Our party of twenty has now become five and when the last four leave tonight I will be all on my own - Billy no mates. Well that’s not strictly true – I’m staying in a villa which has staff whom I have got to know. But I am the last man standing out of our group. I can’t speak any of the lingo yet so I’m sure to feel a tad isolated. But when you see sights like the one in the picture I’m about to show you, I really couldn’t give a monkeys!

This place couldn’t be more different than home, although yesterday I did get a reminder of one of life’s constants - Halifax’s complete inability not to ruin my life. I spent three months in Las Vegas in the summer of 2008 and they stopped my bank card as soon as they saw transactions coming from Nevada. When I called them late on a Friday to ask if they could lift the block I was told the anti-fraud department didn’t work at weekends.

“The weekend would be a good time to commit a fraud then” I pointed out. I never did get a satisfactory answer on that point so if I go broke while I’m out here there’s always a career perpetrating fraud against the Halifax for me. And no extradition treaty either. Halifax were so proud of themselves for blocking my card it was if they wanted me to give them a medal for vigilance. Can you imagine having to spend four days in Las Vegas without a penny in cash? I can assure you it is not easy. When I complained on my return to England they didn’t even offer me any compensation. That might have had something to do with me signing off with the comment “You’ve done well for yourselves haven’t you? I hope the rest of your borrowers default as well” The Ombudsman saw my point of view and made Halifax cough up the princely sum of £78.  Well it’s the principle isn’t it?

Determined not to fall into the same trap this time I telephoned Halifax before I left and told them I was going to Brazil and don’t stop my card again. Guess what happened when I made my first online transaction? Yep, card suspended.  A message said they would contact me within 24 hours and of course they haven’t, despite me taking care to ensure I filled in the correct dialling code online with my mobile phone number (I pay them 80p a minute for the privilege of them phoning me by the way). There’s a really reassuring message saying they will write to me if they can’t get hold of me on the phone. What an absolute set of useless plonkers.

On the subject of cash, in particularly, earning cash, I’ve got a slight problem. I’ve basically got two sources of income to cover this trip - playing poker and whatever I can make from a financial spread bet, the details of which I won’t bore you with. While everyone else has been here I haven’t been playing poker, except a quick blast to road test the internet in our villa. But at some point I will have to play some online poker and there are a couple of problems.  The download speed is only 1Mb (I get 10Mb at home) and I’ve been told this is the case for all of Brazil apparently. More problematic is the fact we lose the connection all the time.  It’s rare to go even half a day without it going down. This is going to pose a problem for me as I like to multi table many sit and gos at a time. Of course if there is an outage and I can’t get back in, I lose all my tournament buy ins. Not good for the bankroll or my sanity. 

The solution, I have proposed, is to play cash instead of tournaments.  If I lose the connection there is only a small risk that any damage is done – I will just sit out. Yes, the internet might go down mid hand while I hold the nuts and someone has put me all in, but that’s just a chance I have to take.

I used to play a lot of heads up no limit back in the day and I was OK at it. The trouble is it can be lethal with your bankroll and I don’t have the greatest discipline when I’m losing.  Added to which the standard will have improved since I last played. Given the choice I would rather grind a steady(ish) income at 6 tables, but when your hand is forced, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

The timing is good because this week I’ve been reading “Heads up no limit hold ‘em” by Colin Moshman. I’ve not finished it yet but it’s a decent read and it’s got me in the frame of mind to play some heads up. So come on Isildur1, I’m ready for you son !

One amusing feature of the book is that it dissects several hands from the NBC National Heads up Poker Championships. Phil Hellmuth features in many of these hands and usually the analysis of the hand describes how he has made some sort of blunder. Hee hee, I don’t think the author rates him much as a heads up no limit player. Speaking of Phil Hellmuth, I had to chuckle at his latest antics. Right on topic too, in this years National Heads up Poker Championship he was playing the 21 year old Annette Obrestrad and the following happened:

Facing Annette Obrestad in the second round, The Poker Brat took nearly five minutes to decide whether or not he should call Obrestad’s all-in with a board of Q, 9, 2, 10 and 8. Hellmuth’s pacing and pondering delayed more than just his match because in the meantime a couple other matches had all-in calls as well, but had to wait for the NBC cameras to play them out. Finally, Hellmuth made the decision to call with a pair of nines and an Ace kicker. When Obrestad flipped over pocket jacks for a straight, Hellmuth appeared as if he was about to blow his top and suffer a classic meltdown, but somehow remained calm.

I’m sure he was looking for a reason to blow his top but there just isn’t one so he had no choice but to remain calm. Who can he possibly blame there? Four to a straight on board and he calls all in with third pair, having been way behind the whole hand. Spare a thought for Chris Moneymaker, who was also all in and had to wait what must have felt like an eon for Hellmuth to call so they could run the board in his match, which he subsequently lost.

Hellmuth continues to flabbergast me with his sense of perspective. His blog of February 16th 2010, for example, titled “The rebirth of Phil Hellmuth”, is, on the face of it, an introspective look at himself and the reasons why he had a bad year. I quote:

“First, I seemed to lose some of my P (Positive outlook).”

I’m glad Phil defines “P” for us. At first I thought P stood for penis, and I wouldn’t wish that on any man.

