APAT ECOAP 2012

When I was invited to select and skipper the England team for this event, it was a surprise and a shock, even though it was I that had proactively taken the liberty of applying for the role.   That was several months ago, which left a huge time gap for the initial shock to die down, and a feeling of excitement and anticipation to brew.  I've played for England twice before, so I guess I had gotten over the usual excitement that comes with representing one's country - but this time it was different, and much more intense. I was so determined that England would do well on my watch.

Having invited and received many applications (28 in all), I made three selections based on criteria that I had decided upon in advance - 1) Results in and around APAT, 2) Results away from APAT, 3) General contribution to APAT.  I think the selections I made all conformed to those criteria. The fifth member of the team was decided by his position as the highest scoring English player in the APAT national online league - and having scored to highly in that event, his place on the team was hard earned and well deserved.

So the team to represent England at Nottingham's DuskTillDawn was:

• Me
• Richard Baker
• Alan Armitage
• Dan Patterson
• Tony Trippier

With hotel booked well in advance, and living relatively close to Tony, I offered to share transport and hotel room. This was my first negative EV move of the whole escapade. What I had failed to recognise is that despite my avoidance of excessive alcohol during the festival, my game would still be hampered by lack of sleep - the 1 metre gap between the beds just wasn't enough to the stop the vibrations caused by Tony's snoring!

For our team, the structure would be four players playing each round and one person on the rail. So - with running order in hand showing who would be asked to play which round [1: HLNE STT, 2: PLO STT, 3: NLHE HeadsUp, 4: NLHE STT, 5: NLHE MTT], we hit Nando's for lunch. Now, I've heard so many people, including my own kids, telling me how great Nando's is. For what it's worth, I disagree. The food was dry and tasteless, and I won't be back.  Frankie and Benny's is next door, but the food was a million miles away from Nando's.

Once the cards were in the air for the first round, I really started to the feel the pressure. The last time I played in this international team event format, I crashed out first in almost all of the games, and with my team mates fairing no better, we finished near the bottom of the pile.   The pressure was relieved before too long when I called a raise on the button in the first level holding As2s. The Italian in the BB also called, and the flop came down 3c4h5d. The Italian lead out, the initial raiser folded, I raised, the Italian shoved - I sigh-called expecting to see 67..... but he showed 6c8c for an open ender. The turn was another club to increase the sweat, but the river was friendly to me. From that point I just never looked back, and went on to win the STT beating Franke Baille of Ireland headsup.  With a couple of mid place finishes from the others in the team, we were placed a healthy mid-table after round one.

Round two was Pot Limit Omaha, which I tend to favour, albeit I prefer the play Hi/Lo. I fully expected to do well in this round, so getting it all in with KK78 on a K69 flop might have seemed ok, that is until the other guy's flush draw came on the turn. First out for zero points. With very few points scored overall in this round, England was now second from bottom of the table and in trouble.

As the HeadsUp round started, it was clear that we needed to do well - I told the team that nothing less than 100% winning record in this round would be good enough. So, huge credit to the guys that delivered six wins from six games. Back up to mid-table for us.

Bouyed by the HU successes, we returned on day two to play round 4 - another round of NLHE STTs.  Another amazing round for us as we took maximum points in two of the four games. My own win came after another headsup victory against the Irish, albeit NI rather than the Republic this time.

Having been second from bottom of the table after the first two rounds, we now found ourselves entering the final MTT round in third place, just 4 points behind Ireland, 1 point behind NI, and just 1 point ahead of Wales, with Italy and others very close behind. It was all to play for in the final, and with scaled points for the  last 18 players (18 for 1st, 17 for 2nd, down to 1 for 18th), the winning country would likely be the one that carried the most players to the final table.  With 14 players left, the gold medal was going to either Ireland or England - we both had three players each remaining.  As the structure was shallow and fast, hand ranges were quite wide at times, but ICM was becoming a major factor to shove/calling ranges for all those teams in the medal hunt.  I found myself UTG with 9xBB holding A8dd - not the best shoving hand, but early position shoves were generally getting more respect than they probably deserved, and I didn't want to let the blinds go through me with this stack. My shove was called in mid position by an Italian holding a stack of under 20xBB - I figured he must be massive to be flatting in this spot, so was pleasantly surprised when he flipped KJo. The two diamonds on the flop were massive blockers to protect my hand, however the black jack on the river was a gut wrencher. With only two English left, our challenge for gold effectively died in that moment - to say I was gutted is an understatement. If I had won that hand, I would have fancied the England chances.   Alan crashed out in similar style shortly afterward, leaving us needing Tony to finish 5th or better, or to outlast one of the two remaining Italians, to secure silver. With 7 players left, including Tony and both Italians, the tension in the room was immense.   Two quick bustouts, 5 left, and Tony still in, and the silver medal was ours.

