Another EPT; another Day 1 bust-out. I was down to $3k chips in the first level after the following hand occurred:

I raised $150 from early position with AA and got called by middle position and the button. The flop came T-5-7 with one heart and I bet $400; both players called.

The turn was a 2 of hearts; again I bet, this time $1,300. MP folded and button called. River was a Jh which is a pretty bad card for me, but nevertheless, I decided to value bet $3k since I know the player and think he's calling with a lot of worse hands.

So I bet $3k (I probably should have bet a little bit less in hindsight). He just called and tabled 6♥ 9♥ for the flush.

After this hand, I managed to lose even more chips by raising hands like A-Q and middle pocket pairs, getting re-raised and having to fold. I'm determined not to get my chips in bad and to take coinflips only when necessary, especially with the level of play I saw in San Remo.

I then made a few aggressive resteals, got back up to $5k at $50/$100 and then doubled with aces vs. top pair. I get to about $14k and then lose with AA vs. K-J in an uninteresting $8k all-in pre-flop pot, so now I'm down to $10k.

So I remain patient until $150/$300 where the most beautiful situation occurs: I have $10k chips on the small blind, middle position makes it $900, guy next to him calls, another caller and yet another caller. So now there's about $4,000 in the pot and I look down at A-Ko; squuuuuuueeze.

Mizzi: San Remo hard on the weight-loss prop bet, but still six kilos lighter.

Usually in these situations when I shove everyone either folds or one person calls. And even if one person calls with a pair there's so much dead money in the pot it's definitely worth taking a flip. Everyone folded until the last guy who called with pocket nines and I lost the flip so that was GG for me.

San Remo was definitely not so good for my prop bet. It's very difficult to have any meal without pizza, spaghetti or unhealthy carbs. I've never seen so many pizza restaurants in such close proximity in my life.

I think I racked up about $6k in penalties in Italy alone. I was shocked to see that despite this I still ended up losing three kilos that week and now rest at a solid 92 kilos. So I've lost six kilos and am halfway to my goal of 86 kilos.

You know, I've never been certain about how profitable poker will be in the future (10-20 years from now) until playing some blackjack in Italy and in Europe in general. Blackjack?, you say. What does that have to do with poker?

Allow me to explain - I've always been paranoid about how in the next few years everyone will learn how to play more profitably and the skill level of players will even out and therefore make it a lot more difficult to win or at least make luck a much bigger factor.

This is no longer the case, I now think that poker will ALWAYS be profitable. I was a little bored after I busted out of San Remo and was waiting for my sit-and-go to start so I decided to kill some time and play a little blackjack.

Blackjack is one of the most simple forms of gambling there is and even if you're not familiar with the game you can easily get a strategy card that tells you when to hit, stay, double and split. If you follow this strategy the house has less than a 1% edge - 0.62% in European blackjack and 0.28% in Vegas to be exact.

Wherever I go in Europe, I'm always shocked to see how terrible people are at following basic strategy in blackjack. People do crazy things like stay with 13-16 with the dealer's 10 showing and don't make obvious doubles if "they have a feeling."

The future of poker? Very bright. For the good players.

How could you possibly say you have a feeling in blackjack when there are eight decks shuffled in an automatic shuffler? Superstition is a terrible attribute to have as a poker player or a gambler. I'm not a math guy, but I think the house edge increases substantially when people play as bad as they do.

The worst thing is, when you play properly (take a card when you're supposed to take a card for instance) people are shocked and if the outcome/result changes for the worse people get genuinely angry at you.

Another thing I've noticed is that when the dealer is showing an ace everyone rushes in to pay insurance. For those of you that don't know, insurance is a sucker bet and just another way for the casino to obtain more of an edge.

Now my theory regarding the future of profitability in poker is that if the majority of people who gamble don't understand or are not willing to learn how to play a simple game like blackjack properly then how on earth will they ever understand or get good at the complex game of poker?

It's because of human nature that poker will always be profitable and destructive characteristics including ego, stubbornness, ignorance and superstition are likely to cause the downfall of any poker player.

Poker is the perfect way to legally steal from the rich and give to the poor :)

-- Sorel Mizzi

More blogs from Betfair Poker pro Sorel Mizzi:

• EPT Monte Carlo Part 1: Sit-and-Go Success
• Winter Sports, Prop Bets and Warsaw Trip Report