Managed a second final table in a row at The Western last night. Until we got to 10 handed, I ran so well. Had aces twice, kings and hit a set, queens, AK and didn't really need to do anything dramatic and for the first time ever, I not only made the break in good shape, but also had a 5000 chip when they changed up during it. Down to the bubble and I've been pretty card dead for a bit and with only 5 on the table it wasn't good news, but I picked up AKs UTG and raised 3xBB to 4800. One caller which I wasn't too happy about but the flop came a harmless 6 T 5 rainbow and I figured that I was either in good shape still or behind to a monster. The caller had less chips than me so I put him in and he obliged my call and flipped over aces! The only 'wrong' move I made all night and it cost me most of my stack. In fairness, he'd called preflop raises before and lead out and didn't show so I thought he may have been at it, but certainly wasn't in this case. Anyway, I was down to 3200 and it was my big blind for 1600 and the small blind put me in and obviously called but had J7 which thankfully was ahead and held up. Shortly after the bubble burst and we were on the final table.

I was definitely the shorty at the final having 6000 with blinds of 1000/2000 and imagine my joy at picking seat 3 out of the draw so I was in the big blind straight away. Ended up folding the blinds, but put my last 3k in from the button, obv the big blind called but only had 72s and I won. Another round nearly came and from UTG +3 I shoved (LOL) with JT and got 4 callers, managed to hit two pair and took the pot and quadrupled up! With only 150,000 chips in play and the heavy blinds, there were quite a few all ins and my immediate goal was to just not go out first. I thought I was doomed at one point when there were 3 all in's in one hand and no one was knocked out, but people started dropping, I started picking up a few more pots and all of a sudden I was in really good shape. One nice pot I picked up was after I'd just doubled up again, folded to a short stack who shoved for 5.5k (2k/4k blinds) from the button, I called from the small blind and checked it down with the big blind and my 4's held. There were a a few pots like this which really made a difference to my stack. Eventually, we were down to 3, then the other two clashed and it was heads up. The other guy had a huge chip lead of about 110k to my 40k and we eventually were all in with his K8 v my AQ, but he hit an 8 and that was that.

No complaints, in fact I'm really pleased to have gone from less than two big blinds and in 9th spot to 2nd in got outdrawn for a pot that would have given me the chip lead. I certainly picked up my game last week and my final table performance certainly improved so all in all I was very pleased.