The last 2 nights i had gone to bed at 3am so i read until 2.30 then went to sleep , or tried to ! I was thinking about the year so far , i have travelled to 11 different countries , 27 tournaments , approx 80 events , made 11 finals won 2 , highlights were 5th in the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha at the WSOP followed by my second place in Amsterdam in the Pot Limit Omaha while defending champion , Best Overall in Paris and Captain of Team Uk Betting in St Kitts winning the Poker Room Pride Team event , but i still hadn't made a high entry No Limit final and this was frustrating as with 29 previously i expect to . Maybe this will be the one i thought.

At 5.30am i still couldn't sleep so started to read again until 7am , then i got up for breakfast and after booking a 3pm wake up call finally got to sleep at 9am , i woke up at 4.05 , the hotel had programmed the call for the next day , i made the casino by 4.15 and they were just about to start , i picked up KQs in the SB flopped trips , slow played and milked a 600 bet on the river then went back to the hotel , luckily 30 metres away and showered and focused getting back for the start of the second level , although the levels are an hour long i still had more than i started with.

The table was a good one , i was in seat 8 and in seat 2 was Ilari Sahamies , a high limit cash player and super aggressive , we were bound to clash , he had position on two tight players and routinely stole there blinds , in fact most rounds he would raise 3 out of the ten hands.

After only playing the one hand so far i called a raise with 99 but the flop was A T T , then i won two pots with AJ and AK where i check called to extract the maximum then just as all was going smoothly i lost what i had gained , i called a small raise on the button with ATo , flop was 2 4 6 all hearts , raiser checked as did the one caller Chandra Kajuria who i have played with many times and he had already doubled up , i had the A of hearts but wanted to get paid if a heart fell so checked , turn was an A , now Chandra bet 3000 , the pot was only 600 , i thought i was winning but flat called as Chandra doesn't back down once he has chips out there and he may get lucky but more importantly i put Chandra on an A with a flush draw so if it came i could win a big pot , river was an offsuit 5 and Chandra moved in , as i had the nut flushing card and would have flat called with the nuts on the turn this was a surprising play , i passed , later i asked Chandra what he had , he said A3 .

Blinds stayed at 100 200 for level 3 with a 25 ante and i still had 17950 so no problem just have to wait for a hand , after nearly 3 hours i still hadn't had better than 99 and Ilari was building his stack by 550 a time , when he raised yet again and was flat called by the tightest player on his left i could now also call on the button with 45s , the reason was i knew he wouldn't bluff the flop with this guy between us , flop came Q J 3 , Ilari checked as did the caller , i was happy to take a free card which was a 2 , Ilari knowing the tight player had missed the flop and assuming the 2 made no difference to my hand bet 2000 , i called , river was an A , i knew Ilary would have led on the flop if he had KT so my straight was good , he checked and i bet 2000 but he passed. I won one more pot when the player to my right raised for only the second time , i called with 56s , the reason was i knew his hand , when he raised he also said "raise" quite forcibly , this is usually a tell that a player wants to make his hand seem stronger than it is , i put him on AQ , when the flop was 9 high and he checked it was an easy steal , i ended the level with 19,275.

Several times Ilari would bet 6000 on the river , of the four times i saw him do this twice he had a hand and twice he was bluffing , after a raise from mid position Ilari asked for his chip count then flat called , i had AJs in the BB and called , flop was Q 7 7 , all checked , turn another Q , all checked , river a J , checked to Ilari he made the 6000 bet , i made what turned out to be a bad call , he had KQs , i was down to 10,000 and had to take some chances as premium hands weren't forthcoming.

The next button i had 7Ts and called after 3 limpers , flop was 8 9 Q and all checked , turn another Q , again all checked , river a 6 now the BB bet 2000 and Chandra called , i was sure they had split Q's so raised to 4000 , both passed , back up to 16,000.

Antes were now 50 and blinds 200 400 , Ilari now had 40,000 and was hammering the table with constant raises picking up 1100 a time , i was getting crap cards and decided as no one else was prepared to take him on i was going to make a stand , i raised his BB with 34o , the button called as did Ilari , flop was A 4 T , Ilari checked , i bet 1400 , button passed but Ilari called , turn was a Q , he checked and i knew the best bluff would be on the river so checked too , river was a 9 , he checked , i bet 4100 , Ilari knew at best i had one pair and thought for a couple of minutes before finally passing , i deliberately showed my hand hoping it would slow him down and let me take some control of a weak table , also it would allow me to set him up later if the chance arose.

Finally i got a hand , KK and limped as it was Ilaris BB , the SB called but Ilari checked , flop was too good K J J , all checked , turn a T and now the SB bet 1000 , Ilari passed , i raised to 2500 hoping as he only had 6000 left if he had a J he might move in but he passed .

