Apr 13th - £10 rebuy - NL Hold'Em - Loose Cannons EC4

When in doubt visit the place where the wages truck always seems to drop by! Well that the theory anyway.

My last blog stated that my next port of call for 'live' poker would be the Western Club on Sat 14th for the '7-2 offsuit' clubs monthly £30 freezeout. Ok...so I couldn't wait and decided to try my hand at Roy's £10 rebuy comp instead this Friday the 13th!! The competition down there is much lighter than anywhere else although when I saw that Mike Magee was there (just visiting thank God) I thought the night was about to become much tougher than anticipated.

For those that don't know Mike Magee was a bit of a legend around 10 years ago when he was leading the WSOP main $10k event with two to go for the money. On that ocassion he blew up and through an unlikely sucession of beat after beat in short order he got knocked out WITHOUT making the money. What made it worse was the fact that TV camereas were following both him & Andy Black for a TV documentary and the sight of Mike walking out of the door at Binions into a lot of empty space makes ones toes curl up!

Mike took a break after that but came back in 2001 to win my websites (UKPOKER.COM) 'Best Player Of The Year' award. He's no mug!

Anyway...with Mike NOT playing it was me versus 18 city boys (+ 1 lady) and with it being a rebuy I knew it was important to accumulate chips as they'd be useful later on when it came time to 'play properly'.

Early doors I went all in (1k) with Kh-2h and got called by a young Spanish guy with A-J. Now recently my hand would have lost no problemo but today....3h-4h-8c-5h-Ad !! I was up & running.

A short time later my chips went south as I battled K-Q / K-9 with my Ah-8h but came out a loser on a board of 9-10-J-4-Q but I got lots of chips from another 3 way battle shortly afterwards. On a flop of Ad-2d-8d I called two all-in bets from players holding 3d-5d & A-10 with my Qd-8c. The 7d popped out on the river and I was upto around 4k.

The obligatory add-on gave me another 1500 points so I started 'proper play' at circa 5.5k.

With only 20 runners of course it didn't take that long to get to the final table of 10 although my stack hadn't moved. I was drawn in seat 4, immediately to the right of the monster chip leader who seemed to have around 20k+ With blinds at 250-500 I could wait a while.

What was interesting was that Mike Magee had re-appeared from his meet with the management and was trying to get a bet on ME winning! No-one would take the action but I was glad of the confidence vote. Even so there'd be a few 'all-ins' I'd have to negotiate in order to even have a sniff at this thing. So...10 left!

It took a good 30 minutes to lose the players. A three way charge saw A-A v K-K v A-J. The Aces held and we were 8.

There were 4 prizes up for grabs with 1st spotting £240+ a $300 'Brucie bonus' which would be put onto your VC account. Nice...if I could get it!

8 became 7 became 6 became 5. I'd have thought at this point that play would have started to tighten up but noooo...those city folk like to gamble. 5th went out with 2-2 versus Q-Q and we were in the money.

Fair play to the chip leader...he seemed to know what he was doing as he called an all-in bet with A-Q on a flop of 3-4-7. His opponent held A-J and so chip leader got bigger.

Three of us left and I was almost Mr short stack. I'd gone all-in with 10k in the pot for my last 6k on a board of 6-6-K-A-9 with 7-2 offsuit and BEGGED the chip leader to call me as I wanted to go home. He grinned and passed although in situations like this its always better to advertise and he looked like crying as I flipped my hand claiming he'd passed a King. Yeh right sonny!!

Two hands later I was all-in with 3-3 and got an instacall from across the table wih my opponent holding Jh-10h. A board of 7-4-2-5-7 doubled me through and put my opponent down to the felt. He went out next hand and we were heads up!

As we began I was outchipped 3-1. Even with 20k + in chips I knew I couldn't really fart about so played strong. Luckily the cards started falling my way. I got dealt Kc-Qc. All-In and was called by a suspect looking Q-J. Not to worry though as the flop came Jc-10c-Kd-4s-Ac for only my second ROYAL FLUSH ever at hold'em. The first was in a game in Belfast about two years ago!!

I'm still in need of doubling through though again. I get 8-8 and again go all-in. He calls with Ac-7c but a flop of J-10-4-9-6 seals the deal and now I'M monster chip stack.

Next hand its all over as my Qh-8h beats out his all-in with Jd-3h on a board of Jh-7h-4h-4s-9c and I'm the winner. Ok...so my form returns and order is restored at Loose Cannons where I've finished first on more ocassions than anywhere else in the past 12 months.

With the league final for a trip to Vegas being held there next Wed I can only hope my LC form continues...just one more time!!