....and I'll be updating bloggings with the results as and when...

Turning Pro

Next week, I and several intrepid poker nuts test out Anthony Holden's experiment, for one week at least. Yes, we are attempting to go pro for one week, taking in the highlights and lowlifes of London to see if we can really cut (and deal) it. Here's the schedule:

Sunday February 18th
2pm - Gutshot £20 F/O
8pm - Gutshot £30 F/O

Monday February 19th
2pm - Gutshot £20 F/O
Evening - choice of:
7:45pm - Grosvenor Victoria £20 F/O
8pm - Big Slick (Purley) £10 rebuy
8:30pm - The Western Club (Acton) £20 F/O

Tuesday February 20th
2pm - Gutshot £20 F/O
8:30pm - The Western Club £100 F/O
or - 9:00pm - The Equal Chance (walthamstow) £40 F/O

Wednesday February 21st
2pm - Gutshot £20 F/O
7:30pm - Grosvenor Victoria £30 F/O

Thursday February 22nd
2pm - Gutshot £20 F/O
6pm - Loose Cannon Club (Cannon St) £50+£5 F/O
8pm - Loose Cannon Club £50+£5 F/O (extra fivers go towards bounty on players you knock out)

Friday February 23rd
2pm - Gutshot £20 F/O
8:15pm - Rendezvous Casino Brighton £10 rebuy
or - 9:00pm - Equal Chance Club £75 F/O

Saturday February 24th & Sunday February 25th
Welsh Amateur Poker Championships Cardiff

Those are the tourneys we'll be going for, plus any cash mayhem inbetween.

In other news: The Pope really is Catholic !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/6361997.stm

i'll have a piss please Carol

First the good news - I won a show ! And I beat the 7-time champ to deny her an eighth show and a place in the quarters. Managed a 9-letter word in the process and then hit the conundrum to come from behind to win. Sadly no rude words came up (unlike the previous show where both players got SHITTED and they had to re-film the section with different words). Was definitely an advantage playing last (they film a whole week's programmes in one day) as the champ had played and won 4 shows already that day and visibly had complete knackeredness of the brain by the end.

Day 1 score: 83 - 76 (will be broadcast Friday 5th January)

My nightmariest nightmare was realised the next day when I came in to find out I was up against a child prodigy. Shit. Went into the waiting room to meet everyone playing that day and found him surrounded by his parents, grandparents and sundry relatives reading....READING the dictionary. I ask the production assistant if I can go home but it's too late. Obviously thrown by this terrible fate, I battle hard to keep ahead but his maths is too good and he beats me 82-59. He even manages to get one of the number rounds right when Carol Vorderman couldn't. Ouch.

Day 2 score: 82 - 59 (will be broadcast....actually dont bother :)

The Life Aquatic

The White Bear pub should be given a special EU grant. Not for serving great Guinness or putting on fringe theatre and stuff. No. For a few nights a month when the poker’s on, they single-handedly replenish the entire fish stocks of the European waters. Over in Scandinavia the sharks may be taking over but in a corner of SE11 the fish are thriving.

And as I sit shaking my head, busted out early yet again, my stack of green 500s kindly donated to Danny Cullen I wonder to myself: How is it possible that I learnt Hold ‘Em some 2 years previously with the same bunch of guys and the majority of them still, STILL believe that betting all the way to the river is a RULE, Ace High is a decent winning hand and that when I bet heavily post-flop, don’t realise that I BLOODY HAVE SOMETHING!

An example hand from a few months ago:

Des (who was so badly traumatised by the whole episode he has yet to be seen again) is up against Packie, the fishiest Irish fish in the whole of London. There’s a fairly sizable pot pre-flop. Both players check the flop, Des bets on the turn and Packie calls. Packie flips over his cards forgetting there’s another card to come and reveals bugger all, a King High. Des looks apologetic and says “sorry Packie, I’ve got to do this” before shoving all his chips in. Now most normal members of the human race, most poker players, shit, even my Gran who doesn’t know what day of the week it is would have folded, but Packie simply calls, KNOWING FULL WELL Des has seen his cards! Then the twist: totally horrified at this absurd call, Des flips over his hand to show he was bluffing. He can’t even match Packie’s hand with his Queen high. Des heads out of the door and everyone just stands in gape-mouthed awe at the sheer audacity that’s been played out before them. Packie doesn’t seem to acknowledge what’s happened. He just hoovers up the chips and goes on to win the game.

