I'll try not to make this too long , but suffice to say i did a lot better than last weeks level 2 . There were 7 tables of 5 and on my first table was Mrs Carol Hale , Oklahoma Jhonnys wife , they had come to Paris to run the Seniors event , and no i didn't play in it ! I may have no hair but i am still under the minimum age of 45 lol.

My first hand was against Carol when i raised her BB with KJo , she called and i checked the flop of K A K , turn was another A, yuk , on the river Carol bet 200 , as the blinds were only 5 10 i let her have it .

For some reason a lot of players have trouble adjusting to only having 500 starting chips and play too agressively for the size of the blinds , they started at 5 10 so we had 50 times the BB , i didn't see much but stole a couple of pots and ended the first level with 630 , then in the next level i limped in with 78s , flop came 7 8 7 and i put in a small bet which one player called , turn was a 6 and i moved in , luckily for me i had more chips as he quickly called and showed 88 for the higher full .

I was back down to 400 still ok with blinds 10 25 , i then got lucky in an unraised pot , all limped so i called with 35s on the button , flop was 2 2 4 , one player went all in for 120 and two of us called , turn was a 6 and i bet and was called , i was sure he had the flush draw , in fact the 6 gave him a straight draw as well with his 57s , no improvement and i ended the level with 1300.

Shorthanded No Limit there are obviously more hands and your starting requirements are not the same as a 9 handed game , also i tend to play far more aggressively and bluff many pots so i don't have as many hands to write about but of course there are key ones .

The levels were 45 minutes long and we lost half the field and i was moved , on my new table i was chip leader with 1200 when after a couple of rounds FP made his first raise to 150 , i called in the BB with KJ , we were only 4 handed on this table , flop was K J Q , i checked and he bet 225 , i raised him all in for his last 500 and after a long think he called , i can only assume he thought i was at it with a T for a straight draw or he thought i had AJ because he called with Q6 , i mean it's not as if he had seen any bluffs from me , i had only just sat down and we hadn't played before , anyway i wasn't complaining as i ended the level with 2600 .

With the blinds now 50 100 the short stacks were all in every hand and soon we broke to 2 tables , i found my first big pair KK and flat called a raise , flop was Q high and i moved in and was called by JJ , then i took most of Devilfish chips , i had limped with AK and with one caller Dave made it 700 to go , i moved in for around 2500 , he has seen me do this before with a medium pair in other events and said he was putting me on 77 so called with his KQs , i flopped an A and was now chip leader with 5200 out of 17,500 in play . The last time Dave had called me with exactly the same hand KQs was in the European Championships at the Vic , i held AA that time and he flopped two pair and turned a full house , i was out in 22nd and he went on to come second to Liam Flood , it's amazing how you remember these hands even years later.

We were now down to 2 tables of 4 and in the 5th level of 75 150 , it was to take another 90 minutes to get to the final 5 , on one hand i flopped the nut straight with JQ and the Queen flush draw , i checked and the BB moved in , flop was 8 9 T all clubs , he had K7 with no clubs , down to 7.

There was 3 players on my table and we had between us 12,500 chips to the other tables 5000 so you would think the strategy would not to be to take each other on without a hand , i raised in the SB to 600 with AJ and was called by the BB , flop was 9 high with 2 hearts ,both checked , turn was the K of hearts , i checked and he bet 500 , i passed and he showed me Q6 of hearts . No problem , i'll just play the player i thought .

Next SB i raised with 73o , he called again , flop 9 high again and we both checked ,turn was an A and i bet and he passed .

I had nearly 6000 now over a third of the chips in play but my 2 opponents started to raise every pot and with only one player to go to the final i was content to blind away , as i said earlier it took a while and during this period costing 225 every 3 hands i dropped to 4150 before we at last had the final .

On the second hand the button raised the blinds , the SB who was chip leader called , flop was J high and the SB bet 1500 , the button called all in , he had QQ , SB had AA ! Down to 4.

After a few rounds and some chip movements i found myself lowest chips with 2900 on the button , i raised to 800 with 66 , the SB moved all in for 3400 and i called , he had the even money shot AK , flop was 6 T K T 9 , back up to 6000 second chip leader , the next hand the AK player went all in with K9 on the button and the chip leader this time found QQ on his small blind , no K came down to 3.

Blinds were now 150 300 , i had 6000 , chip leader 8700 and the short stack 2800 , instead of gambling the short stack anted away and after surviving one all in was finally knocked out by the chip leader who now had 12,800 to my 4700.

I played a few hands to see if he was going to use his stack but he fortunately was not an aggressive player and let me see a lot of flops , i couldn't get in front though as the blinds passed back and forth and ended the 7th level with only 2600 to 14,900 , blinds now went to 200 400 .

I then got bluffed in a pot which reduced me to 2100 , the flop was J high with a flush draw , he bet 500 and i called , turn was a 2 ,we both checked , river a 9 , possible straight no flush , now he put me all in , i had a J with a weak kicker and passed , he showed me Q high for a missed flush .

With only 2100 left i would normally play very aggressive , all in a few hands to try to get even as i only needed to double up twice but when i looked down at AJ i decided to just call and outplay him , as it happens the flop came perfect , he checked the K T 4 with two diamonds and bet out when the Q of diamonds fell giving me the nut straight and the nut flush draw , i raised all in and he called , he just had a Q and i doubled up to 4200 , then came the hand i thought would get me level , neither of us raised and the flop came K 4 J , turn was another J , he bet 500 and i raised all in , he called , he had J6 , i had J7 , an 8 came and it was a split pot .

After an hour of heads up , with him still having over a 2-1 chip lead he offered me €5000 , we were playing for €4000 and €8000 , as the blinds were due to go to 300 600 in a few minutes which was going to turn it into an all in every hand i agreed to take 5300 to his 6700 and play for the trophy .

The play quickened up and we soon had the deciding hand , on a flop of 5 9 J K with two spades all the chips went in , he had A8 for one over card and the nut flush draw , i had KT for top pair and a gutshot straight which got there when a Q fell on the river .

Obviously i am delighted to win another event but i would have preferred the cards to be on my side yesterday when we were playing for €80,000 in the main event , overall though Paris was ok , i played 6 events , came 1st , 4th and 8th , now i'm off to Deauville to play my first EPT event of the year , i will use this last result to motivate me and see if i can make the second day this time on my way to the final .

ACES