Then he offers an explanation as to why he did so poorly in 2009:

“ fans began coming up to me many times a day to tell me powerful things, “You are my idol,” or “You are the best poker player in the world,” or “I aspire to be you,” or “I love the way you play,” or “I am a huge fan, I watch you play every single day.””

I’ve just stopped laughing at the “I aspire to be you” quote - there is always a career in comedy if his bad run continues. So what did you do Phil? Where did you go? And how did you get there?

“on Monday (a day later) we were on a private jet to the world’s leading health spa: “Canyon Ranch.””

Thanks Phil. I needed to know how you got there. It was important that you didn’t omit the detail about the private jet. So what do people in the poker world think of you Phil? Go on Phil, tell us, pray do tell us….

“Within the poker world I am well liked by almost every insider.  They know me to be honorable, honest, with high ethics and morals, compassionate, a fun guy, someone that takes time to raise millions for charity, and someone that has never cheated on his wife, ever (been together 20 years).  ”

Well it’s real sweet of you that you didn’t cheat on your wife Phil, but you did make a vow to be faithful to her. And you’re not exactly Brad Pitt truth be told.   What an arse. No, not Phil Hellmuth, I’d never say that about Phil. I mean….well I think you can see what I mean.

A corking tradesmans by anyone's standards

Exactly. what an arse! This is a picture of me taken in the Skol Bar on the Praia do Roso beach, with just a hint of photoshop.  The chap who took that picture works for The Sun as a photographer, in case you were thinking it was excellent timing or a fortuitous passing of such a quality posterior.  So when you hear someone prattling on about how great they are, just show them this photo and say “I’ll show you an arse”. And everything in the world will be alright.

Starting with 2k chips and a decent blind structure was a big bonus for a freeroll. After about an hour or so a player came to our table with over 24k, he was seated directly to my right and he was involved in nearly every hand. At this stage I had around 8k, I managed to double up against him, then a few hands later he min raised my BB, it was folded around to me I called  with 64 o/s, flop came J44, I checked, he moves all-in with A8 and I do a jig round the kitchen floor. From then on I just stayed out of trouble and before I know it I’m at the final table. I started the ft with 240k, got it up to 340k, lost half my stack in one hand and doubled up again the very next one with AA. It wasn’t until we were down to five players that I actually thought I had a chance of wining, so I changed gears and started to push at pots.

Down to three players, I’m sitting with just over million and the other two guys had around one million each.. There are a few guys railing who I had met during the course of the tournament and of course they were cheering me on which was very nice. First hand after the break one guy pushes with KJ and the other insta calls with AQ and it’s heads up. It didn’t take long to take it down as he never raised my BB folded to most of my raises.

The game finished up at around 2am. I turned off the computer and just sat there in sheer disbelief, I went to bed shortly after am but never slept the whole night. I think I have told everyone I know, not only am I playing in the Irish Open but I got there for free!

Many thanks to CardPlayer and Paddy Power Poker.

It has been just over four months now since I managed to win the first Paddy Power Poker Pro competition. After a rather uneventful first outing under the sponsorship, which ended in an exit early on day two of the Irish Winter Festival, it was time for a brief stint in Australia and as a result there have been no live appearances since.

This will change in the coming weeks though, with a trip to the UK for the GUKPT London leg followed by the Irish Open a week later.

This will be my GUKPT debut and I am really looking forward to getting back to playing some live poker. I have heard some good reports about the GUKPT events but have never managed to get over to play one. The sponsorship now gives me a chance to set this right and what better place to start than London?

I will be following this up the weekend after with the Irish Open. Entry provides me with a chance to make up for a disastrous performance two years ago which lasted all of 45 minutes! After missing out on this last year I am really looking forward to the  one event on the Irish calendar which every player wants to play.

Things have being going pretty well for me tournament-wise online over the past few weeks, so lets hope this can continue and maybe I can get a result in one of the above to get me off to a good start in the Paddy Power Poker colours. You never know they might even arrange for me to meet Tiger Woods if they manage to sign him!

We’ll be keeping a very close eye on Derek during the Irish Open, so you can follow how he gets on when the live event of the season kicks off in just a few weeks time.

We’d also like to congratulate one of our most successful players, who goes by the nickname ‘blaaaaaaaah’, who took down last night’s High Roller MTT for $13,000 - well done!  The big results keep coming for the PPP gang!

Game 4 (01:45 Feb 20th)

In the first hand of the fourth tournament with 8 (Spades) 10 (Spades), under the gun calls and has A (Diamonds) Q (Clubs). I’m on the button and I raise to 60. He calls. The flop comes down J (Spades) 2 (Spades) 7 (Diamonds).  I raise 75 (half the pot) and he calls. The turn is Q (Hearts). I bet 150 and he calls. The river card is 4 (Spades). I bet the pot (585) and he calls. Nice start to the 4th tourney

I eventually finish that player off about 3-4 hands later with 9 9 against Q 9. After that it went very quiet for a long time but I stayed chip leader, robbing blinds whenever I could.

The next big hand came when the blinds were at 50/100. The player under the gun raises all in for 1,400. I call all in with J J. He turns over A Q (Diamonds). The flop is 9 9 3 (No Diamonds). The turn is K; the river is a 7. Four players left.
A couple of rounds later a player raises all in on the button. He doesn’t have a lot of chips left so I call with A 6. He turns over 3 3. The flop comes down 7 6 2. The turn is an A and the river is a K. Another one down. Two players to beat.