Playing alongside the team event were the Stud and 6max side events, both of which I would have played if not part of the team event. Day 3 of the festival was next, and the 300 runner Main Event - for me, it was a heck of a come down after the previous day's efforts and became a turgid affair of crap cards combined with  distinct lack of focus and energy.  My starting position was awful, finding John Murray on my immediate left, following by Andy Duncan on his left, followed by one of the Italian team on his left - a pretty horrible spot.  I crashed out after 6 hours of play, having never got above my starting stack.

The final day was all about the Pot Limit Omaha tourney - one that I previously looking forward to, but with the major come down after the team event, and the lack of sleep, both Tony and I would have been happy to just go home early. We committed to each other to play it hard and fast, and either be massive, or out.  Six hours in, and down to 30 runners from the original 100, we were both still alive!  Tony busted and went to rail Brian Yates who making a valiant attempt at the main event and was just hitting the final table.  I figured I wouldn't be much longer as I had just lost a hand and was UTG with 4.5k whilst blinds were 1k/2k.  I shoved my 2.5xBB stack, and got 5 callers - and binked the river to get a quintuple up. By the end of that level, around 10 hands later, I had 188k and was chip leader.   The wheels came off with 16 left when I got a one orbit penalty for folding out of turn (the guy on my right kept picking his cards up off the table and leaning back with them out of sight - I saw empty felt and played my turn, four times ffs!  The guy lifting his cards got a warning, but still persisted unpunished). Returning from my penalty a little tilted, I called a raise in position with KQJTds, which caught some draws on the flop, but ultimately bricked out - down to 140k. Next hand I called a raise in position with AKQTds, and got 60k in on a AK2 flop - the other guy had AA. So from 188k, down to 80k in two hands, straight after a penalty. TILT!    Got it together, and survived to the final table and the payouts, finishing 7th for just under £200, and my 3rd APAT PLO final table in the last four E/WCOAP events.

And that was all she wrote. The weekend was over in a flash.  Great to see all the old faces, and to meet some new ones. Chuffed to bits for Carl Pilgrim to take down the Main Event - justly deserved.

Congratulations to Ireland on their team gold, and to Italy on their bronze.  I get on really well with the Welsh team, but it was nice to see someone else in the winner's enclosure for a change!

Massive thank you to APAT for the chance to lead the England team. A very proud moment.

The guys on the England team all justified their selections. Alan was strong and scored well in all rounds having declined beer all the way; Dan was new to APAT but fitted right in and played a great game; Rich was so unfortunate and ran like a duck with no legs every time he got in as a 70% favourite; I won two of the three STTs I played; and it was Tony's final table heroics in the MTT round that completed our campaign and secured our silver medal.

It was an absolute privilege and an honour to lead this team.

Chipleader

When DTD announced their new ChipLeader concept a few months ago, I was hesitant, and not particularly bothered about playing it.  The concept being that chips for the live final are accrued by playing online games over a period of several weeks in the build up to the final date.  This is a brand new concept, and one that I'm sure will be tried again, albeit with some tweaks.

Having said I wasn't going to bother, I found €50 in my DTD account, and having busted all my regular tourneys one night, and having nothing left to play, had a go at the first ChipLeader qualifier, and won! With entries and rebuys, I picked up 18k for the final. The next day I played another, and won that too - now up to 32k.  And a few days later I won another - up to 45k. Then the dregs of $50 ran out, and I took a conscious decision to not deposit and play any more - after all, 45k was likely to be an above average stack, and I was in pretty cheaply.

