Poker With The Sweep

These Days....

2010-02-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

...you'll find me blogging at Black Belt Poker.

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T15:38:00.000-08:00

Well, it's a New Year and I've just added up my figures for 2009. Did I get the absolute lot? Did I bollocks. I lost a little over 4 grand over the course of the year. Marvellous.

That is actually the first losing year I've had at poker since 1998. Man that really sucks. I hate losing! Oh well, what diff, eh? As long as you're still in action you always have a chance to get out of it.

I told the missus about my lacklustre results and her response was, "You're a really good technical player, but you lack oomph". Hmmm, thanks darling. Considering what she knows about poker could be written on the back of a stamp from Lilliput, it's probably a frighteningly accurate comment.

I went to the Vic on New Year's Day and another player I respect told me he too had had a losing 2009, so I immediately felt better. Pathetic eh? Just knowing that a fellow reg/nit/rock was also in the red for 2009 somehow legitimised in my mind that poker is tougher and that even good players don't necessarily win.

I then proceeded to sit for hours in a very slow 2-5 game waiting for my name to be called for the blinding 5-10 game that was going on the next table. At around 2.30 in the morning knowing that it was now too late for me to get involved in the bigger and better game, I checked the board to see that I was no longer on the list.

"Andy", I said, "My name is no longer on the 5-10 list, but you never called me for that game, why not?"

Andy gave the board a glance.

Kev piped up, "His name was on that list"

"Oh sorry, we made a mistake"

My form!!

Spotted Dick

2009-09-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been lucky enough to get a gig spotting hands for the final table shows that PokerStars have been making for their WCOOP coverage (check out www.pokerstars.tv). In case you don't understand that, I choose which hands get shown in the highlights show.

Now sometimes it's pretty gruelling; for instance, for the Badugi final I had to watch over 400 hands and choose twenty of them which would reflect the "story" of the final table. Just trust me when I tell you that that final table took a looooong time (remember, Badugi is played limit).

It goes without saying that I have watched some of the world's best online MTTers - players like SCTrojans, djk123, ElkY, BeL0WaB0VE, westmenloAA, Hoss_TBF, Jovial Gent and many others.

So you'd think I'd learn something right? Maybe pick up a few extra moves. Nah, not a chance. The other night at the Vic I 3-barrelled some French guy who had already shown a propensity for not letting go of his hands when I held the ol' K9c. That's right, the Sawmill.

It's like this y'see. I happened to be spotting the WCOOP Main Event and one of the hands that stood out was eventual winner Jovial Gent raising in the CU (standard) and then 3-barrelling his hapless opponent into submission with Q9 off (standard too, obv). Btw, his third barrel consisted of a huge all-in.

Notice that I went one pip higher with my late posish raising hand - being such a nit I can't help but feel like I actually have to "have" something. Also notice I chose to pull the trigger in a 2-5 cash game at the Vic instead of a major online final where there were large payouts and money jumps.

Also, notice that I chose to execute this fine manoeuvre at around 4.30am when I was stuck and buried from probably one of the worst plays I have ever made in the 5-10 PLO game earlier on.

Finally, notice that none of the players who would expect me to turn over top set at this point (ie most of the regulars at the Vic) weren't there to see me table king-high, so it was pretty much a waste of time and money.

One of these days I might get around to actually learning how to play this fucking game...

It's Good To Be Back

2009-07-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

I played three events at this year's WSOP and got absolutely nowhere. Surprise, surprise I hear you say.

What was really annoying was that I got really ill and ended up lying in bed in my hotel room for the last two and a half days, so I didn't even get a chance to win back the tournament buy-ins in the cash games.

And when you're used to the cash games at the Vic even the bad games in Vegas seem super-soft. I played in two very good 2-5 PLO games at the Venetian, one good 5-10 NLH at the Bellagio and one good 5-10 NLH at the Wynn. I heard there were some blinding games at the Rio, but even though the running of the rooms at the Rio has improved I don't really like playing there so I gave it a miss.

Being the idiot that I am I kept playing the 20-40 Limit Mix game at the Wynn because I just love mixed games, but I was a definite dog in that game. Included in the mix were three games I had never played before - A-5 triple draw lowball, 2-7 Razz and Crazy Pineapple Hi-Lo.

There were at least four or five regulars in that game who were all strong players and at least twice I knew that it was my money they were carving up. Good game selection eh? But I kept playing because I wanted to learn and practise for the WSOP Mixed event which featured mostly limit games. Just watching this one guy Kendall, who I thought was the best player in the game, was an education in itself.

The $2,500 Mixed event turned out to be torture, mainly because that's when I started coming down with what may well have been Swine Flu for all I know. I had quite a good table draw as the only player I recognised on it was Clonie Gowan (nice and friendly btw). All around me were other tables that were pro-heavy with plenty of online and live faces.

The table next to ours was playing a lot faster than we were and at some point Clonie asked aloud, "Hey, how did those guys get to playing PLO already?"

I told her, "They all agreed to omit the Razz section on their table", and she believed me. Hmmm, I obviously need to try this bluffing thing more often...

Much as I love Vegas I have to say it was great to be back in the Vic the other night. In the 5-10 NLH game Frank Hughes was mercilessly taunting some young kid who, if he's not careful, could be the next Phil Hellmuth. By that I mean he was not only a bad loser, but a bad winner, at one point telling another player whom he had beaten in a big pot, "See how good I read you buddy? Maybe you want to borrow my sunglasses so you won't give off as many tells next time".

This kid also insisted on telling the whole table several times, "The only way you'll get my money is if you have the nuts and I have the second nuts or you hit a two outer against me - it's very hard to win my money".

You can imagine Frank's delight when he made a set of deuces on the river versus the kid's pocket kings. The ace-high flop slowed the kid down so you can see why Frank had a stab on the turn. Naturally on the river when he hit Gin, Frank made a nice value bet which had Hellmuth Junior muttering out loud, "Why does this always happen to me?". As he stormed off after being shown the outdraw Frank called out, "Thanks for the call on the river there kid. He's the future of British poker I tell ya."

Btw, did I mention that this kid was flopping sets left, right and centre and making 2-pairs on the turn Vs TPTK every other hand? He was hotter than a whore's drawers. As I moaned about him walking between the raindrops Frank consoled me with one of poker and gambling's profound truths, "Don't worry, he'll be selling the Big Issue in three weeks time... "

How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?

2009-05-29T03:31:00.000-07:00

We all know these are desperate times, but it was really brought home to me the other night at the Vic when I found myself in a rather moribund 5-10 PLO game.

Six of us were playing (alright, only two were playing, the rest of us were passing until we flopped top set, nut flush draw and the wrap all at once - hey it’s live poker and the Vic, you know how it is, right?) when the dealer asked for the half-hourly table charge.

At this point Dave Winston got up and said he was off; something about the game being not much cop and so on. A fairly common scenario in the card room at the Vic and one that happens often.

At this point, Lutvi said, “Don’t leave, you’ll break the game up. I’ll give you £100 if you stay”. He was serious by the way, this wasn’t an example of the famous witty banter one often hears about at the Vic.

It was somewhat similar to that episode of High Stakes Poker where the whole table chipped in $1,000 each to Mike Matusow to get him to stay in the game. I recall Matusow took up the “generous” offer and ended up doing his cobblers.

The thing is though, Dave Winston is a tight, solid winning player and Lutvi is more of an action player, shall we say. That’s how hard times are these days, a loosey-goosey was so worried that the game would break up he was willing to pay a granite player, whom he had very little chance of winning any chips off, to stay in the game! I guess I’ve seen everything now.

What Would Fred Do?

2009-04-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

I played a crazy pot in the 2-5 NLHE game at the Vic the other night.

Effective stacks £1,600. Me UTG with KK - I make it £25. Two callers including Tore (sp? He's Norwegian - a very nice guy and guess what? He is a super-LAG. Has anyone out there ever met a Scandinavian player who was weak-tight? I know I haven't) who is the big blind.

Flop 9 6 4, two clubs.

Tore checks, I bet £75 and before the other player has a chance to act Tore goes all-in for £1,470 more!

WTF!!!???!!! Jeez, that is a highly aggressive check-raise. Most likely a draw, but having played with Tore a little bit I also know he could do this with two-pair, maybe even a set, a small percentage of the time.

As I'm thinking about it, Tore even names my hand -"Maybe you have pocket Kings?" - which is always unnerving.

After a long dwell I make the call - turn 7, river 10, no club. I turn my hand over and Tore tells me it's good.

Tore later tells me that he had 7c5c, "It was a sick raise, but you made an even sicker call".

In other words, I was a small dog and made an iffy call. So how did I, one of the tightest poker players to ever walk the planet, call such an insane all-in raise?

Thinking about it, I realise that many roads led me to saying, "I Call", closing my eyes and pushing my chips into the middle.

1) I was losing - that should be obvious. But, believe it or not, I wasn't really steaming even though the very first hand I sat down I'd lost a big all-in pre-flop coup with aces Vs kings (K on the turn). After this standard bad beat I'd pulled up and won a nice pot with pocket queens against Ron Seymour, so I had recovered a little and was not feeling tilty.

Having said all that, I was still thinking about a big pot I had lost the previous time I had been to the Vic - once again with aces, where I felt I had misplayed them on the flop, so I guess deep down I was trying hard to not make another mistake.

But that's not all! Another hand from probably two weeks ago was on my mind too. This particular coup was one where I dogged it on the river when I knew that a bluff would have had a decent chance of succeeding.

So, yes, a couple of hands now lost in the swirling mists of time were having an affect on me, and yes, I know that sort of stuff shouldn't have any bearing on the pot you're in at that instant, but it's amazing how all the poker one has played over the years does have a bearing on what you're about to do. I mean, think about it, if you actually are trying to win you have to have learnt something somehow from all the previous times you have played.

In other words, I was trying to make up for past poker sins.

2) As soon as Tore said all-in I kind of knew I was going to call. I guess because I know he views me as a tight player, probably even a total nit, so, for purposes of the meta-game I have to let him know I can't be pushed around. In fact, it would have been even better to insta-call because that's what I felt in my heart of hearts I was going to do, as that would have blown him away ("Wow! How the fuck could you call so quickly?!?").

3) I really believed I had the best hand, and I guess old habits die hard, but back in the day you would put the money in if you thought you were winning. I realise nowadays you work out your equity in the pot and your opponent's range and all that shit (actually, I did think about Tore's range and had decided, perhaps wrongly, that he wouldn't play a made hand like two-pair or a set this way). I decided to not let the fact that I was probably flipping - something I'm not really that keen on usually - distract me.

4) I had the king of clubs in my hand.

5) Finally, if in doubt, ask yourself, "What would Freddy Carle do?"

Swapshop

2009-03-23T09:23:00.001-07:00

What is it that sets the great tournament players apart from the rest? Knowing when to change gears? Knowing the right spots to squeeze? Knowing when not to flip?

I realised the other day that all of the above, whilst useful, is not really the answer. No, the answer is knowing who to swap %ages with. I remember noticing that the Camel and Channing (Neil not so much these days as he tends to just put players in) always seemed to have little percentage savers with 4 or 5 out of the top nine in every tournament they played.

Yes, true, it's the old fashioned way of "getting out of it" as these days any player worth their salt has hustled up some kind of backing/sponsorship (Neil can be found most days at the Vic, table 21, in case you're wondering).

Anyway, I must be getting the hang of it as it's the second time in a row I have managed to recoup about 80% of the £550 buy-in that I had laid out in the triumph of hope over experience that is the Vic's bi-annual PLO8 tournament.

Somehow I managed to persuade the Champ, JQ, Shoreman and Paul Parker to swap 5% with me. In fact, Paul Parker insisted on swapping with me even though the last time he played it he barely got the buy-in back after winning it and paying off his make-up to Neil and then a 5% saver we had agreed on late in the tournament when we both had similar chips. At the time I had no idea he had been "put in" and probably wouldn't have asked him if I had known for fear of him laughing in my face.

This time it wasn't Paul, but international luckbox Shoreman who did the business. Cheers Jon, one of these days I'll make a final table or something...

I guess I feel pretty honoured that those four players would want a saver with me - although if they'd seen the way I was playing sometimes, I'm not too sure they would want to do it again.

In his infinite wisdom, Jeff saw fit to change what is usually quite a fun crap-shoot into a two day tournament. That meant a slower structure and thus more skill and thus.... - I suppose it would seem churlish to complain about getting a tournament with a higher skill factor, so I'm not going to, but, god, at times it did seem excessively s-l-o-o-o-o-w.

I started off playing terrible, impatiently raising with J89Q (did I mention that it was HiLo?) and then betting a board of T 7 7. Yep, you guessed it, I was drawing dead and paid off some random stranger who held TTA2 (just for shits and giggles he made the nut low too; turn 8, river 4).

I make a point of telling you my opponent was a random stranger because the field in this two-day event, about 54 runners so you can see why they needed it to be extended, tends to be every face that's been on the London poker scene for the last ten years or so.

Somehow I managed not to donk off the rest of my chips and even got a double up courtesy of Chufty. Things were looking ok further down the line when another wierdo stranger decided to raise all-in on the river when he had second best both ways Vs me and Surinder Sunar - sweet.

Things went downhill from there and I played a pot badly against Shorewoman opening the door for him to bluff me (doubtless you'll complain about weighing in, but you owe me you bastard - if it wasn't for this hand you might not have won, fucker).

I had tons of marginal hands where it seemed like the best play with my stack and the slower structure was just to chuck 'em away. At one point I made an overly tight fold against Andy Ward who had raised early. I was in the SB with A2TK (single suit) and deciding that Andy had been playing fairly snug plus the fact that I was OOP I threw the hand away. In retrospect I think this was a pretty poor fold. I mean, jeez, wtf was I waiting for?

I think my mind was harking back to one time years and years ago at the Horseshoe in Vegas when a good player I know was sitting in a $4/$8 limit O8 game with his case money. He was getting down to the felt when I watched him fold A2xx to a raise. I had only been playing for about 3 years (that's roughly the equivalent of about two weeks online for you young 'uns out there) so I was astonished that he could lay down such a "good" hand. I distinctly remember him telling me that he could wait for a better hand, one with three low cards in it.

Of course, that was a limit cash game and I was playing a tournament where you don't have the luxury of time, so fuck knows why I was thinking about that. A2KT is like the crown jewels in this sort of tournament - I must have been out of my fucking mind. I did have some weird head cold that I'd caught off my daughter, so I was feeling super-tired, but still...

The funny thing is that I told Rob Sherman who was sitting next to me what I had folded and he was perplexed and appalled that I could make such a terrible laydown - rightly so - and told me.

Not too long after I came in for a pre-flop raise with A36K and he re-raised me. Knowing that he knew that I had made such a horrible tight fold earlier I stuck it all-in. I'm sure in his mind he had extra fold equity against me now - I probably would've re-raised all-in anyway so how much difference that little tidbit of knowledge made to the hand I don't know, but there were plenty of oohs and aahs when the rest of the table saw my hand - "A3? Fucking hell, he's stuck it all-in with A3?!?" Especially when Rob turned over A2K4. Naturally we ended up splitting the pot anyway.

I also blew JQ's mind when he sweated me after he got knocked out and my stack had dwindled down to about 5 BBs. UTG I threw away KK5T (was it sooooted JQ?). Personally I feel this play is ok and would rather take my chances in the blinds, but he was clearly horrified. He's a better player than me so maybe he's right.

But, I think the problem with going all-in there with these dodgy kings is that, assuming you don't run into a good hand, both blinds are likely to take you on which means they'll do the ol' check-it-down-to-the-river-let's-see-if-one-of-us-can-knock-this-cunt-out-routine. Plus you have no way of making a low, so I'm pretty sure it's a good fold.

As it happens I ended up going all-in and getting knocked out with KK89 double suited which isn't much better so I'm clearly talking total bollocks...

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

2009-03-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've played and witnessed a few interesting hands at the Vic recently.

Hand #1.

2-5 NLH. I limp UTG with 33 and a few others follow suit. Flop 3 8 7 badugi, £30 in the pot. I lead for £20. Next guy folds and now the villain springs to life with a raise to £50. Everybody folds back to me and I call.

The villain in question is a regular at the Vic who I have played a fair amount with, not a lot, but enough for me to know that he is a super-loose passive calling station. A typical move by him would be to cold-call a raise and a re-raise out of position etc.

As far as I know, he never raises on the come (unless he is going all-in with his last bit of scratch) or makes flairy raises because he thinks he can push you off a hand and so on. In fact, I would argue that this guy (a very nice guy btw who loves his roulette) is the epitome of a loose-passive calling station.

Turn 8. Hmmm, I check. He now gives it the dwell and checks too.