I have a commanding chip lead now with over 4,000 chips while the other two players have less than 1,000 chips each. I start to bully the other two players now, raising whenever I can. A few hands later I’m on the button with A 2 and the blinds at 100/200, I raise to 400; the small blind goes all in with 1,100 chips. I call. He turns over K Q. The flop comes down 8 8 5. The turn is 6; the river is 9. I take the hand. Down to heads-up.

The next hand I’m the big blind. He raises all in but his stack is small that I call with Q 7. He doubles up with K 4. I start taking  his blinds until I’m the small Blind with 9 9. I make the minimum raise. He pushes all in for 1,300 chips. I call. He has A 8. The flop comes down K 5 10, 8 on the turn and a J on the river. The 9’s held up and I had just knocked out every other player in this game.

After this one I called a friend to ask him if he thought I should wait until the following day to try and win the last two games but he told me to go for it while I was on a roll. I thought about it for a moment and then I took his advice.

Game 5 (02:27 Feb 20th)

I get off to a good start in the fifth game, raising the blinds and taking the pot in each of the first three hands. On the fourth hand the button makes a minimum raise. I have 9 (Diamonds) J (Spades) and I call as the small blind. The flop comes down 9 (Hearts) 8 (Spades) 3 (Diamonds). I check; he raises to 60 chips. I check-raise him to 140 chips; he calls. The turn is 5 (Diamonds). I raise to 190; he calls. The river is Q (Hearts). I check. He checks. He turns over 9 10 and I take the hand. My nerves have calmed down a little now.

Two other people are knocked out after a couple of rounds but again I don’t see another hand for a long time until I’m dealt A 10 (Spades Suited). Under the gun raises all in for 590. I call on the button. He shows K (Hearts) Q (Clubs). The flop comes down A (Hearts) 4 (Clubs) 9 (Diamonds). The turn is 5 (Diamonds) and the river is 7 (Diamonds). Two more players to beat.

A couple of hands later I get 7 (Hearts) J (Hearts) on the button. I raise to 120 chips and the big blind calls. The flop comes down 7 (Diamonds) 2 (Hearts) 9 (Hearts). I raise half the pot; he re-raises and I call all in. He calls with A (Spades) 9 (Diamonds). The turn is the 4 (Hearts) and hit the flush. The river is 9 (Spades) but doesn’t make a difference. He had more chips to begin though so there are still three of us in the game but I’m chip leader and the other two have less than 600 chips each.

I take out one of them a few hands later with J (Spades) J (Clubs) against J (Diamonds) 10 (Spades). I win the hand with a full house. It’s now down to heads-up.

Two hands later the last player pushes all in. I’m the big blind and I call with 10 (Diamonds) Q (Spades). He shows Q (Hearts) 9 (Hearts). I hit trip 10’s. Almost there now.

So here it is. One game away from the jackpot. I had felt the shakes a couple of times in the last game but this was when the nerves finally set in about it all. I had to take a long break and spent ages pacing up and down making sure I was psyched up enough to hold my nerve and not choke in the last game.

Game 6 (03:28 Feb 20th)

Someone went out in the first hand. I got rubbish for the next few rounds; any time I made a move to steal a blind I got re-raised off the pot. Another player was knocked out and I fell to 660 chips at one point. Four of us left in the game.
I’m under the gun and I raise 120 pre-flop with A (Spades) 6 (Hearts). The player on the button makes the call. The flop comes down 5 (Diamonds) 3 (Clubs) A (Hearts). I check it; he checks. The turn is 10 (Spades). I bet 150 chips; he calls. The river comes down 3 (Diamonds). I check it and he goes all in. I have a hard decision to make but my gut feeling is to call. He turns over K (Clubs) Q (Hearts). Probably one of the more nervous moments in the final game.

I take the next couple of blinds with A Q and A J. Then I get another A (Spades) Q (Hearts) when I’m on the big blind.  The player on the button raises to 120 chips; I re-raise him to 300. He calls. The flop comes down 6 (Clubs) 10 (Clubs) 9 (Hearts). I raise half the pot (315); he raises all-in. I thought for a long time about it. There was a lot of draws there and it almost broke my heart but I folded in the end. I’m down to about 700 chips now so all my hard work in the last couple of rounds has been lost.

A good few hands go by and at one point I’m down to 390 chips with the blinds at 50/100. All the others have over 1,500 chips. I can feel the jackpot slipping away. I decide I’m going to have to make some bold moves to survive; I start raising all-in to steal blinds until I make it back to about 1,000 chips.

Eventually I get Q (Hearts) J (Hearts) under the gun and I raise 200. The small blind calls. The flop comes down Q (Spades) J (Clubs) 10 (Clubs). I raise 250; he calls. The turn is Q (Clubs). We both check. The river is 9 (Diamonds). I bet out half the pot and he folds. I was gutted that he didn’t have a bigger hand.  But at least things were looking better for me than a couple of rounds ago.

For the next while it was just blind robbing between the four of us until I took out the small stack and his Q (Diamonds) J (Hearts) on the big blind with my A (Hearts) 4 (Diamonds) on the button. I raised him all-in pre-flop and took the hand with A high.