That's where the competition started to go pear shaped. Those with bigger bankrolls were able to attack the concept in style, and some spent hundreds, and probably thousands in some cases, playing every qualifier there was, and building mammoth stacks. At the start of the final, my 45k was a tiny stack compared to the 659k of the ChipLeader. I was ranked 120th of 220 starters in the final - so in essence, there were almost as many below me as there were above me - not too bad a place to be I guess..... Just needed a decent table draw.

On a 9 handed starting table, I had more chips than one single player - everyone else had me outstacked. So much for being halfway up the field!  The biggest stack on our table was 220k, and after a few hands, it became clear how he had built that stack!

The very first hand of the day saw 220k matey limp UTG, and with three more limpers before it got to me on the button, I found QQ and went for the big overbet and raised to 1800 (blinds were 100/200). Not sure why I made it so big, but suspect I feared that everyone would call from them mahoosive stacks with any raggy hands, and that I might end up in a tough spot post flop, even with a premium hand and in position - probably a mistake with hindsight.  Matey was the only caller. On a flop of 238sss, and me with the Qs, I figured I was in reasonable shape, but managed to ship him around 7k of my 45k starting stack when innocent red cards came on turn and river - he had called my 9x raise preflop with A6ss.

The day never really got any better than that, although after that I decided to just have fun and see where it might get me.  I ended up busting in level 7 - I called a min raise on the button with QJs from a stack of 30x. Flop was JT8. The raiser made a small c-bet, and I made an equally small raise - he called. Turn was another 8 - he checked, and I made a big overshove, thinking I would make him fold all better Jacks, and possibly overpairs if I could sell the 8...... he insta-called with A9, and rivered a Q for a straight.  Ho hum - that's why we play poker I guess.

All in all the concept works, but does need to be tweaked before the next one. A couple of changes I would like to see:

1) A cap on starting stack - not ideal, but keeps things sensible and is more inclusive to those that can't put in tremendous hours and money online. A capped starting stack could perhaps increase over time as the number of qualified players increases.

2) In the online qualifiers, half the starting stack should go as cash prizes to top three, and the other half to produce chips for the final - this will keep those with shorter bankrolls playing qualifiers, and not make the qualification stage just about who's got the deepest pockets.

I hope DTD run this event again, and I am sure I will give it another go. I do hope they tweak the format a little though.

The friendly face of the civil service...

About a week or so ago, I received an email telling me I had been granted a place at a training academy event. First thought was that this would mean another marathon session trying not be be bored whilst listening to an online presentation, however it turns out that it's for a three day event at HP's head office in Dallas! I had to book my flights at the earliest opportunity - and that's where the fun started.

To book my flights through the corporate agency, I had to confirm my passport. Not a problem - until I discovered it expired six months ago. Cue panic and an emergency passport application! I filled in the form yesterday, and after some online research, was able to print off my passport photos (correctly sized, plain white background, no facial hair, no glasses, no smile, etc etc).  Off to Newport at the ungodly hour of 6am today for an 8.30 appointment.

Having arrived in Newport at 7.15, I had time to kill, so figured that there's nothing better in the morning than a gut full of e-numbers, preservatives, and fat - the full McDonalds fayre!  It almost turned into the most expensive McDonalds breakfast in history as I left my application envelope, complete with expired passport, on the table when I left. The 600 yard dash back to McDs was just about the quickest I've even run, and I was only just in time to extract the envelope from the bin as the kind lady was clearing up.

Foolishly, I arrived at the passport office 30 minutes early at 8am - now the lady on the phone last week told me to arrive 10 minutes early.... I should have taken heed.  When I opened the door, I was confronted by The Friendly Face Of The Civil Service. With a sneer, I was told to leave the building and return 10 minutes prior to my appointment as I would have already been told.  Flippin good job it wasn't raining - there was a growing crowd on the pavement, all for 8.30 appointments. I did smile when a lady turned up and someone asked what time her appointment was, and she said it was 9.30, but she was busy and needed to be seen early - I didn't fancy her chances!

Having gotten through security - yes, security.... inclusive of emptied pockets, removed belt, body scan, etc, I was booked and processed and given a ticket. This felt like a cross between the departure gates at the Airport and Tesco's meat counter!  

