When i first played in the European Championships at the Vic in 1996 the buy in was £1500 , now 9 years later and while the WSOP remains at $10,000 as it has done since 1970 , the European Championship has more than trebled to £5000 , is this a good thing or not ?

This week in London there were two £5000 events and a $10,000 , the internet alone cannot be relied upon to produce all the players and all this does is reduce the size of the fields and the pros are going to have to be more selective , eg i know that Dave Colclough , Devilfish and myself played all three and came nowhere , on reflection we would have been better focusing on one event . Poker is always a series of questions requiring a decision and with the explosive growth and choice of events one of those decisions is going to have to be which ones to play based primarily on structure and overlay .

So back to the Vic , i have played this event 6 times , made the second day four times and made the final twice , both times finishing 6th . I was confident therefore of making the second day and basically things went to plan.

Starting with 10,000 chips , 90 minute levels and 25 50 blinds i played my normal strategy of learning the table in the first round.

The story of this event was in fact one hand 99 , i had it 5 times and sometimes it was a key turning point as you will read .

In the first level i played it three times , the first i led out on a 5 6 8 flop and got no callers , the second after a 250 raise called in two places i had to pass on a J Q A flop , and the third i just had one caller , the BB who checked the A J 4 flop so i represented the A and picked up the pot .

On my right i had Dave Barnes and to my left Max Pescatori and Martin De Kniff the 2004 WPT Champion , in one pot i called a raise from Martin with AJ , flop was J 8 4 , Martin bet 600 and i raised to 1500 , he now instantly moved in for 8400 , i passed to a likely overpair .

The last hand of this level again involved Martin , i called a standard raise on the button with KQo as did the BB , flop was J J Q , Martin bet and we both called , turn was a Q , the BB went all in , Martin passed and of course i called , the BB had been in front with his A , neither of us hit our kicker and it was a split pot , i ended the level with 10,450 .

Level 2 i limped in with 22 , Dave Barnes raised to 400 and the player next to him moved in for a total of 1050 , passed to me i put them both on an A and flat called knowing Dave will check if he misses the flop , flop was J 8 4 , i checked and Dave bet 1000 , i passed and they turned their hands up , both had AJ !

I then won a big pot when an early raiser made it 500 to go , Martin flat called on the button and in the BB i found QQ , i raised to 2100 and both called , flop was T high with two hearts , i put the initial raiser on AK and Martin on a pair either 7's to 9's or a very unusually played AA , with 6350 in the pot i led out for 6000 , passed to Martin , he started to think about the betting , now i was sure he had an overpair but was it JJ or QQ and would he lay it down , eventually he passed and showed JJ , that is why he was the WPT Champion .

The last hand i played this level was also JJ , Max had limped and so did i , the button and blinds called and i hit a perfect flop of A J 3 , checked to me i checked hoping the button would try to steal , the turn was a 9 now Lee Nelson in the BB bet out 1200 , passed to me i raised to 3600 but no callers , still a good round and i am up to 15,200.

Level 3 and with the blinds now 100 200 there are a lot more preflop raises happy to win unchallenged and pick up the blinds , my first hand was JJ but no callers , then i play my momentum and raise with KQs , only Lee callls , flop is K J 4 and i plan to check raise , Lee bets 1200 and it seems weak to me so i decide to call and let him bluff again , turn is a Q giving me top two , i check and Lee fires out 2600 , oops i think , i have been here before , i allowed Joe Grech to hit a straight in Dublin after checking top pair , this smells the same , has Lee got AT ? I decide to call and make a decision on the river , the river is another Q , i bet out 5000 and immediately regret betting so big as Lee is capable of laying the straight down , he thinks for a long time and flips up the AT , if only i had bet 2500 .

I am still thinking about this hand when Martin raises to 425 , i look down at AQo , Martin has 4200 left and i consider raising but decide as i am one off the button i will probably have position on him after the flop and he may come out betting on a flop i can win all his chips , unfortunately Dave on the button also calls as does the BB and i regret not playing more aggressively . Flop is A K 2 , wow maybe this will work out after all , BB checks and Martin bets 1700 , i raise to 4000 , now Dave moves in for 8200 , back to Martin who passes , it's times like this you wish you listened to your first instinct , i know Dave hasn't got AA KK or AK so he either has AQ or more likely 22 , he is a good player and knows Martin is likely to come out betting on the flop with either an A or a K in his hand or even if he has missed as his table image is good , he also knows i know that and that i am raising with at least AJ so at worst his AQ is splitting the pot or his all in could win or he has 22 and i am in big trouble , i hate to admit it but i made a bad call , Dave did indeed have 22 , i was down back down to 8000 .

Often i tell you to be aware of double the BB raises , this happened today , an early position player made it 400 , Martin who had been taking a lot of flops called on the button , i had J9S in the BB and " knowing " the raiser has KK or AA called to try to get lucky , flop was 2 2 J , i checked , the raiser bet 1000 and Martin with A7s and the nut flush draw moved in for 4000 , i of course passed and the raiser called and turned up his AA ! , no flush materialised and Martin was out .

The same player made the same raise a bit later and this time i passed and watched , when the flop was A J 5 and checked to him , he bet , all passed and i said " AA again ?" and he showed this time it was KK ! I can't stress how valuable a tell this is , remember it and you will save a lot of chips or win a huge pot ! I managed to win one small pot by value betting top two on all rounds and getting paid , but still ended the level down at 11,200.

Level 4 was to be the last level of the day and on the first hand i had a sense of deja vu , Lee had raised and Max called as did i this time with AQs , flop was exactly the same as before A K 2 , Lee bet 2200 , Max called leaving him 3500 , i had a tough decision , i was sure Lee would check top two and as i had Max covered i decided to move all in , Lee passed and Max called , we had the same hand !

Back in the first level the first three hands i played were all 99 , in this last level the last two hands were 99 ! First i raised and the BB called , last year this same player had knocked me out i flopped a set when it came 4 4 A , ha had AK , we got it all in on the turn and he rivered the A .

This year he called in the BB , the flop was K 9 4 with two clubs , he had KJ of clubs to my set of 9's , all the money went in and i was up to 26,000 , he was very unlucky , he had 3000 left and when Lee raised his SB with QTs he went all in with AA , Lee had to call , first card was an A , the turn and river were K J !

I lost a few small pots then again picked up 99 , i limped for 400 and Lee raised to 1700 in the BB , i knew he would want to come back tomorrow and would need a very big hand if he raised him all in , i made it 9000 to go and he passed , i finished the day in 17th place of 67 with 23,875 .

A long way to go though with still 67 in the field and blinds starting at 300 600.