The World Series of Poker may have already started in Las Vegas, but while you are reading this, I am to be found in my apartment in London - fully focused on enjoying the sport, like the recent French tennis open. I have booked my flight to Las Vegas, but first I'll be going to South Africa for the football World Cup. I'll be there after the quarter-finals and then enjoy the games before going to Vegas.

I'll be at the WSOP in time for day 1D of the Main Event. At first I was meant to play the $25,000 tournament (6-max) on June 30, which would suit me well because of its buy-in, format and challenge. Under normal circumstances I would have played it, but there are several reasons to why I have postponed my departure.

First and foremost, there's the World Cup - an event I look forward to very much, especially to see all the big teams play great football. Of course I support Denmark, and hope they'll do well, but it's just not as thrilling as it once was. Honestly, I don't think they play that well for the moment.

Secondly, I prefer the summer in Europe rather than the one in Nevada where temperatures can reach up to 50 C degrees during the day.

Finally, I don't have the motivation to play all the small events at the WSOP. That would be a waste of money. To me it's not that important to win bracelet number two. I'm sure if they didn't have huge bracelet bets going on that many of the other big poker names would feel the same.

I see no reason to enter into such bets (like the ones involving Tom 'durrrr' Dwan) as I'm primarily a hold'em player. If you're to enter bracelet-bets, you have to play all the events and I have never had a flair for mixed games.

So it suits me perfectly to be home in London at the moment and leave all the attention to the defending World Champion Joe Cada. On the other hand, I'll make sure to be motivated to play a good Main Event when I arrive in Vegas in July!

Have a nice early summer!

The first two weeks of May I'm going to play 'Spring Championship of Online Poker' - also known as SCOOP - for the second time at PokerStars.

This series of tournaments is one of the highlights for me during this year when it comes to online poker. I like to get in a lot of action, something that's very possible during SCOOP weeks. The greatest thing about SCOOP is every event has low, medium and highstakes edition, so everyone can join.

Several times last year I established an early chip lead without it developing into anything worth mentioning. I don't remember my exact account from last year, but I know I didn't win, so this year I'm out for revenge.

I expect to play the $10,200 Main Event, the $25,500 Heads-Up tournament, as well as several other attractive hold'em-events. I don't know how many events I will play. I'll simply wake up every day and decide what feels right.

Just for fun I'll probably also play some medium- and low-tournaments, but if I play in some of the biggest tournaments at the same time, I might have my focous on that table

For now I don't have a complete overview of my calendar because even though there might not be any EPT-tournaments before until the end of summer and the World Series of Poker hasn't yet begun, I may have other obligations that decide whether I have to pass on some of the good events.

If you want to rail, look out for PeteEastgate on PokerStars.

Peter Eastgate is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and the 2008 WSOP champion.

We thought it would be a good idea to check in with Eastgate now that the fog has cleared. Here's how he's feeling today.

by Peter Eastgate

As some of you might know, I managed to do pretty well last week in the Pokerstars.com European Poker Tour London Poker Festival Main Event. The event with a big name had an even bigger field. I finished second out of 730 player which made me £530,000.

When you do not win, you lose--even when you finish second. This is the way most poker players feel, and this goes for me too.

Psychologically I am over the 'loss'. Sometimes you make the wrong decision like I did on the last hand of the tournament, where I moved all-in with A9 and get called by Aaron Gustavson's AQ. [Read about the hand in the EPT London Season 6 report].

In the unbearably clear light that is called hindsight, I could have done differently, but when I analyze the play, I still feel that it was the right thing to do at that time. He could have had a worse ace or a pair smaller than 9's, or he could have folded a slightly better hand, at which time my move would have been great. It is a thin line between looking bad and brilliant.

I have thought a little about what I could have done differently. Should I have limped on the button instead of playing aggressive? Possibly, but in poker there are often times many strategies that can be successful in the same situation. Sometimes you pick the right one and you win, other times you don't.

I would rather focus on the positive. For most of the tournament I made the right decisions. Not to forget, even though my financial situation is taken care of due to my big score winning the WSOP, I won £530,000!

I know a lot of poker players are caught up in winning trophy's and titles. To me the title means very little, I play poker for the money and because I like the complexity of the game. If there should still be doubters, then it was nice to show them that the WSOP was not a fluke.

I am very pleased to have made another deep run in a big tournament and made the final table. I have gone deep in six live tournaments now, finishing better than top 30. Four times I have made the final table, with two wins and a second, a result I am pretty pleased with.

When playing a tournament, it is important to get on a rush later in the tournament. It is not important to be chip leader in the early going. I have found that I do best coming from behind in these big field tournaments.

The second place finish has made me want to play more tournaments and has had a positive impact on my motivation to play poker. My motivation has not always been there since winning the WSOP. Last summer in Las Vegas it was not there and I should not have played in many of the tournaments. It was not until defending my title in the Main Event that I found myself motivated to play poker. But with the deep run there and this second place finish, I feel I am really motivated.

Unfortunately, I was not all that motivated to play the day after my second place finish. I played in a heads-up tournament in London and still feeling blue from my 'loss' heads-up to Aaron Gustavson, I played some terrible poker. I lost to Vicky Coren in the first round. I had played for 5 straight days and heads up the day before for more than £800,000. This tournament had a $10,000 buy-in, 32 players and money for the top 8, which is a too flat pay-out structure for my taste.

