Pokerpops ponders poker

[PHIL_TC]

So - I will be absent from the Thursday Home Game on October 4th. I"ll miss the banter and the drunkenness (well, I"ll miss the banter) and I"ll miss the chance to be the only sober man in the room.

[TheSnapper]

thanks for sharing, really funny. Reminds me of these guys....

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlYkIJVguCU&feature=related[/youtube]

[pokerpops]

thanks for sharing, really funny. Reminds me of these guys....

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlYkIJVguCU&feature=related[/youtube]

If you liked those, you"ll probably also like these

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrFdOz1Mj8Q&list=PLA2C5D5358A0C5607&index=3&feature=plcp[/youtube]

[pokerpops]

So - I will be absent from the Thursday Home Game on October 4th. I"ll miss the banter and the drunkenness (well, I"ll miss the banter) and I"ll miss the chance to be the only sober man in the room.

yeah i know

but I know someone who once let down the Thursday Game because he was in a tent in the Lake District...

[pokerpops]

Brief update on the pokers... made 3rd in the Sunday tournament last week for £180. There were 33 entries and a prize pool of £990. It seemed the game was getting popular.
Tuesday"s game at G didn"t happen. Again.
Played a brief session on the £1/£2 table at Gala the Casino I don"t want to name. They have some issues there at the moment with some of the senior players accusing the younger ones of collusion of some form. This has led to the introduction of a rule which makes it compulsory for all players to reveal their hands at showdown, and for cards to be tabled when players are all in.
There are rumours around too that suggest that some of the dealers have been involved in pots that were, shall we say, suspicious. I have no way of knowing if there is anything untoward occurring in either respect and will just revert to my policy of not playing there.
My session started well, then slipped into not so well and I ended it early for a small loss of £30. It was early enough to swing by the G and join a short-handed game there which more than recovered the loss
Getting AA when you"ve straddled and the other five have limped in is generally a good spot.
It"s even better when there"s an Ace on the flop and people flop two pair...

Thursday - no nobbers game due to al sorts of reasons, including the Chezger contingent wanting an early night so again I played the 25/50 at G. An interesting evening which came out around breakeven despite losing a £250 pot where my   wasn"t enough to beat   . We got it in on the turn when villain crai on  
I"m calling £80 to win £150 which looks thin until you know the villain who has a fair amount of bluffs in his range for this move...
he was running good and playing some very thinking poker all night. The highlight being when he got it in, again on the turn, with a pair and a gutshot vs a flopped set of Kings and hit the 4-outer on the river. But, as he said, Kings was pretty much the only hand that can call the shove..

Sunday - watched the Liverpool - United game and had a small bet on United to win when Liverpool scored. That shifted the odds to 9/2 and the price didn"t last long so I"ll take that as my betting coup for the month year. I bet rarely on football, and even more rarely on games involving United.

Played the Sunday £15+£15 again at the G and unusually for me, accepted a 3-way chop. It was offered by the chipleader who had around 60% of the chips in play. £210 was much better than the £140 on offer for 3rd and marginally better than the £200 for 2nd.

A short spin on the cash tables for a doubling of my buyin and a decent week all round.

This week started badly on the life front though...

Lucy"s central heating wouldn"t light and she has a leaky roof which is now, under the weight of rainfall we"ve been getting, forcing us to have buckets and other containers catching the drips.

The plumber arrived yesterday and we know the issue and have the replacement part ready to be fitted.

The roofers all said - "can"t look in this weather, we"ll be in touch....."

sigh

[AceOnTheRiver]

So - I will be absent from the Thursday Home Game on October 4th. I"ll miss the banter and the drunkenness (well, I"ll miss the banter) and I"ll miss the chance to be the only sober man in the room.

Is that Mickey P?

[pokerpops]

It"s been an interesting week so far..

The rains on Monday led to the watercourse at the bottom of Lucy"s street flooding and left over a foot and a half of water in her house.
Until you"ve been there you can"t begin to imagine how utterly depressing it is to walk into a flood-damaged house.
I barely have words to describe it.
The local council are still, two days after the event, contemplating their response...

On the plus side, the roofing problem seems likely to be less expensive than we"d feared and could be sorted this week.

Poker-wise, I had a fun session on the 25/50p table on Tuesday.

