I bluffed off my entire stack. I got 7 8. The amateur player raised to 20,000. I had 250,000 left. I called, the big blind called. Flop comes K J 2, two diamonds It was checked to me. I bet, big blind called, other guy folded. The turn came a blank, I bet 75,000….he called. On the river, I moved all in, and he thought for about 8 minutes, and called. Good call. That’s the way I play. I play hard, I die hard. Just missed the money this time.

Were about 80% through the tournament now. We’re getting close to the money, we can smell it. I got into a pot with Steve Dannenmann. Steve finished 2nd in the WSOP Main Event last year, and picked up 5,000,000 dollars. It was nice to knock him out, and get another notch on my belt. Steve raised from early position with KQ offsuit, and I picked up A Q of hearts. Steve had made a mistake the hand before when he went all in with A Q, on a flop of J 4 3, was called by Johan Storakers and had been crippled. He was down to about 60,000. He raised to 12,000, I came back over the top for 35,000 thinking he might be weak and desperate. He comes over the top, all in. Its only 25,000 to me, so I call. He shows me K Q, and I am a bit surprised. My A Q held up, and I took Steve out.

I have a wonderful table to work on. At least three amateur players. The guy who has the chip lead at the table is going all in on all kinds of flops. Chip Jett has built back up a stack, as has Johan Storakers, who is a good player. There are many opportunities now. I’ve got a great chance to build a big stack. I am going to take some risks, because the value is there. I want to see some flops against the amateurs. I made one mistake against the chip leader guy. I could have just called the flop, but I raised, and he came over the top with top pair, and middle kicker. He’s showing the cards all the time. Its good. He’s having fun. I like having him on the table. He’s got about 600,000 there for me, and I’m hoping to grab it.

Its been an interesting time from the halfway point to the ¾ stage, where we are now. I have been grinding really hard. My stack got down to about 110,000. I took a big hit from Juha Helppi. I ran into quad tens against Ace Jack with the board reading 10 10 J -I lost about ½ my stack there. Since then, I have played really well. I’ve been keeping my head low, and looking for good opportunities.

I’m at a new table with Chip Jett, who was the chip leader when I moved there. I ran into some pretty good hands. I got pocket tens. My opponent, Doug Lee made a move with A 6, and I called him, and my tens held up. That got me to about 190,000. Then, I picked up J 10 of Diamonds on the button, and I raise it 11,000 into Chip Jett, who was on the Big Blind. Chip is a really good player – he’s won many titles. Anyway Chip re-raises me. Its only about 30,000 to see the flop, and both Chip and I would have about 200,000 left after the call. I put him on a weak hand, and I thought my hand was good, and I was going to make a move on the flop. The flop comes Q K 2. Chip bets out 50,000, and I really thought he had no hand at all. And, I told everyone “I’m didn’t come 10,000 miles to get bluffed outâ€?, and put all my chips in. Chip dropped it quickly, and said he had 9 high.

That got me to 300,000. So, I am in the top 5% of the field in chips at the moment. I am in full flight, and really enjoying it. We’re getting really close to the money. But, I’m not here for the money. The top 100 get $45,000, which is nice, but I’m not here to get 45,000. I’m here to go a long way, and I hope to get lucky.

I came in this morning with 109,000 in chips, in the top ten percent of chip stacks. What a table I had. The champion of this event in 2004, Martin Dekjniff was in the middle of the table, but didn’t have a whole lot of chips, just under 50,000. Allen Cunningham was on my left, as was Can Kim Hua who is a fantastic player. Lastly, there was Chau Giang, who plays in the biggest game in the world at Bellagio. So, it was a really tough table, and I just decided I had to wait, and be very patient. Hopefully, some of these very good players go out, and some rabbits come in. And, that is exactly what happened.

Martin went out fairly early, he was a bit unlucky. Then, a loose player came in, took his seat, and that made things much better. Everyone relaxed, and we started chatting, and enjoying the game.

For me, I didn’t get too busy early on. I was fluctuating between 90,000-110,000. Then, I started to get a bit more aggressive as the new player came in, and a few holes opened up. I made a few moves here and there. I got up to about 120,000. Then, I picked up 88 in the small blind it was raised from the middle, and I just called. Then Can Hua moved in for his last 30,000. I decided to call him down, and my two eights held up, and another great player was eliminated. That put me up to 150,000.

