Dropped a few dollars on FTP tonight. Was significantly ahead - up to about $1075 - and then played like an idiot, getting all my chips in on about 4 occasions with by far the worst of it. Probably playing tired. Ended up back at $983.61.

I've been playing too much in the last couple of weeks, so I am going to take a couple of days off (from playing and posting).

Back in June.

Don't think Dise is going to tell me what happened to the "missing 11 cents", but it has added £1 to the balance so all is well - $956.88 ( I even feel guilty for raising it!).

Full Tilt played about an hour of 0.25/0.5nl - not very exciting - balance $1,018.11.

Dise is fobbing me off - balance still $954.89 - I guess we will never know what happened to the 11 cents - missing presumed dead.

The parent network told me I was wrong and my balance was $954.89 when I logged out on 24 May (brilliant - I know that, the point is that it was $955 when I logged out of the old system on 23 May and $954.89 when I logged in to the new system on 24th May), but I should really ask Dise. I have. It hasn't replied.

Tomorrow is the first day of my holiday. So I am going into work. Wonderful.

Paradise announced a while ago that it would be discontinuing as a stand alone site and would merge with the main part of Sportingbet (or something like that).

Its happened today. There are loads more players and the future looks a bit brighter - particularly as they have replaced the 1000 point $2,000 free-roll (1st pays $1000), which I won with a 500 point $2,500 free-roll, first still plays $1,000. I suspect there will be a few more players, but it looks good.

They also have a big Sunday tourny which costs $90 - and this week is $75k guaranteed. I might play a bit more here in due course.

But SCANDAL (!), the new software has resulted in a reduction of my balance from $955 to $954.89 (yeah I know its nothing).

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that they have multiple currencies at the merged site and there is some exchange rate fluctuation, but its a bit worrying.

I have e-mailed Paradise (mainly out of interest) and await its response.

Very curious.

Very happy today. Had a working lunch and came home at 4pm just in time to play a $22 tournament on Full Tilt. Had a very good feeling about it from the off.

There were 90 runners with a first prize of $576. And after an epic 3 handed and heads up battle (which combined lasted about an hour and 15 minutes) against MistaVR4 and 88tripeights8, I managed to take it down.

The blind structure on Full Tilt takes a bit of getting used to. The increases are much smaller than other sites, allowing more play, which is actually quite weird when you are used to all in in or bust poker.

I played very well at the final table. Went in with one of the smaller stacks (6 of 9), doubled up and then nearly crippled MistaVR4 when we got all our chips in when I had trip jacks and he had KJ.

Hats off to him though. He had 165 left and after most of the table went in against him about three times in a row in an attempt to knock him out, he was right back in it. Meanwhile I had a large chip lead.

Three handed the stacks fluctuated before I made a huge call with a straight (I had A 4, but no heart) on a board of 2h 2c 3h 5h to knock out MistaVR4 (3rd place) in a three way pot. I was certain he had an overpair (he had 77) but was concerned he would have lot of outs, which he did. River was a blank. 88tripeights8 said he folded K2.

Went into heads up mode with a 5 to 1 chip lead and after about 15 minutes called an all in bet (his third from the SB in a row) with Kh 10h to find he had Ah 9h. Flop was Q J 9, turn and river blanks; and it was all over.

Anyway :

• Full Tilt $1005.61
• Paradise $955

Hopefully the immediate danger to my bankroll has passed.

Losing session on full tilt. Started off well - got the roll up to about $550; and then overdid the loose aggressive thing; ended up playing like a maniac. Damn. $476.51.

Full Tilt Poker balance is finally over the $500 point ($507.76), so I am going to take a day or two off and concentrate on the proper job.

Full Tilt Balance now $427.86 - would have been significantly higher were it not for my kings getting cracked when all in against KsJh (he made a flush) and QQ getting cracked by J 10 (all the money went in on the J high flop he called and hit a 10 on the river).

Although progress is slow - I think the trend is just about upwards.

Paradise $955 -I played another $20 tourny there and self destructed when 3rd out of 12 - paid 5, only 34 started, ended up 11th - only tiny tournys on Dise these days - that's why I stopped playing there.

Had a few beers last night, so gave poker a miss. Quick session this morning on Full Tilt. Balance is now back to $409.61.

Got accused by some muppet of colluding/cheating with the guy to my right in a hand where I raise to $1.75 UTG with 99. Calls from seat 4 and the BB. Flop is an unattractive QJ3 rainbow.

