After three days in the on the pine Heath returned to see a full strength team hit the track for Day 2 action!

We were always moving; grabbing hands, chip counts, asking players names, blogging – just basically non-stop for every minute of every level.

With Heath’s pent up energy due to his Swine Flu we had a little bit of a competition of who could blog the most hands, but after a few levels we totally forgot about it. Instead we came up with a challenge to be incorporated during a preliminary event in the future.

Basically it will be a Blogger’s Scavenger Hunt with a supplied task list that has to be completely ticked off before a winner can be crowned. The list will be fairly be fairly complicated with a range of different levels of tasks from the basics of all in preflop, flop, turn and river double ups, colour pieces, promotional posts, bluffs etc, and also some really random ones like (insert random notable) double up, colour piece etc.

Most likely we’ll both chuck $50 on it, as it should continue our great competitive spirit.

Now back to the actual tournament I’m covering, and I’ve decided to include one of the sickest hands I’ve ever witnessed . . . and yes I may have coloured it up a little, but it needed the extra bit of drama!

care of PokerNews
David Paananen Is Our Bubble Boy!
David Paananen With the action folding round to Preetinder Bhayana in the small blind, he made it 17,500 to go and David Paananen defended his big blind.

The flop fell down 3 10 8 and Bhayana slid out a bet amounting to 25,500. Paananen sat there for a little before re-raising to 77,000 total as the rail begin to close in on the table.

Bhayana sat there riffling ten yellow 5,000-denomination chips as Tournament Director Danny McDonagh came over to announce the action to the remaining players and onlookers.

Another two minutes went by before Bhayana announced all in.

“You go all in? I call” announced Paananen as he flipped his 3 3 for a flopped bottom set of treys.

Bhayana shook his head, stood up, and sheepishly rolled over his A 5 for just Ace-high but also a backdoor straight and flush-draw.

“Two of clubs would be a great sweat card” commented one of the twenty or so players that had totally surrounded the table.

The dealer burned and turned a black two on the turn, but it would be the 2 to see Paananen needing to fade one of the four remaining fours in the deck to stay alive.

As the rail pressed even harder against the backs of the table eight chairs, the 4 would land on the river to the screams and sighs of the remaining 48 players.

David PaananenPaananen stood there in shock before making his way to the exit, but not before launching a half-drunk water bottle at an unsuspecting camera girl.

Bhayana on the other hand could barely keep a smile off his face as he raked in a huge place to soar to 498,000 in chips.

(thanks to Kirsty for capturing the moment of me asking him his name . . . and sorry about the water bottle)