Later I picked up two jacks on the button, Allen Cunningham raised from the cutoff, and I doubled him up with King Queen when my jacks wouldn’t hold up. That put me down to 96,000. Then I got involved with Chau, who is just a brilliant player. He raised in middle position, and I picked up pocket queens in the big blind. This is going back to yesterday – pocket queens was a nice hand for me. It looked very good, but I just called as he raised a lot. The flop popped out Q 6 9 with two spades again, the same as yesterday when I doubled up. I checked, and called the flop when he bet. The turn was the six of spades, making me a full house, but also putting a flush out there. I checked again, and Chau bet 20,000 – I decided just to call. The river was a blank, and I moved in. He called me with a flush with the Ace Jack of spades. That got me up to 150,000.

After that, not much happening. I picked up two kings against a good player, and got paid off pretty good with two jacks on the board. I ended up on 190,000 chips. My chip stack is in the top 5% of the field being just over half way through the tournament with 290 players left. I feel pretty good about this.

I played my day one today. We started with 50,000 chips. 606 players entered. $3.75 million to the winner. Even the 100th place player gets $43,000. It’s a fantastic event. You get seven days of play.

I started slowly today, with 50,000 chips and blinds of 50/100, the way the structure is, I think its best to wait for good hands, flop big flops, and get the money. We played 5 levels of 90 minutes each today. I wanted to wait for big hands, and get someone to play after the flop who shouldn’t be.

I got Aces early on. I raised, and got a call behind me. The flop was K 7 8. I bet, he raised, and I called on the flop. The turn was a King, and he bet 5,000. I thought about it, and this would leave me with about 40,000 if I called. I thought about it for a long time. I was pretty sure I was beat. But, I just called to see if I could get really lucky and hit the Ace, or he would check it down on the river. The river was a blank, I checked and he bet out 12,000. I had to lay it down.

So, after the Aces, I settled down a bit. I made a few moves, but nothing big. I was being very careful today, and wanted to get through. I got involved in a pot with Kenna James. On a flop of Q J 2, I had pocket jacks. I had just called Kenna’s raise preflop. Kenna is playing pretty loose today – raising a lot of pots, and I am raising a lot of pots, so we are having a lot of fun out there. He is on my right. So, anyway, I bet the flop, and he called. The turn came a 6. I bet 5,000, and he called. The river was also a 6 for running 6’s, and I went all in. I was hoping I could get a call out of Kenna, but he didn’t have much of a hand, so he dropped it. That pot got me up to 53,000.

After that, I had a number of Ace King hands. I would re-raise, and miss the flop every time. Nearly every time Kenna, or another opponent would bet into me, and I would have to let it go. A very bad day for Ace King.

Near the end of the day I picked up two Queens on my big blind. An amateur player raised under the gun. We later found out he had pocket threes. He raises 3,000 into a 1,500 pot. I didn’t want to get too busy with my queens, so I just called. The flop is Q 6 9, I’ve flopped the nuts. I check, he bets 7,000, and I raise it 13,000 more. I say to him “You’ve got Ace King, You’ve got Ace Kingâ€?, really needling him in a big way, it was funny. “I know you’ve got Ace King, you can’t call thisâ€?.

So, this poor guy with his pocket threes has a brainstorm. He hears me telling him ‘You’ve got Ace Kingâ€? and he thinks he’s got better than Ace King with his threes. So, he goes all in. Obviously, I’ve got the nuts, so its an easy call. So, this guy gives me all his chips. He got into this tournament on a $15 satellite, and he was tired – these are the type of people we need. And, at the end of the day, he had just had enough, and he gave me 43,000 chips, which put me up to 96,000 chips with 30 minutes in the day. Later on, I picked up Ace King again, and I finished the day with 109,000, one of the larger stacks out there. So, I am definitely in the running, and looking forward to performing well tomorrow.

Well, I’m in the final of the Intercontinental Poker Championship. This will be heads up….everyone will see this on CBS.

My biggest accomplishment is knocking out the Russian out twice. Having a Lithuanian background, I love to knock Russian’s out. I’ve got Ralph Perry’s number. Ralph called me with King Jack suited, and my Ace deuce held up with nothing on the board. This is an amazing feeling, and I dominated the heat from the go. I didn’t come 10,000 miles to lose. I didn’t come to get bluffed out. They all try to bluff me. I can’t believe it. I called them every time. I think people come to play just to try to bluff me out. I had virtually no mistakes today. I called once with 10 5 of Diamonds, which was a bad call, but I had a really big stack. Otherwise, I made no mistakes.

I got very lucky once I got heads up with Yosh Nakano of Japan. I hope this puts poker on the map in Japan. If you are Japanese, check out jp.pokernews.com. I go to Japan, and I play poker in Japan. I love the people, and I love the culture. It’s really appropriate to play a Japanese player to make it into the final.

I’m the first guy to win my heat, and win the semi final straight away, and I’m directly in. I may not be the best player , but I have the biggest heart, and the biggest commitment to the game. I’ve had the toughest road to make it. This feels great.