River T (putting a backdoor flush out there). I now bet £75. He fiddles about with his chips for a bit (jeez, I wonder how much he's gonna raise?) and makes it £250. Marvellous. I fold.

Great, the first full house I've made in about 100 years at Holdem and I feel I have to fold it. The thing is, I'm pretty confidant that the villain in question would not raise there with just trip 8s. If he had a straight or a flush he would just call me down. On the flop he is not raising me with just top pair - ok, maybe he was raising with an over-pair, but if so, these too are hands that he would just call on the river with as opposed to raising.

I know you're supposed to assign a range of hands that your foes can have these days, but I have to say that when he raised me on the flop I immediately put the villain on top two (i.e 87 in his hand) and I have to say that further action down the streets only strengthened that belief. Of course, I could be wrong and I was totally outplayed in which case kudos to him and I'm an idiot (we know that already, so that's no big deal).

As it happened there was a pigeon-y kind of player (that's more original that fishy, isn't it?) who was incredulous that I folded such a strong hand and was convinced that the villain had a straight (he might be right, we'll never know). As we discussed it, a young player on my left who seemed pretty solid to me agreed with my analysis of the situation (confirmation bias FTW).

I told Panni about the hand too (he knows the villain in question) and before I even finished the story he said, "87, definitely 87" - without a doubt I respect his opinion so in my mind I really feel I made a good fold there.

Hand #2.

2-5 NLH. A strong, solid TAG player limps UTG, another player limps and I raise to a pony with AhKh in the cutoff. One of the blinds call, the TAG calls as does the other limper after him.

Flop T K 3 badugi, about £100 in the pot. Checked around to me and I bet three farmers' daughters (that's £75 to those of you who can't speak cockney poker jargon - far superior to young american collegiate poker jargon imo). The BB folds and now the TAG check-raises to a bottle (£200 - alright, alright, I'll stop). The other player gets out of the way and now the action is back on me. I neglected to mention the stack sizes - approx £1,300 for the TAG and I had him covered.

Hmmm, what to do? This particular villain is a super-solid player who really knows the game. I've tangled with him before and I know he respects my game (as he knows that I respect his etc). What I haven't mentioned is that in this particular game he was getting beat up pretty bad. Not that he was on tilt or anything, he's too good a player to have serious steam issues, but he was having one of those sessions where he just could not win a hand no matter what he did.

As I pondered my next move it struck me that I was only really worried about a set of 3s or top two (i.e KT in his hand). Also, that check-raise was kind of small, pretty weak-looking when you think about it. Also, my bet just looks a standard c-bet. Fuck it, I've got the best hand here. Raise! £500 to play.

Of course, if I think I have the best hand there is an argument for just calling - I am in position after all - and letting my foe bluff off a few more chips. But I think if I call it could lead to a tough spot further down the line, especially as I'm up against a good player.

Anyway, as I said, I raised and after not too much thought the TAG folded.

Hand #3.

I wasn't in this one, just happened to eyeball it firsthand. 5-10 PLO. There's been a raise and re-raise and somehow four players have all put in £395 before the flop. Incidentally, the stacks were quite shallow in this hand apart from Mike Ellis who had about 3 or 4 grand in front of him.

Flop 9 9 5 (badugi again, I think). Vach, who I think was in the BB now leads out all-in for £685. After longish dwells both the raiser and re-raiser pre-flop fold and now the unbluffable calling station star.....folds too. Unlucky Vach, no action for your 9TJK or your 5s full.

Vach now turns over his hand. KJ87!! Wow, now that's what I call luck. To bluff pure air (apart from the gutterball straight out) with a bet of a bit less than half the pot into three players behind you in a lively PLO game and get away with it means you must be living right.

In case you're wondering about the title of this post - last night I went to Neil's unveiling of his new business/web site blackbeltpoker.com which looks like it could be the nuts. It was a really good presentation and considering that Channing can talk the hind legs off several mules he was really concise and to the point. I wish him the best of luck with it and suggest you check it out (they're going live in early April).

It Could Be Worse

2009-02-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

Tom Gibson accused me of being a lazy bastard the other day, so I figure it must be time for another missive from the front line, aka the 5-10 PLO game at the Vic.

Hugh Buchanon is a fixture at the Vic card room these days, mostly doing his brai- er, playing, in the 5-10 PLO game. As anyone who has come across him knows, he is a well-spoken black gentleman who spends most of his time complaining about his bad luck.

Some of you may recall me writing about other whingers at the Vic, but, believe you me, Hughie-Buwee (as I once heard Panni call him) makes those other whiners look positively stoic. Without a doubt, we have a new world champion moaner in our midst.

So the PLO game is going and it's blinding and Hugh is super-steamed up, almost crying with frustration with how terrible his form is (I mean, the guy does play every hand and somehow ends up flopping monster wraps and flush draws every time which proceed to always miss - this poor sod is obviously cursed).

Now also seated in the game is a certain face who I don't know, which is unusual for me as I am pretty friendly with most Vic habituees. Nonetheless, all the other faces on the poker scene know him well.

Well a huge pot develops and as usual Hugh is on the losing end of it. After the cards are flung and a load of bellyaching from Hugh there is a bit of an awkward pause while the dealer gathers up the cards and shuffles for the next hand and everyone else wonders whether Hugh is going to pull up.

The silence is broken by the face saying, "It could be worse Hugh, you could have been born 60 years earlier - then you would have been a slave..."

Happy New Year

2009-01-03T06:45:00.000-08:00

There's something about the festive season which seems to inspire fantastic action at the poker tables. Maybe I've been lucky, but the last few times I've been at the Vic I have played in some blinding games. PLO seems to have had some sort of resurgence recently and quite a few of the old donators, and a couple of new ones too, have been making the games very playable.

Last night I played in a tremendous 5-10 NLH - possibly the best mixture of rocks and Charlie Chuckaways I can remember in a long time. Most everybody was playing loose-passive thus ensuring plenty of opportunities to see a cheap flop.

There was one absolute superstar who basically called every bet no matter what the board was, the river would usually put the world's fair out there, flushes, straights, full houses, you name it, and every time he would either fold to a bet or his opponent would show something like top pair weak kicker and he would then nod his head indicating that he was beat. It was amazing, wtf was this guy calling with every time?

He eventually went over to the Omaha game and ran £400 into about 3 grand and then lost it all in one hand when he flopped a straight against someone else with the same hand and a freeroll which got there (I know this because naturally I followed this star to the Omaha game).

In the Holdem game I played with somebody I used to play with about 5 or 6 years ago in the old £50 Round of Each days. This particular player was pretty loose and used to call raises with any two or four in any position and take all sorts of flyers on the flop and turn with all sorts of funky hands. Sometimes he could be quite tricky to play against, but on the whole he got out of line way too much.

Anyway he comes and sits down in the 5-10 game and I'm thinking to myself, "Yum-yum! Put on your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!" But hold on, did aliens kidnap this guy and replace him with some kind of granite clone? He barely played a hand! One time he even just flat-called a raise with pocket jacks - in the old days that was an automatic three-bet, don't you worry 'bout that!

Of course what I was witnessing here was somebody playing out of their comfort zone and just as I was noting this fact to myself an interesting situation arose. The player on my left straddled to a pony and everybody folded to my old R of E mate who now made it £30. Er... there's been a straddle actually so that counts as a call. Did I mention that this old nemesis wasn't exactly the observant type?

The SB folds and I find AK in the BB so seeing as my old R of E villain was interested in raising I take the cautious route and just make up the straddle. The straddler checks and the hare is running.

K 7 6 on the flop so I lead out for a bullseye. The straddler folds and now my foe makes it £150. I realised it was very likely he had the same hand as me - I ruled out pocket 6s or 7s as likely holdings as he had not raised with those sorts of hands at all (although that was his modus operandi in the smaller R of E games back in the day).

I called his £100 and raised another £200. He was immediately taken aback and started going on about how I must really like the flop and so on. "You've flopped some kind of weird two-pair haven't you?" he said, "Alright, I'm laying down Ace-King here".

Because of our history (and my cuntish ego, yeah alright I admit that) I couldn't resist showing my hand which then caused him to splutter, "But you're a tight player! I can't believe you re-raised with that!"

Ok, it's not much of a story and a rather minor triumph on my part, but I thought it was kind of interesting how differently this guy played in this game compared to a smaller buy-in game, and how his pride wouldn't let him admit that he was playing differently.

Do Poker Players Tell Lies? Does The Bear Shit In The Woods?

2008-11-17T06:38:00.000-08:00

There's a new foreign player at the Vic who has become quite a regular (I'm not going to write his nationality to spare any embarrassment he might feel at the following anecdote).

Once you start going to any card room for a while it doesn't take long before you get to know a few of the other locals/regs/pros/layabouts/chancers etc. After a while you feel like one of the boys, maybe you're a fellow shrewdie, hustling "tourists" out of their money. You're not some egg who just got off the banana boat are you? You're a face, just like some of these other long time players who seem to be showing you some respect and letting you into their secret world.

But are you?

It's the 5-10 game and Declan is in seat 9 and he is drunk. When I say he is drunk, he is lit up like a Christmas tree. Still, seeing as it's Declan, he is still playing good poker, even though it means he is playing wild and crazy instead of his usual granite style (when sober of course).

But even four sheets to the wind Declan is no idiot and in fact his wild and crazy drunken antics, which include bluffing pretty much every pot he enters, actually means that he is still not risking barely 1 or 2% of the money he has in front of him. Plus of course all the banter and witticisms are now twice as loud, but still quite funny.

Anyway, the new foreign player (NFP from now on) is in the game and, to my eyes at least, it's clear he is seeking Declan's approval. He is laughing the loudest at Declan's wisecracks and lapping up Declan's crazy bluffs. This NFP is also one of these players who loves to call raises with trash and then "outplay" his opponents. He likes to draw attention to this fact and several times already he has told the table that, "It's no secret in this club that I don't mind gambling".

I can't remember the pre-flop action (but there was bound to have been a raise), but all of a sudden Declan and the NFP are heads-up on an ace-high flop. Declan checks, the NFP bets £200 and now Declan makes it £700. While the NFP is thinking about the raise, Declan giggles and tells him that he raised "No look". The NFP asks him if really did raise without looking at his cards and Declan says, " Yeah, sure". The NFP calls.

There may well have been another bet at some point, but I can't remember. It doesn't matter as the conclusion of this story is that when it comes to the showdown Declan tables AQ whilst our foreign friend shows AJ for the second best hand.

"I thought you said you hadn't looked at your cards? That's why I called your raise", the NFP now whines. Declan, still giggling, says, "I lied, I did look".

The NFP is clearly shocked that somebody would lie at a poker game, I mean, gosh, that's outrageous. He tells Declan that he has undermined the integrity of the game (!). Really? Sounds more like you got hustled friend. Of course, if you even vaguely bothered to observe what was going on then you would have seen Declan look at his cards as soon as he was dealt them. But, if you want to believe what a poker player tells you then you run the risk of being made to look like a fool.

The upshot of all this was the NFP went on mega-tilt, at one point calling a check-raise from Jackie Barrs (sp?) who won the hand with queen-high (Q2 diamonds on a two diamond flop). And what did our foreign friend call all-in with? The almighty 75 clubs that's what. To be fair he did have six outs so moneywise it wasn't a bad call, but there was no way he could have known his pairing cards were good.

I mean, how often do you get check-raised when you are c-betting with 7-high, aka complete air (ok, I think there was an 8 on the flop, so he had a backdoor straight draw, but that was it), and you think, "Ok, I'll call off my last £250 with this" ?

I actually made a very questionable play against this guy considering how steamy he was playing. He has raised UTG and a bunch of us have called including myself with 89 hearts. The flop comes down two hearts and an 8. The NFP bets £200 and now after a bit of thought and a couple of sly glances to my left to check that the other players behind me didn't seem too interested in the flop I raised all-in to £1,200.

Everybody folded back around to the NFP who now made a comment about how I must have flopped top set, but, "Ok, I'll gamble with you". Wow, I reckon my fold equity must have been about 1%, maybe less, so maybe it wasn't really the best of plays getting it all-in with a pair of 8s and a 9-high flush draw. Considering that he thought that he was up against top set, but still called pretty swiftly, showed how much I underestimated the tilt factor.

Most of the time when you flop a pair and a flush draw in Holdem it's pretty standard to play it aggressively isn't it? But I think in this particular spot it wasn't the right move. How would all you eggsperts out there play my hand against somebody on triple-tilt?

Happily (for me) I made a flush on the river to win a nice sized pot. Even a blind squirrel stumbles across the nuts now and again etc.

X-Factor 2008

2008-10-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

The first live show of this season's X-Factor kicked off last night which meant a flurry of texting between me and the Champ. Plus at least two phone calls during the ad breaks to discuss the prices on betfair.

I actually didn't realise it was the first live show last night and only tuned into it about halfway through so I missed the Champ's pick for outright winner, Austin. I don't really like to doubt her much as she is a super-canny reality TV/talent show bettor and has done very well on these shows in the past.

But, I have to say, I'm not too sure about Austin. To be fair my opinion is only based on the 5 second highlight clip they use in the recaps and the Champ herself said he wasn't very good last night.

Still, one of her tips for top groups was Bad Lashes who actually ended up being the first ones out. Oops. Luckily I hadn't noticed recent updates on her blog as I made a small bet on them being knocked out.

This year looks like it could be quite a good show from a gambling POV as for once the competition seems quite open. For what it's worth I have backed Eoghan, Rachel and Ruth. The last one may not be such a good bet - she's gone right out to 50 on betfair as I type. I must admit I was a bit dazzled by her huge bazongas (as was Simon Cowell, which is probably why her price has drifted). Still, it's early days so who knows. In fact, at that price she might be worth having a bit more of a tickle.

I also wanted to have a bet on Laura, but her price is around 2-1 which didn't really get me very excited.

What always makes me laugh about X-Factor is the number of people who go on about how shit the contestants are and how the whole thing is a joke and how culture is going down the pan etc. What these high-brow intellectuals don't understand is that X-Factor isn't really a talent/music show - it's a made-for-the-masses TV show, on ITV fer Chrissakes, for families to watch while they have their tea. Essentially it's just a latter-day version of The Generation Game or It's A Knockout or Family Fortunes - pick any popular Saturday night drivel you can think of basically.

If you complain that none of the contestants are not in the same class as whoever you think is a brilliant singer/pop star then you are definitely tuning into the wrong show.

The only person who seems to have understood this is the Champ of course, which is why she has done so well punting on these shows.

Personally, I love popular/low-brow culture. I have always found it fascinating as well as very amusing. The amount of shit I get from my girlfriend for watching X-Factor is ridiculous - she just thinks I'm an idiot and doesn't understand. She's so hung up on liking "cool" music she misses the point. What's really annoying is she then accuses me of having bad taste, when in fact I know so much more about music than her, but, no, that just means I'm a "muso-trainspotter"* - aaaargh, you can't win.

Of course, having a few bets on the outcome does make the show much more riveting, but I know I would still watch it if I didn't have any money on it.

*Ok, I'll admit there's an element of truth in that.

WSOPE H.O.R.S.E

2008-09-24T04:43:00.000-07:00

So I played the £2,500 HORSE tournament at the Empire - made it to day two, but obviously I'm sitting here writing this while there are still eleven players left in and I'm not one of them.

As JQ says, it's fool's gold chasing these elusive tournament/bracelet wins, but wtf, you gotta give the odd one a shot now and then.

Even though my day two was real torture I enjoyed playing in this event. I have always loved playing all the games and I have to say that playing limit made a nice change. Loads of interesting situations come up and unlike a no limit tournament it's not the end of the world to get short-stacked.

My starting table included Jeff Duval (still in as I write and with a real chance of winning - go Jeff!), Howard Lederer, Jon Shoreman, Richard Ashby aka Chufty, Yuval Bronstein (who made the final of this event last year) and Marc Goodwin. Hmmm, what's that old saying about not being able to spot the sucker at the table?

There were three straight-flushes on our table during the first four levels - the funny thing being that on two occasions the players that held them didn't realise that they had the absolute joint in their sweaty mitts.

Shoreman was the first perpetrator (very surprising that he would miss that) when he was involved in an O8 hand and turned his hand over at the end saying he just had the low. Hang on, you've got a straight-flush for the high there too! Oops, well we all do silly things like that don't we?

Yes, because a bit later on in the Hold'em round I raised with AdTd. Marc Goodwin called in the BB. The flop came down with three diamonds - alright, I've flopped the nuts here. He checked, I bet, he called. Turn card is the Kd. He checks again and now I'm thinking, "Fuck, that fourth diamond has killed my action a bit, but it's limit so I'll bet anyway, fuck it".

