Aces up

Aces have been holding up well for me tonight. I've caught an ace four times out of five.

Early on, re-reraised all-in with AQ after the shortstack had gone all in, there were two callers, and I was happy to see that I was the only one of the four of us with an ace. Sure enough, I hit my pair and tripled up.

But I made a stupid raise against a guy (Lucky 13 13) who obviously had an overpair, and guess what, he had an overpair. That time no ace came to my rescue.

There's a new poker analyst tonight, James Browning, who has a definite north-east twang.

Primo

Paul, Jason, Trevor and Richard line up ahead of tonight's tourney.

I started well but I've been betting too often, whittling my stack down to 1,000 chips. Still in though! And when I get bored I can follow the live updates on the big tournament at the Vic in London.

9.47 pm update: out, A7 beating my AJ. :-(

It's been dormant for a while, but Sky have started posting to their poker blog again, and it's a good place to keep up-to-date.

AAgh

First hand shown on the Open show tonight was Pheebs' AA being cracked by Jim-the-Tim's AK. There was a king on the flop, but one king had been mucked, so Jim was drawing to a one-outer, and hit his set on the river.

I was reminded of that hand when I went out exactly on the hour mark. I'd been bumbling along short-stacked until I trebled up with AT, but soon afterwards came the killer: the cutoff raised (with QTs), I reraised on the button all-in with AA, she called. I watched the screen from behind my hand, and sure enough, she made her flush on the river.