A few hands later I get 7 (Diamonds) 7 (Clubs). Under the gun folds and I’m praying for the small blind to push all in; he does. He turns over 4 (Diamonds) 4 (Spades) so I’m thinking I’m in a good position. The flop comes down 2 (Clubs) 9 (Hearts) 4 (Clubs) and I’m about to either have a heart attack or throw the laptop through the window. The turn comes down 7 (Spades) and I can barely believe I’m seeing it. The river is 3 (Hearts) and I knock him out of the game.

It’s now heads-up for the jackpot. My nerves are in bits but I’m more determined than ever after getting this close. Both of us are evenly stacked in chips. A few hands go by before anything happens. The other player is the small blind and raises to 500. I have A (Diamonds) 3 (Diamonds) and although I thought about re-raising all in, I just called. The flop comes down 5 (Clubs) 2 (Diamonds) 4 (Diamonds). Wow. I decided to slow play this one to death. I check and he raises to 600 so I just call it. The turn is 6 (Clubs). I’m a little bit worried that he might have 7 8 or something but still decide to check. He raises all in. I call. Instantly. He turns over Q (Clubs) J (Clubs) so he has a Flush draw. I had to close my eyes for the last card. It was 9 (Spades).

I won $110,000 at 4am and made so much noise it woke the entire household (and possibly neighbours in the surrounding houses). Definitely one of the most exciting four hours of my life and nice pocket money for the Irish Open in April. I love it when a plan comes together

All I can say to finish with is that if I was asked for advice on how to win it I would definitely say hold your nerve and don’t chicken out in the later games because of the pressure of being closer to winning it than in the early games.

What a story - well done Phil!

There’s a reason for that – I’ve spent practically the whole week travelling. Planes trains, buses, tubes, taxis – you name it. After visiting a friend in York last week I made what was supposed to be a two hour trip down to London on Sunday evening. Well it would have been a two hour trip if we hadn’t got stuck right behind a train about 25 miles from our destination which had broken down because of a lack of power. We were too near to switch tracks and reversing wasn’t an option.

So we waited….and waited. And of course nobody told us anything apart from “we don’t have any information to give you”. I wondered how on earth it was possible to pass this broken train. Perhaps we could walk through the carriages to the drivers cab, hop out the front and walk down the tracks to the nearest station? Or we could all get out, including those from the broken train all 1000+ of us and rock the broken train back and forward until it fell off the tracks. This was my preferred option but not the safest really – it could rock back onto us and crush us all to death. Maybe we could take a run up and pull a bunny hop over the broken train? Landing the other side might be tricky though. Do trains have a turbo boost button like the Knight Rider used to?  I was running out of ideas but at least this incident confirmed one thing to me: it was probably a good thing I never went into engineering.

An information-less hour became two and then three before they could fix the broken train in front. Finally they fixed it and we moved 250 metres before being told: “we’ve just heard that the brakes have stuck on the train in front”.

We actually started laughing when were told that. Well what else could we do?

I was supposed to meet a couple of mates in London and have a chinese before I went away travelling on Tuesday. I’d deliberately not eaten for hours so I would be starving. And my plan worked  a treat- I was really starving. The buffet car was shut and even the wireless internet didn’t work. This was a conspiracy!  I didn’t even have the option of losing money at poker due to a dodgy connection.

Still I shouldn’t complain - at least I had a seat. It was one of those packed out Sunday night trains where dozens of people were dossing on the floor between carriages (and I sincerely hope every one of them was fare evading). Finally we go to London but of course by now all the underground trains had stopped running. Still, they had promised us free taxis as they were handing out refund forms, which was some consolation. That is until I stood at the taxi rank with 400 other people…at 1am! As it transpired, I considered myself extremely lucky to get home at 3am for a mere nine hour trip. As the taxi pulled away at 2.30am there were least 200 unhappy people still waiting in the queue.

On filling in the refund form it asked me to explain why my ticket had not been “validated”, (stamped), if that was the case. Mine hadn’t been stamped so I had to answer this question. I was toying with the idea of writing “inspector not stupid enough to risk certain death by asking to see ticket” on the dotted line.

Actually the passengers were amazingly good natured considering. How they all be so stoic in the face of such monumental incompetence is a mystery to me. Sort of makes you proud to be human really.  There was one amusing departure from this good behaviour though – just as we reached the very front of the taxi rank, when you would expect everyone to be in a half decent mood, a smiling member of the train staff was stood there, a small asian man who was far too chirpy for everyone’s liking. “We know how you feel” he beamed, completely unprompted. Ooops.

As soon as he said it about half a dozen people independently turned on him and roundly abused him.  Bless him, he was only trying to be nice but it was so funny – you should have seen the look on his face. I bet he didn’t come out with that line again.

Anyway, that nine hour trip was nothing compared to the next journey I made. On the following Tuesday I travelled twenty six hours on three planes without a wink’s sleep and when I arrived I didn’t kip for another 12 hours.  I was exhausted.

Still I don’t care about any of that now, not a bit. Because as I write this I’m in Santa Catarina, a gorgeous spot on the coast in the south of Brazil. And it is beautiful. About twenty of us have made the journey out here for our friends’ wedding on Saturday. I am going to love this place. I went surfing yesterday for the first time ever and of course I’ve already managed to get sunburned. It’s a deceptive heat when you’re in the sea for two hours. But I don’t care.

