Close, but no cigar

Played quite a few satellites over the last week, getting nowhere in the GUKPT sats on bluesq or the GCBPT ones on Coral. The only one I got close in was an ECOOP main event sat. I played a $6 re-buy sat and managed to win a $55 seat into the final stage sat after burning through 3 or 4 rebuys. With 2 x $1060 entries into the ECOOP main event on offer I was really hoping to cash. There were 24 starters, most I recognised from the $6 sat as being fairly donkish. For example, two or three hands in its folded to me on the button and I raise to 70 (10/20 blinds) with 85o or some other trash, SB raises to 270 and I fold, and this seems to be the most baffling thing he's ever seen, he types "???WTF!!" in chat. Like a blind steal is some amazing mind-blowing concept he's never even contemplated.

Anyway, a couple of hands later it's folded to me and I raise As8s in middle position, again to 70, BB makes it 140 (mmm strength) and I obv call. Flop is 488 rainbow...lovely. I call his flop bet and we get all the money in on the turn, he shows AA and it bricks off, poor guy :-) After that I was flying, staying around 3rd/4th most of the first 30-40 mins, which is good as it was a re-buy event and I had no more cash on the site! I ran bad heading towards the 1st break though, and ended up with 2300 chips left after the re-buy period break was over, with 100/200 blinds :-( First hand after the break and early/mid position guy makes it 600, and it folds to me in the BB with 99....easy decision for me with 11.5BBs. So I shoved and started chanting "please be flipping, please be flipping", he calls with AJo, "That's fine, I'm flipping" flop bricks, turn bricks, river Ace, out in 9th place, sigh, standard, "gg, wp".

There's a few other poker related things bubbling under. One which I can't talk about, but which will be quite cool/fun/unexpected if it comes off. I really want to say more but can't, as if I do it's less likely to happen, if you see what I mean, I'll blog about it as soon as I can though. Also, due to ongoing job uncertainty/credit crunch type issues I need to have a serious think about what to do next "career-wise". This is poker related as I've always wanted to try playing for a living but would never quit my job to play, far too risky. If I was made redundant however... With that in mind I've been looking at matched-betting again, as something to do alongside poker, so I might see if there are any new offers kicking about since I haven't looked for months.

Gl all

Simon