BB checks. I bet $3.5 into the $5.50 pot. Called by seat 4. BB raises (another 11.5) to 14. I re-raise another 11 to 25 and am all in. Seat 4 folds. BB calls.

BB shows K 10 - 2 over cards and an open ended straight draw (although a 10 on the turn will give me some outs). Blank Blank follow and I have more than doubled up.

Seat 4 says -he folded the best hand -and then accuses me of cheating/colluding with the BB. What a nob.

Lesson don't mistake extremely bad play for cheating! I should have given up when the flop produced two over cards. The best I could hope for was that someone was getting frisky with AK or a small pocket pair (basically 88).

I thought my re-raise would drive out seat 4 if he had a pair (although AQ would normally hang around at this level) giving me a chance against one opponent. But it was mostly wishful thinking - I was almost certainly going to find myself behind against the BB, with 2 outs (or needing runner runner nines). I was just very lucky.

Played a little 1/2 Razz today. Chip Jett was at the table immediately to my left - got to love Full Tilt.

I actually played quite well for about 20 minutes, choosing my spots nicely. But I lost a massive pot when my made A3567 got beat by A2467 - opponent (random player) had two high cards showing and hit the Ace on 7th street (I think he would also have won with a 3).

As far as I can tell, any hand with a high card of 7 is pretty strong at Razz.

I lost another couple of largish pots and left with my tail between my legs $25 down. Still working on Razz!

Played a bit of no limit after that. After playing for ages without winning or losing much this happened.

I raise to $1.75 from seat 4 with 7s8s. Called by seat 5 and the button. Flop 9s Js 8d. I bet $6, seat 5 raises to $20.25 (hello overpair) pot $32.75, button folds I call ($14.25 more) and am all in. Seat 5 shows pocket aces.

At this point I am a 58.58% favourite (I win with a spade (9) a ten (3) and 8 (2) or a 7 (3) - so 17 outs).

Turn is 6h - I'm still going to win about 45% of the time (I can now win with a 5 as well, so have 20 outs). River is a 4d. I lose a buy in.

• Paradise $975
• Full Tilt $345.96

Got to get the Full Tilt balance back over $400 soon.

Something other than poker. Absolutely gutted yesterday when Saints lost the play off semi to Derby. Watched it in the Famous Three Kings pub in West Kensington - great atmosphere.

Saints acquitted themselves well on the night (although allowing Best to take a penalty was an atrocious decision by Burley), but not over the season.

Reaching the play offs is not an achievement. It represents a failure when your aim is to get promoted - you wouldn't want to put all your money in on a 25% shot would you?

Johnny Viafara and Chis Baird were awesome - they have been all season.

Poker - failed to cash in a $25 tourny on Dise on Monday. Nudging the balance up on Full Tilt.

• Paradise $975
• Full Tilt $382.61

I'm going to be in Vegas when the WSOP starts. I will be there whilst event 2 the $1500 nl is taking place. The question is: do I have the balls to enter it. I'm not really concerned about the cash, but silly things like how do find your seat worry me (the internet is great for gamblers like me).

I have been to Vegas twice before (May 2006 and August 2005). I haven't seen the WSOP in action, but I spent about 4 hours railing at the WPT Mirage event last year. Pokerwise, I thought it was quite intimidating.

Spotted/watched a load of big names (Negreanu, Juanda, Benyamine, Harrington, Chip Jett, Greenstein, Esfandiari, Zolotow, Ted Forrest and Scotty N among others).

But the worrying thing was the number of players my wife recognised.

The fact that my wife recognised Devin "hasn't he got short legs" Porter http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=50563 says something about the extent of my poker addiction.

Back in Paradise - success at last!! Yum Yum.

Paradise Poker has always been my favourite site (because I win there). The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act effectively crippled Paradise and in particular the games I played.

I was playing well had a large roll and then overnight, everything changed. My regular tournaments (or at least the players in them) disappeared. I started playing the $115 and $215 tournaments (because they were the only tournaments with prizes worth playing for), initially without success and ultimately in desperation, until eventually I moved away.

Since then I have had a bad run - leading to this blog.

On Thursday night I searched all of the sites for freerolls that might be worth playing and noticed that Paradise has a $1000 free roll every other night (pays 10, 1st prize $500) at a cost of 200 player points and a $2,500 free roll on Sundays (pays 20, 1st prize $1,000) at cost of 1000 player points.

There aren't many players left on Paradise. Player points are very hard to come by - I should know I've played there a lot and only have about 5,000. And since people racking up player points in the larger cash games aren't going to be interested in freerolls, it doesn't take a poker genius to realise there aren't going to be many people playing in these things.

