Jan 18th - £50+£5 No Limit Hold'Em - Loose Cannons (EC1)

'Wages Day' was a song by Deacon Blue back in the 80's and just recently I feel that Thursday might become my very own 'wages day' as it appears that my recent excertions at the Loose Cannons Club of a Thursday night have proved very fruitful indeed.

My last 3 competitions down at the club have resulted in 2 1sts and a 2nd so its fast becoming my favourite place to play. Of course it helps that the standard of players there are not of the calibre you'd find at the Vic and the fields are somewhat smaller than your average field but you still have to work your way through the 'luck' factor that exists in all poker tournaments.

Tonight was 'league' night. I've harped on about this for a couple of weeks now but I'm determined to win this thing and a week in Vegas awaits the lucky player to do just that.

After two weeks I'm top of the league with 51 points. What could I do tonight?

Eleven desperados started the nights event (told you the field was small) and as usual the plan is just to wait until the cards arrived and play from there.

I got A-A early on and made 600 from those then, at the 100-200 level, I get K-K UTG and flat call. All check to the BB and we see a flop of 8-5-6. BB bets out 400 and I insta-flat call. Not wanting to see a 7 appear (for obvious reasons) I was semi-pleased to see the turn card was another 5. The BB bet out 800 and again I insta-flat called.

The river card came a Q and this time the BB checked. Of course this didn't help the board so with K-K in tow I bet out 1500. BB called and flipped Q-8 for two pair but my K-K got there and I'd now doubled my stack.

I got a nice few chips when I hit a straight flush with Qs-9s on a board of 8s-Js-10h-Ks-10s against my opponent straight and so with just 5 people left I was cruising!

Three prizes were paid tonight - £325 - £175 - £50 so it was worth playing for and before you could say "boo" we were down to the final 3.

My chip stack was around 15k (out of 38.5k) as was another guys and the short stack held the balance.

The problem with short stacks though is that they'll go all in and gamble. The short stack was pushing in most every hand and when I found K-Q I felt compelled to call. He flipped Qs-9s so I was praying no 9. No 9 came but a spade flush did and suddenly I was short stack.

I then followed the same strategy (all-in every hand) and got called from across the table who'd also found himself short of chips. He held A-3. I held A-9. A flop of J-3-9-10-7 sealed the deal and I was now heads up!

Chip counts were 24k-14k in my opponents favour so I needed a double up! Holding J-10 I pushed and was called by my opponent and his A-8. The flop was 7-8-3-A-9 and I'd doubled through.

A bit of chip trading went on and we got it to where chips were essentially even so we split the prize money (£250 each) and played on for the points.

Final hand...I held Kh-4h...opponent held K-8. Flop was 2-3-7-4-5 and I'd won!!

Points total for night - 18 (for winning) + 3 (for attending) + 8 (bounty buttons) = 29.

Total for the 3 weeks fo far = 80 =>WELL AHEAD!!

Entries -> 11 - Place -> 1st - Win -> £215 Profit/Loss for 2007 -> +£732 (As from 1st Jan 2007 rate of exchange is calculated at £1 = $1.90)