Now where were we...

As anticipated, the 'Mob' were present en masse on Saturday night, it may have just been a £20 deepstack freezeout but there was a distinct 'buzz' about the room. It was a short-handed (6-max) event, the final table started with all three of us right in there with a chance of taking this baby down... the whole table was pretty even in chips, in fact we all had exactly 10k??

Early doors I had the whole table completely in my pocket, totally baffled by a stunning display of 'power poker'. Unfortunately the wheels fell off after about an hour and a half, when Neil refused to believe that I had flopped a flush, and then after the turn King paired the one in his hand he made a good read and called my 4k river bluff. That was the beginning of the end and I was soon banished to the rail in 6th place. Unfortunately Rich followed suit not long after... Two down, One to go!

Surely a player of Paul's standing could triumph over these other three, after all he is the 3rd best amateur poker player in Ireland!! Well, that's as may be but he's still only 4th best at the TPs.

Teresa fell by the wayside in 3rd... and then promptly fell asleep.

After a lengthy, tactical heads-up battle the victors spoils eventually went to 'anonymous' Steve... leaving 2nd place leftovers for my nemesis - Neil. Well played chaps... the 'Mob' will be back!!!

Sunday night I tried my hand, for the first time, at the 'Sunday Hundred Grand' on PokerStars, an $11 freezeout, with a capped field of 20,000, 3k chips and 10 min levels. I forget just how long I lasted but I finished in about 13700th place... a long, long way off the money.

Monday night saw the first opportunity to win a seat in the Virgin Poker Festival Main Event. This is a £105 buy-in, two day, deep-stack tournament, which takes place at The Broadway Casino, Birmingham on November 24th & 25th. This is a slightly odd set-up as there will be no option to buy directly into the tournament; all seats must be won via online satellites on Virgin Poker. There will be direct buy-in, value-added supporting tournaments on both days so it looks like it will probably be worth a visit anyway.

Last night it was a Freeroll Satellite, which started with 331 entrants. There were 2 seats to the live main event, plus places 3 - 22 won $23 seats in Sunday's weekly final. The weekly finals will provide one live seat for each $230 in the prize pool.

I made it into 'the money' with a decent stack, largely due to some imaginative play while 'on the bubble', only to crash and burn in 15th place following three disastrous all-in confrontations... nicely in front going in, pre-flop, horribly behind on the river!! So I have a seat in this Sunday's weekly final, which I won't be able to play in! Hopefully an email to that (very) nice man, Joe Legge, at Virgin, will see me moved into the following week's final.

So it is a game of skill...

or is it just the way the scandies play it? Well, according to uk.pokernews.com a Danish court has ruled that poker is a game of skill.

The same story claims that in Russia, a court has declared poker to be a sport. Well, call me old fashioned if you like, but I find it difficult to classify any game that you can play sitting down, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, as a sport!!! Hmmm, London 2012… Perhaps an Olympic Gold Medal to sit alongside my APAT one... I think Comrade Judge Ivan should lay of the Vodka until after work

See full story here http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2007/7/poker-game-skill-denmark.htm

The Poker Gods ease up on Rich...

Whilst large areas of Oxfordshire & Gloucestersshire lie submerged under several feet of flood water, 18 brave souls made their way to Windrush Valley Card Club on Monday night. I say 'brave' souls because, believe me, this £20 re-buy Pot-Limit Omaha is not for the faint of heart.

My tournament got off to good start, after about an hour I had increased my 2000 starting chips to almost 8000, with no re-buys. Then it all went a bit 'Pete Tong' when I got all my chips in on the turn with a wrap and a flush draw against top set... and missed all my draws! Three re-buys and an add-on later, I go into the break with exactly 5k chips and £100 'in the hole'. At the break I find Rich has faired even worse... he also has £100 invested and only 3.5k chips.

After the break, things obviously started going right for both us, as we are still both there when we get down to the final table of nine players. Rich finally departed with the 3rd place (sorry chap!) money, of something over £200... and just a few hands later I was stuffing the winners envelope, and £612, in my back pocket.