There is no doubt these are the best value freerolls going. Compare and contrast with the prizes and entrants on Full Tilt, where you would probably have to beat off at least 3,600 people to win $100. If Chris "Jesus" Ferguson was doing his zero to $10,00o on Paradise, he'd be done in about 5 weeks, without investing a cent of his winnings at any stage.

Any way I had a crack at the $1,000 free-roll on Friday night (my third ever free-roll - I had a go at a couple of 1,000 point buy-ins for WSOP seats last year).

In common with most of my recent tournament attempts, I started well, built up a nice stack and then lost patience, donking off my chips having been in a very good 2nd position with about 50 left. Ended up about 38th out of 360.

I was unfortunately quite annoyed and stupidly logged on to Full Tilt where I immediately suffered two or three horrendous beats, leading to semi-tilt (and a stupid attempt at 1/2nl - lost $80 there). Ended the night with a balance of less than $300 but now back to $321.16 (not good).

Anyway today was the big day, the $2,500 free roll on Paradise. I had been looking forward to it all day, and for one reason, I knew I was going to win it. I had even planned what I was going to do with the money - I sat on the tube this afternoon debating whether to take out $600 or $500 to put on Full Tilt.

As expected a miserly 248 players (yes just 248 for $2,500 free roll!) stumped up the 1000 player points and, as expected, two hours 51 minutes later my Paradise balance increased from Zero to $1,000.

Get in there - its amazing how good it is to finally win again. Plus this is actually the biggest tournament I have won in terms of entrants (not cash). It is also the first MTT that I have won or even final tabled since September 2006 (although in fairness I have only played cash games and a couple of Sunday tournys since December).

Unfortunately this won't appear in my battered stats on officialpokerrankings.com, but who cares.

I got lucky twice on the way - fairly early on I got all my chip in with A Q against A K but two pair on the board and a split pot saved my skin.

I also got lucky in the all in phase with 3 tables left, when my A 7 on the button made a 9 high straight on the river to beat the big blinds A Q and to avoid losing about half my stack; and at

the same time this gave me a stack to really work with. Every other time I got my money in well ahead.

I made it to the final table in 2nd place with 90,000 chips (out of 372,00) and slowly nudged my way up to 180,000 by the time Bear497 and I went heads up (1st pays $1,000, second $500). Bear played almost perfect aggressive play at the final table (when one or two others contrived to cripple themselves against the shorter stacks).

I have never so far finished second in a MTT and as soon as we started playing I knew I was going to win. I have played a lot of heads up S&G's (in the past) and recognised his overly passive style straight away. I just chipped away at his stack without ever going all in and quickly had him down to about 80,000.

It took about 20 minutes to finish him off, ultimately knocking him out when my 9 6 hit trip nines to beat his 10 2 on a 10 high board.

Balances:

• Full Tilt $321.16
• Paradise $1,000

A sweet end to an otherwise pretty poor week. Paradise regained.

Disaster, the Betfair account is dead. Bought in for $50 at the 0.5/1nl HU table. Lost the whole buy in when my straight flush draw didn't make it. Rebought for the rest of the roll (about $80) and basically built it up to about 120 when I lost a huge pot with aces, got caught check calling two large bets pre-the river, before moving all in only to find the guy had at which point the guy had made two pair on the river.

That's what happens - the trapper gets trapped. It was perfect as well, and I should have had the roll up to $240 - instead - felted from the site.

I must not make the same mistake playing on Full Tilt. If you play outside your roll's scope, getting felted is guaranteed. Ultimately poker is a game of percentages and on a 70/30 hand, you have to have enough to cover the 30 times to take advantage of the 70 times.

Anyway lesson learned. You go bust.

I have had to reset the goals. My aim now is to get the FTP balance up to $2,000 by 1 September. After that the aim is get the balance up to $2,500 at which point I can play 0.5/1 nl full ring games (and will move down if I drop down to $2,000)

Current balance $451.61 and I am buying in for $25 to $30 on the 0.25/0.5 tables. I will feel happier when I get to $750 - at that point I think the chances of going bust go down a lot.

I have been giving the micro limit .25/.50HORSE game a go on Full Tilt.

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing at Razz and Stud Hi/Low apart from (for Razz) don't play unless you have 3 starting cards less than an 8 and (for Stud Hi/Low) play 3 high or 3 low, but never 3 in the middle. There is clearly more to it than that.

