The River Runs Red - With My Blood

I cannot believe my luck. Not only were my cards pretty awful tonight, but they were spot on for at least two of my opponents at the all important time. I played two more multi-table tournaments and did not fair as well as last night. Again the buy-in was £2 + 0.25 and I got 1500 chips to start.

My cards generally were awful, I didn't get a pair higher than 5's dealt to me and when I got an Ace it was always accompanied by a 7 or lower. I rarely saw any royal cards at all. Never the less some very tight playing let me survive for a decent period in the first game. I don't remember exactly how many players there were, but it was upwards of 450. I managed to come 134th in this game which I felt was fairly respectable considering.

The annoying thing was that it was the river that dumped me out again. Full house, Kings over Aces. An excellent hand, but not compared to an Ace High, Straight Flush. Would you believe it.

The second game was not quite as painful as the first, this time I didn't have too much of a hand and was a little too gung ho. I had Queen, Jack and the flop looked good for a straight. The turn came and it didn't appear, I figured that at worst I had a pair as one card supported it and so I went all in hoping that they thought I had something. The pot was fairly big as a result of this and I thought maybe it would scare people off. Alas it did not and the card I wanted never came. Someone else got the straight I was looking for and I walked away in a miserly 300th place. At least I didn't come in 500th place, which was last.

The pot falls to £21.50, so I am now £3.50 down from the beginning of the month. I am now considering if I should revise my big pot high hopes and return to the single table tournaments for now. At least until my new order from Amazon.co.uk from which I can finally order from after over a year of complaining to!

I have ordered two books on poker "Harrington on Hold 'em: Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments: Strategic Play" and "Harrington on Hold 'em: Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments: The Endgame". Hopefully after some reading of these and a bit of digestion I might be able to improve my plays and compete a little bit better. I know there are certain weaknesses in my game during certain scenarios and I hope that by reading these I can attempt to patch them up.

Next time my aim is not to end up slain on the river. Losing is definately not as much fun.