Saturday brought the Western qualifying heats for the APAT Welsh Open tournament. It was a deepish stack, long structured £20 f/o. There were 80 runners with 8 getting seats and cash. I came 24th. The interesting this was I never once paired the board. I played for 4.5 hours, so probably played around 100 hands and yet I had nada.

One interesting hand was when I picked up 55 in the SB and limped. BB tripled the price to see the flop and I called hoping to get luck with the set. The flop came 234 and I checked. He bet the pot, so there was now around 10 BB in there and so well worth taking down. I thought for a minute and then pushed all-in. I think it was the correct play. He might have AK, AQ, KQ, which he would have to lay down and if he had an over paid then I had a quarter the deck to improve with so one time in two I would double up if he called. He pondered and then called with 1010. The turn gave me a set but the river was an A, so chop chop. I guess that was a fair result.

One other interesting hand was when I had AKs on the button and I went 4.5xbb. BB called and the flop came Q99. There was around 1.5k in the middle and he had 1.6k behind. He bet 1k and I tanked. I ran through all the hands he might have and concluded that the worst case scenario was he had an underpair in which case I had 11 outs. I did think though that he called to take it away from me if a dull flop came out so I pushed all in knowing he would call. It turned out he was on the blag with 78, but a 7 came on the turn. He did crow a little about the hand saying I made a crazy call - but I think it was the correct call to make. I was left very short stacked but two hands later I found AQ in mid position and UTG went all-in on a short stack. I'm thinking he is pushing with a big range, so I went all in to use my meagre stack as an isolating bet. No 4 came and I was back to where I started.

I went out with 55 in an early position. I shoved all-in for about 12xbb hoping to steal, but got called by AQ, an A came on the flop and I was out the door.

On Sunday I played my regular league game in my local pub. There were 18 players and I won. I was short stacked on the final table after I tried to pick off a short stack and ended up giving her a big stack and me a little. Doh. That takes me to 22 league wins from 175 games, so just under 1 win in 8 with an average turnout of perhaps 20 players. We then played two cash games after hours. The first I lost in cos I played like an idiot. I had had a few beers and decide it would be clever to announce I was stealing before going all in with J8. I won the second game though and staggered home at around 3am after nearly 14 hours in the same pub.