With ticket in hand, and my number called, I approached the lady at booth number 2 - and there it was again.... The Friendly Face Of The Civil Service. I handed over my envelope, only for it to be thrust back at me with an instruction to empty it first. FFS did she think I was carry sharp blades along with my passport application? Perhaps a needle or two?   She saw the photo's I had painstakingly printed (and she wouldn't have realised that they were the fourth set I had printed, in my efforts to get them just right!), and passed them back - "they won't do, you're smiling."  Now I probably don't smile often enough, but I do know when I am smiling - and in these pics I definitely was not smiling, as I pointed out to her.... however, as she dutifully observed, the corners of my mouth were higher than the rest of my mouth, therefore the pics were rejected due to a smile. Unbelievable. Onsite photo booth - £5, 3 extra pics I don't need, and we were sorted.

So - paid the price at the cash desk, and was given a receipt with a collection time of 12:34. I really don't know why the lady put six underlines beneath the words that said "Ready for collection no earlier than.." - perhaps she was trying to tell me something. The Friendly Face Of The Civil Service.

Somehow managed to kill four hours - well not quite, I went back early, and collected my new passport at 12:10. (Please don't tell the lady on the cash desk)

I learnt three things from today:

1) Don't let your passport expire without replacing it via postal methods in good time.

2) Don't try and pass friendly conversation with a civil servant during a morning shift - it doesn't work.

3) I will never voluntarily go to Newport again. Apologies to any of my friends that may live there, but four hours was enough! 

Texas in July - weeeeee. If nothing else, it will be a welcome break from the British rain!

Inside out omelette sandwich

An omelette sandwich is a delicacy of my youth - I never thought I would ever cook one inside out, which is what my first eggy bread lunch looked like today!

I think I have a new favourite snack.  Strange that the simplest of things can be so satisfying and desirable.

APAT Cardiff, and England Announcement

It always amazes me that those that live in England have to pay for the privilege of travelling to Wales, yet those in Wales are allowed into England for free. I suppose in that regard, England is following the general Euro mantra of freedom of movement and immigration, whilst Wales takes the more sensible approach.

Luckily for me, I live in a part of England that negates the need to pay the exorbitant bridge toll when I travel to Wales - I get to use the two lane racetrack that is the M50. Like the M45 in Northamptonshire, I've never seen a police car or a speed trap on the M50, and it's a great opportunity to test Peugeot's claims to the top speed of my car. For this reason, I like travelling to Wales. I'm sure there are other reasons as well, but as my Welsh wife no longer lives there, I can't really think of any other good reasons right now.  What a pain in the ass it was on Saturday when I trudged along the M50 at 40mph through the seemingly endless single lane average speed check area with neither another vehicle in sight, nor any workmen to be seen behind the the cones. In fact, if it wasn't for the odd vehicle trudging equally slowly in the other direction, I might have thought I had entered some parallel universe devoid of life, yet still I crawled along at 40mph.

Still, at least I had the 40mph single lane trudge to look forward to on the way home at 1am.

I found the casino at the first time of asking. Now, given that I have TomTom in the car, this might not sound as much of an achievement as it actually was - on the two previous occasions that I've been to the Cardiff Grosvenor, TomTom has misdirected me to the point of being utterly lost (yeah I should have learned ahead of the second trip I guess) - however it seems a map update has actually put the centre of Cardiff properly on the TomTom map!

Back in 2008, in APAT's season two, I played my very first APAT game, and coincidentally it happened to be at Cardiff, which is actually quite lucky as if it was elsewhere, this whole paragraph would have been a bit pointless. I was completely hooked with the whole APAT live tour from the very moment that I joined that event in 2008, and what a journey it started for me. For that reason, I like going back to Cardiff to play.

On a more sour note though, Cardiff holds painful memories. In Season 3 in 2009, I was flying in the APAT event when I got the call that my Dad was in intensive care, and had to abandon poker to be at his side. Luckily he survived that scare, and lived more than six months afterward.  It now holds another painful memory though. In 2008 the first player I ever played an APAT hand with was a guy called Rich Stevenson who was sat on my immediate left, and was my absolute nemesis for the whole day. I've met Rich many times since, and hugely enjoyed my converations with him - his humour and dry wit are just amazing. It was an awful moment just before the start of play on Saturday when Des announced the death of Rich. Although I never knew him well, I will cherish the memories of him.