I bet and now he folds with a grimace, showing a Qs to match the Qd on the board (like a pair of queens was the world's fair or something and how unlucky is he to have had his top pair done on the turn etc) and in the spirit of friendliness that we had all played the tournament so far I showed my hand saying that I had flopped the flush anyway.

Hold on, that Kd gave me a Royal! The Jd was on the flop too, you see. Shit, I hadn't even realised, what a doofus. Jeez, I wouldn't have minded giving a free card there - oh well, I'm in an elite club with Shoreman. At least he has the excuse that he was playing Omaha, where your mind can get focused on the main draw you're going for so it's more common to miss a different hand you have made. Or something like that.

The start of day two I had a bit of a bad beat when on the very first hand the big blind hadn't showed up. Fold, fold, fold to me and I look down to see the boots. Ay, ay, what a spot to have aces. I've got Barny Boatman, John Juanda and John Phan (SB) behind me, surely one of them is going to think I'm taking advantage of the big blind not being there.

I raise, Barny mucks saying what a good bet, but he knows me well, plus he has the other two behind him. Surely these two top class tournament pros, who have never played with me before (ok, I played with Juanda a bit in a WSOP Stud 8 tournament once, but that was only for about two hours about two or three years ago) are gonna think I'm taking the piss and play back at me? Nah, of course not, muck, muck.

I guess my granite reputation is world-wide now. Btw, Phan proceeded to play every hand in the rest of the Hold'em round and won about six of them. Marvellous; I guess he just didn't want to get involved in the SB (don't blame him I suppose).

I have to say that the atmosphere at the Empire is sort of weird. Business must go on as usual and over half the casino is full of the regular Chinatown punters cracking away at the roulette - they couldn't give a shit about the World Series of Poker. Imagine you're an elderly chinese man who's had a bit too much to drink and now a burly American tournament director comes up to you and tells you that you can't stand in a certain place.

I mean, this is where you come every night to gamble and now some guy with an accent you don't understand is telling you where you are allowed to stand whilst all around are a load of buffoons wearing weird clothing with all these funny looking patches that say Full Tilt on them, what the hell are you going to make of that?

One For The Moaners - The Vic Moves With The Times

2008-09-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Kudos to the Vic for renaming all their games by blind size instead of minimum buy-in size. Now the £100 game is the £1-£3 game, the 200 is the 2-5, 250 is the 5-10 and so on.

They've also changed the minimum buy-ins to 40x the big blind, so the min sit down in what used to be known as the £100 game is now in fact £120. The 5-10 (old £250 game, no need for me to tell you that was there?) now has a min sit down of £400.

I don't know if it's going to make any difference, but it feels right. More in keeping with the internet and card rooms in America and all that. It'll certainly be interesting to see if the 2-5 game gets more popular. Always plenty of games with those blinds in Las Vegas, so I'd imagine people want to play that.

No doubt plenty of the regulars will find a reason to moan about this new change, but I think it's a good move. I'll probably still call all the games by their old names for ages though. Calling something The Monkey Game just has a ring about it doesn't it? I remember once hearing Bambos asking what the game was, "Monkey or Half-Monkey?" What kind of slang are we going to use now?

Tilt!!!!

2008-08-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

The appliance of Chaos Theory in poker really hit home last night. That is, much like the Butterfly Effect, what has happened earlier in a game can affect you for hours, days, even months into the future.

I am referring to Tilt of course. I can only think of one player who seems immune to it. Recently I thought I had bested it, but I must have grown complacent with my seeming imperviousness to steaming.

I had a bad night in the £250 game the other day, mainly due to bad play. So last night when I went to the Vic I decided to just grind it out in the £100 game. I still felt antsy so I figured I'd be better off getting my head back together at a lower limit.

Well, what a good move - it wasn't long before I was winning and playing ok. Some guy came to the game and it was pretty clear that it was maybe his first time playing in a public card room.
It wasn't long before the dealer had to tell him off for string-betting. Sure enough, it wasn't long before he did the same thing again. This time, though, he got annoyed about it and now a couple of the other players, including myself, politely told him why the Vic has a rule about dropping your chips in one by one.

We told him to either state the amount of his raise or just cut out the chips behind the line on the table and then put them in the pot. Not hard is it? Well, for some reason this guy just didn't get it and continued to make the same mistakes.

He also was acting out of turn a lot and doing things like trying to take his own change out of the pot. If the bet was £55 he would count out the amount in red chips really s-l-o-w-l-y instead of just putting two blues and a red in. All petty stuff I know and I've seen it all before, but for some reason this jerkoff really got under my skin.

Usually players who are new in a cardroom tend to be nervous (understandable) so you expect them to make mistakes. I guess I got annoyed with this guy because instead of being nervous he was trying too hard to be matey whilst simultaneously being a blowhard.

The truth is, he was just a tool who wanted a little social interaction to go with his poker game, and there's no crime in that.The real crime was perpetrated by me when I decided I had to iron him out just to get him to shut up and fuck off from the game. Did I wait until I had the goods to teach this schmuck a lesson? Of course not - I had let it get personal and it wasn't long before I had dusted off my winnings to him plus a little more.

I actually can't remember the last time I got the needle with somebody like that. Usually I can just ignore it or laugh it off. Jeez, was that guy really so bad? Probably, but certainly not worth me playing like an absolute cunt. God, I'm even more irritated by the whole episode as I type it out and read it back.

But it's nothing to do with the novice player, it's obvious I reacted to him the way I did because I still hadn't gotten over doing my bollocks on Sunday night.

The fact is, as poker players we are in a semi-permanent state of vexation aren't we? Even when one is in a better mood because one is winning in the game there's always some fuckwit at the table testing your patience.

A great example of this occurred in the £250 game on Sunday night after Stavros won a huge pot off Adam Stoneham* When the pot was over Stavros moved seats and at the same time a new dealer came to the table. The new dealer saw Stavros sitting down in an empty seat with a pile of chips and innocently asked Stavros if he wanted to post.

Now everybody knows that Stavros is, to put it mildly, irascible, but you'd think that immediately after winning a nice big pot like that even Stavros might be feeling somewhat jollier than usual. Heh, you'll be alright. Stavros exploded! The poor old dealer got a right telling off - "I just moved seats from over there you idiot! You're worse than Hitler some of you!"

* Folded round to Stoneham in the SB who makes it £30. Stavros in the BB makes it £200. Call. Flop 8 3 7, two clubs. Check, Stavros bets £700. Stoneham calls. Turn a blank. Stoneham checks and now Stavros goes all in for £20k! Long, long, long, long, long dwell from Stoneham - he had about 7 grand left - and then he finally calls. River a 9. Stoneham has 8 T and Stavros wins with 8 3 offsuit for a flopped two pair.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be Yilmaz

2008-08-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

I found myself in a tough spot in the £250 NLH game with Neil directly on my left and then Yilmaz immediately after. Imagine trying to get through those two. Yilmaz especially.

Mind you, it was a pleasure to watch Yilmaz play. He may be one of the best LAG players I have ever seen. Fearless and tricky, you never know what he has. Complete air or the nuts, he's always putting pressure on you.

Now that I think about it, I should have just bought in for the minimum and played a pre-flop game. Trying to take on the likes of Neil and Yilmaz with a pesky middling stack is akin to climbing Everest on your knees.

A huge £32k pot developed between the two of them at one point with Neil being on the losing end of a set over set situation. Poor old Neil was very annoyed with himself, but I'm sure if the hands had been reversed Yilmaz would have gone broke too. Also, against a player like Yilmaz whose hand range is so wide, slowing down with middle set is only leaving money on the table in the long run (imo, whatever that's worth).

As Neil said at one point I was playing "squeaky tight". The irony was that the few times I woke up with a hand one of the other super-granites at the table would come in from the cold and raise it up.

Steve Luca, very solid and probably playing tighter than me (in fact I know he was from another hand which I'll talk about in a second), suddenly decided to make it £200 after a bunch of limpers. I look down to see KK in the small blind. Jeez, what a time to find what is quite likely the second best hand. Steve's stack was a healthy looking £2k-ish (I had him covered) so I just called. Naturally Yilmaz couldn't resist and he and one other player came along for the ride too.

I suspect many players, especially internet ones, cannot believe I didn't re-raise there, but I felt in my heart of hearts that Steve had the Boots here. Yeah, I know, if I really think I'm beat I should just fold my Kings quietly there too, but it's freakin' pocket kings and I guess AK is also in Steve Luca's range in this spot.

Anyway the flop comes down 4 4 5, a pretty safe flop for an over-pair and we all check to the pre-flop raiser who duly bets £300. Wow, that's a small bet. I have Yilmaz and the other player behind me, but it's unlikely either has a 4. Still, I'm sure that Steve would check AK here and only bet AA, KK and QQ. I couldn't get it out of my head that he had aces so I went with my feelings and folded.

Wha??!?!! Yeah I could be wrong, but wtf? It was going to cost me another two grand to find out and I figured there were better spots. Steve told me later at the cash desk that he did have aces. Of course, he could be lying.

So why did I think this particular player had a better hand than me in that spot? Well, earlier on I limped UTG with 44. By some miracle neither Neil or Yilmaz raised (one of them might have even folded!) before the flop and four or five of us saw the flop. 4 6 K - gin! I led out for about £50, one call and then Steve Luca called.

The turn comes an ace and now I bet £100. The middle guy folds and now Steve made it £300. Hmmm, trip 6s is a definite possibility here, in fact when he called on the flop I thought, "Uh oh, what's that about?". I may be tight, but I'm not a big one for folding sets, so I just shrugged and stuck it all-in.

Steve now went into the tank and as he gave it the genuine dwell I realised that trip 6s was odds on. Shit. My very good hand had now turned into a bluff.

Luckily I also realised that it really looked like I had limped pre-flop with aces or kings because I was expecting a raise behind me from either Neil or Yilmaz. I could see that was the very thought going around Steve's head. Unlike Neil I'm useless at talking my opponents into doing what I want them to do, so I just kept quiet, funking for him to muck.

Thankfully, Steve is not the type to angle-shoot or piss about and after not too long he passed his hand saying that I must have aces or kings. Phew. That's how tight he is (middle set on the flop! I could never fold that!) which is why I didn't feel too bad about folding my kings later on.

I guess having a nitty image does pay off sometimes. I'm guessing that Steve Luca probably doesn't play something like pocket fours upfront and he presumes a tight player like myself wouldn't do so either. He's right actually, sometimes I don't.

Just Another Night - More Ramblings

2008-07-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

I'm cashing out at the Vic last night when I hear "Joker" Joe Grech telling somebody else how bad the game was, full of rocks, no gamblers and so on. Hold on, weren't he and I in the same game? There were at least four spots in the game that were good value, one of them being a real superstar who, whilst I was playing, lost about 3 grand.

Perception is a big thing in poker, what other players think about you and vice-versa. I was astonished at Grech's impression of the game, it seemed pretty good to me. What did he expect? Players to call raises with Q2 off? That doesn't happen.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong and it was a bad game; poker is so subjective and one's ideas about the game and how it should be played are often changing.

As I drove home and reflected on the session I thought to myself what terrible cards I kept getting dealt. Even for me I was playing super-duper granite. But hang on, didn't I win three pots (two of them being a decent size) with runner-runner back-door stuff? How often does that happen? So much for thinking I wasn't getting any hands when in fact on three occasions I was dealt perfect turn and river cards.

There was also a guy in the game who, when I first came across him, I thought was a complete fucking prick. Of course, as time has gone by and I've played with him a few times, I now don't think so badly of him.

I still think he's a bit of a loudmouth idiot seeking validation from his peers in the poker room, but now I don't mind his company. I know he's not an absolute dog like some of the scumbags one finds in poker rooms.

Still, it never ceases to amaze me the amount of times you meet people who have "found themselves" in poker. That is, they've found an environment where they feel like they fit in. It's alright to be "wacky". It's all part of the game isn't it? Their boorish personalities can now expand because it's all a part of table image.

It's good fun yelling for a black deuce on the turn because they've seen other "pros" do it. It's great that now you can straddle and look like a fearless gambler. Even better, you can berate the rocks for playing tight and bask in the glow of approval from the other "real" players. They've learnt all the funny phrases like Michael Arnold's "One seat here!" or Francis Rohan's immortal "You'll be alright".

They've finally made some friends (or at least think they have made friends) with whom they share a passion. Poker attracts all kinds of misfits and now all of a sudden they've found what they think is their spiritual home. And it's full of like-minded people like themselves.

Except it's not. It just seems like it. A lot of the fellas who were friendly to them in the beginning probably just wanted them to keep playing in the game. And, like I said, after you've spent a bit of time playing cards with the same people you can't help but exchange at least a few friendly words.

And soon after that you're chatting more. About how so and so is a good tournament player , but useless at cash. About your ex-wives. About some strip club in Vegas. And so on. Next thing you know, you're both getting the same flight to Barcelona. Or the Eurostar to Paris for the big festival at the Aviation. You might even start swapping percentages in the same tournaments. Maybe even lend each other money.

Basically it's the poker equivalent of having a drug buddy. That is, not a real friend, just somebody else suffering from the same sickness as you. Misery loves company. Somebody else who understands the weird sub-culture you have entered into. Squares and outsiders have no idea what you're going through. In fact, they find it very boring, so you have to have someone else who understands what you're going on about when you tell that bad beat story.

If this all sounds judgemental and a little dark I didn't really mean it to. After all, one of the attractions of poker for me was that I felt I had discovered my own Cheers ("Where everybody knows your name..."). Kindred spirits were all around me, all the faces said hello to me, other players asked what I thought about a particular coup, I was one of the boys. Fuck, I even used to put on a bit of a "persona" when playing. Thankfully I stopped that when I realised it just wasn't my style.

The truth is poker is a great escape. I believe that applies to both the recreational player and the pro. For me it is even more true than ever before, now that I have had a kid. I don't care whether the game is good or bad anymore, it's just great to be away from the infinite drudgery of domesticity.

I also remember a period a few years ago when things were going pretty badly in my life, but as soon as I sat down in a game at the Vic all those problems just melted away. Incidentally, I went on a terrific upswing at that time too - I've never understood those poker writers who say that one shouldn't play when one has problems at home; what a load of bollocks, that's the best time to play.

Let's Hear It For Queen High

2008-06-25T06:15:00.000-07:00

I remember reading about some big pot Doyle Brunson won off Johnny Moss with Jack high when Doyle called a big bet from Moss on the river because he correctly put Johnny on a busted straight draw.

Also, my mate the Champ told me about some sick call with Queen high against Erik Lindgren at the WSOPE last year. And, of course, Duthola's great call with Queen high in the big cash game at the Venetian during last year's WSOP.

I've always loved these sorts of stories and have always figured that I'm unlikely to make this kind of play owing to my super-nitty rockiness.

Anyway, last night at the Vic I played a pot in the £250 NL game which was vaguely similar to all the legendary coups above. I've just lost a small pot where I've thought the other player was looking to check-raise me, but I've gone and bet anyway and of course he has check-raised me and then I've folded pretty quickly, annoyed with myself for falling into his rather obvious trap.

I'm still hotted up when I look down at the powerhouse that is the QdJd so I make it £50 to play. Only thing is the UTG player who is short-stacked had actually already raised it to £30. Oops. Oh well, my raise still goes and I guess I'll swallow if the UTG now goes all in.

A couple of other players call and the UTG just calls my min re-raise. Four of us see the flop which comes down 10c 2c 9h. The SB checks and UTG bets £100 and now I make a dodgy call with my up-and-down straight draw (I told you I was steaming).

Action gets back to the SB and he now ships it all in for £575. Marvellous. UTG folds and now the action is on me. The SB is a little chinese guy that I have tangled with a couple of times. The first time was a hand where he completely out-played me and during that particular session he looked like a pretty strong player. The next time I played with this guy though, it was the complete opposite - he was terrible! Chasing every draw, playing almost every hand, playing any ace etc.

Anyway, I thought about it for a while and thought it most likely he had a flush draw, maybe 8c7c or Jc8c, that type of hand. I had noted that this player likes to gamble with his first buy-in, looking for a quick double-up. Of course, he could easily have had Ax or Kx clubs (even QcJc for the freeroll against me) , but, fuck, you know how it is when you get stubborn in a pot, you convince yourself that they have a particular hand and then you stick the chips in.

Turn is an offsuit 10 and the river an offsuit ace. We're both reluctant to turn our hands over.

"Nothing, I just had a flush draw", he says.

"Well, I've got nothing too, how big is your nothing?" I say.

He shows 5c4c. Sweet. Ship it etc.