We started three handed, one of the locals who just loves to play and is a very easy read and a youngish lad I hadn"t played with before.
We played mostly small pots, it took a while for the rake to reach £5, but my stack was growing and theirs diminishing.

Eventually we got to a proper game when Dan, the villain from Thursday"s game, joined us along with a few others.
Dan is an online MTT grinder who enjoys his cash game. Active, thinking, and fun to have at the table.
He found a 5 bet jam with A5 vs my KK to donate his first buyin and all the big pots seemed to involve him and me.

Three stand out

1: I raise J 10 on the button to £3, he raises SB to £6 and I call in position.
Flop 10QJ,  checked to me, I bet £8, he calls.
Turn 10, he checks, I bet £12, he raises to £32, I move all in and he tank folds g K 10 ...

2: I raised from BB to £3, he again raises to £6 and I call.
Flop
I bet £9, he calls.
Turn and he says, "that"s a bad card for me"...
I check call £18
River - - - yes, i know, mbsfn, a second live Royal Flush in 4 months...
I check, there"s four clubs on the board and he folds pretty readily if he has no club and given his style I think he is likely to rep the flush or the A or the straight, or it"s even possible he actually has one of those hands or a full house with A10/AK...
Damn his eyes he checked behind and turned over A3.
I did get a letter from the card room manager giving me a free meal for two in the restaurant though

3: again me v Dan. We both called a small raise, me with A4, him with 78 and got it all in on the turn when the board read 6544.... The river bricked

Overall a winning night and I"m sure Dan and I have lots more pots to play in the weeks and months to come.

G looks likely to benefit from the fallout from Dealergate at Gala where there have been accusations and rumours floating around one of the long term dealers there. I"m repeating nothing until it"s been verified but if true, it"s pretty shocking stuff.

[pokerpops]

Haven"t played live this week since Sunday due to wanting to play the satellites for DTD"s deepstack weekend.

I suffered a few nasty ones through the various feeders and satellites  
and inflicted a couple myself  

Eventually, on Tuesday night I was one of four left with three seats available... it ended badly  :"(
Wednesday was last chance saloon for me since tonight I"m out at the Arts Centre for a spot of comedy and then off to join the "invaded" Home Game.
I built a stack in both the £150 and the £500 satellites but effectively bust the £500 when my pf raise of   met a flop of     and it all went in vs   - the   on the turn dealing a killer blow.
I did, however win a seat to the £150 which DTD will allow me to upgrade and I"m looking for stakers to cover 30% of the overall cost. Thread is up and running in the Staker Exchange.

Lifewise - it"s not great. Lucy"s house is going to be a long-running saga of meetings with insurance assessors and contractors and delays and hassle. I just messed up on a mobile phone exchange and may have lost the memory card with a lot of photos and I"m about to start attempting to get it back before Orange charge me £75 +VAT for recovery.

If ever I needed a decent structured poker tournament to focus on, it is now. And focus I shall, because poker i smy escape from reality; my chance to think of nothing but the game; to shut out all the "noise".

I can"t wait.

[pokerpops]

The Invasion Game - My story

Lucy and I joined the game in level 5 and sat with 8000 chips at 150-300. I managed to get myself going pretty quickly and built to around 16k before blasting a bunch of them towards Phill "Birthday Boy" Fryer trying to get him off AQ preflop.

I added an extra tenner to the prize pool and managed to demonstrate the joys of Q6 soooooted to Paulie D whose AQ was no match for the power of the Nobbers Hand (sorry Paulie   )
I dusted that stack of pretty fast too and enjoyed a splash on the cash table to recover the buyins. No highlights, other than the very drunk female whose sister was enjoying a run of exceptional good fortune on the blackjack bonus boxes. The poker playing sister made some pretty random moves and delayed every hand whilst she argued with the management about whether or not she should be allowed another vodka/redbull. G-Mac was the victim of one of her stranger moves when she raised, I put my stack over the line and he did likewise anticipating her calling and sending a sidepot his way. She folded the last £40 or so.

Lucy got HU with the birthday boy having had her way to that position eased by cracking Stu"s Kings with tens. he took that well I believe.....
No shame in being second Lucy - wp wp

It was great to be part of the welcoming party for the Invaders and good to meet Rich and Ger again, and to meet Paulie, G-Mac and Suzanne Michelle  

Hope to see you all again soon.

