/ James Keys / 04 December 2007 / 2 Comments

The biggest day of my poker life and the biggest bubble on the world tournament circuit, 36th place would get $54,0000.

At the end of Day 2 I got a definitely-fully-licensed taxi across London, getting back to my flat at about 1:30am. I'd been too nervous to eat anything all day, so assuming I'd be the same again on Day 3 I thought it best to eat something before I went to bed. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure fasting for 2 days straight isn't too good for the concentration. The fridge was bare of ready meals, so I ended up cooking myself spaghetti bolognese. Fortunately none of my housemates were around to wonder what I was doing cooking at 2 in the morning, this was one of the more surreal moments of the week.

Day 3 would be bubble day, with the biggest bubble on the world tournament circuit. 36th place would get £27,150, roughly $54,000, while 37th place would get nothing. I started with average stack and spent the whole day on the same table, finishing with average stack. Obviously, there were a few ups and downs along the way :).

I was drawn with John 'Pearljammer' Turner to my immediate left, and his loose-aggressive style made it very difficult for me to enter pots. I don't have the fearlessness needed to play back from out of position in this spot like Annette or John Tabatabai might, so I had to just tighten up and let Turner run the show for a while. John Tabatabai started Day 3 on my table, with just 13,000 chips. But after a couple of lucky breaks, Tabatabai picked up some chips and began to win a lot of pots uncontested.

Inevitably the two loose-aggressive players collided, Turner dominating with KK against Tabatabai's JJ, but fortunately for me a Jack hit the board and Turner was crippled, eliminated soon after.

Meanwhile I had actually been up and down like a yo-yo, having been all in with 55 against AK and winning, and losing a huge pot to Dominic Kay on a bluff, but I'd ended up with some chips and could relax a bit with Turner eliminated. I might write a hand-of-the-day for one of those two hands because they were quite interesting really.

Jamie Gold was moved to the table and as a few hours went by, I gradually lost some chips. By the dinner break the bubble was fast approaching and I was starting to get a little short, but not desperate. At dinner Jamie came up to my table and suggested we play a little slower to reduce the risk of bubbling. His logic was sound: If we play fewer hands than the other tables, they're more likely to eliminate players and put us into the money. And if they're playing slow, then we'd be the mugs for playing quickly. Jamie even offered to help me out, taking 2 mins over all his decisions too. I declined though, not in the spirit of the game I guess. Pretty silly by me, I could have cost myself £27,000!!

After the break, Jamie was true to his word, taking a full 2 minutes over his first preflop fold. I was inspired, and took 30 seconds over my 9-3o, but I felt really self concious doing it and a little bit low, so went back to playing normally. Without support, Jamie sped up too a couple of hands later. Eventually we were down to 37 players and the tournament clock was stopped. All tables played hand for hand until the nicest guy I have ever met at a poker table, Jeff Buffenbarger, lost AA vs KT all in preflop for 98% of his stack, leaving him eliminated all in blind the next hand.

Obviously I felt bad for Jeff, but I was elated to cash. Rumour has it Jeff's some kind of trillionaire anyway, he certainly took it well. A fair few mates of mine had camped out on the rail all day to follow my progress, there was a lot of clapping and cheering going on in the room, so when I turned to the rail I became a crass American for a moment, whooping, hollering and high-fiving with my mates. Eventually we ended up in some kind of big, weird, back-slapping group hug. Apparently, at this point all the camera crews in the room were focused on us, so I'm looking forward to seeing that bit on TV.

Immediately after the bubble burst, Jamie went out shoving Ace-rag of some kind, only to be insta-called by pocket 3s. Jamie wasn't too happy to be called but stopped by my friends on his way out to wish me luck, which I thought was really good of him. I'll go on record now to say that Jamie is a very genuine and likeable guy, even if he's not that great at poker :).

After that we played for what seemed like ages with nobody going out, so the two tournament directors called it a night and we stopped playing around 3am.

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