Having seen his hand I figured my hand was a small favourite seeing as I was already winning on the flop, but it turns out that I'm a 49% dog.

Simply Irresistable

2008-06-09T05:49:00.000-07:00

The Vic are running a crazy promotion for the month of June whereby whatever the date is, that is the lucky number on roulette and for an hour between 3pm and 4pm and then between midnight and 1am they will pay 40-1 odds on that number.

Talk about positive expectation. So I played last night in their salon prive and got stuck £600. Wonderful. Maybe it was because I was multi-tabling two wheels with DY that the number 8 only hit once (8th june, you see).

Unlike certain blessed individuals - The Champ and JQ who had this proposition right off to the tune of £10k each or something sick like that - DY is an absolute bok and a cooler at the same time. We never had a chance.

Of course I'm joking and I don't really mind losing that money. It was a blinding bet giving us an edge of just under 10%. When else do you ever find that in a casino?

What was funny was a couple of other regular punters telling me how one of the wheels I was playing was really "terrible" and how one of the croupiers spins the ball "too violently". Also, one of the pit bosses saying stuff like, "It doesn't matter what the odds are, you still gotta hit it doncha?"

British Championship of Blackjack

2008-06-02T05:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I played in the British Championship of Blackjack at the Vic. Obviously I'm giving this tournament its full title with a huge dollop of irony and hope you can all picture the smirk on my face as I type it out.

This tournament was in the card room and cost £100 to enter (3 rebuys and an add-on were allowed too). There was no juice which was about the best thing going for it. Because it was run by the Vic and was aimed more at their regular punters from downstairs as opposed to the poker players it was complete chaos with absolutely no regard for any kind of "rules". I put that in inverted commas as I doubt there exist any rules for a BJ tourney in Britain. I'm sure if one played in the Million Dollar BJ tournament at the Hilton in Las Vegas there would be plenty of rules regarding asking other people for advice, speaking in other languages besides English at the table whilst bets were being made and so on.

Besides all that it was still exceptional value; the amount of dead money compared to a poker tournament was through the roof. I think the only person who knew what he was doing in it was Shoreman (luckily I had a 20% saver with him as he came second, well played Jon). I have to say the skill involved in this is probably a lot higher than in a poker tournament. Tournament BJ strikes me as extremely technical and I know I must have made plenty of mistakes. Of course, everybody else in the competition played even worse so I guess I had a vague edge.

The ability to come up with the right bet size at the end when you have to not only try and catch up with the chip leader, but also make sure the players close behind you don't overtake you is a real headfuck, let me tell ya.

The small amount of literature I had read on the subject was helpful, but tended to be based on BJ tournaments which have rounds of 30 hands as opposed to 12 hands like last night. Also, the Vic had a secret bet which really puts the cat amongst the pigeons.

I was reminded of when I first played poker and the only game at the Vic was 7-card, pot limit. The only book I could find was Sklansky's book on stud which of course was all about limit poker, but I had no idea how the different betting structure made an impact on the game so I was completely at sea.

Anyway, I made it through to round two, but busted out after 6 hands in the second round. There was an amusing moment in the first round where I had 675 chips on the 10th hand. After hand 10 players were allowed an add-on of 1,500 chips (rebuys got you 1,000). Anytime you had 500 or less you were allowed to rebuy. Wanting to be able to rebuy and add-on I made a bet of 175 and proceeded to hit on 18 purposely busting my hand, much to the consternation of the other players at my table.

If I hadn't done that I would only have been able to take the add-on which would have meant that going into the last two hands my chip stack would have been 2,350 as opposed to the 3,000 I had after my seemingly crazy play. And believe you me I needed that as I squeaked through by three chips.

Shoreman nearly got himself barred by constantly trying to impose some semblance of order on the proceedings. He had to tell the dealer and the floorstaff not to turn the secret bets face up, constantly remind the floor to enforce the English only rule and also ask for players not to get advice from railbirds watching the action. He also got reprimanded when he tried to stop a string bet from the player in front of him who wanted to add more to his stack after he saw that Jon was min-betting.

As they pulled him aside Shoreman was even told he was right, but to keep his mouth shut. If the Vic are going to run more of these tournaments, and I would imagine they are as last night was quite successful, they better get their shit together. They wouldn't let those sorts of shenanigans go on in a £10 poker tournament, so why is a BJ competition exempt from the normal codes of conduct in a tournament setting?

Another interesting moment occurred when all the dealers shuffled after hand 6. Completely pointless and time consuming although a decent red herring for those players who thought counting was a useful skill in this format. Anyway, Jon and I asked the dealer why she was shuffling to which she replied, "So nobody can cheat".

"Eh? How are they cheating?"

"Card counting, that's cheating"

"Er..., no it's not"

"Yes it is, card counters are cheaters and we don't want them here"

Wow, management did a good brainwashing number on this one, didn't they?

The Golden Rule

2008-05-28T05:37:00.000-07:00

He who has the gold makes the rules.

Or, if you're playing poker, don't ruffle the feathers of the star.

So I'm in a great £250 NL game at the Vic last night, mainly because of one player, an Italian businessman who is happily blowing off steam. You know the sort, raising every other hand, making big bets with not much and so forth (not that these players aren't dangerous; you can suddenly find yourself under a lot of pressure against one of these types).

Anyway, he's losing about two grand when it's all folded around to him in the small blind. He puts out a £25 chip with the intention of raising. The big blind, Colin (not Gill or Kennedy for all you Vic regulars), one of those annoying idiots who never knows when its his blind or how much the bet is or even when the action is on him, now makes a fuss that he didn't hear the Italian say raise.

To be fair to Colin the Wanker, Paul Parker was having a noisy conversation with Rick Gladding in the next seat (is it possible for Paul not to have a noisy conversation?) so it was hard to hear what was going on. But then again this Colin the Cretin never ever knows how much the raise is or that it's up to him or anything, so what difference?

The Italian insists that his intention was to raise, but, oh no, Colin the Dick is having none of it, rules is rules. Technically Colin the Fuckwit is right of course; the Italian only put a single chip in which constitutes a call (nobody was sure whether the Italian said raise or not and the Italian himself didn't seem to mention this factor).

So now the Italian is made to call, they end up checking down the pot which Colin the Shithead wins by making a pair and now the Italian has the hump so he gets up and leaves. Nice one Colin.

I mean, what a nit. All so he could save £15 and see a flop. The irony was that Colin the Moron was one of the big beneficiaries of the Italian's lively play. I guess he wanted to lock up the win and piss everbody else off. Job done.

Some poker players put on an act and maybe this Colin the Twat is like that, but he seemed genuinely unaware of what a stupid thing he'd done.

Oh well, rant over; maybe I'm being a little excessive with my vitriol for Colin the Stupid Motherfucker, but I can't help it. The whole table was dumbfounded and it wasn't long before the game broke up.

Surely It's A Split Pot - Oh, It's Not...

2008-05-07T15:28:00.000-07:00

So I'm playing in a lively £250 PLO game at the Vic when the following hand occurs.

The guilty party in this coup is a veteran of the Vic, definitely a player who should know better.

I raise UTG with some sort of double suited rundown hand, the veteran calls and now the star re-raises the pot. This very much looks like aces; both me and the veteran call as well as another player I think. Whatever, there was about £480 in the pot. BTW, the effective stack size between the veteran and the star is about £3k.

Flop comes down K Q T. I check, the veteran checks and now the Star bets £250. I fold and the veteran makes it £750. The star now calls that raise and re-raises the pot. The veteran now goes all-in for a little over 2 and a half grand which the star calls.

Sitting there watching the hand play out I figured that both players had the nuts at that point (A J - as if you need me to tell you) and that the veteran had the freeroll, two pairs or trips to go with his Broadway.

But no!!! The Veteran turned over J9xx (can't remember the other two cards, but they were in the region of the flop so he did have outs). Considering that it was highly likely that the star had aces, surely it wouldn't have been too hard to imagine that a Jack was one of his sidecards?

I don't know, I've been guilty of some terrible plays myself, but getting it all-in with the sucker end of the straight in PLO? Sure, the other player was a star, but you just have to wait until you have the goods against these types (btw, the board blanked off and the star won a nice pot). I'm sure I wasn't the only "local" who felt a bit embarrassed for the veteran.

This brings me to another matter - as you can see above, I have been pretty quick to criticise a horrible play where another player has seemingly slaughtered his money senselessly. But the truth is in poker, we sometimes do some fucking idiotic things in the heat of the moment. I always think that at least for a nano-second there, we figured it was the right play.

Anyway, the reason I'm suddenly being so fair to the veteran (and believe me, there are many Vic regulars who would enjoy a delicious helping of schadenfreude if they knew who I was talking about) is because, like the idiot I am, I posted what I thought was an interesting hand that I played in the £250 NL game on the 2+2 strategy forum.

There were a couple of reasonable responses, but most of the thread ended up saying what a complete donkey I am etc etc. Now of course I expected that, but it made me think how quick poker players are to just slam other players and so on.

The amount of times you hear people cunting off other players or somebody gives you an incredibly forceful and emphatic opinion on how badly a certain hand was played. You'd think that none of these fuckers ever played a hand badly in their life, when in fact quite the opposite is true.

I Love L.A.

2008-04-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

Good games at the Vic are a bit like buses - you're waiting and waiting and waiting; just when you've given up along come two or three all at once.

I played in a good £250 PLO game last night and then sat in a blinding £250 NL Holdem game. The Holdem game was great all because of a super spewy bluff station from L.A. When I got in the game this guy had about £8k in front of him which steadily decreased as one by one the different players at the table picked off his bluffs.

To give you an idea of how good the game was I experienced a 3 grand swing from winning to losing back to winning which is unusual for me. I played KK really badly out of position at one point and lost a big pot to this guy, but still managed to come back and end up winning on the night.

This guy said his regular game was the $20/$40 NL at the Commerce. I've never played there, but my experience with this player only confirms all the good things I have read and heard about the Commerce. He's probably a winning player in L.A....

As an aside I noticed Gary the Armenian was collecting the £2.50 chips (these are for the half hour time collection of £7.50). Of course it slowed down the time charge as now the dealer had make change etc and at one point even had to ask another dealer to go to the desk and get us some more £2.50 chips. What reason would somebody have to take these chips and put them in their pocket?

I wanted to call him out on it, but Gary is a bit of a hothead and I didn't feel like getting into an argument. Instead I mentioned it to a couple of other players and a few of us "innocently" asked where all the £2.50 chips had gone when the collection came around.

Also in the game was Neil "Bad Beat" Channing, fresh from his Irish Open victory. It was nice to play with Neil again seeing as recently he has been playing only the monkey game or higher (the big games have been his regular feeding grounds for a quite a while now, not just since his Irish win btw).

I think Neil was a bit disgusted with me when I ironed out the L.A bluffer at about quarter to 3 in the morning and then immediately got up and left. To be fair to myself the L.A player got up as soon as he lost the hand and looked like he wasn't coming back, plus I had been intending to go at about 1.30 originally, but the game was so good I decided to stay another hour (I must stress I wasn't staying on just to "get out of it". I broke that bad habit long ago). Also when you have a 16 month old baby at home whom you have to look after in the morning it makes it tough playing til 5am like the old days.

Kenny Wong was also in the game and it was great to have him back and hear the banter between him and Neil about who was the better tournament player.

A New Low

2008-03-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

So I'm playing in the £250 No Limit Holdem game at the Vic when the following occurs. One of those non-pots happens, one where the players check it down and basically there's a bowl of rice out there, or, in this case, the grand sum of £40.

With a final board of K Q J 3 3 a young American kid (good player btw) declares, "Nothing, I have 9 high". His opponent, a middle aged South African gentleman says, "Oh, I have 10 high". They turn their cards over and the dealer pushes the pot to the South African.

Of course all of you lot out there reading this have already spotted that both players are actually playing the board, so therefore it should have been a split pot. Why the American kid didn't notice I don't know, but if you've been playing for a while you get tired. The South African gentleman is one of those types of players who would have to be told. As for the rest of us at the table I guess we weren't paying much attention (any internet players reading have got to love that don't they? So much for live players being such keen observers...)

In fairness to the dealer, who should have noticed immediately, he was actually requesting to be taken off the table as he had already been dealing for two hours without a break in this particular game.

Anyway, as the next hand is being dealt somebody at the table now realises what happened and mentions that the pot should have been split. Everybody else at the table including the dealer realises too and he now informs the South African that he owes the American kid £20. In fact, the only player who is utterly oblivious to what has happened is this South African guy. He says that the hand is all over and that's that. Fair enough I suppose; it was a dealer error and he doesn't have to give the kid any money if he doesn't want to.

In fact, the American kid was kind of taken aback so I told him to get a ruling, because it also seemed like the South African wasn't taking the situation seriously at all. Unfortunately for the Kid the dealer called the wrong floor person over (wrong in the sense that he called another dealer over as opposed to an actual floor person who is properly authorised to give rulings) who then gave a ruling in favour of the South African (probably the correct ruling as it happens).

Anyway, the point is, to me, that it doesn't matter what the ruling would be, but basically everybody else at that table (Russian Alex, Fred, Gary Mills, Rick Gladding, a young Greek kid whose name I can't remember, and of course, myself) would have given the American Kid the £20 without another thought. I mean, maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but that South African behaved like a total dick, didn't he? (Just to make it clear - there wasn't a huge argument, the South African or the kid didn't make a huge issue out of it, there were no raised voices and all blood pressure remained stable etc).

I dunno, I was dumbfounded that somebody could be such a nit over twenty quid.

On a slightly different note, does anybody out there know why the blinds in the £250 Pot Limit game are £5-£5 with an optional straddle of £10 whereas the blinds in the £250 No Limit are £5-£10 with an optional straddle of £25? How come both games don't have the same structure? I don't get it. As you can tell, the no limit game plays a lot bigger than the pot limit game.

Progress, sort of....

2008-02-24T06:56:00.000-08:00

Wow! The Vic has installed a shuffling machine (I only saw one and heard it cost about £8,000, so it's very likely they only have one). The bad news is that it will only be used in the raked game. No surprise there really.

I reckon it'll take about 10 days for that machine to pay for itself...

Edit: They have two shuffle machines and DY tells me he actually played in a non-raked game with one of the machines in use.

Declan

2008-02-10T08:49:00.001-08:00

I have played poker for many years with Declan from the old £50 Seven card and £50 Round of Each days up to £250 Dealer's Choice and all the pot limit and no limit Holdem games these days. He was the first pro I remember being aware of - his tight aggressive style and table presence was certainly intimidating back when I first started going to the Vic.

What has always impressed me about Declan is his versatility and ability to change gears. Many players would probably just say he's tight and while he is pretty granite I've also seen him play pretty open. I remember a £250 DC game where he raised or re-raised pre-flop almost every hand (especially if Hyder had limped in or raised). I know a lot of the locals would find that hard to believe, but it's true.

Declan also has no problems grinding at smaller limits. While many players would feel embarrassed at having to drop down after playing big Declan feels no shame in having to play "smaller" if he has to. I can remember him playing the old £1,000 game (at one time the biggest game in Europe alternating between a round of PLO and London Lowball) - after winning a load of money for himself and his backer Declan was back to the coalface in the £100 and £50 games. It's this ability to grind which sets him apart from a lot of players.

One of the greatest strengths of Declan's game is the way he makes the stars feel good about playing. I've seen him fold for about two or three hours straight whilst all the time making jokes and wisecracks. All the stars seem to love his company and somehow they always pay him off in the big pots too.

Last night I played in a blinding £100 No Limit game with Declan which featured a Norwegian gentleman who routinely made it between £50 and £75 to go before the flop. Remember, the blinds in this game are £1/£3. Post flop the Norwegian would then continue to just bluff off his chips with hands like queen high etc.

I have to specify that this particular player was not some young internet hotshot typical of Scandinavia, but a drunk businessman who was just enjoying himself. I managed to win a pot with 9T clubs when by some miracle he forgot to raise before the flop and I was able get in cheaply and flop a flush.

Anyway, Declan pretty much folded every hand and somehow this Norwegian was completely oblivious to it and enjoying Declan's many witticisms during the course of play. After yet another hand where the Norwegian bet on the river and got called down by bottom pair (miles ahead of course) Declan looked at this fella's cards and said , "Hold on, you've got a straight - straight in the dustbin".

LOL Donkament Players

2008-01-21T04:18:00.000-08:00

The following anecdote might end up being one of those you-had-to-be-there stories, but I shall try my best.

So all round good guy and solid player Paul "Muzza" Murrell is playing in the £100 game at the Vic and looking a bit short stacked. Like I said Paul is a solid player and has recently shown some good results in tournaments, so one would like his short-stack play in general.

