It was a small turnout this week, only 5 brave souls made the trip to Emily and Kris's ... and one of them (Pete) only turned up with enough for one buy-in. No matter ... 5 is just enough to count for league points, so it was game-on.

Now, sadly, I am not one of these players who has encyclopedic recall of hands played ... this report may be sparse on that front, but I will do my best. The opening few levels were a cagey affair ... with some of the tightest play I've ever seen at TCP. Apart from a few suicidal moves by Emily, trying to bluff Kris out of pots in which he'd made monsters, there were no re-buys at all at the first break ... it was most unusual. There weren't many show-downs, and it was common for a sizable raise to come at some point in a hand, which had a great chance of taking it down.

The only hands I can specifically remember were a couple of flop bluffs I put in against Steve and Kris ... Kris thankfully folded, but Steve sadly called. I never know what to do in that situation: I know that if I had balls I'd bet again on the turn, that time even bigger, but I am not that brave. I checked the turn, Steve bet, and I folded feeling a little daft.

During the 3rd level Pete was beginning to get low on chips, and we started to see a few more all-ins. Apologies, but I can't remember the specific hands, I think Pete won the first of his all-ins ... but was still quite short-stacked, and ran into Emily with a fairly big hand on his second, and that was that.

Kris had been chip leader early on, but as the game got closer to freezeout time his chips had begun to dwindle. He kindly gave a lot of the chips he'd won early back to Emily, and then ran into Steve's pocket aces to force him to buy-in. A few hands later I myself found the same cards, made a small raise, and was re-raised by Kris ... I called and we were heads-up to the flop. I was hoping to slow-play and get Kris to go all in, as with the recent rebuy he was quite short-stacked ... the flop was slighly concerning to me, JJ9, but it all went to plan as Kris went all-in on A9s, I called and he got no help. We had lost our second player ... it was down to 3, and the freezeout hadn't even started yet!

At that point, after a stunning run of cards, Steve was a fairly sizable chip-leader, with me and Emily pretty short-stacked. Whilst it was 3-way I had to buy in after going all in on a 9-high flop with 92o (yes, it was stupid) ... Steve dwelt a little but called with j9o, and I 'invested' another fiver. Just before the freezeout beeper i doubled-up on Emily in a hand I can't remember, this left her faily short, and on the final hand before freezeout she took a bad beat that saw her out of the tournament. Again, I can't remember the specifics beyond the fact that on the river Steve was drawing to a 3-outer, and he hit his saving King ... not a nice way to end it, but, that's poker :)

That left us heads-up, with Steve having quite a large chip-lead ... roundabout 18,000 to 4,000. This made matters fairly simple for me, any half-decent hand: all-in. Steve was either having a terrible run of cards, or playing a cagey game, because I managed to go all-in about 4 or 5 times, and gain a few blinds, before I was called. My ace with a crap kicker held up against a couple of face cards, and that left us more or less equal.

This meant we were able to play a few more interesting hands, and we traded blinds for a little while, until Steve raised my big blind when i held QTo. I called the raise, and the flop was fairly nice J9x. For reasons that escape me now I checked the flop, but so did Steve, and the turn was a rather lovely 8 ... making my standard move i checked it, but sadly Steve still hadn't found enough to bet with and we saw a river. It was another innocuous card, so I made a smallish 3,000 bet hoping for a call ... luckily Steve had made a pair somewhere along the way and obliged. This hand now gave me a fairly substantial chip-lead.

Continuing my good fortune in heads-up, a few hands later I held A2s which had paired the 2 on the flop. Steve went all-in, I thought for a little while, but decided it was worth a call ... steve turned up Q6o that had missed the flop, no help came, and that was that. Although the pot was fairly small, it is always nice to get 5 points, and I was pleased with the way I'd played for the most part ... bring on next week.

Phil - Mr Consistant