The tournament was a strange one for me. Within two orbits I had caused the first exit, and was early chip leader. Having raised in early position to 125 with AQs, the button and blinds called, and we saw a flop of QQJ. Nirvana thought I.   The blinds checked, and I elected to slow play and also checked, allowing the button to have a stab, which he duly did, betting 250 into the 500 pot - the blinds folded, and I called.  The 5 on the turn was inconsequential, and I checked again - now the guy on the button was itching to get chips in, and I was quite sure when he bet 400 into the 1000 pot with shaking hands that he also had a Q... but I had the best kicker so was highly likely to be in good shape unless he had a full house already - and his demeanour was setting off alarm bells. For me now, the right play was to check call the turn with a view to doing the same on the river - far too early to get coolered unnecessarily.  However, the A on the river just about gave me the nuts, unless he had a very unlikely AA.  Praying that he did indeed have a Q, I tried to make my hand look like an Ax hand that just got there, and bet 3000 into the 1800 pot - and was then faced with an immediate min-raise!  Stacks went in and he flipped QJ - unlucky for him, and very cold deck, but I'll gladly ship the early double up.

From that moment on, I never got involved in any significant pot, and my 600bb stack dwindled through the day until the tourney reached 50 players remaining around 11:30, and I was down to around 20bb. Raises were rarely getting through, squeezes and bluffs were always called, and the best hand I saw all day after the AQ was AJ, and that was only once! Never have I been so utterly card dead, and so completely unable to manipulate proceedings with chips rather than cards.  Eventually I open shoved AKs for 15bb, and the young lad in the small blind then asked for a count and scratched his head and ummed and arred before calling with AA!! Yeah I know there was still a player to act in the big blind and the lad wanted the big blind to come along, however when the big blind insta folded, and the cards were flipped, it sure did feel like a horrible slowroll, and not a nice way to end the day.

On a more positive note, the APAT ECOAP (European Championship of Amateur Poker) is scheduled for August bank holiday weekend at DusktillDawn, and will once again be a four day festival.  I've played for the England team twice before with varying degrees of success - a bronze medal in 2009, and wooden spoon in 2010. Having played before and so recently, I would not be applying for a team place for a few years yet - the English player pool is so huge that the opportunity should be spread around - however when Des asked for applications for country captaincy, I found myself responding and applying. This was done with the mindset that if one doesn't ask, one will never get..... and I certainly did not expect the application to be successful, however to my complete surprise (and I really do mean that!!!) a week later I was confirmed as England captain.  It's actually quite hard to convey how proud that makes me feel - my vocabulary doesn't contain words that do the feeling justice.   Selecting a team for this from the applications received is possibly one of the hardest things I've done in recent times - I hate saying no to people, or feeling like I've let anyone down, but the team can contain only four selections (the fifth player gets a place by default by virtue of online APAT league placing). Hopefully the team that I select will take up the challenge of taking England to glory.

No more live poker for a while - back to the online grind!!

Edit: Footnote. Congratz to JP Round on his runner up finish - would loved to have seen him win this, and am sure that one day he will. One of the good guys!

Recovery. PLO8. Progression.

When Paul Jackson offered me the chance to stick with it at BRS, but on less demanding volume related terms, I started to give more focus to my PLO8 MTT game, and for a while this became my exclusive game of choice. I had found reasonable success on occasion in the past playing PLO8 MTTs, but probably only because I had slightly more clue than the multitude of clueless players out there. I was winning, and that was important for confidence, as well as for the recovery of my P&L.

One night, having busted a tourney from a decent position, and missed the money, I got a pretty intense email from Paul telling me just how badly I had played a hand, and how my starting hand range needed some serious review. It was at that point that I decided to try and really learn the game properly, and spent some considerable time reading strategy articles, exploring forums for hand reviews (not that many around for PLO8 though), and attending sessions with an experienced PLO8 mentor.