Anyway, some new guy comes to the table and raises after a couple of limpers (Muzza being one of said limpers from early position) and gets a couple of callers. The flop comes down something like K T 7 with a couple of hearts. All check to the raiser who duly bets a pony. Back to Muzza who now check-raises all-in for £45. Other players fold and the New guy calls the raise of £20 and we're off.

Muzza being the good guy that he is says, "I've got a King". New guy says nothing. A black trey peels off on the turn and now Muzza quickly exclaims, "I've got two pair now".

For some reason I found this quite funny and burst out laughing. "Desperate times Hugo call for desperate measures" said Paul. Still, calling a raise with K3? I guess playing a hand like that out of position is a good definition of desperation (btw his two pair stood up to take the pot).

Paul took it in good humour and agreed that he'd been playing too many tournaments. To be fair it was getting late and everyone was looking to get out of it (myself included - I'm not mentioning any of the dubious calls I made in that same game, don't you worry 'bout that!)

Mind Boggling

2007-12-24T07:17:00.001-08:00

The Vic now has an electronic list as opposed to the old board where you went up and scrawled your initials under whatever game it was you were interested in playing.

Sounds like a good thing and I guess it is. But (you knew there would be a but, after all I am a Vic regular and we are all known for our endless moaning) it's a load of rubbish.

In, say, the Wynn poker room in Las Vegas, you go up to the floorman and ask him to put you on their computerised list. He says, "No problem buddy, there you go", and that's it. Well naturally the Vic has to make a mountain out of a molehill and getting your name on the e-list now requires some sort of receipt with a bar code on it which you now swipe into an infrared-type-thingy-like-wot-they-have-in-sooopermarkets.

I mean, seriously, WTF? Did the higher-ups in the Grosvenor organisation think, "We better make it a bit of a hassle to go on the list, after all we don't want just anyone to have access to it, maybe terrorists will get their hands on it and then we'll have a serious situation on our hands."

Another consequence of this e-list is that you cannot now see any of the names on it if you are sitting in a game. Or how about this one? There's no facility for a Transfer list so various members of staff just remember it in their heads. Yes, I can't see that leading to any arguments...

To be fair, I was told that eventually the system will be tied into our membership cards, but I still don't see the point of that either. What if you've forgotten your card? What about if you're a guest and therefore haven't got a membership card?

I'm sure the new e-list will improve, and I know their hearts were in the right place, but still the mind boggles.

Talking of the mind boggling I saw an extraordinary hand in the no limit game. Pre-flop there were a bunch of limpers and then a raise. The action is on Michael Arnold who now goes all-in for about £400. Fold, fold and John with the cravat calls all-in for about £200.

Now I know all you Vic regulars are thinking, "Michael's got aces, maybe kings if he's feeling frisky, and this John geezer has made another ridiculous donation to the Arnold coffers".

But no! Mr. Arnold lost the pot to John's pocket 10s. "Oh right", you're thinking, "Michael went a bit potty with AK suited". Guess again, Mr. Arnold's hand was, in fact, the powerhouse that is.... 23 off-suit. Yes! I swear on my baby daughter's life.

Hugo the dealer took credit for Michael's super-flairy all-in move, by making an earlier comment that Michael wasn't up to the standard of play found in the £250 games these days.

JQ came over to have a look during the hubbub that is an all-in coup and his reaction of mouthing, "What the fuck?!?" when he saw Michael Arnold's hand said it all.

Apparently I'm a Slow Roller...

2007-11-25T16:41:00.000-08:00

I've noticed there's a new regular at the Vic who seems to primarily play the 100 NLH game (this has a minimum sit down of £100 and a max of £600). He seems a bit eccentric and talks a lot and wears what looks like a cravat, I think I heard someone call him John, so that's what I'll call him.

Anyway I'm playing in this game and I make £11 to go UTG (blinds are 1/3 btw) with AA. Fold, fold and now John moves all-in.....for £600. Sweet, as Fred Carle would say. Everyone folds back to me and I obviously call with the boots.

As soon as I said call and moved my chips over the line (I had John covered btw) he flips up QQ. Now I guess this John is used to tournaments on TV or something, but I only ever turn my cards up in all-in situations like these in tournaments, not in cash games, and many other regular cash game players would do the same.

The flop comes down K J T, but I manage to fade his six outs and as soon as the river has been burned and turned I show my hand and then get told, "Nice slow roll".

Jeez, I know it sucks to lose a pot, and this John doesn't seem like a bad guy, so I guess he said it in the heat of the moment, but who out there thinks I slow rolled him? I would never do such a thing, even to a player I loathed and thought of as a complete and utter drak (there's a few candidates out there, don't you worry about that!).

I've been playing long enough at places like the Vic to know that I don't ever want to show my hand unless it's at the showdown. If John had outdrawn me I would've thrown my hand in the muck facedown and told him I had deuces or something; isn't this what poker is all about? Playing your cards close to your chest and all that?

When I first went down the Vic I used to show far too many hands, especially nut hands - I guess I wanted to be liked and crap like that. I'm still paying for that mistake now many years later.

On another note I'd just like to congratulate my mate Neil Channing for winning the £1,000 NLH freezeout - not only for the win, but his third big final in a row (Bristol Gala Grand Final and Blackpool GUKPT just recently). Surely his name is all over the GUKPT Grand Final trophy?

Mistakes Part 3

2007-11-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

100 Pot Limit Holdem, the Vic. I have £1800 in front of me and I'm in the small blind (technically the small blind as the blinds are £3/£3 in this game). There's a raise and a few callers so I decide to call with 5s 6s.

The flop is 5 6 T with two diamonds. Ok, bottom two, shall I get cute and check to the raiser? Nah, this particular pre-flop raiser is not guaranteed to bet and a free card for all these schnorrers would be disastrous, so I lead out for £60. There's a fold and now Ashley Alterman, who's in front of the raiser, makes it £160. Everyone folds back to me. Shit, what have I run into?

Now I'm quite friendly with Ashley and respect his game. I'm pretty sure this respect is a two-way street (might not be, he could consider me a complete egg which is fair enough too). Anyway, the point is I know Ashley is not fucking around and I guess 99% of the time his raise here means a real hand. That's not to say he isn't capable of raising with the square root of fuck all here by the way. Plus he has about another £700 behind.

Oh boy, for him to have limped early position and then call a raise which then merits a raise on this flop, he must have either a set or straight and flush draw (like say, 7d 8d, which I'm a small dog to). Fuck, my hand doesn't look too good so I fold and decide to wait for a better spot.

Ashley being the mate he is flashes me the boots as he mucks his hand. Shit! I was miles ahead. Wow, he played those aces pretty sneakily, not like him at all. Why didn't he re-raise before the flop when the action had got back to him?

Why? Because he never limped in in the first place. He was the original pre-flop raiser, not the guy I thought it was. D'oh! Well, I deserve to lose for not paying attention. What a costly error. And I got what I was looking for which was action for my big hand, it's just that I thought the action was supposed to come from somewhere else...

The Vic famously used to have a "moody" rule whereby you weren't allowed to talk about your hand. Thankfully they got rid of that rule, but it has to be said that the floodgates are now truly wide open.

I refer to this as later on I had the dubious pleasure of playing in the No Limit game with Will who has taken talking about one's hand to new levels. I have to say I actually found it sort of amusing after a while, especially as he kept making 10-13 BB size raises before the flop only to always find sandbaggers waiting in the wings.

Quite often it was Ken Wong who has not been playing down the Vic too long yet has already accrued a load of good results in all the various daily tournaments. Will would make his standard huge pre-flop raise with plenty of chat about how great his hand was and then the action would get back to Ken who would then casually slide about £200 worth of chips all in. This must have happened about ten times and Ken gradually built his chip stack up to over a carpet just like he would have done in a tournament.

Every time Will would go into a huge dwell up and song and dance about he actually had a real hand and how could Ken do this to him, but every time he would fold.

There's another new player in the Vic who is quite vocal, but unlike Will this guy is pretty obnoxious. Neil Channing told me a good story about this loudmouth as I left.

It's the £250 PL game and Loudmouth is playing snug. He limp-reraises from early position and is heads up with the star in the game. The flop comes down something nice safe for an early limp-reraiser like say 5 3 3.

All of a sudden the waitress appears with Loudmouth's dinner. Now instead of taking a tenner off of his stack to pay for his lobster thermadore or whatever it is they all eat there these days the Loudmouth asks Neil if he can borrow a tenner! Hmmm, is that a tell or what?

As Neil said, it's a real nit's dilemma. Do you just swallow and pay up for your dinner there and then or are you determined to extract full value for your aces? Of course he could have just told the waitress he was in the middle of a pot and that he'd deal with her afterwards, but I guess his hand was so good that he got caught up in the moment.

Not a Great Spot

2007-10-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

I played in yet another Omaha Hilo tournament last night at the Vic and found myself sitting in between Adam Heller and Tony Bloom. Marvellous, not what one would call a great spot. No wonder I never get anywhere in these stupid tournaments.

A funny moment occurred when the Lizard made a comment about the rugby which he was keeping an eye on during the comp. Some guy who I think was called JJ butted in and started telling Tony, "What, you didn't lay New Zealand like everybody else?" and so on. So this loudmouth wants to start telling Tony Bloom how he should be betting sports?!? The look on Ashley Alterman's face at this moment was well worth the £385 I paid for the tournament.

WBCOOP

2007-10-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 4815317

Poker Content

2007-09-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

I played some poker at the Vic recently and got lucky in a hand. Super satellite for a seat in the EPT main event, 3000 starting chips, blinds are 25/50.

About the fourth hand in there's one limper and I raise to 150 in middle position with As Jh. Both blinds and the limper call. Flop comes A 7 5 with two spades.

They all check to me and I bet 500. Both blinds call with the big blind giving it a small dwell. The limper folds.

Turn is another 5 and they both check to me again. I look at my stack and think, "Fuck it, it's a dumb super satellite", and go all in. The small blind thinks for a while and folds.

The big blind now goes into the tank and folds his cards face up, saying, "It's too early, I can wait". His hand? A 7!

I Can't Believe It Part Two

2007-09-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

I went to the Vic to play in a satellite for the upcoming EPT and of course it was an hour later than advertised in the brochure that I got from them in the post. That sort of thing is par for the course so I wasn't that bothered. At least I'll be all relaxed and definitely in my seat for the first hand. For some reason there is a rule in this country that if you're not in your seat for the first hand of a tournament you're out.

But wait! No longer. Since the general relaxation of some of the gambling laws it turns out that you can show up late Hellmuth-style for the comp and miss out those tedious early levels. Wow, progress at last.

That's not all. They're now allowed alternates in tournaments too, so you still have a chance to play if you get there late and the tournament is sold out. First they relax the dumb dress code and now this, soon you'll be able to buy the button...

Michael Arnold called me over as if he had something important to tell me. It turns out that he is a very good friend with big time pro Jeff Lissandro from way back in the day and that Jeff had a sob story for him. Apparently Lissandro wrote a couple of stories many years ago and gave them to a female friend to see what she thought. Nothing came of it and he forgot about it until Rounders appeared on our screens. According to Mr. Arnold, Lissandro claims that he wrote Rounders and was ripped off by this woman.

Michael felt compelled to tell me because I used to read screenplays and assess whether they were worthy of future development into full blown movies(it's called coverage in the trade) and naturally this must mean I have some clout in the motion picture business. I guess Michael doesn't realise that Hollywood treats it's writers with utter contempt and that being a reader is barely a step above that.

Now I'm not saying that Lissandro is wrong; maybe he did write it and some femme fatale stole his story. A quick glance at the credits shows that the writers were David Levien and Brian Koppleman. There's an associate producer called Tracy Falco and an executive producer called Kerry Orent although those names do not necessarily mean they are women. Why would you want to claim you wrote Rounders anyway?

I guess my next entry will be about the Vic as well as I'm planning on playing at least one event and some cash in their upcoming festival which culminates in the London leg of the EPT.

I Can't Believe It

2007-08-15T04:11:00.000-07:00

I went to the Vic last night ( hmmmm, it seems that I only update this blog after my occasional visits to HQ) and I can't believe it, but they've finally got rid of their stupid fucking dress code. Yes, you can now show up wearing jeans, T-shirt and trainers!

They had relaxed the jeans rule a few years ago, but you still had to wear a shirt or something with a collar. Did the Vic suddenly realise that they aren't in Monte Carlo and in fact most of their punters are desperadoes who couldn't give a shit what other people are wearing?

The dress code never really made a difference anyway as certain poker players still looked like tramps. Before anyone has a go at me I freely admit that I have always looked totally scruffy.

When I got a seat in the game I found myself sitting next to Tom Gibson who told me quite a funny joke. Now it has to be said that Tom is pretty good at telling jokes, so maybe it won't be quite as good when written down on the screen.

Q. What's the difference between a poker dealer and a stagecoach driver?

A. The stagecoach driver only has to look at four arseholes while he's working.

Well, I thought it was funny.

Wall Of Shame plus a few other Vic Ramblings

2007-07-24T15:40:00.001-07:00

I went to the Vic the other day and noticed they've had a bit of a refurb. The colour scheme is fairly vile, but what is quite fun is a mural of the London skyline on the back wall. If you look closely you can see that it is made up of poker players' faces, a mix of Vic regulars and famous European and American pros. I must admit to feeling a bit left out that my pic isn't there considering I was at one time a pretty hardcore regular, but then again I hardly go there anymore at the moment and it's only my pathetic ego that's making me think like that, so what difference?

Anyway, I made a comment that it reminded me of that portrait of Myra Hindley by Marcus Harvey that was made up of children's handprints which caused a furore at the Royal Academy a few years ago and naturally some wag made a joke along the lines of the wall painting in the Vic being more evil as it was full of thieves, rapists and murderers. Some other wit then made a joke about the mural actually being a picture of everyone that Brian Stander owes money to. Hmmm, maybe I'm glad I didn't make it onto the Wall of Shame.

As I was waiting for a seat I sweated Willie Tann as he played in the £250 plo game. I received a masterclass when he raised before the flop with 3 4 5 6 double suited (diamonds and clubs) and then bet the pot when checked to on a K T 9 flop which contained two diamonds. His only caller was Lisa Hawkes out of the small blind. The next card paired the board and Lisa checked. Willie quickly looked at the £375 he had left and then bet £150. Lisa ummed and errred and made a comment about how that bet scared her more than if Willie had bet the pot. Willie replied that he wanted her to call of course. After more hesitation Lisa called. The river made no difference and Lisa checked again and now Willie went all in. After a long dwell up and some good verbal from Willie along the lines of, "You can see my hand afterwards if you want" Lisa finally folded. Ok it's all standard stuff, but it was a good reminder that you need to leave yourself enough money to bluff with on the river. Plus all the excellent moody which was highly convincing. Willie could tell that Lisa was conflicted and leaning towards folding, but something was telling her that maybe her hand was a winner; he just encouraged her in the right direction (for him).

All this moody got me thinking me that one negative aspect of poker is how we all become two-faced bastards. How many times have we become friendly with a live one? Commiserated oh so sincerely when the star has done his chips? "Unlucky, you're just running bad" and all that sort of shit? I say all this because later on I found myself talking with a player (who I like incidentally) about a mutual friend of ours and he started going on about how our mutual friend was a terrible loser. As I heard myself agreeing I suddenly realised I was actually chatting to one of the worst losers of all time! This is a player who if he goes behind just a tiny amount steams like crazy and starts chasing like you wouldn't believe. Did I say, Hold on _____, you're a much worse loser than ol' so and so? Nah, of course not.

I'm now reminded of another Vic regular who once said to me that he thought he was a really disciplined player. I nearly choked on my cup of tea. This was a guy who was a known card flinger and whose emotional state can best be described as 98% tilt. He always blamed it all on bad luck, not actually realising that continually chasing your losses by raising out of position in the blinds when several other players who know you are completely cracked up have limped in is not what most reasonably good players would describe as "disciplined".

Speaking of disciplined, DY was there and he was telling me all about the e-poker table at the new Ladbrokes Casino down the road. Of course it's faster and you get loads more hands and all that malarkey, but I hope it doesn't take off. Maybe I'm an old fart, but it just wouldn't be the same. And just so you don't think I'm a Luddite I remember being quite excited about internet poker when it first started. Anyway, I then noticed that several regulars were missing - Declan Devereux, Michael Arnold, Fred Carle and Alan Abrahams. Maybe they were all down the Ladbrokes getting the lot...

