With 30 mins left in the day, I pick up pocket QQ’s in the cut off position, I move in for my last 8K, I got called by the small blind with pocket JJ’s, flop 9 5 3, turn A, river J, adios amigos. In the last 2 major tournaments I have played in, I got sucked out with less then an hour left in the day, in London, Patrik Antionus rivered a J to get a straight verses my KK, & now in amsterdam my 2 ladys got done by their younger brothers JJ, ive had a bad run of cards in both tournaments, but there is always next year & i will be back with both guns blazing. So i will leave you with one of the most famous quotes from one of the most iconic films of our generation, platoon “sucky sucky 5 Dollar”.

We broke for the dinner break a few minutes ago. We have played 3 & a half levels. I have Noah Boaken sitting on my right & on the other side of the table is Karl Mahrenholz, from the london hit squad, so its a tough table. About a half hour into the event I picked up pocket kings UTG, raise to 450, folded around to the BB & he re-raises to 1K, i call & the flop comes A 9 8, BB bets 2K, I go into the tank for awhile & i had to fold, put him on a big ace pre-flop so I folded, simple as. Other than that, I have been running card dead for the last few hours but im hanging in there, i have 11K in chips. Hopefully after the break, I will get a good rush of cards & start to build myself a nice chip tower, fingers crossed.

I will report later on all the action.

Play gets under way at 3.00pm, the draw will be made at 2.30pm, I will find out who I will be sitting with then. The casino is very busy at the moment, last night there was alot of action in the cash games, with the likes of Theo Jorgensen, Eric Frieberg, William Thorson & others geting in on the action.

I retired back to the hotel residents bar & had a couple of brewksi’s with some very funny american tourists who are here on a mission to sample all the delights Amsterdam has to throw at them. After a few too many last night, I am a tiny bit worse for wear this morning but I am still ready to tear up the felt, I will have reports up later on how the first few levels go & what the action is like in my 1st Master Classics of Poker, adios !!

On the road again, this time I am in Amsterdam, sin city of Europe . I am here to play in the 2007 Master Classics of Poker in the Holland Casino. I am staying in a good hotel, 100 yards from the casino. I took a stroll over there this afternoon & i nearly got knocked down by 3 to 4 cyclists, I’ve never seen so much bicycles in my life. I know China has alot, but over here, there is an estimated 750,000 bicycles in the city, with a population of just over a million, that is alot of pedal power.

Action begins at 3.00pm tomorrow in the beautiful Holland Casino, levels are 90 minutes, playing 8 levels on the 1st day, so it is not a bad structure with plenty of time to manoeuvre. I played in the Padraig Parkinson Simon Community event in the RDS last Saturday, it was an excellent event & everybody had a great time, with a few celebrities turning up & with auctions at the end of each level, where you could bid to get your hands on some sports memorabillia such as a signed Ken Doherty & Steve Davis snooker cue, signed Irish football jersey, & loads more.

It was all for a great cause & there was a good turnout for the tournament. 170 runners, I finished on the bubble in 19th place, arrrrgh. At one stage, I was the chip leader but later on, a couple of fish sucked out on me & that was the end of that. Overall, i played very well & i hope i can continue my good run of form into the master classic of poker 2007.

I will report on all the action tomorrow , so stay tuned.