I know my game improved dramatically, although I still have moments of stupidity. It seems that to win regularly at PLO8 in online low stakes MTTs, one does not have to be a complete master of the game, but simply to play a tight conservative range, to play cautiously, and to just stay one step ahead of the masses of morons who frequent these tourneys. In Holdem MTTs, over a large sample, I figure I can hold my own to some extent, and am probably better than half the players out there.... however that means that the other half of players out there are better than me. In any given Holdem MTT online at the $10 type stakes, there will be a mix of morons, good players, and experts, and lately the bar seems to be rising steadily - there are still gamblers and bad players around, but the standard of play is generally increasing, and the good players getting better. In a PLO8 MTT, in my opinion, 90% of players lean more toward the moronic end of the spectrum, with less good players around, and very few experts, and that makes the game so much more beatable.

Playing PLO8 MTTs on iPoker and MicroGaming every night, tends to mean the same players show up with regularity - both good and bad players, and the fields are much smaller than Holdem MTTs, therefore it becomes much easier to build up player profiles and to stack up decent hand histories on players. Profits this year are far healthier than they've been for some time - from $3k down to $2k up. It was a pretty good feeling in March to actually get paid at the end of the month - that's not happened for a while!

I don't much like the downswing that's come in April, but on reflection and review, I know with some degree of certainty that it's come mostly from running bad rather than playing bad, and I have every faith that it will recover again.

Live exploits at the latest APAT event in Coventry were going really well, until a massive call preflop with 88 against a 30xBB shove - based on reads, and actually pinpointed his hand to 55/66/77 - went unrewarded after he showed 77 and outflopped me. Next live outing is in late May, with a trip to Cardiff for the next APAT leg. Looking forward to it already.

Big night out tonight with BCPC as we play out the live final of the BCPC Premier League III, for which I have qualified as joint chip leader. During the league format, over ten rounds, I manage to finish 2nd on five occasions - seems there is a trend with my headsup game that I need to review and attend to! That said, was chuffed to finish so high on so many occasions in a field of pretty strong players.

A couple of seats for major events picked up recently as well, having won a satellite for the Genting Tour for a £430 main event seat (the one I was supposed to play in January, but will now play Sheffield in November), a Genting seat won through BRS which will be played at the Stoke leg in August, and a £220 seat for coming fourth in the latest BCPC season - no sure where to play that yet though.

MPF and DTD 560

Firstly, following my previous post, the relief of no longer trying to grind out SNGs around a day job and busy family life is immense. That said, when I resigned from BRS, I was kinda chuffed that Paul Jackson offered me the chance to stick with it and just play selective MTTs. For me, quality seems to be better than quantity, and my P&L is recovering following several cashes and several final tables - I just need to run better on final tables and turn small cashes into a win for a decent payday.

In the midst of 2011, Dave Allan created a great new poker community for Midland based poker players - The Midland Poker Forum was born, and as part of the promotion to get the site off the ground, and in conjunction with new sponsors RedBet poker, he created a short league for all forumites, the prize for which was a £336 seat in the Dusk Till Dawn monthly DeepStack event. Despite not actually winning single round, my consistent second and third places earned enough points to win the league and the £336 seat.

Now, the seat was supposed to be played in December but I was otherwise engaged in Manchester with APAT, so pushed for entry to the January event instead..... but forces conspired against me when DTD upped the buyin for the January event to £560, and my meagre bankroll meant the uplift of £224 was beyond me. I posted on Facebook to see if I could sell some shares to raise the difference - didn't really expect much positive response, and was gobsmacked when I managed to sell 30% within 5 minutes of posting! Huge thanks and gratitude to my stakers for their confidence!

So, off to DTD on 7th Jan.

The day started with the strangest possible moment which almost felt like an omen. On arrival at DTD I couldn't find anyone I knew to pass the time with, so went for the big screen to watch the Wolves v Bham cup game. I perched against a seat by one of the poker tables, and watched the pretty poor game wishing for something better on TV. The seat draw was made, but not yet posted on the screens, however the TD was distributing papers to each tournament table with the draw for each table so the dealers would be able to check they had the right players in the right seat. I happened to glance at the sheet for the table I was on and by some sheer fluke spotted my name.... now for the weird but, I was drawn in seat 5.... and that just happened to be the seat I was perched on to watch the footy! So out of 282 entries and 282 seats, I had happened to sit on the seat that would become mine for the rest of the day. Surely an omen of sorts.