Note: They have asked us not to reveal the final result before the TV airs. So, sorry….I can’t talk about it. Look for the program on CBS starting in mid June.

An amazing game today. The first heat of the Intercontinental Poker Championships. What a field. The lineup was Tony G in Seat one, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, and Carlos Mortensen. I was in the mood to play today. I’m not here to lose my money. I’m not here to get bluffed out. I was after Doyle today. I’ve knocked out Phil Ivey, and Daniel Negreanu in the last two months. I wanted to get Doyle for the hat trick.

So, very early I got my chance for the hat trick. This is the biggest hand of my life, and it’s a very interesting hand, because my entire tournament life was on the line. I either look like a star by calling, or look terrible by getting it wrong. Enjoy.

I was in the mood today. I wasn’t folding any hands on my big blind. I told everyone today. Do not attack my big blind, and my small blind…..This is my money out there, and I don’t want people to attack. So, early on in the tournament I pick up 8 9 on my big blind. I had not folded a hand yet before the flop in this tournament. The blinds were 6,000/12,000, and Doyle makes it 37,000 to go from 2 off the button. So, 25,000 to me, and I call with my 8 9. The flop comes A K 8 with the Ace and the King being spades. I check, Doyle checks. Which I found to be interesting….If he’s checking, I figured he’s not worried about the flush, or he has no hand at all. If he’s got a bad Ace, he’d usually bet there. If he bets there, I give him the pot. The turn comes the four of diamonds. On the turn, I check, and Doyle bets 42,000. I have a total of 160,000 left, and 42,000 is a big whack, but there is already about 75,000 in the pot. There is no way the four helped him. I know if I call this 42,000, I have to call the river. I’ve got to put him on no hand. I put him on Q J, actually. So, I called the 42,000. We have absolutely even stacks, about 125,000 of the initial 250,000. The river comes a 7 from heaven (7 of hearts), which I said ‘Oh, a seven from heaven’. I check, and Doyle very quickly moves all in.

Now, I go into the tank, and think I don’t think I can lay the hand down. I don’t know that anyone in their right mind could call all of their chips, to see if they are wrong, it’s just difficult psychologically. But I have done this before. I called Kirill Gerasimov in the Worlds Heads up Championship, and I was wrong. It was really bad, because I called all my chips off. At that point, I had won 13 heads up matches in a row, including beating Devilfish for the World Heads Up Omaha Championship in Vienna in 2003. The point is I had been through this before, and been wrong, and I didn’t want to be wrong again.

So, I’m thinking I will be really embarrassed if I was wrong. My whole tournament life was hanging in the balance. It was tough to call the great Doyle Brunson. But, it made sense for him to make a move on the river there. So, I started talking to Doyle. I said “I think you got Queen Jackâ€?. And I called. Doyle couldn’t believe it. It was difficult, because Doyle is my idol, and I have so much respect for him. It was an amazing feeling to bust the greatest poker player ever with a pair of eights on a board with Ace King into a raiser.

I am very humbled to win this hand. I’ll remember this hand for the rest of my life. I hate talking about hands, you will notice I rarely talk about hands here, but this is one I can take with me for the rest of my life.

I wasn’t going to lose it after that. The Devilfish was still in, and he was the chip leader. But, I was hot on his heels.

The next big hand was I raised the Russian. Make no mistake – having a Lithuanian background, I love to bust Russians. So, I raised on the button with Ace Three of Diamonds, and Ralph Perry from Russia moves in with Jack Seven of Spades. No help for the board for Ralph, and he was next out. Carlos was the next to go, as Devilfish busted him.

So, it was down to Devilfish and me heads up, and our stacks were about equal. It was a grueling battle. I took an advantage early on, with a lot of stealing. Devilfish was very conservative, wanting to see a lot of flops. The final hand for me was King Jack of Diamonds, versus Ace Nine offsuit for Devilfish. A jack popped out on the flop, and I was through.

This is the absolute best field that you could ever play in. All great players. It’s the best feeling to win this. Now, I am in the final six players of this tournament. I need to win one of my two heats left to win. I have one heat with six players, and one heat with five players. If I win either of these two heats, I will be in the finals heads up. I will update the final.

I’m in Las Vegas preparing for the Intercontinental Cup coming up on the 14th. This will be aired on CBS all around America, so everyone will get to see this. We have 21 players from every poker playing country in the world that they have selected. We have Johnny Chan playing for China, Gus Hansen for Denmark. Phil Ivey is in….but I hear there was some lobbying to get Ivey in over Doyle, and Phil was put in. Joe Hachem was in the event originally for Australia, but this is a PartyPoker.net event, and I guess PokerStars felt it unwise. I am very happy not to be caught up in all the politics. I’m just happy to play. It’s a $500,000 Freeroll, with no buy in, so its like having a $25,000 freeroll each, plus you can wear sponsor logos for some more possible money, event though it is a PartyPoker event.

