In the Omaha i played on Tuesday there were 180 players and entry was €300 with rebuys and add ons , last year it was €200 and had only 115 . The EPT last year was €1000 and had 229 , this year the last event prior to this years EPT cost €1000 and had 220 with alternates , finally seating 281 . The main event is €4000 and as i write is sold out at 290 with a reserve list !

Clearly this growth is partly due to televised poker but the main reason is the growth in on line poker , i have spoke to several players that have qualified on line , there must be nearly a 100 Scandinavians here alone .

Some of the faces i have seen include Devilfish , Marcel Luske , Rob Hollink , Dave Colclough , Pascal Perrault , John Kabbaj , in fact it' easier to tell you who isn't here , apart from Keith Hawkins and three quarters of the Hendon Mob ( Barnys here ) it's a who's who of poker , basically like Amsterdam .

On my first table of the €300 Pot Limit Omaha i had Willie Tann who won the last bracelet at the WSOP and Rafit Amit who won the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha at the WSOP where i came 5th .

We started with 180 and amazingly there were 261 rebuys and 151 add ons for a first prize of €67,000 . I'll keep this one short , i won a small pot with a set of aces over Willies 6's then after 3 levels took the add on to give me 9500 chips .

During level 4 this happened , there was a raise and a call , i had A Q J J on the button and called as did the BB , flop was 4 T J rainbow , the raiser bet 2000 , the player next to me raised to 5000 , i raised all in , back to the initial raiser he called all in for 7000 and turned his hand over , he had 8 Q Q K , the reraiser saw his hand and passed for his last 2800 , i assume he had a smaller set and knew i must have top set , i got 2500 back , turn the all in immediately hit his straight and the board didn't pair .

I then called a raise from Rafit with T J Q Q , when the flop came 3 T J i called all in , he had a K 9 for a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw , this time the board paired on the turn and i doubled up .

At the dinner break i had 6300 .

We came back and our table was broken , on my new table we had two big chip leaders dominating the table , eventually they took each other on and i now had one player with 50,000 on my left , i blinded away to 1800 then with the blinds 300 600 i called all in on my BB with A J J 6 which stood up , i then got A A Q 8 and doubled up again then i was moved .

Now i had 7000 and was on Devilfish's table , he stole my first BB then one round later i was in the SB with ATs 89s and raised the pot , the BB decided to put me all in for my last 2400 , i called , she had 56 78 , flop was K 3 8 , turn a 5 giving her two pair but the river a K and i now had 15,000 .

I survived the 700 1400 level then with blinds 1000 2000 and 32 players left , i was in the SB , Devilfish limped as did two others , i was getting 9-1 for 1000 more , i called , my hand was A8 of spades , J4o , flop was superb , 4 8 T with two spades , i went all in for 7200 , all passed to the last limper who called , pot was 24,400 , he had KK 33 with the second nut flush draw so basically he could only win with a T a K or a 3 , turn brought the T to give him his higher two pair and just to rub it in the river was a 3 making a full house .

Devilfish , Roy Brindley , Paul Jackson and Dave Colclough all made the final but finished out of the top 3 .

€1000 No Limit Barcelona

The next day i played the €1000 No Limit , i had bought in the day before and turned up 30 minutes early but when i went to draw my seat card i found that the tournament was sold out , all the seat cards had been given out and there was an alternate list , i was second on the list and only had to wait 5 minutes to get a seat .

The clock was 40 minutes , we had 5000 chips and blinds started at 20 40 , in the first level i only had AQo , on a baby flop i cjecked , turn was a Q , there was no money in the pot so i took the river hoping my opponent would bluff , river was a J making a flush , he bet 200 , i called expecting him to show a J but he had flopped the nut flush draw , checked it twice and made it on the river .

Towards the end of the second level my best hand was AJo , i decided to be a bit creative on the button and called with 34o , flop was 4 T J , there was a bet of 200 which i called as i knew the player had a J and with a flush draw there depending on the turn and his reaction i was sure i could steal the pot , turn was a Q , he checked , if he had made two pair i knew he would have bet , i bet 600 and picked up the pot .

After one round of 50 100 i was in the SB , i had 4300 left and AQ of diamonds , two off the button raised to 320 , i decided to call , if i raised to 1000 and he moved in i would have to pass so i decided to act after the flop . For an as yet unmade hand i couldn't have wished for a better flop , it came 9 T J with two diamonds , i had two over cards with the nut straight and nut flush draw , i fired out 700 , my opponent raised to 1650 , i knew unless he had KQ i wasn't a dog to any other holding , eg an over pair , set or smaller straight , also if he didn't hold one of those hands if i reraised all in he couldn't call , i moved in for 2700 more , he thought , shrugged and called for his last 2300 leaving me with 400 , i turned up my AQs and he turned over ............. answers on a postcard please , no only kidding , he of course had Q8o and had flopped the second nuts , believe it or not the strength of my draw makes this virtually 50 50 , of course i missed as the board finished T T .

I believe i made the right decision , in tournaments like this with 280 players and a 40 minute clock when you hit this type of flop you're either going to double up or go broke , to flat call his raise getting 3-1 for a hand that is likely to be no worse than even money would be weak ,there are situations later in a tournament where i may play the hand differently but not at this time.

How would you have played it ?

Today i had the day off while everyone else played a super satellite , it was €200 with rebuys and add ons and awarded 40 seats for the main event at €4200 a seat , that's amazing !

I hope to last longer than 3 levels in the Championship event , oh and of course when i moved in for my last 400 with KQs i was up against AQo , if i see any AQ's in the early stages tomorrow i think i'll just pass them , they seem to be my bok hand lately lol .