I managed to squeeze in 29 hours of live poker this weekend. That’s as much as I’ve probably ever played in a 48 hour period. The time was spread over 7 different games and from a total stake of £91 I had £740 returned to me. The bulk came from winning the 62 runner Saturday afternoon game in Gala for £420. Just before the final table I got rather lucky when I shipped it in over a button raise with A9 and he had AK. I naturally binked the river. He looked about as angry as I’ve ever seen anyone and an hour later returned to the card room to shout ‘lucky’ at me. I think he suffers from short term memory problems cos the last time I played on a Saturday we were on the final table and he busted my Queens with QT all in pre and then backdoored a straight in another hand when I had him pretty much drawing dead. I didn’t shout at him then.

I went in to the final table second in chips. I really open up on final tables – the prizes are so top heavy that I tend to be all-or-nothing. My aggression built up a stack but then it also resulted in someone getting it all in pre with KQ vs my A9. KQ always beats a weak ace and sure enough it did this time too. I was left with 1.5 big blinds and had to then post two thirds of my stack. I won that hand and then picked up a seemingly endless run of small pairs which managed to hold each time and when we got to heads-up I had towers of chips and the other fellow had about 4bb. I offered him an extra £30 to take second but he refused. HU lasted one hand as he shipped it in with Q6 and I had yet another pair which held.

Of the 7 sessions I played, three were cash games. I tend to dislike cash as my main strength in tournament play is understanding the importance of stack dynamics and this is pretty much irrelevant in a ring game. My biggest cash game win came in a 25p/50p PLO/NLHE game. Perhaps I was fortunate in that I had clear cut hands – I was either way behind or way ahead and I only paid someone off one time all night when I had K8 on a KQJKT board and the LAG villain had bet every street with 89. Having said that, the pot wasn’t too big. I think I lost £20 in total. I possibly should have check-raised the turn but the guy likes to fire in so I decided to let him hang himself. I was pleased with my Omaha play – I tend to be pretty weak at this game but I seemed to be synched in to betting pattern and squeezed out some thin value bets.

My plan for this week is to try some of the Christmas games on poker.co.uk and to use my €700 step ticket. In my mind I’ve already won EPT Prague so I guess I should get my skates on and try and qualify.