Well came in from a wonderful evening's work to the ladbrokes xmas gift pp 3000 added freeroll - soon realised that i wasn't in the mood for poker when I saw that 1900 people had entered - most of them cash players - I hate cash games and i'm sure these guys - at least some of them - are good at what they do but I don't see what the fuck they are doing in MTT's - constant complaints of 'i'm bored' 'this takes too long' (my own sentiments when playing cash) etc were punctutated by calling big raises with shit and calling any size bet to ther river. I finally cracked and pushed all in on a Q high flop with JJ only for the table big stack / calling station to turn over Q10. To be honest I was glad to be out of it. Was also playing a 2.50$ freeze on stars - glad to be out of that too as I lost most of my stack early on when my 6x BB raise was called by the mighty J7 suited which hit his flush on the turn after calling a big bet on the flop.

Was pretty much giving up for the night but entered a 50$ freeze on Mansion - to be honest I can't really remember what happened but think I tried a bluff for big pot and it didn't work.

As for the rest of the night - well - ladbrokes first. I have a very small bankroll on there (about 30$) so can't really excuse 'playing' 3 X 3$ all in heads up sats to the graveyard. Didn't win one otherwise i'd currently be writing about how I played really well then didn't get a chance and finished just outside the money. Wow I even know how I do in hypothetical tournaments.

Continuing the sensible approach to bankroll management I then entered the 6$ quick blinds - 66 runners - sneaked on to the FT low stacked and left it as the winner - 118$ sounds like a million to me right now on Ladbrokes so i've now got something to play with on there. Still gonna have to play those 2$ stt's if only to finish off the series of ten I started.

Played 2 other stars tourneys tonight - the 5 rebuy which i somehow cashed in despite losing most of my hard earned stack when my early position raise with QQ was raised by the next guy with A9 - I called - he hit - crippled. I don't often give abuse in the chat box but made an exception. At least i cashed.

The other one was & 10$ freezout with 2285 runners. As I write it's been going 4 hours 40 mins and I am the extreme short stack - wahey got AK - now still very short stacked - 61 left but only the FT worth decent money.

There's something I really enjoy about these Stars mtt's - somehow it seems that decisions aren't automatic as they are elsewhere - each hand seems to require more on the spot analysis rather than an obvious response. Could also be the fact that i'm cashing regularly - something i'm starting to get suspicious about - this run of cashing in probably over 70 per cent of stars tourneys must be just a good run and down to positive variance.

Wahey - A9 utg looked very good with only 1 and a half BB's left and doubled against sb's 22. A few hands later i'm all in with AK from mid position and steal the not unconsiderable blinds.

I then find A10 in the BB - the sb is the only person left who has a lower stack than me so I call his all in - his A7 hits the 7 in the flop and once again it's goodnight etc. Still, 50th in such a big field isn't bad.

so merry xmas folks - no poker tomorrow as I'll be on a 15 hour shift explaining to the Sudanese refugees why they have to sleep outside so that the drunken French homeless can take all the beds. Cost of living is so low here that one or two decent cashes could see me giving up work for 6 months. Stars results seem to be encouraging in that respect but it's probably just variance and i'm shit at poker.