This place is so beautiful in fact, I have made a vow that if I’m ever on the run Bin Laden style, this is where I will choose to hide out. Oh damn, I shouldn’t have said that – I’ve blown my cover. It’ll have to be Canada then. Doh! I’ve done it again. I suppose I’ll have to default to Afghanistan.

Right now it’s about 6am local time and I’m sat on the wooden stilted veranda outside the room in our “pousada”, surrounded by tall trees. I can just peek a view of the sea between the leaves and I’m admiring the ocean but I just heard an alarming noise coming from the bushes over the dulcet tones of Darren’s snoring from within the room.

I heard this noise yesterday evening as well. It’s a hum that gets louder and louder until it reaches ear splitting volume and it sounds like an electrical noise. It’s like an episode of Doctor Who where a whole platoon of well nasty aliens get beamed down to earth. Imagine what it would sound like if you sat under an electricity pylon and a helicopter sliced through the power lines, with thousands of volts of power coursing through the exposed wires.

There’s some creepy crawly out there responsible for this noise. Power Turbo crickets I call them. I can’t see them and that’s probably a good thing. They must be about 10 feet tall judging by the noise they make.

Did you ever see that scene in the film Top Secret where Val Kilmer picks up a big mallet and bashes the noisy cricket? If he tried that here I reckon the cricket would just take the mallet off him and swat him one back.

Having got here I realised just how poor at planning things I am. As well as forgetting to bring the sun cream I forgot to bring a plug adapter, so my laptop and mobile were on life support for a while. And because I didn’t change up any cash into reals (I never fancy the airport rates) I’ve got to borrow until I can get to a cash point, because there just ain’t any of those for miles. I didn’t research the visa issues properly (but that won’t be a problem for a while) and of course, I didn’t take out any insurance.

I’ve got a track record for this. On one trip to Las Vegas in 2006 my total possessions taken for the 17 day trip were a toothbrush and er…well that was it. Well strictly speaking, it was a toothbrush, passport and wallet plus the clothes I was standing in. I figured I could just get everything I needed while I was out there. Clothes wise, I could.  But there are certain things you just have to take when you are in Las Vegas. Of course I survived without these things but there are certain things that it is just better not to be without.  I also learned a few things while I was there, tricks of the trade if you like, to assist with your survival and to prevent you getting ripped off.

I had been meaning to write an article about this very subject and the time to do that was probably before the WSOP. But this trip to Brazil has jogged my memory so I thought this was as good a time as any to write it.  I can’t be waiting until June else I’d forget. So here it is – a long overdue (and very abridged) guide to what you need to take to Las Vegas with you.

Insurance – I asked about five people what would happen to me if I got run over and was left unconscious by the road. Answers varied from “taken to the university hospital and billed” to “your NHS would pay it” but nobody really knew for sure. Better get some insurance to be on the safe side. Of course, I didn’t bother but I didn’t come to any harm. Luckily.

iPod – if you are going to play poker then some sort of headphones are essential, if only to drown out the noise of the frequent arguments over mis deals (or for when you get seated next to the table nutter).

Mobile phone - I imagine most of you wouldn’t be as stupid as I was and probably wouldn’t dream of not taking a mobile phone.  But that’s what I did. When I was there I went to a couple of shops to buy one but I was told they only sold US-only mobiles. “You don’t do international?” I asked. “No Sir”. “Jesus, even Danny Dyer’s Football Factories has gone international” I told her. She didn’t get the joke and I left empty handed.

Contact lens wearers – forget your lenses and take a set of glasses. It might just have been me, but out there the heat dried out my lenses and it felt as if they were shrinking over my eyeballs. When I got back home it turned out I had “blepharitis” and I think it was down to wearing lenses too often in the heat. Ditch the lenses I reckon.

Internet – most places have got wireless internet now but beware of the internet cafes. They charge $12 an hour! It’s just unreal. So take your own laptop if you’re wi-fi enabled.

When you are there:

Water – you would not believe how dehydrated you get in the desert heat. When you add the alcohol and indoor air conditioning to dry you out a bit more, dehydration can be a real problem. For the first three or four days you should be drinking 10 litres of water a day. Yes, 18-20 pints. It’s that dry. If you are playing the WSOP, it’s probably a good idea to get there a week early to get used to it.

For shopping – don’t buy anything in a hotel shop. Everything is so much cheaper elsewhere. Get a taxi driver to take you to a mall. Don’t ask a hotel employee as they will direct you to a property owned by whatever group they happen to work for. And that will be expensive.

Beggars  - not such a problem if you are staying on the strip, but if you go downtown you will see hundreds of them. I know it sounds mean but there are just so many of them it doesn’t pay to give handouts. By all means ignore this advice but I warn you if you gave a dollar to everyone who asked you for one you would go broke.

Don’t think because it’s Sin city that the police will give you a break if you misbehave. I have it on good authority from some of the locals (and a well informed lunatic Russian called Sergei from Atlantic city) that the Las Vegas police are the harshest, most unfriendly, unpleasant downright horrible police force in the USA (and I imagine they have some pretty stiff competition).  Basically, they have zero tolerance. I expect they just got fed up with tourists taking liberties.

