You have three eights! He has three eights! I'd never have put him on three eights.

Ok so after a long drive from Oxford to Gateshead I'm back where I belong at about half twelve one o'clock. The missus is always knackered after driving all the way so she slopes off back to her mams house for a kip. At a loose end I realise the toon are playing at home against Swansea. With this in mind I head off to SJP to pick up a ticket. Let the madness ensue.

So I get to the ground and join the que for tickets. There's a bloke walking down the que offering a single ticket and ne one is buying. He gets to me,

"single ticket mate?"

"aye"

"I'm selling my season ticket for this game, £20"

I tell him I don't have any cash on me kinda hoping he'd leave me alone and move on. It's not that I'm against this sort of thing but I'd rather get a ticket in the tried and tested trustwurthy way. Instead of moving on he throws me a curveball,

"well you could pay me later"

Now admittedly I am a novice at this sort of thing but I wasn't aware that you could get store credit off a tout. What's next a freaking loyalty card? So a no lose way to see the game, if the tickets bogus I just don't pay. This seems to work so we exchange phone numbers and I take the ticket. It's one of these fancy smart card deals so I scan it then pass it back to him like a dirty ticket baton pass. I have a scrap piece of paper with the seat number on it and that's where I'm headed. I arrive in the row and there's a kid in my seat, freaking brilliant this is. In true Bourne style I sit a few seats a long and wait for the stands to fill up. I can always take any empty seat when it's clear no one else is coming.

After going to put a couple of bets on I return with my chin up and tell the bloke he's in my seat. He moves a long one and all is merry. I don't have much to say about the game apart from the Gary Speed tribute nearly had me in tears. Although it might have been too cold to actually cry!

Fast forward three or so hours and I'm in Aspers with Ridla. We sit at probably the toughest £1/£1 game I've played at in a while. Ridla, Ali, Dom, The Hammer... after a while people move to the £1/£2 game and we are now at the craziest and loosest game ever. There is a short stack with £25 open shoving anytime he smells a decent starting hand and surprise surprise I'm the only guy who can't beat him. AT v A8 no good. There is a young kid who is betting and calling ,massive amounts, with nothing and a drunk Hungarian getting out of line all over but we'll get to him later and possibly worst of all a business man who commentates on everything all the live long day.

I start with £100 and get it up to about £250/£300 with two sets that are gooood. In a friendly limped pot I check 84 in the BB to see a 8x8 flop. I lead out for the pot whack starts Ridla off, "who leads an..." thankfully he tales off realising that I would and have indeed led the eight. The table Jessy May calls and to be honest I don't really remember the action I stack the dude on the river. I'd have thought this might have silenced him a bit. I was wrong. "he's got three eights! I could never have put you on three eights!" Ridla never being one to pass up a needle, "he's got three eights mate".

Ridla looses a biggish pot and then gets needled by a guy, "put that on the forum Ridla". Not 100% what that means but moving on. Aspers reg Ray looses a pot when he flops broadway, gets it all in but the guy goes running house. Not noticing this Ridla then goes on to act like he won which is class as he can't win a pot even when he flops everything. "did you not win?" was my personal highlight.

My only real other hand of note was with JJ vs the nutter kid, a random and the Hungarian. Someone opens and I call in positon, my thoughts being that lease three have been getting into it a lot and I'll just play slow and scoop them if the board doesn't get too scary. Anyway I play possum and on the least scary board we get to showdown in a £250 pot. I show my hand first and the two other kids half show and fold. The dealer starts raking to pot and suddenly the Hungarian turns up with freaking pocket aces. Pocket what? Most epic slow roll ever! And to add insult to injury he then leaves before the next hand is dealt. I know etiquette at live tables is sometimes a bit iffy but this was taking the piss. I may have played bad etc but the thing that pleased me was that I would have tipped that table on the Hungarian bastards head in years gone by but times have changed.

So I get home at about two thirty with £50 profit and it all goes pear shaped from there but this isn't a blog about diarrhoea so I'll leave that out.

Sorry if this hasn't been my best effort but I am really quite ill. Hopefully I'll get better in time to play some more cash before I have to head back down south for the winter.

Peace