I was saying to Bops on the drive up to this on Wednesday that I felt veryrusty and hoped for some kind of run to blow off the cobwebs. I managed to makethe money for a min cash, meaning I got the table time I felt I needed anyhowso I guess we can call that a small success.

I played day one A as I tend to do at €550 events, it keeps the expensesdown should I bust and means a refreshed start for day two should I make that;so win-win.

My table on day one had some very good players, Ross Johnson impressed andEPT London second Stephen O'Dwyer seemed decent, although one player stolethe show. Watching the Chief crush dreams for a full day was a pleasure to seeat close quarters.

The man is obviously a poker genius and was operating on a level so farahead of anyone else that we hadn't a clue what he was at. He amassed a top tenstack over the day mastering spots that would make Durrrr a nervous wreck.

My own day went ok, I was going along nicely and had more then doubled thestarting stack when I dropped about 30k to Ross in a hand he played well and Ididn't. I locked up for a bit after this, got going again to110k and thendonated another 50k to the same man AK v KK.

 This was into the last level and my 60k were looking very measlyamount when I got a table move. First hand at new table I get a double, raisingKQ utg and getting it in against a flush draw on a queen high flop. I pick upanother small pot two hands later when the table breaks and I’m allocatedback to the seat I had left three hands earlier with a much improved 130k. Wefinish shortly after this and I bag 160k.

Day two started very slowly for me I don’t think I played a single hand inthe first hour. I got a bit more active after this but every time I seemed tobe getting ahead of the game I lose a decent pot. Two 100k reversals spring tomind; AK v AJ in pre, and a blind on blind with Jacks v A7 where the acefloated and spiked the turn.

 I was grinding a re-shove stack on the live stream table for the twohours leading to the bubble and just as it bust I picked up AQhh and shove 23blinds over a late position raiser. Unfortunately the bigblind woke up with theboots.

I enjoyed the tournament and look forward to playingthe UKIPT Galway this week a little less rusty. DaGunman O'Shea has kindlyoffered me a loan of his crush hammer for the tournament so a deep run isalmost certain.