Hi all,

My first attempt at a blog, so all feedback appreciated, even if it's negative :-)..

It was about 3 years ago, i noticed that a local snooker hall also had a poker room, enquired about it and found you had to be a member, joined up and that weekend i decided that i would play the saturday night tournament, it was a £50 freezeout with a optional £5 bounty. At the time i had just had a nice little win on stars so paying £50 for the entry didn't seem to bad. There was 98 runners in the tournament time it started. If i remember rightly, blinds started at 50/100 and the clock was 20 min blinds with a 20k starting stack.

The first hour i remember sitting there thinking what a stupid idea it had been feeling really out of my depth, as there was a lot of banter going on and most people seemed to know each other. the only hands i played in that first hour was kings, where i raised and everyone folded and the big blind twice where it hadn't been raised, only to fold when i hadn't hit the flop. It was at that point we had a break, i went to the bar to get a bottle of water (driven up there). Got talking to the person sat to my left, found out he was a regular there and once we got talking started to feel a bit more at ease.

My big hand came the beginning of the next period of play, i was in the big blind with 10,5 off, 5 callers to me, decided to raise to 2k, all 5 called, thought darn (or words to that effect) now the flop came 10,10,5, how at that point i didn't smile and shout come on i'll never know as my heart was racing, i checked, it got bet, raised, re-raised and shoved before it got to me. Now i looked at the board and thought what has someone got to bet, raise, re-raise and shove. Decided must be a few pocket pairs about, plus there was a flush draw on the table, obviously i called. The initial person who bet folded, the rest called. The hands where A,A followed by A,A, at this point my mouth must have dropped open, then 10,9 followed by 5,5 and bloke who folded said he had k,q flush draw. so i had to avoid a 9 and 5. neither hit and i can't actually remember what the turn and river cards where but somehow i now had 92k and was chip leader.

I got to the final table and had only played 4 hands since the 10,5, unfortunatley it mean't i was around 5th out of 10. Suddenly had a run of hands at that point and managed to knock out 3 players, with aces twice and 4's where i hit trips on the flop, against queens. This put me into 2nd place again.
It stayed like that till there was 3 of us left, the chip leader being a regular lady who'd never got to the final table before and she kept refusing to do a deal, by this point it was half 1 in the morning. It was at this point i had pocket kings, the lady folded, so it was down to me in the small blind and the bloke in the big, so i min raised, he thought for a good 5 minutes, then announced all in, i insta called, he showed q,7, i had to look twice, he then said he always won with that hand as it was his favorite, the flop came k,k,10, he said i was lucky, hmmmm quads and i'm lucky beating q,7 with k,k, ok..

So got to heads up slightly behind, asked if she'd like to deal, she replied no, from that point i played really aggresively , she couldn't handle it and i knew when she had a hand as she didn't fold to my raise, took me 15 mins to beat her, so at 2am i took down my first ever live tournament.

Won £2500 plus £50 in bounties..

As you can imagine the following morning i was on a high, i came downstairs and threw a envelope at the misses, her face went from whats this to OMGG. Neither of us could believe what had happened the night before, and if it hadn't been for that one hand i probably would have left early on feeling really down and never gone back again. So if i ever get 10,5 off now whether online or live i always play it.. You never know....