I can be your hero, baby.

Profit: $36

So I'm sat in a 25NL room, a rare and exciting event for me. I've made a bit of money, I'm up for the session and I feel it's time to take a shot (in the sense that I'm actually upping my stakes, not taking, what would be considered, a genuine shot).

I've spotted a pretty juicy room where there are a couple of maniac fishes more than willing to dust off their bankrolls with top pair and any sort of kicker. One crazy player has already bumped his stack up to $50 from just $5 with luckbox shoves and calls. Every hand is being raised and it's difficult to play a pot without quite a bit of expenditure. So I wait and I wait. There's another player waiting and waiting, looking for a situation to pounce. We're both rocks, proudly displayed on the library's 'Just Arrived' shelf. We are as easy to read as a tabloid newspaper, but nobody in this room is reading anything. They're just pushing digital tiddlywinks.

I'm dealt KQs under the gun and limp. I know all the rules, but micro stakes don't conform to the rules. This is a situational limp. I have to try and control the pot as much as I can until I hit my draws. A King doesn't interest me here. I want Jacks, Queens, Tens, Nines, Aces or lots and lots of spades; I'm looking for draws. The second rock limps, another maniac limps and the super short-stack big blind checks. Flop comes 357 with two of my suit. I'm on the second nut flush draw. I check (again, remember, this is a very situational play, I never normally play this passively). Second rock bets 3/4 pot. Maniac folds. Super-shortstack shoves for about 2.5 times pot. I fancy myself in this spot but I have no idea what the second rock has: possible set or, worst of all, AX of my flush draw. So I elect to call the shove to see what my rocky friend will do. He calls as well. River completes the flush and second rock bets $5 into $7.

Oh shit.

Every alarm goes off. I even get a call from the security company wired up to our house alarm who thing I'm being broken into. I agonise for the whole of the time bank. Do I shove or fold? No raise before the flop, no re-pop of my call to isolate the short stack. He was definitely on a drawing hand and he hasn't played a hand since I sat down. This sudden aggression must surely mean one thing.

The last thing that goes through my head before I click is: we'll this make a good story for the blog - what a hero fold this is going to be.

I fold, he tables 108s for the flush and rakes homes the pot. Brilliant read, Rob, shame you gave him just a little too much credit.

A razor thin decision, a very interesting hand and some promising conclusions, if not the right result. It is said (somewhere, probably) that if you're unable to fold the best hand, you'll never be a successful poker player. Well, at least it makes me feel a little bit better.

I'm not too bitter either because in the 10NL rooms I won some gigantic pots. Got it all in with KK preflop with two other full stacks who had sod all (not an ace between them). Then I flopped a set with 66. Bet, raise, I shove, all three opponents in the pot call. I fade spades and an A (someone had the rockets) for a $40 pot - probably the biggest 10NL pot I've ever played.

Crazy action and I'm just thankful those hands held up. But that flush hand, ohhh it was a close one!