I am getting the hang of Omaha Hi/Low. And I am (at least at these levels) pretty good at Stud. Limit hold-em is not my speciality, but compared with the others, doesn't require too much thought.

Overall, I have lost a couple of dollars (but the buy in only about $10 -so its hard to lose big.

Won some on Full Tilt at the full nl ring game and also a bit on Betfair playing heads-up. Balance on Full Tilt is up to about $472. Betfair about $129.

Just finished playing a ($o.5/1nl) heads up cash game on Betfair. This hand caused my opponent to ask "do you even know how to play?".

We had both started with $40 and after about 10 minutes thanks to the rake he still had about $40 and I had about $30. My opponent folds a lot of hands pre-flop. Check/calls or check/raises on the flop and bets hard on the turn.

I have caught him with his fingers in the till twice in recent hands. But have had to fold several times after betting the flop. He also tends to stay in with small pocket pairs no matter how many overcards hit.

Dealt to me in the small blind 9d7d. I raise to 2. Opponent calls. Pot 4.

Flop Kd, 8d, 10s. Opponent checks. I bet 2. Opponent raises to 4. I call. Pot 12.

Turn 3s. Opponent checks. I bet 10. Opponent re-raises to put me all in (Pot $46). I call $14.

River Jh.

I win $59 (oh the rake!) with a straight 8 to J. Opponent shows 8s 4s (a pair of eights and a busted flush draw).

And the odds:

• Pre-flop me 63.06% opponent 36.93%
• After the flop me 61.01% opponent 36.93%
• After the turn me 34.09% opponent 65.90%

I reckon I was priced in for the call. Plus I didn't put him on the spade flush draw (I thought from previous hands that he had a pair of eights, pocket sevens or sixes, or possibly a pair of Kings).

So was this good or bad play?

Anyway, in response to opponent's original question, I said "yes and I also know when to leave".

And left.

Its been a reasonable week.

I'm having difficulty getting the balance to increase on Betfair. Play there in the micro limits is especially passive. Big pairs don't play too well, its better to get smaller pairs and look for a set and small connectors (aggressively).

Full tilt is going reasonably well.

• Full tilt $422.86
• Betfair $92.17

Lost a few dollars on Full Tilt today but managed to play a few hands with David Chiu who was playing 0.25/0.5, 6 handed limit omaha hi. Good bloke. One a nice hand against him with the nut flush.

Overall - up a bit in omaha, down a bit more in hold em, and down about $36 in total.

A mixed start, particularly on Full Tilt.

I am struggling at 0.25/0.5 nl. I have had a string of bad beats after getting my chips in with by far the best of it.

The other problem is that whilst I am quite a loose player and raise a lot, no one seems to call my raise when i have aces. Its happened five times in row.

I have also played my worst hand ever.

I'm the small blind with AA. Cut off raises to $2.5. I delay and then call. I look at the screen expecting to see the flop, only to see my cards disappear. Miss-click on fold. Idiot.

Despite the bad results at 0.25/0.5, I am slightly ahead - but for all the wrong reasons. Basically I have been chasing my losses (successfully) at 1/2 nl. This involves playing with the entire bank roll and is a recipe for disaster.

One big hand. I am in the cut off with Ac7c and about $165. I call the BB as does the Button who has about $125. SB folds. Pot $7. F

Flop As Qd, 4d. I bet $3. Button calls, BB folds. I think Button has flush draw. Pot $13.

Turn 7d. Check, check. I think he has Kd and a Q and is looking for another diamond. I think he would have bet with Ad Qo or a made flush.

River Ad - Jackpot. I hope he's got the Kd now. He hasn't got the Ad, but there's about a 2% chance has the AQ boat. I think he would have raised pre flop and bet all streets with that. I bet $6. He raises to $20. I slow re-raise to $50 and he goes all in for another $69 - insta call - he has Kd9d.

Slightly better at the micro-limit today. But still suffering from a bad run of cards. Just lost a $30 buy in with 10h 8h flush against a Qh Jh flush. Got em back when I flopped the nut straight with 56 on a rainbow board of 2,3,4 - turn A, opponent has A3 and didn't get there on the river.

The folded ace count is now up to 6 in a row. No one ever folds if I have 10 10. About 8 folded hands later I get KJ suited in the c/o do the same raise get called, can't shake him off on the J high flop or on the turn and end up folding to a massive bet on the river with 7, 10, J, Q, 7, on the board losing $14 in the process.

So all in all lots of variance.

• Betfair $131.32
• Full tilt $334.16