'The Mob' is definitely running hot... I predict a strong showing on Saturday night when all three of us will be playing the same tournament... Watch this space!!

Easy Come, Easy Go...

Bouyed by last night's APAT online performance I decide to re-invest some (most) of my winnings. The target was the $215 Sunday Warm-Up, on Stars, which has a guranteed $400k prize pool. I also entered an $11 deepstack tournament, which started about 45 mins earlier. The theory being that playing two tournaments would give me more hands to play and stop me getting bored. So much for theory!!!

I only lasted 36 mins in the Warm-Up, finishing 1898th of 2156. My exit was facilitated by some seriously bad play... by both myself and some opponents!! I lasted a little longer in the $11 deepstack, 376th of 1074, but again I can't really blame anyone else but myself - not even those much maligned Poker Gods.

APAT Irish Open...

Having pretty much given up on online poker, I still find myself drawn to the APAT online series of tournaments on PokerStars. Having suffered with lack of concentration / interest in recent online attempts, I was especially pleased with my play in the Irish Open last night

It is a 'star studded' opening table, I have the live APAT Irish Champion, Jacques Kieft (CRAIC) sat on my left, the live APAT UK Chanpion, Max Ward (Spurs79) sitting opposite. I got off to a bit of a dodgy start, down to a little over 3000 chips (from 5000 at start) at the end of the 2nd level. The recovery started halfway through lev 3 (25/50)... I have AdKs and raise it up to 200 from early position, and get 3 callers... flop is Kh 5d Jc, BB checks and I bet 500... fold, big stack raises to 1000, fold... I re-raise all-in for a total of 2685 and matey calls with Kc 4c!!! For once the miracle river card doesn't come and I'm up to 6220. :-) This increases to 7220 at the first break

The next hand of note comes when Max minimum raises (to 400), with 1600 behind, it folds around to me, I now have a little over 10k, and I make 2000 with Ah Kc, they fold to Max who calls and shows two red Queens... this time the 'miracle' King does come on the river!

I take another big pot with A9o aginst AQo... all the money goes in on the turn with an A92,J board. This puts me on 16.7k as the table breaks. After picking up a few small pots, taking me to 18k, I take a 6k hit when I 'overplay' pocket 9s against AKo... suprisingly the King came on the flop not the river... back to 12k.

There were lots more big pots on the way to the final table but it was pretty much plain sailing. I had a well above average stack all the way through and only once was I all-in against a bigger stack... I had flopped quad 4s!! :-) It was still going well on the FT, being chip leader for much of the time. Until... Did I need to go out here? -

POKERSTARS GAME #11061993426: TOURNAMENT #51604458, $20+$2 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL XVII (4000/8000) - 2007/07/21 - 19:30:27 (ET)
Table '51604458 15' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: FTMLS (435653 in chips)
Seat 3: duke3016 (99939 in chips)
Seat 4: smacl02 (Me) (292248 in chips)
Seat 9: TOOL ON TOUR (37160 in chips)
FTMLS: posts the ante 400
duke3016: posts the ante 400
smacl02: posts the ante 400
TOOL ON TOUR: posts the ante 400
smacl02: posts small blind 4000
TOOL ON TOUR: posts big blind 8000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to smacl02 [Kd Kh]
FTMLS: raises 8000 to 16000
duke3016: folds
smacl02: raises 24000 to 40000
TOOL ON TOUR: calls 28760 and is all-in
FTMLS: raises 395253 to 435253 and is all-in
smacl02: calls 251848 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [2d 8h 6s]
*** TURN *** [2d 8h 6s] [4h]
*** RIVER *** [2d 8h 6s 4h] [2h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
smacl02: shows [Kd Kh] (two pair, Kings and Deuces)
FTMLS: shows [Ad Ah] (two pair, Aces and Deuces)
FTMLS collected 510176 from side pot
TOOL ON TOUR: shows [8c 8d] (a full house, Eights full of Deuces)
TOOL ON TOUR collected 111880 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 622056 Main pot 111880. Side pot 510176. Rake 0
Board [2d 8h 6s 4h 2h]
Seat 1: FTMLS showed [Ad Ah] and won (510176) with two pair, Aces and Deuces
Seat 3: duke3016 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: smacl02 (small blind) showed [Kd Kh] and lost with two pair, Kings and Deuces
Seat 9: TOOL ON TOUR (big blind) showed [8c 8d] and won (111880) with a full house, Eights full of Deuces