I"d have partaken of more of the visit had it not been for a planned trip to DTD for the £500. I"ll save the details of the weekend but suffice to say that a mincash in the £150 deepstack wasn"t what I set out for.

Oh well, no poker for me this week - three days of playing for 9hrs plus a day is enough for one week, even for me. I don"t think I can motivate myself for the .25/.50 at G and have no desire nor inclination to play at Gala so I"ll take a week off. Missing the Thursday game due to commitments elsewhere, so next live poker will probably be Sunday at G.

Flood issues continue, the insurance assessor sent someone to have a look and to start the costings process, hopefully there will be action this week.

[pokerpops]

A quiet week on the poker front ended with me playing the monthly £100 one dayer at G Stockton.
20,000 chips and the GUKPT structure with a 30minute clock. Add on an extra 2000 chips for registering before the start and it"s hard to fault.
It"s played in a superb venue with a valet who is, beyond doubt, the finest for miles around.
Yet it only got 44 runners, of which 5 re-entered.

Contrast this with the £150 at the hellhole the previous weekend which got 90 runners in a venue with less atmosphere than the moon; where they couldn"t manage to supply sufficient dealers to cover every table; the cardroom was a valet-free zone for the first 90 minutes and you just wonder about the mentality of poker players.

Sadly, my tournament life was short with the damage being partly self-inflicted when two well-conceived and exectued bluffs got hero-called on the river. I maintain that if the first one gets through the second does too because the player in the second hand would generally fold one pair on a straighty, flushy board to the bet I made, but he was emboldened by seeing the earlier call and pretty much mimicked the speech made by Dom Mahoney as he called me on the first one.

sigh...

In other news.

Two items of family stuff.

When I cleared Dad"s house after his move to London I found a box that had been my Mother"s and which held a couple of packs of cards. It looked rather neat and I decided it was too good to go to the charity shop.
It was only a little after I got it home that I noticed the decoration on the lid...

here it is, in all it"s glory..


One of Dad"s friends had written to Manchester United telling them what a good bloke he is and how he"s supported United since the fifties and was now going to be living in London. He asked what the chances were of getting tickets for games in the capital...
A letter came back saying that the ticket issue for away games was limited but that they would be delighted to invite Dad and a guest to Old Trafford to enjoy the game on a fully inclusive package...



Manchester United v Stoke City...

Car parking; champagne and canapies pre-match; free bar (wasted on my teetotal Dad and I"m driving...); four course meal; programme; top seats on the halfway line; post match food and drinks...

[pokerpops]

[pokerpops]

A brief extract from the recently published International Federation of Poker Rulebook

72. BEHAVIOR AND ETIQUETTE: In order to maintain a congenial environment for all players, the TD may, at his or her sole discretion, penalise, suspend or disqualify a participant who acts in the following ways, but not limited to:
...
q. Displaying signs of alcohol intoxication, drunkenness or use of other substances that jeopardises the smooth running of the tournament or causes disrespect to other competitors, staff or spectators.

...


That"s Thursday"s game f***ed then



Although... last night we were short on numbers and the only way that Brian could play was to make it a true home game at his home.

Five of us assembled and a game was played in polite and fabulous spirit. I even managed to suffer being outdrawn by Lucy when her 77 went up against my KK on a "safe" flop only to see a 7 fall on the turn. Well played Daughter Dear - you used those chips well in your win.
Most enjoyable - thanks Brian, and thanks too to Susan for putting up with us, and for your contribution to the fun.

[pokerpops]

Poker karma...

I"d joined the game just after the start and was in mid-position.
Blinds are 25/50 and there"s an utg raise to 150 called in one spot.
I make it 700 with JJ, original raiser folds but the caller decides to see a flop.
It"s 10 high and she leads out for 1400
I jam my full 4300 stack and get an instant call from Q 10
Happy days?
Not with that 10 on the turn...

Fast forward to somewhere close to the final table and my villainess 3bets over an early raise - he calls and they get it in on a 10 high flop
She has KK, he has A10
The turn card is, of course, a 10

She couldn"t understand why I laughed

[pokerpops]

Brief notes on the trip to DTD...

