This was a one day event with a similar stucture to the $1500 , basically they gave us $2000 in chips at one hour levels but added a 25 25 level .

As always i spent the first 30 minutes learning the styles of the other players , i had plenty of time to focus as while everyone else seemed to be picking up premium pairs i was looking at filth , i finally defended my BB to a raise with the dreaded AQo , flop was K J 4 with two diamonds , i checked and called a 250 bet as i could either hit a J ( i'm assuming the A would improve my opponents hand ) or a diamond , where i could represent the flush as i held the bare A , turn was a 4 and this time he moved in and i was done with the hand .

With 5 minutes left i called a raise with 88 but missed the flop then picked up the blinds with JJ , the level ended and i was down to 1250 .

After one round of the 25 50 level i was in second position , FP limped for 50 and i picked up two black Aces . I raised to 175 , would you believe i got 5 callers ! Not ideal for my hand , flop was 6 7 9 with two clubs , BB and FP checked to me , pot was 1075 , hoping no one had flopped two pair or a set i moved in for 1000 , the next player who had two to act behind him asked for a count and when told it was 1000 flat called for half his stack , the other four passed , i assumed he had something like 88 for a pair with a straight draw , now remember there are two clubs out there and i am clearly representing an overpair to the flop , he had called me with 57 of hearts , now i would have played exactly the same with AK of clubs and he could have had a lot less outs , anyway the turn was a 4 increasing his outs to include any 3 and sometimes you just know it's coming , the river was an 8 to make his straight , i later found out this was the player who won the event last year .

So what does one do when knocked out in 1 hour and 10 minutes , i had a bite to eat and waited for the single table satellites to start , something i specialise in , unfortunately i missed one and the second looked like it would take an hour to get going , so it was either call it a night at 7.15pm or play the $100 Super Satellite , later in the week there are $515 Supers which i intend to play and i knew the $100 would be a crapshoot but hey i had nothing better to do.

When you play a Super usually there are two styles of play , one is play tight and take the double add on after the first three levels , this is usually a must as by then the blinds are 100 200 in the fourth level and your buy in is only 500 chips , or gamble in the first hour and take the add ons if required.

My table was clearly the latter , any two cards were deemed good enough and many pots were 4 to 6 players all in preflop , i of course got involved , won a couple , lost a couple and after $400 had 900 chips when i got lucky , there was a raise to 600 and three callers , i called with K9 , if i missed the flop i would then take an add on as we were 2 minutes from the end of the rebuys , flop was T J Q , unless the raiser had AK i would be unlucky to lose this one , i bet my last 300 and he called , he actually had flopped top set , no pair up and i now had 2700 , i took one add on to increase to 3200 .

After the break they announced we were playing for 4 seats , basically if you haven't already entered the main event you win a $5150 entry , if like me you have already bought in you get the cash , with 60 players left out of around 75 there was still a long way to go.

Once the rebyuys end your startegy should be to survive , not to try to accumulate all the chips .

My first hand i called a raise of 700 with 88 , when my opponent moved in and had me covered on a J 9 6 flop i passed , it was the same player who bust me in the $1500 tournament , our table was broke but we ended up on the same table , he was playing every hand , he limped for 300 , i moved in with ATs , he called with Q3s and made a flush on the river , i had 1500 left , two hand later he limped again , one player went all in for 600 , another for 2400 , i had 1500 and AQs , in it went , my adversary called for his last 1500 , he had 45s , the all in for 600 had 99 , the one who had us all covered AJ , flop was A 2 6 , if a 3 came i wouldn't have believed it , it didn't and now i had over 5000 , 40 players left , average about 2500 .

Once you have chips you change gear and steal off the weaker players by putting them to the test for all the chips , obviously if all your table are knowledgable this won't work , what did work was i found QQ v TT and doubled up , so with 20 players left i had 11,500 , we now had a ten minute break , when we came back it really did become a crapshoot , i was chip leader on my table but blinds jumped from 300 600 to 500 1000 and although i fancied winning with my chip position as the nearest on my table had only 6000 , i got a bad beat , i was first big blind and got moved to the other table where i was now surrounded by 3 stacks similar to mine with the chip leader on my left .

At these blinds your aim now is to maintain your stack by picking up the blinds once a round , i had average for the final so had a couple of rounds in reserve , by the 1000 2000 level we made the final 10 , i was in 6th place .

I survived by blind stealing then got a double up to 22,000 and thought with 7 left i was locked up to win , there were three stacks on my left lower than 7000 , in FP the biggest moved in which he has to with the blinds at 2000 4000 , i found QQ and knew if i won this we would be down to 6 and with a third of the chips could just blind away to a seat , i moved in , no callers , the FP had AK and flopped two pair , i still had 15,000 but now i had to post 4000 in the BB , all passed to the SB who flat called , i checked with K5s flopped a K and moved in no call .

Two rounds later and all the short stacks bar one had survived , 6 left , i moved in on the button with KJo for 7000 , the BB called with 66 , i rivered a J , phew !

With minutes to go to 3000 6000 i was in FP , i moved in for 8500 and was very lucky that all passed , the BB only had 5000 left and should have called with any two cards , this really gave me a second wind , in the SB i moved in putting the BB to the test for all his chips , i had K8o , he passed , blinds now went 3000 6000 , before it got back to me it was all over .

The button moved in on a survival steal but found the SB with a hand and was out ,then with 5 left the guy who should have called my all in on the previous round was all in for 5000 , the SB called and the BB checked , he showed me he had 56s , flop was Q 4 4 , both blinds checked , turn a 3 , he had picked up a straight draw , river a 9 , there was no way his hand could be beating anything the blinds held and in fact they had only slightly better preflop with 84 and 86 but the 84 flopped a set and it was all over .

So after playing a Super i never intended to , 5 hours and $625 later i won $5150 , tonight they have the last $100 Super so i might as well try again then i will play the two $515 Supers . Any win is good but after the way the last two events went this was particularly pleasing and has made me confident for the WPT at the weekend , let's hope it's the start of a good run .