My next stop is EPT in Warsaw, then I go to Tallinn and PokerStars Baltic Festival. If I have to be totally honest, I wish that the buy-in of 1,100 Euro for the Baltic Festival Main Event was a little higher, as I think 2,000 Euro would have been able to attract the same amount of players. I do think it is great that there is a tournament for those who cannot afford the high buy-ins that most other live tournaments have.

Luckily for me, there will also be a highroller event with a buy-in of 10,000 Euro, where I have heard that Tony G and his Russian friends will be participating. In any event, I am looking forward to spending some days in Tallinn with my fellow Team PokerStars Pros Johnny Lodden and William Thorson. I have heard that Tallinn is a nice place, so I am sure it will be a good trip.

Finally, it looks like I am going to Las Vegas for High Stakes Poker season 6 around the time of WSOP Main Event Final table.

Peter Eastgate is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and the reigning WSOP champion.

by Peter Eastgate

After returning from Pokerstars EPT in Barcelona I decided to play the $25k WCOOP Heads-Up Championship. I really enjoy playing heads up, as I find it very challenging. I felt mentally ready to play and was looking forward to playing.

The first round was a bye (as we were 36 players, only 8 players played the first round and 28 got a bye).

The first match was a true marathon match. It lasted four hours and throughout the match I felt I made the best decisions. For most of the match I was ahead and I felt my opponent might have played his short stack a little too passively. I actually think I might have played it the same way if I was in his position. The reason the match dragged out was because he was fortunate enough to suck out on me a few times.

The second match was a quick one (compared with the first). I played the German Tobias Reinmaker, who has recently been in the news for getting Roland De Wolfe to muck the best hand at showdown. I was in control of the match from start to finish and when he was short-stacked, I overbet the pot with Q2 on a rainbow board of Q863, in the hope that he would make a hero call with a lesser hand. I was fortunate enough when he did call with A8 and the river bricked out.

The third match was over really fast. I played Adonis, who is known as a wild one, who usually verbally abuses his opponents, including me on a couple of occasions. The money went in on a 9-7-6-3 flop with three hearts, with me holding 97o for top two and him holding Th8x for a turned straight.

I was overall pleased with my play and the play in the last match was based on previous experience against my opponent. My fellow Danish poker pro Allan Bække also had a good run finishing second.

I will definitely play the main event on Sunday, and if I have the time, maybe a few more during the week.

Peter Eastgate is the 2008 WSOP champion and a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

Handy, then, that on Team PokerStars Pro we have current WSOP champ Peter Eastgate, so we asked him to write down his thoughts on going deep in Vegas. As he scooped more than $9.1 million doing just that, then it may be best to read what he has to say...

by Team PokerStars Pro Peter Eastgate

A question I have been asked repeatedly is: "What is the best way, from a strategy perspective, to play the WSOP Main Event?" I think the WSOP Main Event is unique: the number of players is more than in any other big buy-in tournament and the quality of the players is also very varied.

A lot of recreational players play it, either through qualification online or because it is the tournament to play if you are going to take a shot at fame and fortune. This makes for a special tournament and, unlike a PokerStars EPT or a WPT event, it is very hard to come up with a pre-tournament strategy.

My personal strategy when winning the event last year was that I had no pre-tournament strategy! At a big event like the WSOP Main Event, there are so many unknown variables, such as table draw, quality of the cards dealt and, most importantly, the immediate emotional state of the other players at the table. You have to pay close attention to what is going on at the table - and how the other players are reacting to playing in such a big event.

It is very important to be in tune with your opponent's emotional state and base your decisions on how you feel he or she is feeling in any given situation.

The key to playing in a long and hard tournament like this is to find the balance between accumulation of chips, and maintaining your chips stack. Obviously, the best way to maintain a healthy chip stack is through accumulation, but it is important to keep in mind what kind of risks you are willing to take in order to accumulate chips. In last year's tournament I pride myself with the fact that I was only all-in (with the chance of losing my entire chip stack) two times. The reason this was possible was that the structure of the tournament is nice and slow.

I had an above average chip stack most of the tournament and I did not play many hands where I had a lot of chips invested in the hand pre-flop. I played a kind of small-ball strategy that has become very popular among some of the better professional poker players, which in essence is a strategy that tries to control the pot size. This strategy was not pre-determined, but was the best feasible approach considering my table draws.

I have spoken to several very good young professional tournament players, who told me that they had tough table draws, in that the overall level of aggression on their table was very high, thus creating a much higher volatility. I was very lucky that my tables were fairly soft, which allowed me to slowly chip up and control the pot size, since very few of my opponents played back at me.

It is also important to understand that no two people are the same. When playing a long and grueling tournament like the WSOP Main Event it is very important to know yourself and your habits. Some people like running 10K before they play; some people eat fruit or smoke a pack of cigarettes. You have to do whatever makes you the most alert and physically fit to withstand the pressure of the tournament.

To sum up, I do not think there is a correct pre-tournament strategy that will guarantee success. Take every situation and evaluate throughout the tournament what strategy fits best to the situation you are faced with. That way you will have the best possible chance of making it deep. Always think a couple of steps ahead when you play a hand. "What will happen on the river if I call the turn?" And: "What amount will my opponent likely bet?" But always remember that there will be more tournaments in the future and that putting too much pressure on yourself will make you more tense.

You need be relaxed to make the right decisions. Stay cool when the money and pressure increases.

Good luck with winning your PokerStars WSOP package - and then in the Main Event!