I started playing the six-seater tournaments at about 5 minutes to midnight on Friday 19th, after I had taken a bad beat in the 100k tournament. With about 100 people left in the 100k, I came up against AJ with my AK. AJ hit another J on the River and I was gone.

I had played and gotten knocked out of another couple of tournaments earlier so all in all the night wasn’t going too well and I found myself finished up earlier than I usual for a Friday night. I decided to try a couple of six-seater games before I finished up completely and so I entered the first of the $50 six-seaters.

Games 1 & 2 (23:51 Feb 19th & 00:28 Feb 20th)

I only had about $100 left on my account so at this point I decided to try for the Fort Knox and Rio six-seater jackpots. I entered both at once, got knocked out of the Rio game and went on to win the Fort Knox game.

The first two Fort Knox games went really well; I knocked pretty much everyone out at each table and finished both games quickly. I was playing quite aggressively at the tables and bullied the other players off a lot of hands all the way through. In the first game, I won with K 9 against 8 8 and in the second game I won with 2 2 against A K. I raised; A K went all in and when I called 2 2 held up.

Game 3 (01:09 Feb 20th)

In the third game I lost half my stack in the first hand. I’m the big blind; I have 9 7 and the flop comes down with K 3 7. The player on the button bets 100; I’m thinking he’s bluffing and that I should re-raise him but in the end I just call it. An 8 comes down on the turn and he bets 100 again. I’m thinking of raising him at this stage but I decide not to and just call his 100 again. Another 8 comes down on the river and he bets 200. I call but it turns out to be a mistake not re-raising him at the flop because he shows 8 4 and takes the hand.

I’m down to 570 chips after one hand so it’s not looking too good. I get K Q next so it’s a decent enough hand to try and recover with. I’m the small blind in this hand so when another player calls under the gun I raise to 120 and he calls. The flop comes down 10(HEARTS) 8(HEARTS) K(SPADES). I bet 200; the other player pushes all in. I’m worried now but I feel I have to call as I’m pretty short stacked anyway. He turns over K 8; I’m gutted. Luckily for me though I hit 2(HEARTS) 6(HEARTS) runner runner to take the hand with a flush. Oh yeah baby. Back in business. That’s internet poker for ya though

I’m back up to about 1100 chips at this stage but I don’t get another hand for a long time. There are a couple of hands that end up being split pots but other than that it’s pretty quiet. At some point along the way I knock out a small stack with A3 against his A7 and there are now four players left at the table. A few more hands are played and then there are three.

With 3 left at the table there wasn’t a lot of action for quite a while; my chips were getting low again (down to about 750) so I just stole blinds when I could. The next big hand was a raise of 500 from the player on the button; I’m the big blind with the blinds at 50/100. I have A 10 so I push all in; he turns over 4 4 and the flop comes down 4 3 8. I have no flush draw at this point. The turn is a 2. The river falls. It’s a 5. Flukes Fla hits the straight and does it runner runner style. AGAIN!

I’m back at about 1500 chips now and it all goes quiet again for another couple of rounds. I let the other two fight it out until one of them is gone and it’s down to heads-up. The heads-up lasts for a couple of rounds until I’m all in for 1100 pre-flop with K Q. He calls and turns over J 7. The flop comes down 3 7 5. The turn comes down; it’s a K. The river is a 9; I’m up to 2,200 chips.

The next big hand for me is A 9 suited (Big blind). He raises and I re-raise all in; he turns over J J. The flop is mine; A 9 K. The turn is a 3 and the river card is another 9. Full house to Flukes Fla.

After another bout of rounds which saw us both go up and down in chips, it came to the point where he was slightly ahead of me. In the next hand I get a K 10 as the small blind. I raise; he calls all in. I call it. He turns over A 3. The flop comes down 7 J 9. Another J on the turn. Looks like the end for me at this stage. Until the river falls. It’s a Q.

He’s down to 400 chips with the blinds 100/200. I have Q 3 on the big blind; he has 8 5. He pushes all in and I call. Game over.

Three games in and now I’m starting to think I could actually win this jackpot, especially with the unbelievable luck I’ve had so far. Looking back on the hand  history for that 3rd game I can honestly say it was one of the craziest sit and go’s I’ve ever played and how I scraped through it still makes my heart jump at how close I was to losing it all at this stage.

Check back in a few days for Part II of this great report!

Basically, you need to visit the Paddy’s Cashpoint homepage and Opt-In by inputting your nickname.  Then we take a look at the ten days during the period (runs until the last day of March) where you accumulated the highest Paddy Points total (so all PPP poker will count, be you a Sit’n'Go, tournament, cash player or all of the above!) and award you cash based on your lowest total during the 10 highest days.

So if you play 15 days during Paddy’s Cashpoint and earn 1,000 points on 5 days, 1,000 points on 5 days and 500 points on the remaining 5 days, we only look at the 1,000 and 500 points days and give you a cash reward based on the 500 points total!  In this case, you would be awarded $25 at the end of the month, as the award is $1 for every 20 points.

Even if you don’t earn enough for a cash reward, there is something to be won; just earn 1 Paddy Point or more during 10 days during the period (you have to Opt-In remember) and you’ll gain entry to a $2,000 Freeroll in April!  Obviously if you earn a cash reward you also will get entry to the freeroll.