A bit of momentum i thought as next i get 99 and raise to 1300 , two callers inluding the usual , flop was A 2 3 , Ilari checked as did i , the next player went all in for 8100 and Ilari made a bad call with JJ , he had obviously slow played them trying to catch me but his opponent had AQ and doubled up.

We stopped for dinner and i had 16,000 average was 24,000 .

I lost a pot where i called a reraise on the turn with a straight flush draw and second pair , i put the raiser on 67 or 78 so when the 7 paired and he bet out i passed , flop was Q 9 7 6 7 , he had 82o lovely , if we didn't have so many chips i would normally have reraised all in on the turn but there was no need to take risks with draws at this stage . I then had another frustrating moment , i won a small pot with red 7's making a flush , the very next hand i got dealt the exact same hand , Ilari raised as usual and i was intendng to call in the SB but the button reraised , i passed , Ilari called and the flop was 7 9 T .

I was rapidly blinding away and so when i fell to 9000 and there were 3 limpers K6s looked like a value call , we ended up with 6 seeing a flop that came K J 4 with two diamonds , all checked , turn was the 6 of diamonds and when it was checked to me i stuck my 8000 in and prayed , everyone passed , after 5 hours i still only had 13,850 , it was now going to cost 1400 a round.

I'm not a superstitious person but when i got K6s again i decided to raise with it and got two callers , Ilari must have gone to the toilet or it would have been three , flop was K 6 7 , i bet 3000 but no callers , but i was on a roll , after a bet of 2000 and one call i moved in with AK and picked up the pot , then Ilari returned to raise my BB , i had AJ and called , flop was A high and i checked to the river where Ilari made his 6000 bet , this time i had him and won the pot .

Once i have chips i can play more freely so after limping with JQs i called a 3000 raise , flop was J Q 5 , i check raised his 5000 bet and finished the level with a much healthier 36,850.

Now into the 7th hour with blinds and antes costing 2200 a round and Pascal Perrault joined the table on my right next to Chandra , he had 63,000 chips second only to Chandra with 75,000 , most flops went unseen as there was a preflop raise and i didn't have anything to write until this happened , Chandra raised to 2800 , Pascal made it 6000 , i smelt AA or KK , all passed back to Chandra who reraised all in , Pacal called , Chandra had the KK , Pacal had AK and flopped an A to win a massive pot .

Okay back to Ilari , he raised to 3000 , i found QQ in the SB and decided not to play cute but made it 9400 , he passed , of course even with Pacal between us he still didn't slow down , on my next button he raised again , this time i called with 22 , flop was Q T 2 , i was dreaming of a double up , we both checked , turn was a J , again i checked , river a T , i bet weak but no call , however i showed the full house to make the table think i was hitting flops , i then raised with 23o got one caller , flop was A 2 A , both checked , turn a 6 and i bet and showed the 2 saying he was lucky he didn't have an A , i was up to 40,000 and feeling good.

Pacal on the last hand of the level got a 35,000 gift , the SB limped , he had just gone from 9000 to 39,000 in two hands , Pascal raised to 4000 as if he sensed weakness and could have anything , the SB called , flop was 9 high , checked to Pascal he bet 8000 , the SB immediately raised all in and Pascal just as quickly called , the SB had Q9s but Pascal had played brilliantly with his QQ .

Just before our table broke Pascal won another nice pot , he had limped with K9s , flop was K 6 2 , BB checked , Pascal bet 6000 and the BB moved in for 24,000 , Pascal called , BB had K2 but the turn and river provided the two cards to give Pascal the nut flush !

On my new table my first hand was TT , not knowing how anyone played i flat called a raise of 2400 as did two others , flop was J high and the raiser bet 5000 into three of us , i passed as did they and he showed AQ marvellous .

I won one pot with AKs after two limpers then after watching for a few hands i set up a play , basically there were three players with less than 17,000 and each time it was there blind they would move in if unraised so when i saw the BB had around 16,000 i limped with AK , the next player chip leader with 70,000 also called , next two passed and as planned the BB decided to pick the pot up moving in for 16,200 , i now reraised all in for 40,000 to get it heads up , chip leader passed , BB had 67o , flop was Q 8 4 , turn a 6 but gave me the nut flush draw , blank on the river and i was down to 24,000 , two hands later the table was broke and i now find myself on the right of the tournament chip leader who has 240,000 , going to be tough to steal his blinds !

We are now in level 9 , the last level of the day , antes 200 , blinds 800 1600 , with it costing 4400 a round i have to forget i could have had 60,000 and concentrate on getting through to day 2 , there were 150 players and only 9 get paid so with 55 left there is a long way to go.

After blinding away i find QQ in the SB and call an all in for 11,200 , he has A6s but doesn't improve , i am back up to 36,000 , twice i pick up the blinds with 9Ts and AKo but it isn't enough and i finish the day with 26,400 , average is 61,000 , time for bed.