Vegas

2007-06-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

My annual jaunt to Vegas and the WSOP is over. There's not that much to say as I didn't really hang out that much at the actual WSOP itself. There's a strange phenomenon of being less in touch with what's going on in the Amazon Room and the WSOP when you are actually in town. I played one event, the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo, and a couple of single table satellites (one of which I chopped with the Champ). The worst beat of my trip actually occurred before I got there with my flight being delayed for twenty four hours meaning I lost a whole day of my holiday.

Faces I ran into included John Duthie (he was on the same flight and the Champ and I cadged a lift off him in his high roller limo courtesy of the Bellagio), Ali Sarkeshik, Philip Marmostein (on my left in the PLO 8/b comp), Neil Channing, the Hendon Mob, Al Rappaport, Warren Wooldridge, DY, Andy Ward, Jon Shoreman (busy cracking away at the 300/600 Badugi and Deuce games and in the final of the Deuce to Seven Triple Draw w/rebuys as I write this), Carlo Citrone, Dave Barnes, Michael Greco and Roland De Wolfe.

The highlight of the trip was having it right off on a machine (Wild Taxi) with the Champ on my last night. At one point we had over 20,000 credits in the hod, but finally cashed out with a little over 15,000. As we were playing nickels this meant $750 - woo-hoo! Small beer compared with all the gambling and poker going on around us (in fact, that night Vicky had really had it off on the Blackjack; discretion won't let me write the number, but trust me, it was an amount similar to a decent tournament win) but as it was our biggest ever machine result the Champ and I were quite excited.

While we were playing we also experienced the machine railbird. A rather sour faced middle aged and (surprise surprise) over-weight woman hung around watching us play. When our total was around 7,000 credits she expressed surprise that we weren't going to cash out. It seemed like she wanted us to cash out so she could either try to borrow money or she knew that the machine was hot and wanted to play it herself. After hanging about for a few more minutes and realising that we weren't intending to stop she stomped off muttering to herself. Not long after her departure the Wild Taxi hit 20,000 credits. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think that woman knew the machine was ready to spew $. The Champ and I agreed that those machines are utterly addictive.

The Champ and I also had the pleasure of meeting top poker author Michael Craig (you know, The Professor, The Banker and the Suicide King). Of course, he was only interested in meeting her, I just happened to be there. He was a very nice guy and he gave us both a copy of his new book which is The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition. I've only skimmed a few parts of it so far, but I have to say it looks really good (and I'm not just saying that because he gave me a copy). In fact, Michael is living proof of his own book as the day we met him he had just come 7th in Event 40, the $1,500 Mixed Limit/No Limit Holdem at the WSOP.

As for poker, I certainly played a lot of it, pretty much all $2/$5 No Limit Holdem. I did intend to play a little bigger i.e. the $5/$10 game, but that particular game at the Wynn (where I stayed) is a lot tougher than the $2/$5. I was going to go to Bellagio to play their $5/$10 game as I heard it was a lot softer than the Wynn, but I never got around to it. In fact, this was the first visit to Vegas where I haven't gone to the Bellagio. DY was moaning that there were too many tryers and I have to admit that maybe the games at the Wynn weren't as good as last year or the year before, but I still played in at least two utterly blinding games, so maybe he got unlucky (although I suspect DY just wants all of his opponents to be playing for the first time ever without even having an idea of the rules - of course, then he'd complain that they were all unbluffable or something). Seeing as the Wynn is a nice and well run room it attracts its fair share of locals and pros, all of whom seemed very friendly and good to play with. I especially like the veteran players like Burt and Billy and Jackson - the latter two being Good Ol' Boys whose southern wit I particularly enjoyed.

The only memorable hand was one I wasn't in. Everyone folded to the button who made it $15. The small blind folded and the big blind called. Flop was J T 7. I can't remember the betting, but there was at least 3 or 4 bets and raises before the big blind finally stuck it all in after a long dwell up and a few speeches of the "You flop a straight on me buddy?" variety. The button was now forced to call after putting so much money in himself and allowing the pot to grow so big. Anyway, I figured it must be set over set or top two versus a set or a straight versus a set. Obviously I'm a complete idiot as the big blind had pocket Queens (fair enough) and the button made all that action with....7 9. Naturally the river was nice big fat 8 and the button won a very nice pot.

I Love The Vic

2007-06-04T07:14:00.000-07:00

So my girlfriend and baby went away for the last few days and what else is a guy with time on his hands to do but spend all that time down the Vic? The room is now all upstairs, but otherwise it's business as usual. There were some new dealers, but the core staff were still there - Joe, Caroline, Brian. Many familiar faces were there - Fred Carle ("Sweet"), Declan, Michael Arnold ("One seat here!"), Willie Tann, Trevor Cole, Ashley Alterman, Panni, Lawrence Windish, Lou K, The Champ (of course, it's now her second home basically), Andrew Georgiou (who wasn't wearing a scarf - it must be summer!), Pedro, The Bish, Costas, Martin Baader, Mick "The Clock" Cook, John Kabbaj, Janis and her mother, Peter Benson, David Binstock, Mr. Chu, Alan Abrahams, JQ, Rick Gladding, Mike Wilner, John Duthie and DY to name a few.

I assume they all asked where I have been because they all miss my brilliant repartee and company at the table rather than the ease with which they can win pots off me. There are also a few new stars who I won't name out of politeness and discretion. As usual everyone was bitching and moaning about their favourite cardroom. There are at least two new waitresses since I last paid a visit. The games are as good and as tough as ever. They seem to have a regular £100 no limit holdem game going which has a maximum sit down of £600. Why there is a cap on this and not one on the pot limit game I don't really understand. Yes yes I know that management don't want the punters to do their money too quickly, but if you think it can't go fast in the pot limit game then you better take up scrabble or something.

Everything is Holdem now - I briefly played in the pot limit Omaha game, but it kept fluctuating between full and five or four players with no real list. Twice I saw Murray Brown and Ray the Taxi Driver sitting around forlornly waiting for the Dealer's Choice game to start up, but that's another game that seems to have died. It's a shame really as at one time those were good games. It seems all the Omaha/DC players like Sirhan, Ali, Celim, the other Ali, Mason and Hyder and a few others have all been gobbled up by the Western. I hear that Hyder is barred which could be the reason that the Dealer's game isn't running at the moment. One of the dealers told me how much he hated dealing the Omaha because all the players were such "miserable bastards". Hold on, I resemble that comment. Joking aside, he might have had a point. You know the Omaha game is dead when even a stalwart Omaha player like Mike Wilner says that you just have to play Holdem now. Having said all that there was a blinding Omaha game on monday night that was still going strong when I left around 4am.

I witnessed an interesting incident between a pro and a star in the £250 plh game. On the turn the pro bet £500 and the star, who was quite vocal and animated, called. As he was calling it looked like he may have flashed his cards. I was standing nearby and saw nothing. I'm trying to say it looked accidental to me, but I could be wrong. The pro now protested that the star had exposed his hand to the player next to him and asked for a ruling which he got in his favour. The pro gave the star back his monkey, but took the rest of the pot. The star was quite upset and nearly left the game. I think it was poor form and bad for the game by the pro to get this ruling. I guess the pro could not have had much of a hand as he was unhappy at the star calling (for starters, why is the pro trying to bluff a star? Obviously a bad play against a known non-believer). The pro should have taken his lumps and not made a fuss. Plenty of opportunities to get the money back plus more from the star during the rest of the game.

Here's a hand I played from the £100 plh game. I limp utg with pocket 6s. The next player raises the pot and a load of us call. £75 in the pot. Flop comes Kc 6d Qc. The blinds check and I lead out for £50. Folded around to Alan Abrahams on the small blind who now raises up to £200. Sweet. Unusually I had Alan covered - I had about a Grand and he had £340 left. I raised again to £400. He called. Turn is the 4c. Great. I bet out of turn by mistake (basically I knew his last £140 was going in no matter what - there was about £900 out there) and he called. Last card was another rag club that didn't pair up the board and he wins with 8c 7c. Nice hand Alan. Oh well, I guess I was looking for action with my hand and I got it.

A great new development is that they now give comps for the restaurant to regular players. JQ and I had dinner at the pleasure of the Vic. I couldn't believe it. Also on sunday at around 5pm the waitresses bought around a load of free finger food, spring rolls and stuff like that, for all the players in the card room. WTF?!? The Vic are being nice to the poker players, wow. If they're really on the ball they'll introduce player's cards like in the States (I know they're doing this at the new Empire Casino in Leicester Square). I wonder how long it will take management to go in that direction? At least ten years after every other casino in the country no doubt. I can already hear Jeff Leigh's response.

I love the Vic and it's regulars. It's still the only cardroom in the British Isles where you are guaranteed a (legal) cash game from 2pm every day. Everybody moans constantly about how badly the room is run, but I don't see them going anywhere else. The Vic should count themselves lucky that all the new rooms springing up around London are run by people that don't understand poker - they all think it's about tournaments. Deano who was an excellent dealer at the Vic now runs the new room at the Empire. If anybody can give the Vic a run for it's money it should be him.

Barcelona

2007-05-30T13:51:00.000-07:00

To the Gran Casino in Barcelona where I was working at the World Heads Up Poker Championship. Started by Jon Shoreman seven years ago this was my second time in the OB van doing the spotting (this basically consists of telling the director who the action is on, any interesting or good hands, and specifying what stats to show).

Last year I was there for a week and managed to get loads of poker playing in, but this year we were filming three matches a day, so it was harder work and quite knackering. The highlight was an excellent semi-final match between Daniel Carter of England and Carles Llado from Spain. The likes of Mickey Wernick and Dave Colclough were raving about Dan and for once the hype was lived up to. Dan is probably one of the best poker players I've ever seen and the fact that he's only nineteen is even more impressive/sickening. His composure and reads at the table were outstanding. Shoreman and I had a blinding bet on him to win the trophy before the quarter finals at 7-1, so of course he got unlucky during the final and lost. It wasn't lost on me that when I started playing poker seriously (that is, playing in casinos against strangers) Dan was around 7 years old and is already light years ahead of me. How much there still is to learn about this infernal game!

After the final I managed to get in a decent session of €2/€5 blinds no limit holdem where I had the rare pleasure of flopping quads twice and getting on both times too. The second time was especially sweet as it was a three way coup with both my opponents paying me off on the river. Wow, what a game eh?

Later I sweated my old mate Robert Binelli in the final of a WPT satellite. The atmosphere was raucous to say the least with several drunk locals cheering their pals on. The staff eventually gave up trying to quieten the crowd and keep them away from the table. There is no way their behaviour would have been allowed at somewhere like the Vic or in Vegas. It was a total zoo, but it also has to be said it was all in good spirits.

One moment that said it all for me was when Robert knocked out a woman by catching a two outer on the river. She reeled away from the table in shock and basically burst into tears. I felt her pain and anguish - tournaments really can be cruel. She went off and got herself back together and came back into the room to a round of applause. The TD and several other players all gave her consoling hugs; quite touching really. Meanwhile her husband was still in the satellite getting dealt Aces, Kings and AK during the crucial late stages.

Because I was funking for him, Robert of course went out in 4th place, missing out on the WPT seat. I felt gutted for him; I know how much he wanted that seat. He was easily the best player at the final and deserved to win it. He told me that when they got down to four handed the shortstack asked for a grand each off the other three to take fourth place. Naturally the others declined. When Robert became the shorstack he asked the same player for the same deal and was met with silence. So typical.

Bigger Deal Book Launch

2007-05-03T07:22:00.000-07:00

To the Loose Cannon Club last night and the launch of Tony Holden's new book Bigger Deal. A freeroll tournament was held in its honour and first prize was a seat at the main event of the next EPT event in Barcelona.

Naturally your humble scribe came nowhere. What do all you eggsperts think about this hand? Starting stacks were 3,000 and the first level of blinds were 25/50. It's the second level and there's a couple of limpers including Cindy Blake (aka The Moll, Holden's ex-wife). I'm in the small blind and find the ol' A7 offsuit. I complete and the big blind knuckles (as Roy Cooke would say). Flop comes out A A 4 with two hearts.

Now if there's one thing I've learnt in these sort of freeroll promotional type tournaments is that there's no point getting clever or fancy and trying to outplay all the novices that are the majority of players at these things. Just play straightforwardly and you'll get the chips. Except I forgot that in this hand and checked. The big blind checked and Cindy Blake bet around 300. Back to me and I call. So does the big blind. Hmmm, how many Aces are there in this deck? Cindy earlier played AK very aggressively with a large pre-flop raise and huge bets on the flop and turn, so I figure she doesn't have that, but Ace with a better kicker than mine is very possible.

Anyway the turn comes the deuce of hearts. Great. I check again and so does the big blind. Cindy fires out a bet and now I feel like I'm beat, but make the call anyway. The big blind calls too. Wtf does he have? Surely A 4 or 4s full would raise now? Last card is the Jack of Hearts which doesn't really change too much except that my 7 kicker is a heart - great, I've got a 7 high flush. I check, the big blind checks and Cindy checks. Well, I'm not surprised she checked as she shows us something like K 4 for two pair. The big Blind has A 6 with the 6 being a heart. Wow my flush is good and I've won the pot thank fuck, but I'm wondering how bad did I play this hand? How did the big blind and I not get all our chips in there? If I bet out on the flop (which is what I meant to do, but had a brainfart instead) Cindy folds and maybe the big blind and I play a big pot. Then again, maybe I played it fine, I don't know.

Faces in attendance included Neil "Bad Beat" Channing, The Champ, Jesse May, Warren "Goldenfish" Wooldridge, Michael Greco, John Duthie, Catman, James "Slicker66" Hipwell, Conrad Brunner, Mad "Mad" Harper, Al Alvarez, Mike Magee, Sonny Osman, Matt Born, Joe Saumerez Smith and Val "Green Fingers" Low. It was also good to see Roy Houghton again and hear his familiar style of tournament directing. Other notable prayers included Mel Judah, Sir Clive Sinclair (who I meant to say hello to, sorry Clive in case you're reading), one of Hale and Pace and Melvyn Bragg (!). Sadly Lord Bragg didn't play in the tournament.

Rohan = Forrest?

2007-04-03T09:50:00.001-07:00

So I was watching an old movie on TV this afternoon, A Letter To Three Wives, when the following scene occurred. A sassy maid and her friend are playing seven card stud; the maid goes all-in and her friend makes a crying call, "What ya got?" "Ace High" "Ace What?" "Ace Nine", the maid says triumphantly and indeed her kicker is good.

This reminded me of a few years back at the Vic when all of a sudden Francis Rohan turns around excitedly to me and Adrian Holmes from the next table where he was playing what was probably one of the last seven card games in there. "I just called a pot sized bet after cards and won with deuces! Deuces! Ask Beebis! You can't bluff out old Francois, eh? After cards with deuces! I'm different gravy, eh? This lot will all be eating catfood soon", he gleefully told us.

This in turn reminded me of a pot I saw on an ESPN broadcast of the $1,500 buy-in WSOP seven card tournament from 2004. Ted Forrest finds himself heads up against Chad Brown and there's a pot where he checks and calls a bet from Brown on every street. When all the dust has settled Ted's pair of deuces are good. Ted went on to win the bracelet. So the point of all this is obviously that Ted Forrest is at least as good as Francis Rohan aka Simply The Best.

Semi Off Topic Musings

2007-03-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend and I recently had a baby daughter and had a lot of trouble coming up with a name for her. We had two choices, but couldn't agree which should be her first name. She then had the idea that we'd play Gin and the first to 100 points would get their choice of first name. Now bear in mind that I actually showed her how to play the game. Also, she proudly told me how she trounced her grandmother at Gin; her grandmother being a little old Jewish lady who has spent her whole life playing Gin and Bridge. Another factor is that when I first taught the missus Gin she went on a hot streak and won a few games off me. Basically what I'm saying is she thought/thinks she's some expert at the game and that I'm a complete egg. So we start playing for who's choice of first name for our little angel and after about three hands I've got about 52 points and she has yet to get on the old scoreboard. The next hand I knock after about six or seven discards and now she flings her cards at my face! And of course our daughter's first name is her choice. Hmmm, I think I need a good tournament director.

That story reminds me of my ex-wife actually. When I got into poker properly (about twelve years ago now) she also took an interest in the holy game and was a pretty good player. Sometimes we would play heads-up, but somehow these games always deteriorated into arguments. We could not bear to lose to each other. But I think our greatest moment as husband and wife was one night when we were staying at a friend's cottage in Wales. We had found a backgammon set and started playing. Now the ol' ex-wife was a pretty good backgammon player too although she didn't like using the doubling cube so we always had to play the whole game through which can be a bit tiresome (we never played for money anyway so it probably didn't matter that much, but I used to find it a bit annoying). I can't remember what happened (I'm sure I was losing) but all of a sudden the board and all the pieces are all over the floor and we're screaming at each other. We never played backgammon or poker against each other again.