I knew nobody at my table by the names on the sheet, although I thought I recognised the name in seat 1 from somewhere - Anthony Kendall - but couldn't recall a face. Of course when Tikay turned up, the connection was made. Funny how we can know someone by their nickname, but fail to recognise the full version of their real name. I've spoken with Tikay a few times, and he's a proper gent - spending several hours playing poker with him was a privilege... what a nice guy, and huge fun at the table! It was a bit of a bonus that it would eventually be me that took him out :)

The tourney started with a monstrous 30,000 stack - bigger than I've ever started with before. For four levels I hardly played a hand in anger - there were many limps pre followed by folds when missed the flop, and I shed a few chips and cultured a nice weak/passive image. By level 5 and the antes, I had pretty much figured the table out, and knew I had the ideal seat - the two fish at the table were seat 2 and seat 3, and I had position in seat 5. By the end of level 6 I had almost doubled my starting stack without ever reaching showdown - mostly by 3 or 4 betting pre.

By the end of level 9, I was double the average, biggest stack on the table, and generally crushing! I had never played this well in a live tourney before, and almost felt that I could see everyone's cards face up. At this point I had only been to showdown once with a top two pair hand that I checked back in position after a scary river card hit - to be shown that the other guy had called me pre, flop, and turn, with an underpair to the board and no draws. Easy money!

There was a flurry of small stack bustouts and four new players with biggish stacks arrived - I failed to switch gears here, and assumed that my uber-aggressive game could continue to get through, and before I knew it, my 100k was down to 70k, and I was folding pre to a 5 bet, only for the guy to flash a 3. Time to tighten up and re-evaluate.

Hand of note for the day came in level 11. I min-raised in mid position with 66, and Tikay called in the BB. Flop 456 (two clubs) - about as wet as it could be, and could easily have smashed into the BB's hand. Tikay had around 28k behind to my 70k. Rather than getting fruity and allowing the board to get any wetter, I bet almost full pot - around 9k. Tikay flat called! Turn was a 2 - now any 3 wins. Tikay checked - I shoved, he called, and showed 44 from a slow played smaller set - unlucky.

End of level 12, and I'm back to around 88k - the average was 82k, and if I didn't play another hand I would would finish the day near average stack... I was set fair to hit day two with at least 30 to 40 big blinds.

We had a 5 minute break before the last level and I went outside for a breath of air, and to ring Katharine to say goodnight. I also needed a pee rather desperately. Back in the cardroom and heading for the loo, but there was only 20 seconds left of the break and I was in the small blind first hand - better to play the hand, then go for a wee after.

The table folds round to me and I find AKs. Now, the guy on my left has a similar stack, and has played in the true fashion of an old school player - always open-raising 3.5x, yet folding to any resistance, and always squeezing from the BB in a limped pot. Three times today I had limped in the SB, and he had raised big from the BB forcing me to fold. Also three times today, I had open-raised from the SB and he had folded. So, in this AKs spot, I figured the best action was to limp to induce, and sure as eggs is eggs, he obliged. With a bet of 8k on top of the 2.4k blind, there was a total of 15.5k in the middle and I had 85k behind. I didn't want to be playing the hand out of position post flop with a hugely bloated pot so elected to shove the lot here, and take down the 18% increase to my stack. I, and the rest of the table, were abso-gobsmacked when he snap called the 35x shove with KJo. Naturally the flop was QT9 and I was out. I congratulated him on his expert play, and used a few expletives that I should probably have saved for other circumstances. I loved his call before the flop was dealt - just have to hang on to that thought.

All in all, I have never played better. I stayed away from usual distractions - alcohol and iPod - and found a new zone. I didn't lose a single hand at showdown until the end, I won several hands that I knew I had no right to win but was able to make the right plays at the right time, and I made two significant and correct read-based laydowns preflop (JJ and QQ), both to single raises.

I can't wait til next week for my next live venture, back at DTD for the Grand Prix (£100k gtd prize pool, and I bagged my £60 in a €2 satellite!)

Sorry to those that staked me - I was in a great spot to pay something back, and feel pretty bad about the outcome.... however I couldn't and wouldn't play anything differently.

Thanks to Dave Allan and the MPF for the opportunity - here's hoping there is another promotion soon :)