Sept 1st - £100+£10 NL Hold'Em - Sportsman (London W1)

This particular Friday night at the Sportsman was more like a snooker pro's convention. With the filming of the new series of 'Pot Black' about to take place at the RAC Club in Pall Mall the following day it appeared that any snooker player worth his poker playing salt was set in his seat as the numbers topped off at 66 runners and there was no room at the inn for those late to the party.

On my table I get Mr Rock himself in Steve 'Interesting' Davies. Steves undoubted attributes as a snooker player are that he can wait for the right moment before making his move but in the world of 'randomness' that poker lends itself to implicitly he ran foul of a few 'bad beats' and was seen to be emptying his wallet on rebuys.

My efforts tonight never really got going. I took a rebuy after the first hand when my pair of 4's were no match for A-A and then again shortly after once my chips has gone back down to the 1000 mark where rebuys were permitted. With my budget now blown I had to sit and wait for a hand or two.

My first 'get lucky' hand was whilst holding Qh-Jh. A flop of 9-10-4 was checked all-around. A nice looking Jack fell on the turn so I bet out to 400 only to get re-raised to 1400 by the gentleman immediately to my right. I pushed all-in figuring my Q-J, whilst maybe not the best hand, had more potential, and was duly called. He flipped A-J and I duly patted the table only to see a Queen appear on the river and I scoop a nice pot.

My chip stack got to 10k where I then cruised to the break but after that it was all downhill as my initial calls, pre-flop, couldn't find anything post-flop to continue the hand with.

In desperation, more than anything, and with blinds at 300-600 I pushed in my last 5700 with K-J and got called by A-Q, as you would.

A low flop sealed my fate and another £310 hit the bin!

I really am going to have to evaluate these 'K-Q', K-J' type of hands. At the end of the day they give you nothing but grief!

Entries ->66 - Place -> 36th - Loss -> £310 ($574) Profit/Loss for 2006 -> +$11529

(As from 7th August rate of exchange is calculated at £1 = $1.85)