For all the details, visit the Paddy’s Cashpoint page and be in control of the cash reward we give you at the end of March!

The Poker Europa IO Freeroll started just like a regular tournament and my only hope at the start was to improve my game, my stats and in fact was only dreaming of finishing in the first 25 at the end, to win token to an online qualifier. Little did I know I was about to win it all!

I tried to play as tight as possible but I was often tempted to play more hands, as lots of players were sitting out. The first important moment was, when holding KK after a raise preflop, two of the other players went all in, but one of them was shortstacked so I had to risk it. I was up against AA and JJ, but a King on the flop made my life much easier

I was left with a stack of 10K and and amazingly everybody else on the table was sitting out. It was a boring 20 minutes or so, until a live player  finally showed up, just after I managed to double my chips to 20K. At this stage, I said to myself that I have a good chance of getting in the top 100. Almost three hours later I managed to achieve this, but my stack wasn’t too promising and I must say that some lucky hands helped me go through, the most important one I can remember was a 3 on the turn to complete my 33 hand for a set.

When there were just less than 25 left, everybody was acting very different, but in a stranger way than you would expect, probably because we were playing for almost 5 hours and many of us were happy just to get the qualifier tickets! The final table started and although at some moment I was as low as 5th out of 5 players, some top pocket pairs helped me to scrape through.

Suddenly there were 3 players left, with two of us holding 2M chips while the 3rd one, a Russian who was chip leader most of the time during the last part of the tourney, had about 800K. The climax of the three-handed play was a strange 35 hand on BB, where I was raised by the player on 2nd place after a flop of 335. Turn and river were T and 7 and he went all in, so I had no choice but to call. He showed KK and was out, leaving me Heads Up with the Russian.

Having 4 times his stack made it easy for me and I won the Irish Open seat after a nice flush on the river. It was clubs, so just as lucky as Irish clover for me

I’ve never been to Ireland before, so I can’t wait to get there. It’s my first major live tournament and I will try to stay in as much as possible, mainly for the atmosphere and the feeling of such a great event.

Thank you Poker Europa and Paddy Power Poker for this opportunity. Cheers!

First of all, here’s my hand from the summer of 2008. Like I said, it happened in a $100 tournament in Las Vegas, in Binions Horseshoe. It was about 45 minutes in and I hadn’t got any cards at all so I’d just been folding for the most part and had a tight image. I had about 2200 chips from a starting stack of 2500 and the blinds were 50-100

I got dealt 62 unsuited on the button (don’t you just love poker stories which begin with “I got dealt 62 offsuit”?) There was one limper in the seat before me but he had been limping a lot and I had seen him limp and fold previously, so I raised him to 350 hoping that I would knock out the blinds, he would fold and I would take down the 250 which was in the pot. Sure enough the blinds folded and it was back to the limper. Unfortunately for me he called the raise so two of us went to the flop, with him first to act. The pot was 850.

The flop was A K K rainbow.

Ooops. Not so good for my 62 offsuit, but then again, it wasn’t ever really going to be was it?

He checked and it was my turn to act. Now if I had a king here I would usually check but as I was so weak I wanted to end the hand now. I didn’t want him believing that I didn’t have an ace or king, which he might do if I checked behind him. So I put in a small, suspicious looking bet. The idea was to make him think I had the king and that I wanted a call – at which point he wouldn’t play ball and he would fold. Well that was the plan anyway, so I bet 300.

Of course, he could easily be slow playing me with a king himself so I studied him hard to get some information on him. He thought about it for a while and then called. To my mind, he really was thinking about something, genuinely thinking as opposed to giving it the Hollywood act. I decided that he didn’t have a king because if he did, he wouldn’t be thinking so hard. Now I put him on a weak ace and I figured he was asking himself whether in fact I had a king when he was doing his thinking. The pot was now 1450.

The turn was a seven for AKK7. He checked again. Now I decided it was time to back myself. If he didn’t have a king, and I was pretty sure he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to call my all in here. If he did have a king well then good luck to him – he’s just made a real mug out of me.

“All in”, I said and fired a third barrel with my junk hand. He thought long and hard. The pot was 1450 plus the 1650 I just put in. 3100 total and it was 1650 to call. He had me covered, but only just. If he lost he was ruined.

Then he said a phrase which I heard a few times on that trip and which I grew to hate because it always meant I was about to lose: “If ya got me, ya got me” and he called.

He turned over AJ and I sheepishly showed my lowly 62 offsuit, looking for the nearest exit. The players at the table all looked at me like I was completely insane.  “Did this tourist really just bluff three times with 6 high?”

Well yes I did. I walked away laughing to myself at how ridiculous that must have looked. It’s times like that when you think “why did I just do that? I could have just waited for a real hand to play”. The other players carried on looking at me in disbelief, and perhaps a bit of disgust, but definitely not amusement. I was a bit narked that they clearly thought so little of me but it’s hardly the time or the place to try to explain my thought processes! I had made a great read that he didn’t have a king and backed it with my entire stack. To me, my opponent made a bad call. How could he call that without a king?  Ha ha, yes, he just made a rubbish winning call.

Now let’s look at the second hand. This was played at the WSOP Europe in September 2009 and both players were doing well with stacks of over 250,000 chips.  I’m going to keep one player’s identity secret until the end of the hand and to make things interesting I’m not going to tell you what his hand was either.