Now you could argue Des was greedy to go all-in. A sizable bet would have been enough to scare off most players, fish included. But this is an Irishman we’re talking about. There’s always that chance, however small that he’ll call. You look at last year’s Irish Open. Won by a 1st-time tournament player. And he was Irish. I don’t know how the event panned out but I wager quite strongly that he raised everything and chased the runnerest of runner-runner hands. Just a guess.

So you’re in a game. You’ve planned your strategy out beforehand. Sit tight, play premium hands, raise in good positions, fold high cards in early position, blah blah. Then you sit down and you realise your table looks like the Billingsgate Market on a Monday morning. What do you do? Is it simply a case of going back to your ABCs ? Can you even contemplate CDEs, or dare to implement the JKL ? Or is there a way of playing them at their own game? I try and compare my last two tournaments. The charity event in Berkshire was loose-passive incarnate. Players called right down to the river but there were rarely any heavy raises, minimum raise at MOST. Actually, I think some players managed to negative-raise if there is such a thing. But unless I hit big, I simply had to fold. Limping was not an option. At times it was like playing heads-up short. All-in or fold. And after 3 hours of play I think it clicked somewhere in my head. Aggressively raising on my big blind and following on post-flop I became the master bettor. Big stacks across from me collapsed like flimsy collapsible stacky things. And from there it was a short hop, skip and thump to the final table. But then the White Bear. Now I’m up against loose players again, but forget limping. Actually don’t forget limping, they like that too. But they also love massive raises with shit. Chase the Ace, runner runs, you name it. The text books will call it loose-aggressive, the players ‘fish’. A friend gave me a better description: ‘Donkeys’. ‘Donkeys are different to fish. The passive Fish are players who limp all the time and love showdowns. They don’t realise they’re bad players. Over time they’ll improve. The aggressive Fish don’t realise and frankly don’t care if they’re bad. They just love to gamble. “Look at Gus Hansen” my friend says, “most of the time he resembles one of our Irish pub players.” “So why isn’t he a donkey?” “Cos he has shitloads of cash and he knows when to tighten up.” At least with the passive players you had a chance of forcing them off pots. But an aggressive pub player will quite happily see you go all in, then, in one dark cloak of mayhem will see you, and you’ll go out (again) as his full house unfurls god-like in your lap. Graham the landlord is planning a £100 Xmas Special in a couple of weeks. Even if my bankroll could handle it I’m not even sure I can contemplate the paucity of the value.

My head spinning, I wonder if I’ll ever see a decent game of poker at the pub or if I’m destined to run the gauntlet of aggressive recklessness for eternity. I can never ditch it though: the atmosphere’s second to none and the banter great. But it’s either this or go and sit in a card room of corpses. Decisions, decisions.

10 Things to Say When On 'Countdown'

1. can i have a 'p' please bob ?
2) is that real ? (tugging on Des' moustache with your teeth)
3). im dyslexic and i have a doctors note, so can i have extra time please?
4) Des, see the world cup?
5) when do we have the bush tucker trial ?
6) when Carol says the numbers out, immediately say 'raise' after every number
7) this is boring, let's put some REAL money on this
8) I'm All In !
9). why dont you bring that nice Richard Whiteley back?
10) (sitting cross-armed for half an hour staring at the ceiling) - "I think you'll find that WANKDOGS is a valid word"

raced home in record time from Wiltshire (via Somerset and Wiltshire) yesterday to find I didn't A) want to go home, and B) want to go out for dinner in Notting Smell where I'd been invited. So where else to find solace than The Lodge in Clapham for a spot of cheeky latish-night cash mayhem.

'Only' risking £25 I sit down to discover everyone's gone mad. Straddling, blind calls, blind raises, blind drunkses, so I sit tight, raising 'pot' with anything half decent and chucking the rest. Still trying to get the hang of this Pot Limit malarkey, I hate the swings and the way its nigh on impossible if you're unlucky to force people off hands. Yeurrgh.

