Recent weekends have been packed with Rugby Betting but this past weekend it was my poker schools year-end tournament and due to the midnight curfew things began early. For that reason I never got too involved in the rugby and although my best bet of the weekend, Lions (+3.5) arrived against Western Province I showed a loss with Australia failing to beat the handicap against Argentina and Total Points going over 50 in the Bulls v Cheetahs game.

Back to the poker and 16 of us sat down at 15h00 on Saturday and the early action was loose as rebuys were available till dinner at 18h00. Then it was into the freeze-out and I started with a decent stack having had a couple of rebuys but also some nice wins just before the break. I held my own for the first hour or so after supper, gradually growing the stack and then it was onto the final table where 10 players would do battle for the coveted trophy and some handy prize money.

An hour into the session I looked down at KK and raised the pot. A few positions to my left, another player came over the top and re-raised me and I didn’t hesitate to move all in. I had more chips than him so his tournament life would be in danger and I was confident I was ahead at this point. After a long deliberation he called and turned over JJ. I was in a strong position, but that feeling didn’t last long as a Jack came on the flop. Before I knew it my stack had more than halved. In the past I would have played recklessly allowing that bad beat to affect my play, but this time I stayed calm and gradually began to rebuild.

There were concerns we weren’t making curfew despite the blinds rising quickly there were still 7 players left deep into the night and with the top 4 being paid things were tense. I slow played QQ to knock another player out and there were 5 players left and 20 minutes later I had knocked out each of them and was the new Champion posing with my final hand of 66 and the trophy.

I may have lost at Sports Betting this weekend, but my Poker win more than made up for that.

Twitter: @BrentGraham.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 10 December 2020.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register