$2,000 added

2007-03-07T04:05:00.000-08:00

The good folks at Poker Verdict are putting on a $2,000 added tournament on PokerStars on tuesday 13th March. Read more about it here.

If you're like me then you won't be that keen on tournaments but this is only $20 + $2 to enter so that's not bad val-yoo.

Ruling!

2007-02-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

What I've always found funny about poker players is the way they pride themselves on being unconventional and living on their wits and so on. This is basically true about many of the "characters" I have played with over the years, but what I find amusing and ironic is that very often these self same rebels and iconoclasts can turn into nitty pedants at the drop of a hat. I am of course talking about rules. Let's face it, poker is a mine field when it comes to the correct procedure and don't get me (or every player I know) started on the etiquette issue.

Many a poker game I have been in has often been derailed by a full blown mass debate (geddit?) about whether or not player x's hand is dead or should player y's raise go or how the burn card should be exposed because player z saw a flash of it and he thinks it's the 8 of clubs and then we expose it and it's usually the Jack of hearts, that sort of thing, you know. Or worse, some story about an utterly dull coup from some other game and then everybody has to chime in with their 0.02c and the game you're in comes to a screeching halt. Obviously this stuff doesn't apply to online play, so all of you online players can have another reason to be smug. Having said all that, here are two interesting situations. I was at neither game, but have heard the relevant details from reliable sources (especially the first hand as I got it straight from the horse's mouth. It involves Jon Shoreman again - typical, soon this blog will probably only be about him).

Hand 1.

€200/€400 Deuce to Seven at the Aviation Club in Paris. Jon bets on the end and is called. He says nothing and tables his hand, 86475. The dealer declares that an 8 has been shown and the villain throws his hand away. His cards are touching the muck, but retrievable. Naturally all of you shrewdies out there have noticed that Shoreman's hand is a straight which is not beating much in 2-7. Of course, this being Paris and a relatively high stakes poker game it takes a while before somebody points this straight out to the dealer and the player who has mucked his hand. Who do you think Bruno awarded the pot to?

Hand 2.

£100 Holdem at the Vic. The board reads 444xx and the villain goes all-in for a small amount into a fairly large pot (let's say £50 into £500). Hero flashes the case 4 and then calls. This is all done in one swift movement. Villain calls for a ruling claiming that the hero's hand has been exposed and therefore dead. Who was the pot awarded to here?

Answers

In hand 1 the pot went to the villain. Hmmm, what's that about locals always getting the rub of the green? (Jon has taken great pains to tell me that Bruno always tries his best to be fair, and I've noticed that too the times I've been to the Aviation, so I'm not actually suggesting anything. Plus I really like the Aviation anyway). Seriously though, the pot here should be awarded to Jon, don't you think?

In the second hand the villain also won the pot. Having written it down it looks a bit more black and white and seems clear the villain should get the pot. According to onlookers at the time it was clearly an angleshoot on the villain's part and their desperate gambit paid off.

A Good Beat and a Bad Beat

2007-02-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

I currently play in a half pot limit game run by Jon Shoreman of pokerineurope.com. The buy-in is a monkey and it's dealer's choice. I also play in another game hosted by The Champ aka Vicky Coren. This is pot limit, also dealer's choice, but with a much smaller buy-in of a bullseye.

Vicky's game actually used to be my game and it's where I first befriended The Champ. Anyway one day we were a bit short of players so I said I'm sure Jon would play even though it's about twenty times smaller than he usually plays. Jon comes along and buys in for a grand and basically raises every pot. But that's not the point of all this.

One of variants we play is Knightsbridge which Jon made up. It's triple draw split Badugi and Deuce to Seven. Got that? Just in case it's not clear, the pot is split between the best badugi (look up the rules somewhere if you don't know) and the best Deuce to Seven hand. Jon being the inventor of said game is of course not only an expert at it, but a total luckbox too. Somehow he and I have gotten all the money in before the last draw ( well, I was all-in) and we turn our cards over. We have very similar hands. Jon being the smart-arse he is tries to talk business and while I'm trying to work out who is the favourite (no doubt he saw it immediately) he turns his last card over and sees he has a really good two way hand (76532 for the Deuce and a 7532 badugi). Now, of course, he says, "Too late, never mind, good luck with your draw". I'm feeling a bit dazzled by the speed of everything and a bit annoyed he didn't give me more of a chance to assess the situation. My hand at this point is 7632 badugi so I basically have one out which is the 4 of diamonds. I give my cards a good old s-q-u-e-e-e-e-e-z-e. Maybe I can hit a 5 to at least get a quarter, I think, feeling a bit glum. Hold on, this baby is red and it's got a peak. Maybe it's the ace of diamonds and I can get half, I forgot about that one. Boom! It's the 4 of diamonds and I scoop. Ship it baby! I must admit I got a little over-excited and couldn't resist saying, "Fuck you Shoreman!" (obviously we're friends and Jon is a good sport and understood my euphoria in the heat of the moment). Wow, a one-outer, can't remember the last time I hit one of those.

Well, fast forward to last Wednesday and now I'm playing at Jon's. It's the very first hand of the night and we're playing six card hold'em double flop (got that?). I min-raise utg and get a few callers. The top flop is Q 9 8 with two hearts and the bottom flop is 7 2 3. My hand is QQ72xx (sorry, can't remember the other two). I lead out for a pony and now Jon raises to £75. Heads up and I call. The turns are an 8 on the top and a 3 on the bottom (for those of you that are confused I now have Queens full on the top and Queens up on the bottom). I check knowing full well that Shoreman is about 1-10,000 to bet. Sure enough, he has a bet and then I stick it all-in. Now it's Jon's turn to look a bit glum. "Oh ok," he says sounding a bit deflated, "I call". He has three 3s on the bottom and a straight on the top (also three 8s). When the bottom blanks off Jon says, "Am I freerolling?", which by the way, should be his bloody catchphrase he loves saying that so much, and bang! off rolls the ten of fucking hearts giving him a fucking straight-flush and the whole bleeding pot. Fuck. Of course he actually had two outs to scoop - always has to have an edge, the bastard.

Oh well, what goes around comes around...

Stop Press

2007-02-01T04:40:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not know, I work for a website called pokerverdict.com. They are currently promoting several invite only tournaments with added money at different poker rooms they are affilliated with. Coming up is a $20+$2 tournament at PokerStars with $500 added tonight (1st feb) at 8pm (GMT). Tuesday 6th feb is $40+$4 at Party with $400 added and thursday 8th feb is $20+$2 at Dream Poker with $700 added. These have been pretty good value - if you are interested in playing these then go here. This will give you all the details plus the passwords and what you need to do to enter. The few we've had recently have not had many runners plus the majority of those playing are from the Poker Verdict office and they are basically DEAD MONEY. Good Luck.

Mistakes part 2

2007-01-28T10:40:00.000-08:00

Or when some other bastard in the hand doesn't act according to your plan. PLO online and I min-raise pre-flop with an Aces buster type hand (I min-raise with loads of hands pre-flop in omaha so don't have a go at me about that please), one caller and now a re-raiser most likely with aces. I call as does the other player. I hit the flop with an up and down straight-flush draw; obviously not as good in omaha as in holdem, but definitely good enough to check-raise the pre-flop raiser with. I check and here is where it all went wrong - the player who just called along all our raises before the flop now bets out. Hold on, that wasn't part of the plan. The re-raiser, who I thought was my target all along, now folds and the action is back on me. Instead of slowing down and re-assessing the situation I charged ahead and check-raised anyway and then ended up getting ironed out by two pair with a better flush draw. It's the sort of mistake beginners make; the old syndrome of falling in love with your hand and not thinking about what anyone else has.

£50 Says You'll Watch This

2007-01-26T05:59:00.001-08:00

Did anyone see this? Presented by Hardeep Singh Kohli this was three semi-humourous programs about gambling. I haven't seen the episode about poker yet so cannot comment on that, but something in the first episode caught my attention.

The program makers managed to film an interview with Brian Zembic which I think is quite a coup. Zembic is a latterday master of prop bets and most famously won $100,000 by having breast implants for a year. In fact, he likes his breasts so much he has never had them removed (something about how it gets him twice the amount of pussy...) and a whole documentary just about him would be good viewing.

Anyway, in the course of their interview Brian asks Hardeep if he wants to play table tennis for a little money. Hardeep says yes and quicker than you can say an earful of cider Brian has won $500 off our hapless presenter. Hardeep now got quite upset and told Brian off for hustling him. Zembic even offered to give Hardeep back his $500, but Hardeep just walked off whingeing.

I could be wrong of course and maybe Hardeep was doing a "bit" and being humourous, but it looked to me like he had the genuine hump. Right, let's think about that. You interview the modern day Titanic Thompson for a program about gambling and then throw your toys out of the pram when he hustles you. Not only is that pathetic, but it's just plain rude.

Mistakes

2007-01-23T02:22:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of talk about stack sizes in tournaments, but it can be just as relevant in a cash game. This is a mistake I've been making quite a lot lately. I've found myself with a good hand that probably plays best heads-up and now the player under the gun who has a short stack raises. "Great", I think, "Now I'll just re-raise and thin the field and me and the desperado will play this hand out". However, the big stack behind me who is a total calling station that only respects serious heat now cold calls this double raise. Here is where I realise my blunder when I see the shortstack going all-in with his re-raise being an amount less than my raise (in other words, I re-raised him £50 and now he goes all-in for £63 or something annoying like that). Now I can't raise again and will have to play a large pot out of position to a nutter who I will need to flop good against. Of course what I should've done is notice the short stack's chips and sized my re-raise accordingly so that I can get another raise in.I've done this live and online at least five times recently and I write about it here just so that maybe I won't do it again.

Vic Players Part 3

2007-01-21T13:57:00.000-08:00

I must admit I'm starting to bottle it now. A couple of people have said to me about my recent posts, "Cor! You went a bit close to the bone with what you wrote about so and so". Originally I thought to myself if I couldn't say it to somebody's face then I wouldn't write it, but I forgot when you write something and put it down on paper (or on the net in this case) it becomes about ten times stronger.

I remember Neil Channing writing a piss taking comment about Dave Barnes in one of his pieces on the Hendon Mob and not understanding when Dave got the massive hump with him. If this barb of Neil's had come up in conversation Barnsey would've just laughed it off and told him to fuck off or whatever. Which I guess is the point - by the time the subject can reply everybody else has read the offending words.

Ok that's all really obvious and I knew that already, but now that I've thought about it some more I've realised I can't face the Mad Monk or Tony Bolton coming up to me and shouting at me the next time I go to the Vic, so I think my Vic portraits will have to wait a few more years.

Coincidentally, I was at work when Nils Batty rang me up. This is an old Vic player whom I hadn't seen for at least 4 or 5 years and it just so happened that I had written a little profile of him. It was nice to catch up and also ask his permission for what is going to be the last one of these for a while.

Nils Batty

Nils was an extremely good NLHE tournament player and I’m sure if he hadn’t gotten married and had kids, and thus faced all the responsibilities a “normal” life brings, he would have done very well on the whole international tournament scene. I learnt a lot about tournaments and poker in general from talking to him. He hated cash games and admitted to me he lacked the bottle to play them successfully (although I’m sure he could’ve been good at cash if he’d really wanted to).

Nils loved smoking and drinking and he and Adam Hine and Ben Chapman were always last to their seats in any of the weekly tournaments. Back then the Vic had three or four comps a week (the memory is a little hazy here, we are talking ’96/’97) and it seemed like one of those three always made it to the final table. The Vic used to have this crappy notice board (sort of like they have in old pubs, with white plastic letters) and the three of them loved seeing their names up there. Ben and Nils were very competitive with each other and they never soft-played each other like you see so many other poker friends do.

They also loved gossiping/bitching about the other regulars, which, let’s face it, is not only de rigueur when you start spending most of your time at the Vic, but also great fun. Not only was Nils very good at NLHE tournaments, he absolutely loved playing them, really thriving on the tension around the bubble. “If you go all in, it’s fuckin’ impossible for them to call unless they find a hand!”. Nils plays online these days and I heard he managed to build up a bankroll from literally nothing by winning a load of freerolls.

Vic Players Part 2

2007-01-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

Mark Mead

When I first went to the Vic, two players really intimidated me, Declan Devereux and Mark. Both were from Tooting (just like many of the great legends of the game in America seem to hail from Texas, it seems as though many of the top players back in the day at the Vic hailed from Tooting) and both were really tight, strong players. Mark had a trademark cackle and was very good at befriending the stars and making them feel good about gambling and just playing poker in general. My first impression was that Mark was maybe a bit of a thug, but that was a clever façade to hide the fact that he was actually a really solid player. Seven Card and Omaha are his best games and he always excelled in the £50 or £100 games where he sat deep. As I got to know him I found that, even though I didn’t want him in the game, I didn’t mind playing with him as he was always really funny and could tell you who the stars were (and how to play against them now and again). His favourite joke in Omaha would be to ask, “Were those deuces double suited?” and then he’d let out that distinctive and infectious laugh. He was a big pot head and I’m pretty sure he spent every night in Rousseau’s after the Vic shut getting stoned and playing whatever variant of Omaha they spread there. He also had a way of saying “call”, dragging out the vowels, that never failed to amuse me every time. I guess I learnt quite a lot from watching him and Declan play, I certainly aspired to play as well as they did. Out of the two, I would say Declan is maybe more versatile. I remember Mark once told me that if he wasn’t playing poker he would be on a building site, so I guess he’s done well out of the game. He hasn’t been to the Vic for at least 4 or 5 years now, I hear he now just spends his time getting stoned and playing online, no doubt getting the absolute lot.

Roger Jones

Now dead, Roger was an excellent Seven Card player who also made the occasional foray into the odd Hold‘Em tournament. He was also exceptionally good at crosswords. A very nice man who didn’t suffer fools gladly (a cardroom not being the ideal place to spend time in then) I’ll never forget his exasperation at players who didn’t know it was their action, what was in the pot, what the bet was etc. A sarcastic “How much?”, often delivered as an aside to me or any other halfway competent player who was nearby, was his standard way of coping with some idiot (usually another regular who had been playing for at least 20 years). He once won a pot off Andrew Georgiou at Seven Card with a flush. When asked why didn’t he raise with his hand, Roger replied, “What? Raise a Bubble showing an open pair? You must think I’m mad”. He once came up to me and said, “I’m not taking the piss, but are you a Latin scholar?”. Unusually for him, he was stuck on a crossword clue; I wish I could’ve given him the answer.

Kenny Miller

With his massive hooter and hang dog looks, Kenny was always easy to spot. A nice guy who, when I first started playing, seemed to make a final table every week. Kenny seemed to have two leaks - the dice (many a poker player’s weakness - as Mick “The Clock” Cook once exclaimed, “How this game has ruined us!” ) and staking Alec Rowley (I may have his last name wrong). Alec was an awful poker player who had a stream of bad beat stories, quite often involving the craps game at Charlie Chesters. Kenny was soft spoken and very stoical, winning and losing with equal grace. I’ll never forget one time at the Stakis when everyone was sitting around waiting for the tournament to start. A backgammon game was in progress and most of us were watching. One of the players rolled double fours and I heard Kenny mutter under his breath, “Hard eight”. A true gambler through and through.

Vic Players Part 1

2006-12-26T07:27:00.000-08:00

To the Vic the other night for their Xmas dinner. VC aka She Who Is Blessed aka The Champ had booked a table and invited DY, JQ, Bad Beat, John Duthie, Ashley Alterman, Panni and myself to eat a rather dubious selection of Christmas fare (in other words, I ordered wrong). Willy Tann joined us halfway through. To be included in this motley crew was an honour and looking around I thought to myself that I was glad we were just eating and bullshitting rather than playing poker; I fancy I would have been the "star" (unless of course JQ went behind - just kidding!).

The funny thing about the Vic is how many detractors it has, including all the above regulars. The players above are sort of allowed to gripe about the gaff because they do go there all the time and keep the games going etc, but I've noticed most people who slag it off usually do so because they can't win there. Instead of saying, "Man, that 100 Hold'Em game at the Vic is tough sometimes, there's a lot more to this poker lark than I realised", they say things like, "The place is just full of grumpy old men and some of the players were rude to me", or, "The staff were useless, I had to wait ages for a seat". The truth is that it does get annoying when you have to tell some cretin for the 25th time that night that it's up to them, or to put their blind in, or to turn their hand over, or to not pass out of turn - that's probably why the howwible man was nasty to diddums; they don't suffer fools gladly at the Vic (unless of course they're a soooooperstar) and I don't blame them.