About 10pm and I signal to Rich that I want to go and we agree a couple more hands. Then I'm dealt JQh, one of my faves. I call a small raise from Jim and Terry and the flop comes 10-K-3, giving me an open ended straight draw, but with 2 clubs on board i'm wary of flush draws. Jim then raises £25 and Terry immediately calls. Now I'm thinking either one or both of them has a flush draw or has hit a set on the flop, either way stuffing me in the bumhole. I decide to fold purely for the reason its my last hand of the night. Naturally an Ace comes on the turn and i have my straight. The others bet out hoping for a club on the river but it doesn't come and Jim takes it down on high cards.

I'm mightily pissed off as I would have left the club about £200 in profit on that last hand alone but even though the rest of the table unanimously agreed that they'd have called, I was just thinking about my £35 profit on the night. I didnt want to spunk it in one hand and leave there cursing my luck.

for all your 'dry', 'cleaning' needs

going on Countdown Wednesday 29th November ! Any sponsorship gratefully wasted, I mean received...

it seems the guy who I beat heads up at the world strip poker champs got wind of my daniel craig 'match up' and was 'furious'. Betfred, his employers have proposed a rematch !

http://www.aworldofpoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4047

what if....WHAT IF ?????

World Strip Poker Champion Lays Down 007 Challenge

Paddy Power World Strip Poker Champion puts his title on the line for a showdown with James Bond star Daniel Craig

English journalist and World Strip Poker Champion Jon Young today throws down a daring strip poker challenge to new James Bond star Daniel Craig.

Young is offering to play Craig in a game of high stakes poker for his World Strip Poker Champion crown – anytime, anyplace, anywhere the suave spook wishes.

‘There is no higher stakes in poker than the shirt of a man’s back.’ mused Young. ‘Bond rates himself as a bit of a shark at the poker table but I want to prove it’s all posturing and that underneath that glacially cool exterior lies a big scared-y cat who’ll crap himself at the first sight of a REAL poker player. It’s just a shame 007 isn’t a woman.’

In the new Bond movie Casino Royale, which premiere’s at Odeon Leicester Square in London on November 14, 2006, Bond plays a game of high-stakes no limit texas hold `em in Monte Carlo with the dastardly villain Le Chiffre.

Young, who hones his poker skills on paddypowerpoker.com, became the world’s first Strip Poker Champion in London in August this year, beating 195 other hopefuls for the coveted title in the largest strip poker tournament the world has ever seen.

The budding Bond-beater wants to test his mettle against some of the coolest men on the planet.

‘I’m so confident I can outplay these shadowy super-spies I’ll let Connery, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan and Lazenby into the game too. I mean, c’mon, with such a bunch of lady-killers sat around one table gambling for such impressively high stakes the ladies are gonna be shaken AND stirred. Especially the Bond girls the boys will no doubt bring along for the post-game party.’

‘Craig can get Miss Moneypenny to give me a call on the secure phone to arrange a time and place for the game. I hope it’s in a giant secret volcano or a shimmering underwater lair but if he wants to come round to my house that’ll be fine too as long as the girlfriend doesn’t mind.’

‘I’ve even started working on my killer lines: “Do you expect me to raise? No, Mr Bond I expect you to fold!', and 'Will the Diamonds be Forever? I don’t think so Mr.Bond!'. Should they fail to sufficiently unsettle him I’ll get my third nipple out. It’s much scarier than Scaramanga’s – I’m getting a laser fitted next Wednesday y’know.’

Hopefully this can give the sorting office guy a little chuckle on a cold winter's morn.

in the news today, oh boy:

BLACKBURN Council leader Kate Hollern has branded as "disgraceful" the decision to turn half of the town's general post office into a betting shop.The franchise for the main post office in Ainsworth Street - which will be run by Newsplus Blackburn - begins on Monday.But before it has even opened, the move has sparked anger as half of the post office is to be turned into a Ladbrokes betting shop.Critics of the move say that the size of post office means it already struggles to cope with demand and regularly has large queues of customers waiting to be served.

Councillor Hollern said: "I think it's disgraceful. People will go to collect their pension and will have to fight their way through gamblers."

Surely this would save some of the clientele having to cash their giros and walk the few hundred yards to the nearest bookies ? Integrated Betting Policy. Lovely !

P.S. Where's my local MP to the rescue when at 7:25pm on a Saturday night I have to fight my way through all the gamblers at my local newsagent as they spunk away their pounds on the Lotto ? Oh yeah, she's Tessa Jowell and she's off setting up even bigger gambling dens. It's political correctness gone mad !