Im here in Las Vegas, the weather is nice. Feeling good, getting ready, and hoping to perform well. The event is three days away. It will play out over three days – the 14th through the 16th. It’s a complicated structure, but the final is seven players. They say for the final, we’re going to have 7 million viewers watching on CBS. They are going to format it over three days on the air, just like a golf tournament. It will be fun, and I am looking forward to it.

By the way, 24h poker is making a book on this event. I am currently 12 to 1, which is down from the opener of 13.5 to one. Ivey is the favorite….no surprise there. Here is a link to the odds page Just click ‘poker’ on the right. See you all at Palms, or Bellagio.

Its all over. Team USA have outclassed us. We just weren’t good enough today. But, it was a great match, and it will be great TV. Our soccer player was out of sorts a bit today, and made a few mistakes, folding a couple hands he could have checked. But, ultimately it was a great match.

Kenna James was out of sorts also for Team USA, as he was crippled very early on. Our man Damon Rasheed was the first out, when he misplayed Jack Ten against Mike Sexton, but what can you do….he was the first to go. Kenna was quickly next out, he got a bit unlucky, but he was pretty short stacked.

We were down to two players for each team. Our football player, Mark Boznich, and the American Soccer player, me and Mike Sexton. We fought back to pretty even. We played pretty good poker against them. The next guy to go was the American soccer player, who got a bit unlucky. Then it was down to two Aussies versus Mike Sexton, but Sexton had about 55% of the chips.

Then, our guy decided to go all in out of turn. He was in the big blind, Mike was on the button, and before anyone acted, he said ‘I’m all in’. A bit strange. He was last to speak, but he spoke first. Mike found Aces on the button, and he knocked our guy out, and won a lot of chips.

So, it was down to heads up, me and Mike Sexton. I had about 140,000, and he had 560,000 chips. What a battle. It was great to be in that situation, but I wish I had more chips. I needed a bit of help to get even.

We played a few hands, nothing happening. Next hand, Mike limps in on the button, and I have K 7 suited. There’s 30,000 in the middle, because the blinds were equal in this tournament, so we both had 15,000 in. I have 112,000 left. Obviously, I’m going all in here. Mike found Aces, and was very happy. He flopped and Ace, and the turn paired the board, and that was it – I was drawing dead. He must have had Aces five times in the tournament, what an amazing run of cards he had.

Team USA, too classy, too good for us today. I put my hand up, and say they are a brilliant team. They go up against Gus Hansen, and the Danish Vikings in the Semi-Finals.

I was very happy with my game. I bluffed out a lot of pots, and made a lot of good plays. I put Mike off the best hand several times with complicated plays, and I was very happy with how I played.

I won’t make it to Foxwoods now. A bit too much to get there now. I’ll go straight to Bellagio tomorrow. I hope to play a few tournaments, and warm up for the main event. That’s going to be exciting, on the 19th of April. $25,000 WPT Championship.

Thanks to PartyPoker, who did a good job adding money to the tournament, and bringing sponsors to the event. See you all at Bellagio.

I really enjoyed the concept where teams get to play other teams and great poker players get to mix with soccer stars.

Today team Australia played vs Canada that included Evelyn Ng & Daniel Negreanu

We dominated from the kick off with the first victim being the Canadian soccer star, soon Evelyn followed and we were left with all three versus there one and Daniel did not have many chips. It was hard going for Canada against a team that was playing as a unit and really wanted to win. We are the first team ever to go through and win with all out players in tact until the end. The aim is to have your team member winning it and the whole team goes through so you dont want to knock your own out, once they are all knocked its over.

The final hand for team Canada was when Daniel picked up A-6 off and raised I called in the blind with K-3 spades. Flop was an Ace and two spades I went all inn and was called two more spades followed and Australia is through. Tomorrow we play Team USA that includes Mike Sexton and Kena James, this will be a great challenge.

Our soccer star Mark Bosnich is very good and probably rated as the best poker-soccer player in this competition. Damon Rasheed is our other member who is a very smart guy that has had many years experience playing online poker. The team is together and we feel strong going forward.

Denmark are also going strong with Gus Hansen leading the charge for them many bis stars are here in this is a massive event for Poker in the UK and the whole world. Its a great feeling to be the one to knock out the best poker player in the world and I got the chance today and was lucky, poker is great when things go your way.