I guess it's time I wrote about it huh? I've been back home for a few days and have finally had some time to relax, re-group and reflect on my first WSOP experience, and take in the fact that I have now actually played that ultimate tournament, the Main Event.

Day 1 was a tough draw to start with. I had 2 maniacs to my left, one of which would call a re-re-raise, out of position with hands like 8-4 off (and hit massively) and as such had accumulated a huge stack. As such, whenever I raised, he was in the pot, and unless I actually hit I just couldn't win a pot off this guy, lowering my stack to 13k from the original 20k at one point. However, I got it back up to around 26k before being moved from table to table about 4 times and then went card dead for the rest of the day, leaving me with around my original stack with 18k.

Day 2 got off to a flying start however, with me nearly tripling up early on with 66s on a 6-4-3 board against my opponent's 33s (and a lot of limp-callers' money pre-flop). This bolstered me back up to the average of about 48k. Then I got moved to the table from hell. Everyone around me had a mountain of chips. I was tournament average, and yet I had an 8th of what these guys had. Once again I had Mr Maniac Insaniac to my left, re-raising every pot and hitting with his filth. Every time we lost a player, a new one with an even bigger stack was bought to the table. Anyway, this left me with little option but to sit patiently and wait for something decent, preferably a re-draw! Something decent eventually came along in the form of Jacks, but I played them badly on the flop which resulted in my opponent, who had 10s, to hit his 2-outer and reduce me to 36k from 60k. Damn and blast it!

Day 3 started and I was in the tricky spot of having 18BB and one of the shortstacks. Salvation came when I picked up Aces, and got 2 callers. Sadly, Aces are clearly no good for me as Mr 10-9 hit tens everywhere and sent me to the rail, in 1050th place out of the 6,800 odd entries. Still, I got some good ESPN time out of it and it was a great experience from start to finish!

On a totally unrelated note, I now have a facebook "fan" page! My blog will soon be going up there along with videos, pictures of me being silly along with various other things, so come and add me!

I also had to walk my first ever red carpet... and it's terrifying! You can't see your own feet for being blinded by flashes and your face gets a strange cramp from holding a stupid smile for too long (well, mine did anyway). Despite this I got to go on USA today's site alongside the aforementioned stars which was pretty damn surreal so a big thank you to Absolute Poker for putting me into the event!

Check out my photo of the newest player on the scene: Phil Affleck

So the trip home to England was clearly what was needed! As soon as I got back I entered the Pot-Limit Hold'em, made it through to Day 2 and got my first ever WSOP cash- woohoo! Now I'd never actually played a pot-limit tournament before but as I don't really play a dumb all-in strategy unless I'm really shortstacked I didn't find it a difficult transition at all. The only real errors I made was playing too conservatively around the bubble (which Annie will hang me for!) where I have to admit I let myself get rather shortstacked as I was so desperate to get the cash to my name....

The very next day I played the mixed-limit, which again was rather a baptism of fire. I'd never played limit Hold'em in my life, and this tourney alternated each half hour from fixed to no-limit. I had a huge hand early on where my flopped set of kings turned into a full house as my opponent made a weak flush and paid me off as much as the fixed limits would allow!

Before I knew it we were at the bubble again and this time I played it like I should have, stealing stealing stealing. My stack kept healthy and very soon we were through and into the second pay level. Unfortunately, the Kings soon came back to haunt me in fixed-limit when my preflop three-bet wasn't enough to stop the guy with tens calling and hitting the flop, thus crippling me. Still, I'm pleased with my performance, especially in these new variations of the game.

Duncan and I also used one of my days off to go to death valley, which is about 120 miles outside of Vegas. All I can say is this: 50 degrees Celsius isn't good.