I don't know... I 'knew' he had Aces, I wanted to fold, but it was half-past midnight and I had had enough really. I figured that only one of them could beat me and at worst I get 3rd place, $450 and a bronze medal. As it was I took $277 for 4th place... 1st was $1038!!!

The Isle Casino, Coventry...

Last night TW(iC)M made the 1 hour journey to the brand new Isle Casino, at the Ricoh Stadium. The target of this foray into the hinterlands of Coventry was the £30 D/C Freezeout. We all thought that Aspers in Newcastle was probably the nicest UK casino that we had ever been in... well, in my opinion, The Isle has re-raised the bar... very, very nice!

During our pre-match team talk, in the bar, myself and Rich were joined by Daniel Phillips (APAT English Amateur Champion), who joined in with our last minute tactics and strategy discussion... me & Daniel decided it was best to stick with what we know best - Guiness - while Rich felt the caffiene rush provided by a Coke was probably the best preparation. Paul, meanwhile, was continuing his ongoing research to determine if the Blackjack Gods and the Poker Gods really are one and the same.

A total of 60 players started in the tourney, a little after the scheduled start time of 9:00pm, and me, Paul and Daniel all managed to get drawn on the same table... leaving Rich to plough a lone furrow through the field.

I'm afraid the effects of just 2 1/2 hrs sleep since Sunday night have taken their toll and I really don't remember too much detail of the actual tournament... I know Daniel got moved off of our table and then a little while later was bidding us farewell.

Rich continues to be punished by the Poker Gods for some heinous crime in a former life, as he exited without bothering the cashier, while myself and Paul made it through to the final table. Paul's demise came when I raised it up with QQ, on his BB... he woke up (literally!) with 99 and re-raised all-in... I call, my queens hold up and Paul exits in 7th place, for £60 (I think). To cut a (very) long story short, at about 3:45am, we are down to the last three... we are all pretty much level in chips, a deal is agreed and we chop the remaining prize money and take £400 each.

Home and in bed by about 5:15am... up for work at 6:30am. Doh!!

All in all, a nice tournament, in a very nice poker room, in (for the most part) very pleasant company... We will return!!

Vegas Flashbacks #1...

Finally, I have worked out how to do this...

Street spray can artist, on Freemont Street. This is actually the same guy I saw working on the strip last year... "Can yer tell what it is yet?"

Look out Europe...

With Vegas and the 2007 WSOP rapidly becoming a distant memory it's time to look to the future and plan the next poker adventure... this looks like being The Freezeout Festival at the Perla Hotel & Casino in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, in mid-October.

So, "Where the hell is Nova Gorica?", I hear you say... Nova Gorica is in the west of Slovenia (formerly part of Yugoslavia), on the border with Italy. It is a relatively new town, with only slightly less history than the USA, having been built in 1948 when the Paris Peace Treaty established a new border between Yugoslavia and Italy, leaving nearby Gorizia outside of Yugaoslavia and thus decapitating the area of the lower Vapava Valley from it's regional centre... OK, OK, enough history already!


It is hoped that The Witney (inc. Carterton) Mob will be at full strength for this one and mounting a 3-prong attack on the €550 Main Event. There is also talk that TW(iC)M may be backed-up by a couple of old Windrush Riverboat gamblers - Rich 'Dice' Stevenson* and his sidekick, John 'The Bookie' Salmon... although I think this modern day Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday will be more focussed on relieving the locals of their euros in the cash games rather than on the tournament... watch this space!

Recent results from Perla festivals show that the money placings have been dominated by players crossing the border from Italy... how hard can it be to beat a roomful of eyeties?

*Not to be confused with TW(iC)M founder member Rich 'Golden Delicious' Stevenson