April 10th - £20+£2 NL Hold'Em (Grosvenor, Brighton)

Its a funny old world!

Tonights plan was to go down to the LCI and play in the £50 PL Hold'Em event so I roll up at 7.30pm, give my membership number at the desk and proceed to enter the club.

'Excuse me sir', said the guy at the desk. 'It says here you're barred'!. 'You're having a larf', I say, 'I come here to play poker not to get myself barred'.

'Sorry sir...I can't let you in'! So the 'duty' manager comes down. 'Whats all this about be being barred?', I ask.

'It appears the security people have barred you!'.

'For WHAT exactly?'.

'Don't know sir...it doesn't say'.

Despite arguing the toss for several minutes the jobsworth manager refuses me entry and promises to investigate but it'll be tomorrow (Tues) before he can do anything! In the meantime...I'm barred...apparently!

Lucky for me there's the Grosvenor which has a £20 NL game on a Monday night so off I go there.

With the festival at the LCI there were only 16 entries for the game but at the end of the rebuy period there was a prize pool of £1300. (I'd contributed £100 of it) Trouble was only 3 got paid!

I got lucky, just before the break, when my A-2 (all-in for 6k on a flop of 2c-6h-10c) got called by someone holding the Jc-3c. No J's, 3's or clubs came down on the turn or river and I had 14k at the break.

Of course with only 16 runners the final wasn't too far away and by the time 8 of us sat down for this I had 27k and was chip leader.

Being chip leader is all well and good if you can hang onto it but once again I attempted to give away most of my chips when going all-in on a flop of 10-6-4 (holding A-J) only to be called by Q-Q...ok...he HAD raised to 5k pre-flop and I HAD flat called.

With memories of Saturday close at hand I decided to play tight...after all I still had 11k left and could still reach the prizes with a bit of luck. And what happened next could be described as just that!

With 5 of us left I decide to go all-in for 6300 with As-8s and run into the BB, and his 6200, with K-K. I make the flush and he's gone.

With 4 left the next lowest stack goes all-in with J-J. Chip leader calls with A-K and a King hits. I'm in the money!

With 3 left I lose a couple of blinds and am back down to 6k. The two BIG stacks see a flop of Ah-9d-6h. One goes all-in...the other (bigger stack) calls. Mr All-In shows A-J. Mr Caller shows Kh-Qh. Another heart falls on the river and I'm now guaranteed £415.

With 6k left I go all-in with Ad-Qd. Chip monster calls me. I double through.

With 10k left I go all-in with K-J. Chip monster calls me. I double through.

With 18k left I go all-in with K-J. Chip monster calls me. I double through.

At this point I offer to take £500 and go away. No so big a chip monster gets £615 and agrees!

As I said earlier...its a funny old world.

Entries -> 16 - Place -> 2nd - Win -> £398 ($696) Profit/Loss for 2006 -> +$7087