PokerStars has asked their players to be patient after a hardware failure affected people for two hours on Tuesday night and UFC star Tito Ortiz shines at Day 1A of the PokerStars Championship Main Event in Panama.

I created a Mind Map, the headline read “How to earn $45,000 through poker in 12-months,” and in the left-hand corner of the Map was a bubble that read “Bucket List”, with a little arrow pointing towards ‘World Series of Poker Bracelet (WSOP)’.

But you can’t win a WSOP bracelet unless you play in a WSOP event and Ogmore Vale seemed a galaxy away from Las Vegas. But I was lucky. The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) was about to begin at the Empire Casino in London’s Leicester Square. That would have to do.

Betfair were the sponsors, and I opened an account and entered a satellite to qualify for a £1,000 No-Limit Hold’em side event. I reached heads-up with a 5:1 chip lead and I started to think this Mind Map business was the key to my life ambitions.