Walsall was to be my 1st stop back on the UK tour since returning from the other side of the World. Melbourne it is not but there was still a certain buzz about being back amongst familiar foes and playing my 1st leg of the 2010 GUKPT....

Day 1 was a crazy day. I chipped up steadily on my 1^st table before being moved to the table where all the chip were hiding, going from chip daddy on the table to a mere chip dwarf on the new one. There was plenty of banter flowing, none more so than when Roberto was soon added into the mix. Luckily for me I was to win a flip to knock him out and begin to gain a bit of momentum. Not long after I made flush over flush in a 3 bet pot to gain the overall chip lead. Things were going along nicely as we entered the last level of the day....

The hand I played with James Mitchell about half an hour before the end of the day, has probably already become the most talked about hand in GUKPT history. The amount of texts and messages I received the following day was quite staggering, and I hear the cardroom was buzzing with talk of “six deuce” for the whole of the next day. I was half expecting to open the curtains to my parents house in the morning to see paparazzi on the lawn.... The climax of the hand sees me calling off 42k at blinds of 500/1k pre flop with the 6 and the 2 of varying suits. I could spend this blog discussing things as exciting as pot odds, hand ranges, discussing history and table dynamics but the most shocking thing for me about the hand is my failure to make a straight. For this I am truly regretful and I will be working tirelessly on such skills over the next few months. One thing I will say is that I'm not afraid to get my chips in the middle in these tournaments and whilst many people had an opinion, not many of them were still around with 2 tables left to discuss it with me. Still, at least they got their money in good eh.....

In the end I lost a race to Ali Mallu with 14 people left to just miss out on the final table. It was the 1^st time I've cashed in one of these without making the final but it won't be long before the turn of the Vic at the end of March and we can try all over again. In the meantime I'm not sure how much live poker I'll be playing. We've been enjoying a slight resurgance of the weather these past couple of weeks and so I've been a bit lax on putting in the online hands I'd been planning too. I have however put in a couple of marathon sessions, all of which seem to start of on a massive losing streak before I'm able to claw things back. I'm quite happy to be only a couple of buyins down so far this month, and with plenty of time to turn things around I'm hopeful that March can end as productive as the 1^st 2 months of the year were.

Karl