A gift from Mr_Rahl.

So about 3 weeks ago, I decided to put 20 dollars back into my account, as I had 3 essays to do for that week and I really couldn't face it, so I opted for a 'relaxing' game of poker. Knowing I should really start on 2/5 or even 1/2, I ploughed straight into 5/10 anyway. After about an hour or so i was up to about 30, and then I got stacked when I was rivered by a gutshot for 15 dollars, which put me on tilt. Reloading for 10 dollars, I moved table and had some crazy guy to my right who bought in for two dollars and kept going all in and got himself up to 8 dollars with some brilliant rivers. A few hands later he shoved from the small blind (folded round), and I found myself in the BB with two sevens. Call. He turns over A4o. The flop comes 4 4 4. 'Nuff said.

So I started swearing a bit and marched over to Isaacs to tell him what had happened (in hindsight it was incredibly childish but what the hell). As I went to leave the room I said something like, "If you're a generous man, you'll lend me 20 dollars" (I had no money at the time and was waiting to go home to start work again.) It was half a joke and half serious, though I never expected the reply of "Tell you what, I'll stake you $40." It wasn't actually the case that I would now have $40 to play with that made me happy , it was the fact that Isaac said "I know you can play" which really made me determined to play good poker. The conditions were that I played 2/5 and no more than $5 sit n gos, with 50% of profit going to him. I went back immediately and hit the 2/5 tables.

Little did I realise that 4 days later I had surpassed the $120 mark, playing about 3-4 hours a night while watching episodes from QI and mock the week. Even now I don't fully understand why I got to $120 so quickly- I wasn't running amazingly well and I couldn't say I was playing superbly either. I found 2/5 to be an incredibly passive game...any non scary flop checked round to you was just a licence to bet, and sure enough, the Texas Fold'em would commence. The simple concept of checking top pair always induced bets heads up, and this is probably where I got most of my money from. I must say though playing with someone elses money really makes you concentrate, but I feel overall I wanted to prove a point to myself and the others because I hadn't demonstrated anything concrete at all in my play since I got to university.

A few days ago I entered a $4 180 man sit n go on PStars, just to see how I'd fare. It was a pretty low key affair and just played the usual hands you do in the early part of a Sit n go. I doubled up early on when a guy pushed all in on AJ and I called with AQs, and I stayed pretty much at 3-3.5k until the last 50. With the blinds starting to get bigger at this point I had to make the odd play here and there as the cards didn't seem to come. I then picked up two aces in the BB which was a bit tasty. At just over 6k in chips and the blinds at 300/600, the button pushed with 2.5k and showed AQ, and with a harmless flop that ensued I was getting ready to breathe a small sigh of relief. However, the two queens that followed the flop didn't particularly help the cause and I found myself in very serious trouble.

Bizzarely, as the next round of blinds came, I had a walk on the BB and pushed all in with 10 9o in the small blind to take a much needed pot. I was now back up to about 4.5k. We were now in the last 25. Waking up with two sevens, the chips went in and held up against Q10 which put me in a helthier position at about 10BB. Desperate bluffing got me to the final table where I doubled up twice to be on about 21k, with the chip leader being on about 60k. An hour passed and I eventually found myself heads up with this bloke from Australia. He had a 3/1 chip advantage so I decided to go mental and about 45 minutes later I was in the commanding position with about 190k in chips to his 80k. In the final hand I had Q 8 and flopped top pair and he called my all in with 55 and didnt hit. $216 dollars went into the account to take me up to 340- pretty chuffed at the increase in just under 3 weeks. And for the first time, sharkscope actually makes pleasurable viewing! Cheers

More tomorrow, Tony x