Victory at the Empire, defeat at APAT

Still playing Oblivion, but now on a souped-up upgraded PC, so it looks utterly gorgeous. From the demo I've toyed with Bioshock looks even better, but I will have to hold off on playing that otherwise I may never play internet poker again.

So, no internet poker, but two live tournaments to report on. The first was a win! It was the £50 rebuy at the Empire, which makes it sound impressive. However, only ten people turned up, which makes it less so. And we did a deal heads-up. Still, £540 prize for a profit of £390 is good. Not really many hands to talk about. Lost a buy-in very quickly when it was folded round to button (steaming a little from getting outdrawn by the SB who was messing about in the rebuy period). He open pushes, SB calls without looking at his cards, and I call after seeing JJ. Button has AQ, SB has 85 and you can probably guess who won.

I never had a huge amount of chips throughout the tournament, but somehow managed to just plod along, picking up pots here and there. Doubling up with TT v AK when four-handed gave me the chips to force things, and when we got heads-up my opponent offered to chop it up. I had about twice as many chips as him, so suggested I give him £80 off top prize, which he seemed happy with.

I then sat in the £1/£2 cash game for a couple of hours and finished down about £50. One funny incident was when a hand developed between the button and SB from the hand above. The button guy (old fella) had done a small re-raise out of the BB (obvious monster). The other guy (young Chinese LAG) calls and they get it all in on a King-high flop. Old guy has AA and the Chinese guy calls with KJ ('I had top pair, good kicker and a backdoor flush draw'). Of course, the Jack hits and the old guy storms off in a huff. He'd been sat in the cash game for ages waiting for his Aces and then sees them get cracked by KJ.

Last Saturday I played in the APAT event at the G Casino in Luton. £75, 10,000 chips, 40 minute levels - a lovely tournament. For the first three levels I (very) gently increased my stack, up to about 12,000, even though every single chip I put into the pot was a bluff. I had no good starting cards and missed every flop. My biggest pot was winning after two-barrelling on the turn with AK on a all rag board.

Not long before the dinner break (level 5, blinds 200/400) I had my chance to get going. Player immediately to my right raised to 1200, I called with TT. The flop is three rags, but I'd been watching him as the flop was dealt and he clearly didn't like it. I think this is the first time I have ever managed to pick up on a physical tell whilst playing poker. He made a continuation bet of 1500, and I pretended to think for a couple of seconds before going all-in (I don't want to let him see any more cards as my TT is vulnerable to overs). He had at least 6000 chips left and had a little moment of contemplation before calling for his tournament life with AQ. It was a truly dreadful call, which was rewarded when the Ace fell on the turn. This left me with just 2500 and I went out soon afterwards.

It was an amateur event, and this was an amateur call. Unless he thought I was bluffing with AJ he had obviously given no thought as to what he could be beating - he certainly wasn't getting pot odds for the call.

After this I played one SNG before noticing a dealer's choice game had started up. Now, I've never played this before, but there were a couple of drunk guys who were chipped up so I sat down with £200. Over the course of the next two hours all that money dribbled away. We had quickly got down to 4 players, and 6 card Omaha had become the game of choice. This is such a sick game it's untrue. Every draw I had missed, every time I hit the flop I had no redraws (if you have no redraws in 6 card Omaha you are dead). Twice I had full houses which were no good, and one hand early on I nearly forgot that you can't play the board in Omaha. I won about £30 simply on betting whether the flop would be red or black, but that went as well. I just don't think I have the necessary recklessness to play such a game, as much fun as it was.

The evening was rounded off by not managing to find the guy I was supposed to be sharing a hotel room with, thus spending two hours at Luton railway station waiting for the first train back to London, not making it to bed until 8:30am. How I wish I'd left the casino and got the last train back the night before.