys, it must take some real resilience to be able to work for hours regularly, get close and then get little or no return.