Player X raised to 3000 from two off the button with his mystery hand and Ian Munn, an amateur from England, reraised to 9000 with Ah7s.  Player X called and they went to the flop.

The flop was AdAc3c

Player X was first to act and he checked. Munns’ bet 9000 on the flop and player X raised him to 58,000. Munns made the minimum re-raise to 116,000 with his A-7 and player X shoved all in over the top. If Munns called and lost he would have been crippled. He thought for about 20 seconds.

What would you do in this spot?  Player X has check-raised you and when you raised him back he shoved all in pretty much immediately. Remember that it is the WSOP and you still have about 150 big blinds left if you fold.  What I’m trying to suggest to you here is that it is a fold, a clear fold, an easy fold.  You’ve made it so obvious that you have an ace that you could practically show player X your ace. Player X knows that you have an ace yet he has still moved all in. You have a seven kicker remember.

And if you think back over the betting, pocket threes is a distinct possibility. He raised preflop and just called your re-raise (I think that’s an awful play with A7 by the way). Now he is check-raising on the flop.

Well as it happens, if you’d folded you’d have been wrong to do so. Player X had Kd2d. Yep, that’s right, no pair and only the slightest flicker of a draw (running diamonds). Player X did all that aggro while being a 4% favourite to win the hand.

And the player’s identity? It was an 18 year old Viktor Blom, the person rumoured to operate under the Isildur1 moniker online. (If you hadn’t heard of him before, Isildur1 appeared in November 2009 and went on a 7 million dollar winning run, before losing the lot late last year). I’m not saying that Isildur1 is Viktor Blom because I don’t know for sure.  But let’s say for the sake of argument that it is him. And let’s also say for the sake of argument that you wanted to know what sort of moves a player who can make $7 million online in a month makes. Well this is one of them. If like me, you couldn’t have made that move, then fair enough –it’s no disgrace. Viktor Blom is out of our league.

You can see the full clip of the hand here, just so long as you promise to press the “back” button to get back to this page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ-aaWUzzZQ

I thought this was an amazingly ballsy, brilliant bluff. It deserved to work and it should have worked. What realistic hands could Blom have held that Munns was beating?  Only A6 A5 A4 and A2, plus a stone bluff, which was unlikely really given the betting (despite actually being true).  Interestingly, Munns said afterwards “he didn’t even have a flush draw”, so I reckon that is what Munns put him on.

Mohammed Ali used to say you couldn’t feint a sucker. A good opponent would take evasive action and position himself where Ali wanted him - to be teed up for a haymaker. But the sucker won’t move there because he isn’t good enough to spot the feint. I’m certainly not suggesting that Ian Munns is a “sucker”, but I think if he had been a more sophisticated player he would have thought more deeply about it and convinced himself to fold.

Notice how the players at the table are laughing at what they have just seen. But Todd Brunson admits that “it would have worked on me”. This is telling - Brunson is a far better poker player than Ian Munns and he admitted the bluff would have worked (between laughs of course, because it is just so funny to see a bluff go so spectacularly wrong).

Well I’ve gone on about these two hands for a bit now but there is a moral to the story. In fact there are two things to take from these hands. First of all, when you run a bluff – make it look genuine. Blom kept going with the all in shove. That he held K2, QQ or 34 was irrelevant -he was playing his opponent’s hand, not his own, and he thought he could get him to fold. Blom kept up the act and shoved all in over the top, a move which Brunson admitted would have worked on him. (Personally, if I were Blom, I would have lost my bottle when Ian Munns min raised on the flop, but then again if I were Munns I would have folded when Blom put in the check-raise).

The other moral is be careful who you bluff. You ought to be pretty sure that the player is at least capable of folding what you think he is holding.  And obviously, never bluff a known calling station.

Blom picked the wrong man. As the saying goes, he made the right move but at the wrong time. And it was the same with me in Vegas when I fired three barrels with my 62.  Not that it was in Blom’s league or in a big tournament, but the principle was the same. See I ought to have known better. The guy was in his 50s and was a tourist himself. I knew that because I overheard him talking with another player as we were waiting to start. He also said that he rarely played poker. In short he was a novice. I put him on an ace and I ought to have known a novice wouldn’t have folded an ace.  Nice move – wrong man.

One last thing - don’t be scared of looking like a fool. If you are, you’ve probably got no future in this game.

Played a £100 well-structured Holdem MTT in the Vic in London last week while there for work; what a great location for poker!  I was well above average in chips after the first 2 1/2 levels, but was knocked out by the table chip leader just before the break when we both hit a flush on the river, he held AQ clubs and I held KJ clubs.  It was folded to me in the cutoff, I raised to 600 (blinds were 100/200), all folded but the villain in the BB.  The flop came down AJ5 with one club, he checked and I bet 2/3 pot, he flat called.  Very suspicious, I figured I was behind but might take it off him on a later street.  The turn was the 3 of clubs, check check.  The river was the 7 of clubs, so we both hit our flush!  He made a bet of 1300, I raised to 3500, he reraised to 7000 putting me all-in.  I knew I was almost certainly behind here, but called with a sigh hoping to be shown the Q-high flush or a set.  Bah humbug!!!  I’ll be back to the Vic tho