Before poker took off he had one of the best records of anyone in the Championship event at the WSOP , 1st in 87 and 88 , then 2nd to Phil Helmuth in 89 , he has alongside Doyle Brunson won 11 bracelets but has been playing at least 10 years less than Brunson and against bigger fields than some of Doyles earlier wins .

I spent 8 hours on the same table as Chan in 2002 during the $3000 No Limit event , i made the final 8th in chips , he was chip leader and with 4 left he called my button raise on his BB , i had 99 , we checked the A high flop with two diamonds but when the 9 of diamonds came on the turn all the chips went in , he had K8 of diamonds for the nuts , the board didn't pair and i won $59,960 , somehow having had 75% of the chips Chan finished third.

I have always listed him as one of the best players in the world so when i heard he was playing at the Western i wanted to go along say hello and see if i could get a shot at playing against him again.

It was only a small field as it clashed with other events but 60 players put up £1500 each and with 15000 chips and 45 minute levels starting at 25 50 there was plenty of play .

When we all sat down we found an orange in front of us , this was in honour of Johnny who is famous for having a dried up orange as a lucky charm . He was announced to the assembled players and came in to an enthusistic ovation. I was on table 9 seat 4 , there were three WSOP bracelet winners in the field and all of them were on my table !

In seat 3 Lawrence Gosney who must have had a plane to catch as he was first out , seat 5 Willie Tann , one of the toughest players to have on your right and in seat 9 the man himself .

During the first two levels i practiced pitching the cards directly to the dealer , with only AJo and TT once , i had plenty of practice , i was soon down to less than 10,000 , then Willie outplayed me , he had limped from FP , flop was T J A , we both checked , turn was a 5 , i had J5 for two pair , i check called Willies bet of 400 made with the comment " we have to build a pot " river was a 3 , and this time i called a 1000 , Willie of course had KQo and had flopped the nuts !

There was one interesting hand , Ian Dobson raised and was reraised all in , he happily called and flipped up AA , his opponent had 9Ts in clubs , flop was T J Q with two clubs , turn an A and river a K for a split .

Ian called a raise from Chan later with 78s , on a flop of Q 5 6 , he called a bet , a K on the turn was checked , but the river was a 4 and after Chan checked , Ian moved in , it was a big bet and looked like a steal , Chan thought and called , i assume he had AA or KK , he never recovered and was knocked out by Luke Patten who went on to win the event.

I survived an all in verses Luke when in FP i limped with ATs , there were 3 to see the flop which was K Q J rainbow , i bet 800 which was called , Luke now raised to 1600 , i reraised all in for 5600 and the player who had just called reraised all in for 9100 , Luke passed saying he had KQ , i showed the nut straight and my opponent had KJ ! Turn was the Q Luke had needed and i survived .

I then got really lucky at the end of the 150 300 level in the blinds , i had 82 and checked , flop was 8 8 5 , turn a 6 and the short stacked SB moved in , i of course called only to see he had J8 , a cruel 2 poppped up on the river and i was up to 20,000.

I wasn't really catching cards and tried to force the action with AQs and KQs missing flops and leaking chips , finally i got a pair of 6's and on a flop of 5 7 9 decided to be the agressor and reraised a button bet all in , he had 79 and called.

This lack of hands caused me to make a mistake in the 200 400 level that revealed a leak that needs to be adressed. In previous diaries i have explained how i discovered a mistake i was making was to check a flop when i hit top pair , in this hand i was in the BB with K2 , flop was K Q 4 two diamonds , i bet 1200 the sike of the pot and got two callers , turn was a 6 , checked to Luke who bets 2000 , i call , i figure he has me outkicked but there are a lot of cards i can bluff with , when the A of diamonds came on the river i see that Luke doesn't seem to happy ,so i decide to pick the pot up by representing the hand i wanted him to think i had all along , my mistake was i only bet 1400 into a 9000 pot , as he was chip leader he could easily call and he reluctantly did with KJo .

I was really pissed at my weak play , the A had been the perfect card , it put an overcard on the board as well as a straight and a flush , i had enough to make a 4000 bet to pick up the 9000 and make it a tough call for Luke but instead i made the right bet wrong amount , i rarely do this and i can only assume it is because i have only been playing one event a month recently .

I manage to maintain my stack around 12,000 after doubling up with TT v 88 then i saw a player get an extraordinairy run of hands , just as we ended the 200 400 level he doubled up with KK , the first hand of the next level he had AA followed two hands later by QQ , he was now seriously in contention and things were going his way .

I limped with 55 in FP intending to reraise implying a bigger pair , all went to plan as Ian Dobson raised to 2200 , round to the human card rack and he tossed in 600 to call what he thought was a 1200 bet , the dealer pointed out the raise was 1000 more and with 1200 now in the pot he called , of course if he had been paying attention he may have passed and i would have got my reraise in , i wonder if Ian would have called with A4o , anyway the pot was now 5300 and 1600 to call , i did , flop was A Q T , checked to Ian he moves in and is called by the BB with the hand he hadn't intended to play , KJo for the nuts !

Eventually he was to get me too , i was down to 6000 , blinds 400 800 , there was a raise to 1700 , he flat called , i had AQs and reraised all in , the raiser passed and now the limper started too think , i said " if you're hand is good enough to call a 6000 all in bet surely you should have raised the 1700 " , he replied i have enough chips now to gamble and called with 77 , flop was good for both of us 7 4 2 with two of my suit and i did in fact river the nut flush , however it was his night and the fouth 7 on the turn meant i was drawing dead by the river .

I was knocked out at 3.30am just before end of play for day one , the best hand i had was TT twice and i would say i played to 65% of my abiltiy , the key hand being the weak bet of 1400 into a 9000 pot , my next game will be the £1000 Pot Limit Omaha at the Vic on 22nd June , my last event before the WSOP , i will not make the same mistake there !

All the best