Having run well on Tuesday at the pub and even better on Thursday in the Nobbers game I travelled with some confidence. Misplaced as it turned out.

£500 - had many hands with cards as high as a 4 or sometimes even 5. Got AQ and flopped TPTK vs an opponent with TP2ndK which would have been marvellous but for the K on the river. Made nothing much else and for the first 5 levels was on a table where people didn"t like to fold. Indeed some of them absolutely refused to do it.

150/300
5way limped pot is checked to the river by which time the board has 3 diamonds on it including the King
Colin Young in BB bets 1500 into 1800
UTG makes it 4000 with   for second nuts. Fair enough obviously
Folds to BB who makes it 18000
Now, if this guy doesn"t have the nut flush here I"d have walked round Nottingham with me dick out for the weekend.
I know it, the rest of the table know it, the valet delivering the drinks knows it, but he gets a call.

Anyway - I can"t find a hand to get paid on and eventualy I get a table move. Stuck in Seat One and with trouble all over the place. I misplay an OESD when I peel Marrcin Mildes pf raise with 57 and check raise a 64Q flop. He calls the c/r the turn misses me and he checks back. I think I should 100% bet here, or just give up on the hand but when I miss the river too I decide that a bet is my only chance of winning the pot and lead out for around 60% on a 64Q9J board. Marcin calls without hesitation and shows K6...
Eventually my A10 is beaten by JJ and I"m contemplating the £150...

Went well...

Had a few fun hands in the £150 though. One vs Chinese Frankie a DTD legend. Basically went with my read on his hand strength and repped a better hand throughout. He took a lot longer to fold than I wanted him to but got there eventually.

Had a small bonus on Sunday when I slipped on the freshly laundered joggers to nip down to get a newspaper. There was £40 in the back pocket that had survived the washing machine in very good shape!

Played the Super £50 - really shouldn"t have but "I was there" so...

That"s my last game of any significance till St Kitts I think. There"s a £100 one dayer at G this weekend but I doubt I"ll bother, Dad"s on tele in the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on the evening and I think I should see it as it happens (it"s not actually shown live, but...)

Will play the Thursday nobbers games, and play the Sunday games at G but that"s likely to be it till I"m in the Caribbean.

[pokerpops]

Another week goes by and we"re now a week away from setting off to St Kitts.
We"re driving to DTD next Monday evening to be ready to set off from there early on Tuesday.
To say that I am looking forward to the trip would be the understatement of the year.
Lucy"s excitement is equally high.
I"m not a list maker, and prepare for trips and events in a failry casual way. So, with one week to go I have no travel insurance, no idea of how much I need to pack, no real idea about whether we have a suitably sized suitcase and have just begun tho consider how best to take money with me.
To put this in context, my only trips of the past 10 years have been to Festivals, where my clothes go in a rucksack and the rest of my belongings go in plastic boxes; a four or five day trip to Edinburgh and occasional one or two day poker trips.
Whatever - I"ll jam a few t-shirts and some shorts in a case of some form. Throw in some pants and socks and some swimming shorts and maybe add a hoody in case the air-con is overpowering. Sure I"ll be fine.

On the poker front this week, I bubbled the pub game on Tuesday, there was no Thursday game because of some jolly jaunt to Portugal and in Sunday"s game at G I lost all bar 725 of my chips on the last hand before re-entries closed. This resulted in my shoving blind at 150/300 when it folded to the HJ and I was, deservedly bust when I turned over the dreaded   needing a five for a chopped pot.
Switched to the .25/.50 game downstairs and managed to do some winning though. 3bet   and saw a flop 3way.   looked pretty good but local legend something Latif having flat called the 3bet from the BB open shoves for £99
We have history, I have the  , he has the  
Turn brick
River  
some wins are worth more than others  
I win a few more pots vs another ex-Gala stalwart who has made a hobby out of picking off my river bets over the last few months and hasn"t yet noticed that I"ve stopped bluffing the river versus him and started just making bluffy looking value bets


Have put a staking thread up for St Kitts - my life/poker roll isn"t equipped for much these days so the funds from the staking will be uised for playing a side event or two and will hopefully provide a sweat for those whose confidence in me remains strong.