Sept 27th - Oct 1st - Various

Live play this weekend consisted of the £30 NL event up at the Equal Chance club in Walthamstow on Friday night.

The event was a £10k guarantee and altogether 120 of us poker fanatics sat down to play. With a £30 buy-in you got 1000 chips (pretty poor) but you were then allowed rebuys & DOUBLE rebuys when, and if, your chip stack got below 1000 points. After losing my 25 points in the SB first hand I was about to rebuy but realised the dealer didn't have change (you rebought from him directly) so put the £50 note back in my pocket. Just as well really as within the next 10 mins I had 6k in chips and was table captain...for all of another 10 mins anyway.

A couple of 'beats' later I'm back below 1k so DOUBLE-REBUY and have almost 3k to play with. At the break I have 10k and with a DOUBLE-ADD'ON I have 13k once we resume play and am looking good.

My A-J then gets rolled by 7-7 (lost 4k) then comes the big pot of the night...for me anyway!

I get dealy A-Q in MP and with blinds at 200-400 I raise it up to 2500. The guy across the table looks me up and down and calls. He has me covered! The flop is J-J-6 and I check...as does my opponent. A 10 drops off. Again I check...as does he. The river brings a nice big ACE. Again I check, looking for a check raise, and my opponent obliges by putting out a 3k bet.

Now, of course, I could always be walking into a big fat hand here but his actions suggested he held A-10 or similar. Rather than flat call I decided to put him to the test and go ... 'all-in'.

He takes a deep breath and calls turning over K-J. I'm getting very adept at putting all my chips into pots with the worst hand AFTER the river! Maybe I'll take up gardening!

The cash games were good though and I cleared over a grand! Life could be worse!!

Entries ->120 - Place -> 55th - Loss -> £150 ($278) Profit/Loss for 2006 -> +$13710

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

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In my last blog I mentioned that I'd be spending the weekend playing in some major on-line events. How did I get on???

Wed - $320 PL Hold'Em - Pokerstars - 292nd out of 1700+. Payout was 220. Big of a bugger really. I was cruising along at circa 11k in chips when in two hands it was all gone. My A-J got snapped off by A-Q followed by my A-9 against J-10 on a flop of 8-9-10.

Thur - $100k guarantee - Gutshot - 643rd out of 1100+. Made a nice start but got a bit greedy. Just me & SB who raised to 3*BB. I called with Jh-5h. Flop came 3-5-7. He bet. I raised all-in. He called! He flips A-7. Brilliant!

Sat - $100k MONSTER freeroll on Party. 1312th out of 4921. Actually this was good as it qualified me for the $1M MONSTER freeroll at the end of October. All I need do now is finish in the top 1000 of that and I'll be in the grand final next May! With no Americans there it'll be a piece of piss!

Sun - $215 NL Hold'Em on Party - 4700th out of 5100. Decided to let loose with 8s-9s on a flop of 10-J-6. My opponent held A-J so refused to quit...as you would!