I was disappointed with my performances for Withnail's Poker School in August.

Playing poker with other people's money brings a pressure all of its own. Your backers are investing their cash in your talents and relying on you to make them a profit.

My record being backed is better than playing with my own cash (ask Withnail if he had a share in me when I scored my biggest ever win!) but I was nervous that I hadn't shown much in my first few performances for WPS and eager to put that right.

So, it was pleasing that the next leg of the tour was where I’m most comfortable - in my comfortably padded chair in my office sitting in front of a computer screen playing many of the events at the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP).

Since the birth of my son Jake, about 95%+ of my poker has been played online. I make a few forays into the live game when I see value offered (WSOP, MCOP and a few EPT events) but mostly these days I play on Pokerstars.

I know many of the players pretty well and feel there is a lot of value to be had by playing the tournaments there. Also, I'm comfortable with the software and the structure of the tournaments.

All in all I was pretty confident of a decent showing.. here's how it went:

Sept 9 $520 No Limit Triple Shootout. To win this tournament you basically had to win three 10-handed sit and goes. SNGs are not my strongest form of poker and I was handed a tight, aggressive opening table where at least seven of the players played perfect SNG poker. I crashed and burned pretty early finishing 557th of 1000.

Sept 11 $215 No Limit + Rebuys. I managed to survive with only three rebuys. A great result! I manoeuvred my way through over half the field before I called a raise with AsQs. When the flop came all low cards with two spades I reraised all-in. He dwelt and called with pocket tens. With two overcards and a flush draw I have 15 outs and I'm a 60:40 to win. But no-one told the random number generator that and two hopeless blanks later I was out.

Sept 12 $320 No Limit Turbo. A great tournament. Ten minute levels suit my aggressive play and I soon built a decent stack. I went card dead in the middle stages of the event and when I tried raising with air I was called down. My last move was fine. An aggressive player raised in late position and a good, thinking player reraised from the button. With QQ in the big blind it was an easy shove. Unfortunately the button had Aces...

Sept 13 $520 Heads Up Matchplay. Heads up poker is my specialty. Over the last three years,I’ve played nearly 20,000 matches on Pokerstars. You can check out my record by entering my username "The Camel" into sharkscope.com. I’m quite proud of it. This must have been my best chance of scooping a WCOOP bracelet as I had a huge edge over the field. Pokerstars adding $1/4million to the prize pool only sweetened the deal.

I received a bye in the first round, which was nice, but the slow structure meant I had to wait nearly two hours to play my first match, which was annoying. But when I finally got to play, my opponent was incredibly weak. I brushed him off easily picking off bluffs which he should never have made and value betting liberally.

Indeed this strategy worked well throughout my first three matches. The Sharkscope graphs of my opponents usually resembled ski slopes.

But in the fifth round I faced a pretty good player. Jorj95 is one of the biggest winners on Stars. We sparred around a bit and he had a small chip lead when he three-bet me out of position for the umpteenth time. I decided to see a flop with Qc8c. The flop of Qd3h2d seemed good, but he immediately responded to it by shoving all-in. Wow! I couldn't reliably put him on a hand. A medium pair? A flush draw? I really didn't know. So I called. He had a horrible hand. 4d5d. He was a clear favourite but somehow I dodged the outs leaving with over 98% of the chips. Then the horror show began. He won pot after pot. He couldn't stop winning. Sometimes I was favourite and sometimes he was. But whatever, he won the pot. He’d recovered to hold 55% of the chips when he called my shove with A8 while I held pocket tens. I was a 60:40 favourite, but sometimes you are just destined to lose and an ugly ace flopped and I was out. I was devastated. I collected $2,000 for coming 88th but that was only tiny compensation.

Sept 13 $215 No Limit Hold’em. I remember virtually nothing of this tournament. I finished 4823rd of 9795 so that says it all really.

Sept 13 $1050 No Limit Hold’em. This was my best performance of the series and the one I’ll have nightmares about for months to come. I was on the top of my game throughout and my tables were soft. Whenever I faced a decent player I had position. I dominated for many hours on end. I didn't see that many decent hands or good situations, I just played good, aggressive poker. Then, after about ten hours of play, I finally found AA on the button. A very aggressive player raised and I simply called, hoping he would hang himself on the flop. However, surprisingly the big blind shoved all-in for a massive overraise. When the raiser passed I snapcalledfistpumped. If my hand held I would have a top five chip stack and a five figure payday in prospect. Oh, what’s this? He flopped a flush. Fuck. I was gutted. I still had an average chip stack, but I was exhausted. And my momentum was gone. When a loose-goose raised 15 minutes later I three-bet him with TT. He insta shoved and I called. He showed the powerhouse of AJ. The deck was to kick me in the bollocks one last time when he flopped a house. I was pig sick. 312th for $1830 was zero consolation.

Sept 14 $320 No Limit Double Chance. Another day. Another deep run. Another disappointment. My memory of this tournament has largely been obliterated. All I can remember is one guy showing up with AA and KK when I had the square root of fuck all. I finished 234th for $750.

Sept 20 $215 No Limit and $5200 No limit Main Event. I went deep in one of these, and hardly won a hand in the other. Unfortunately it was the smaller event with nearly 10,000 runners in which I came 111th for $1380. The main event was a washout. I never had more than my starting stack and the whole thing fizzled out quicker than a bbq on a wet September afternoon.

All in all a frustrating series of events. I had plenty of chances of making a major score and failed miserably to convert. Still, maybe I can go deep in the WSOPE...

The Coach