AAgh

First hand shown on the Open show tonight was Pheebs' AA being cracked by Jim-the-Tim's AK. There was a king on the flop, but one king had been mucked, so Jim was drawing to a one-outer, and hit his set on the river.

I was reminded of that hand when I went out exactly on the hour mark. I'd been bumbling along short-stacked until I trebled up with AT, but soon afterwards came the killer: the cutoff raised (with QTs), I reraised on the button all-in with AA, she called. I watched the screen from behind my hand, and sure enough, she made her flush on the river.

What's worse in poker

... than being beaten by a dominated hand? Tonight in the Bounty Hunter, for example, I'm all-in with KJ against K8 and... I'm all out. Technically that's known as variance, but I prefer the term F*******K OFF! (Nothing personal.)

I'm been suffering from a bad bout of variance the last couple of days, but to be philosophical about it, it's better to be beaten playing well than playing badly.

At least I'm still in the freeroll. My luck was better there. Fourway all-in with 44, the flop is all paint, but then... Broadway on the board! That top prize of £81 could still be mine...

Suggestion for Sky Poker: can we have higher-value freerolls? The highest freeroll buy-in is 200 player points, with a £1000 pot. How about a 500-point buy-in tourney? At the mo I've got over 3000 points burning a hole in me leotard.

(Spoke too soon: out in 14th (£2.55 and no t-shirt!) in the freeroll. I'm all-in with QQ, DangerMog has 99, which transmogrifies into 9999. Bleh.)

Update 2: Congratulations to John Ryan for winning tonight's £1750 gtd Velocity tournament. Thus he joins the elite club of studio guests who've won one of the live tournaments.

A6

A6 is now officially my bogey hand. Two outdraws last week, and tonight I push all-in postflop with A8, A6 calls and hits his three-outer on the turn...

Two Canadian guests on the show tonight: Wade McElwain and his rather nice gf Katherine Ryan. Hope to see her - er, I mean them - er I mean the happy couple, er - on the show again soon.