Beginner's luck

Little poker over the last week or so - bought Civilization IV last Monday so have been playing that in the evenings, then went to Paris for the weekend. Civ IV rocks, I started playing one game on Noble difficulty level to get the hang of the new features and once it became obvious I was going to win (huge technology lead and I'd wiped out the Japanese) I started another game on the next level up, Prince. This has been tougher. It's a map with lots of islands and I've been put in a part of the world with small islands which only support one city each. This has made expansion a pain. I also made an error by not noticing that when your treasury level falls close to zero, the science rate is adjusted downward so you don't go broke. Thus my science rate went from 70% to 20% and I've fallen well behind in the tech race and am currently ranked 5th out of the six civs.

Anyway, back to poker. On Monday night I played in the Blondepoker forum PL Omaha tourney on Pokerstars. 26 entries at $11 a pop. Now, I've played, at most, one PL Omaha MTT before, so had to play this by ear. I started off playing very tight, then got bored with that and started seeing some flops. My starting stack of 1500 went down to 900, then back up to about 2000 when I doubled up with AA87 double suited against AAT6 ds when I hit my flush. 4000 came by hitting a straight on the turn against a set plus flush draw.

My favourite hand of the night was dealt next. I had AA96 and raised a limper preflop. Flop was Q23 and my opponent check-called my bet. Turn was an 8 - he checked, as did I. I'm not exactly sure why I checked, as it gave up the initiative I had in the hand - I think this was an error. It also, in my opinion, gave away the fact I had AA, considering I raised preflop. River was a 7 and matey boy bet the pot. I had a little think, but was sure that this was an attempt to take the pot, and called. He had JJT8 and I was up to about 8000.

Got to the final table 3rd in chips, and made the final 2 with quite a deficit. At this stage hands were going by at quite a blur, and sometimes I won hands at showdown without having time to work out why... I drew level when I called a re-re-raise all-in on a J64 flop (two clubs) with J4Q2 and my opponent only had an Ace-high flush draw.

The next big hand was when I had KKA5 and saw a flop of AJ7. Matey check-called my bet. Turn was 9c and he again check-called. At this stage, his J7T4 was ahead with two pair. The river was 5h, giving me a higher two pair, and he checked again. I checked behind because I hadn't worked out this had helped my hand :-) This took the pot and gave me a big lead.

The tournament ended when I had another pair of Aces hold up and I won $130. It's amazing to think of all the Hold'em tournaments I've played well in and come nowhere, and then I fluke this Omaha one.