This had a £100,000 to the winner guaranteed which is why i played , however it wasn't until i arrived that i discovered that it was to be run on a 30 minute clock , even though we started with 10,000 chips i knew that after 3 to 4 hours the ante and blinds would force you to gamble , i decided i would try to accumulate chips early to have the best chance of success , this didn't quite go to plan .

The event was attended by a group of celebrities including the golfer Sam Torrance , actors Michael Grecco and Lou Diamond Phillips and snooker players Jimmy White , Mark Williams and Stephen Hendry .

My first table was a draw from heaven , i was in seat 2 , Jimmy was in seat 3 and i thought having him there would losen the game up as players would want to take him on , and apart from a player in seat 9 i knew no one , it soon became obvious the players to my left were internet qualifiers by the way they handled the cards and exhibited tells as to whether they intended to play or not , equally the player on my left showed inexperience , to give you some idea , on one flop two players flopped sets and after a bet and call on the flop both then checked it down , i knew that if this table didn't break i could accumulate a lot of chips especially in the later rounds as the blinds increased and i went into aggressive mode .

After 20 minutes of the first level i raised with KJs and got three callers , the flop was J 5 7 rainbow , i checked but no one bit , the turn was a 2 , i bet 325 and Jimmy raised to 2000 , i called , the river was a blank and we both checked , i had Jimmy outkicked and was up to 12,500 , perfect i thought until i saw the manager stood by the table as my BB approached , " please don't move me " i thought , yet again the poker gods had their fun , i was the first player to be moved and went to John Shipleys table , i fely like i had lost with AA for ten minutes .

Even though the levels were only 30 minutes the structure was ok as Thomas Kremser had flown in as tournament director ,25 50 / 50 100 / 75 150 / 100 200 / 150 300 / 200 400 / 200 400 with 25 ante then 300 600 with a 50 ante hence the best strategy would be to double up by level 7 . After the long delay to start we were seated by a printout and it was only later as the tables from the floor before were broken that i realised they had no seat cards , Thomas just pointed to an empty seat one at a time .

My decision to gamble early was reinforced when i realised the dealers were inexperienced , they had been drafted in from other casinos and some weren't even familiar with antes , we were lucky if we got more than 1 to 2 rounds a level .

On my new table i had AK twice lost one won one then after building my chips to 14,000 in the third level disaster struck . Two players limped as did i with 47s , the SB called and the BB raised to 525 , both players called and i could see the SB was going to call so for 375 more i took a flop , this came Q 5 6 with two hearts matching mine , the SB checked , the BB bet 2000 , passed to me i had a choice call or raise which is a semi bluff , basically i would be representing two pair or a set and could win if he passed or if called and he had say AQ i had plenty of outs , i raised 10,000 , the SB passed and the BB decided to call for his last 8500 hoping i didn't have what i was representing as he did in fact have AQ , believe it or not with two cards to come i'm favourite here as i can hit a 3 8 or heart , turn was a 7 giving me more outs to a 7 or 4 , river a T and the gamble to get 25,000 chips had failed , still i had 3500 left.

I blinded to 1800 then at 100 200 moved in with AQ , John called me with AK and i got lucky and flopped a Q , another AQ and AA where i reraised a 1900 opening bet saw me back up to 8000 , during this time i saw John raise a couple of times and show down KJs AND KQs , when for the third time he raised my BB to 1100 with the blinds 200 400 with a 25 ante i called with A9 , flop was 9 2 3 with two clubs , i checked and John threw in a 5000 chip , i had 5650 , i put him on the flush draw as if he had an under or over pair i think he would bet less , of course if hes has the A i have some of his outs covered , i called , he had ATs and immediately hit the flush on the turn .

The night ended with 46 left , they returned the next day and eventually an online qualifier was heads up with veteran player George Geary who had a tenth of the chips in play , however a little bit of river luck and skill and experience finally paid off for George who after 2 hours claimed the win .

Next time if the organisers can iron out the flaws the event had this time especially the 30 minute levels , more players will attend and they could hold events that the size of the casino would allow meaning we could see 300+ fields in the UK for the first time.

After a weekend in Paris i leave for Barcelona on Tuesday for the first of 4 EPT events , as this was the scene of my last European success , 3 cashes from 6 events in May i am very much looking forward to it and hope to write some good diaries for you .