Anyway, this is all a pre-amble to my series of descriptions of Vic characters (at least two readers asked me to do it, and that's enough for me) that I have had the pleasure of playing with over the years. First of all, these *ahem* portraits are in no way meant to be critical or negative - they are affectionate reminiscences and pretty much everybody I plan on writing about I like. Even though I hardly go to the Vic at the moment I'm sure I'll go back to being a more regular player there in the future so I'm not trying to offend anyone or make enemies. I'm apologising now in case anybody gets pissed off with me. Having said all that I must admit that what has inspired me to blog about Vic players was Stewart Reuben's most recent book (24/7 or something like that) which was fantastically rude about loads of people that he has played with through the years. I'll do about one a week until I get bored (or filled in), or you get bored (already this blog is just one long nostalgia trip I must admit) and to start us off I'm going to talk about one of my favourite ever players:

Francis Rohan

Basically, Francis is an absolute legend. His catchphrase, “You’ll be alright”, has been appropriated by many other players (Derek Kelly of the Gutshot has a column with the title You'll Be Alright and sometimes I wonder whether, a) he knows what it means, and, b) that it originates from Francis).

Francis is one of those classic poker players who truly believes he is the best player in the world EVER. He really does think every one else is an inferior player compared to him, hence his nickname Simply (as in the Tina Turner song Simply The Best). I’ll never forget him saying to me that he would “like to be locked up with Mark Mead with money” ! Francis always sits with small money and plays virtually every hand, punctuating every witticism with his trademark “Eh”. A most affable person and very hard to dislike. Always good company at the table as well as a boost to any game, his colourful quips told in his distinctive northern accent always leave his audience in fits of laughter. He once ended some anecdote with the immortal words, “one day I’ll be sitting on a great big fat Dundee!”.

Francis often goes MIA for months at a time; when you ask him where he’s been he usually replies that he’s been playing in the provinces at places like Southampton, “nicking twos and threes”. Francis is also very fond of a drink and can become quite belligerent when he’s had a skinful. He once had a real go at me when he thought I had pulled a stroke on him. I protested my (genuine) innocence and Michael Arnold came to my defence. Francis then went off on one at Michael ; I felt Simply was out of order but now realised he was very drunk so kept my mouth shut, as did Michael. I didn’t see him for about a week or so and when I did I thought I’d apologise to him (even though I had done nothing wrong) as a way of making peace and letting him know I held no grudge. He immediately apologised and all was forgotten.

I am told that Francis once had a great run at a festival (one before my time) which is possibly where he got his belief that he is the greatest poker player on the planet. Of course the next festival that rolled around he was telling everyone how much he was going to win etc and then duly did his cobblers. He is also renowned for his nipping skills though I truly believe he has good intentions. I once saw him approach Mickey Finn and try to assure him that he would soon be floating in readies and thus able to repay the famous American player. Finn just smiled and told him to forget it - Finn’s world weary smile spoke volumes. Not only how many times he had heard this sort of stuff from Francis, but also of the affection he had for him. Francis may well still have a long queue of bogeys (creditors), I don’t know. I do know that Adrian Holmes has long given up on the money that Francis owes him.

books

2006-12-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

I recently bought a copy of The Mathematics of Poker by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman which is definitely going to be the poker book for a while, The new Harrington on Hold'em if you like. It looks like a really good book, but I know most of it is going to go straight over my head, so I'm sort of wondering why I got it. Anyway, it got me thinking about which poker books I enjoyed the most and gleaned some sort of knowledge out of.

1. Shut Up and Deal by Jesse May

This for me is not just the best poker novel, but easily the best book about poker EVER. This is the book that turned me into a winning player, not Super System or Sklansky or all those sorts of strategy books, but this, a rambling narrative about a young pro trying not to go on tilt. Essentially, it took the mystique out of poker for me, made me realise that their isn't some sort of secret key that unlocks some secret door which leads to being a winner. The descriptions of Foxwoods and Atlantic City so mirrored the Vic it was uncanny - I suddenly saw all the draks and the hustlers and the rocks through new eyes; my naivety and green-ness were finally stripped away.

I bought a copy of it in Vegas when it came out and ended up sitting next to Jesse in the media tournament at the WSOP ('98 I think). He duly signed my copy for me and we have been friendly ever since. I think I have read this novel about seven or eight times - when I first bought it I devoured it, reading it twice in a row. It is a perfect evocation of cardroom life, really capturing what it's like to go to a casino poker room every day. All the various characters that inhabit that type of environment are portrayed with great clarity and empathy. I suspect readers that have taken up the game in the last couple of years wouldn't "get" this book - it was written just before the internet and TV boom. Mind you, several people I know didn't seem to get it at the time either. David Young and the late David Spanier spring to mind, "It hasn't got much of a story has it?", they both moaned. But that's the whole point; poker, like life, is just one long meandering road. When you spend months, actually make that years, just playing poker, nothing really happens apart from pissing your life away and Jesse has written a crystal clear reflection of that.

2. King of a Small World by Rick Bennet

This is also a novel and for those of you who prefer a more traditional narrative this may be more up your street than Shut Up and Deal. It is well written and is mostly set in the private games (spielers rather than home games) of Washington D.C. As an indication of how small the poker scene used to be (even in America) both this and Jesse's book are inspired by the same player (and dedicated to him), one Cong Do.

3. One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar by Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson

I chose this because apart from being a well researched biography with plenty of anecdotes concerning Stuey's sick degenerate gambling and drug use I found Ungar's story really moving. I never knew how much pain he suffered from in his life (which explains his prediliction for illicit substances - in fact, I'm surprised he never became a heroin addict) and all of this is chronicled in an unsentimental and fair manner. I wonder how Stuey's style of play would fair these days against all these twenty-somethings who are basically playing like he used to. He was a fascinating character from a time when the game had many characters; unfortunately it seems like the more poker grows the less interesting people there are who play it.

4. The Biggest Game in Town by Al Alvarez

Sort of the grandaddy of poker books. Another one that I have read several times. With his poetic and literary credentials it's no surprise that Al basically mythologised the early poker scene at the 'Shoe. And why not? Most of the faces that feature are legends and icons of the game (see the last sentence in the paragraph above) and at the time poker was very much a secret little subculture that deserved to be documented. Needless to say Biggest Game is very well written.

5. Fast Company by Jon Bradshaw

Like Alvarez, Bradshaw is a very good writer and this book is a bunch of profiles of master gamblers and hustlers. Poker is represented by pieces on Puggy Pearson and Johnny Moss. Other profiles include legends such as Titanic Thompson and Minnesota Fats. Simultaneously debunking and romanticising these larger than life characters Bradshaw comes very close to understanding what it takes to be a winner.

As you can see, it's these sort of anecdotal books that I find more interesting and illuminating, rather than the sort of advanced manuals that most of us need to read to improve our game. I even prefer According to Doyle over Super System, now that I think about it. The truth is when I read all those Sklansky type books I wasn't ready for many of the concepts in them. Ironically, now that I know a lot more about the game I would get a lot more out of those sorts of books, but because I do know more I can't face ploughing through them anymore. I learnt to play live and I still prefer that. I have always enjoyed the interaction with all the various weirdos and chancers one meets at the poker table -all the bickering and moaning and gallows humour enhances the game for me. In short, it's the people that make the game and I guess that's why I liked the books I listed above.

Speaking of poker players, I'm thinking of writing a few descriptions of the various duckers and divers I have played with at the Vic over the years. Would any of my small handful of readers be interested in that?

Holdem 100

2006-12-04T07:19:00.000-08:00

To the Holdem 100 yesterday held at the Gutshot where I managed to treble up three times by going all-in blind, but still never managed to hold on to any chips. Hold on, I hear you say, The Sweep going all-in blind!!??!! What the fuck is going on?!?!? Well it was a tournament in aid of the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital so I thought I'd piss about a bit. This is an annual event created and run by my very old friend Conrad Brunner (now a top marketing guy at PokerStars btw). It's always good fun and it's interesting to note that at the first one held at Porchester Hall (10 years ago) most of the players had never played poker before, let alone Texas Hold'em. I remember having to be a table captain and tell everybody when it was their turn, how much the bet was, sort out the side pots etc etc. Now everyone knows what a flop is and that the blinds are going up in two minutes and they're all asking if there are add-ons etc. What a difference ten years makes, eh? To find out more check out http://www.holdem100.com/

Anyway, a sort of interesting hand came up between the eventual winner, Wilson Chan, and the eventual third place finisher, Murray Sharp. Wilson was obviously an experienced tournament player and probably a regular at the Gutshot. Murray is a complete nutter who I have played with before in a couple of private games.

Murray comes to the table with around 14,000 chips. Wilson has about 7,000. We're ten handed and the blinds are 100/200, so still early doors-ish, as they say. Everybody folds around to Murray who is in the small blind. He makes it 600 to go. Wilson, in the big blind, gives it a bit of a dwell and then goes all-in. In the modern poker vernacular, Murray insta-calls. Murray has A5 offsuit and Wilson has 93 offsuit. A nine comes on the river giving Wilson the pot. Ok, so no big deal, it was a blinds skirmish - Wilson got caught making a move and then got lucky. What was interesting was hearing Murray grumble about the hand for a while, muttering about Wilson's luck and so on. I was struck by how quickly Murray called with A5, which let's face it, isn't exactly a powerhouse. However, given that we now know Wilson's hand, it was a great call. In fact, given that we know Murray's hand I think Wilson made a great move too( I certainly would've folded A5 to a re-raise, probably a flaw in my tournament game...). Anyway, I guess I'm trying to say that there's just loads of marginal tournament situations and that I'm still bemused when I hear people saying things like, "If I win that hand I'll be chip leader and then I'd make the final....etc" or, "How can that cunt call?" or, "Did you see what that idiot raised with?".

Playing With The Suicide King

2006-12-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

To continue the theme started on my first post and inspired by Warren Wooldridge’s piece on pokerverdict.com about playing with world class American pros at past WSOP events I thought I would add my paltry reminiscences. I have been going to the WSOP since 1996 (the year Huck Seed won the main event) although unlike Warren I have only ever played in three bracelet events. Why go? I hear you ask. Well, basically I used to go for the cash games and general pissing about (aka playing dice or pai gow) with various other layabouts, liggers and chancers (aka poker pros). Before the internet/ WPT/ Moneymaker revolution (choose which you think is applicable) the WSOP was a great laugh. The ease of flitting between the Nugget and the ‘Shoe fostered a real camaraderie between the European players. There was always somebody at the Horseshoe bar to share a poker story or two with.

Over the years I have played with many faces in both low limit and mid limit games. I’ll never forget looking over and seeing Surinder Sunar playing in a $1 - $5 stud game! This was in 2004 as well, not way back in the mists of time; he must have wanted to practice stud with weak players or something – no way could he have been potless. I remember playing with O’Neil Longson in a $1/$3 blinds no limit hold’em game when the last time I had seen him was the previous year when he was playing $50/$100 blinds. All these hands and players and games just jumble into a blur, but one of the most memorable is sitting down to play the $1,500 Razz event in 2005. I looked around the table and felt good, most of the other players looked like your typical poker desperadoes. The WSOP had been running for well over a month so by now most people were skint, and whereas a few weeks earlier they would never have played a non hold’em event the Razz tourney looked like maybe a good way to get out of it. My optimism was short lived though as who should fill the last seat but Ted Forrest, aka the Suicide King or Professor Backwards himself. Great, not only is the guy considered one of the best players in the world, but any type of stud game is his speciality. I have been around poker a fairly long time and usually my first reaction on seeing a good player at the same table is one of disgust (as you can tell from the last sentence), but I must admit this time I actually felt a little excited at the thought of playing with a bona fide legend.

Ted surprised me by limping into lots of pots, even when he had the lowest showing door card. I suspect he felt very confident of his play on the later streets and it was also his way of keeping the pots small until he wanted to make it bigger (remember, this was a limit tournament; rammin’ and jammin’ on 3^rd and 4^th street usually means no-one is folding by the last card). I tussled in a couple of pots with him, but nothing memorable although I do remember that I was fortunate enough to hold good cards over him and was never faced with a tricky decision against him.

What was notable was the amount of players who came up to Ted whispering asides to him and weighing in. Occasionally Ted would dip into his pocket and pull out a massive wad of hundreds and peel a few off and hand them over to whichever hapless railbird was talking to him. I later told Neil Channing about this and he remarked, “Yeah, he runs this town”. Interestingly, one of these players was former main event winner Huck Seed. He came over several times to report on his and others’ progress in the tournament. I had the feeling that Ted was Huck’s backer, but this is purely speculative.

I played the tournament quite well, I think, apart from one hand which I related to my mate Ben Battle who had bought a piece of me. “I was the bring in with a K and this guy raised in late position after about 5 players folded around to him. I had A 2 in the hole so I called. I then caught good and he paired, so I bet and he called. Then I paired my deuce and he caught good. I now checked and he bet and for some inexplicable reason I called. Now on Sixth street he catches good and I get a bad one – he bets again and I finally see sense and fold. The whole hand was a disaster and I never should have defended my bring in with a King showing, that just can’t be a good play”, I said. As I finished this sad tale I noticed Ted nodding in agreement with my last sentence – acknowledging my rick and maybe, just maybe, giving me a little encouragement. He could see that I was at least self-aware and not blaming my wasting of precious tournament chips on bad luck. At least I like to think of it like that, for all I know he was nodding at some fellow degenerate across the room. As an aside, I later realised that the late position raiser was Prahlad Friedman, another professional with a pretty good record too.

In the end, Ted and I got knocked out at exactly the same time in a weird three way coup. I had the best hand, but of course got done over. It turned out that Ted and I had exactly the same amount of chips too, so although I didn’t do very well in the tournament I can at least say my play was equal to that of one of the best players in the game. Or something like that……

Pot limit Hold'em with Greg Raymer

2006-11-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

The following piece was written as a trip report to the news group rec gambling poker way back in January 2002. Basically I played cash with a future WSOP champ… I remember seeing him in the final of the 2004 WSOP and thinking, “Hold on, isn’t that the Ice Cream I played pot limit Hold’em with in that blinding cash game at Foxwoods a couple of years ago??!!?”. As you can see from the report I actually thought he wasn’t a bad player at all, and now that I think about it, I realise that if that same game were to happen now with the extra knowledge about the game that I have now, I would appreciate that he was a very strong player, instead of just thinking he was loose-aggressive. Fossilman actually replied to me and reading it back it’s nice to see him tell me, “ I liked your game, and know that in the long run, you'd make a clear profit against the line-up that night.” It's pretty long but I hope you enjoy it.

Original post on r.g.p

As a longtime lurker of this ng i thought i'd post a trip report, as those are the posts i enjoy reading the most. I usually play poker in the uk, at the vic or regency(aka the stakis) in London, and have been playing seriously(as in having read a few books, playing in public cardrooms etc etc) for around 7 years. I have many relatives who live in Connecticut and usually visit that part of the states once a year, making sure that Foxwoods is on the itinerary. In fact, I remember going there not long after it had opened, and being blown away by the action. It was the first public cardroom I had been to in the states, and it gave me the impression that all poker rooms were like that. There must have been at least a hundred games going, with many of them being at high limits(75/150 and higher). Cut to a couple of years later and, of course, all the suckers' money was gone and only about 10-15 games going, all seemingly filled with grumpy locals and rocks. Anyway, it still seems a nice place to play and I usually lose because I cannot get my head
around limit poker. How everyone in America can play this structure I do not know....

However, I won't moan about that, because the night in question, maybe a tuesday about two weeks ago, I find myself walking into Foxwoods poker room, around 9pm, and much to my surprise and delight, there's a list for a pot-limit hold'em game. I put my name on it, and, after being told "it might start, who knows?", a bunch of other games, and look around the room. I see a few locals whose faces I remember from past visits and am thinking how all cardrooms are filled with the same kinds of characters("pros" with threadbare clothes trying to flirt with the waitresses, young college-type guys taking the game super-seriously, seniors making each other miserable, locals trying to dodge who they owe money to etc), when they call my name for a brand new 5/10 Omaha8 game. Of course, the line-up consists of a bunch of old boys who won't play unless it's at least 7-handed, and consequently the game takes about 15 minutes to start. We play about two hands when suddenly I hear my name being called for the plh game. Wow! I can't believe it, I'm going to play pot-limit in an american card room! And it's not during a tournament week, just your typical average day.

Onto the game;10-handed pot-limit hold'em, buy-in $100, blinds 5-5 off the button, $5 from each player every half hour(a reasonable rake?). From now on, forgive me if the details are a little sketchy, I'll do my best to remember things, but it was about two weeks ago. At the beginning the line-up was: seat 1, young guy(YG); seat 2, a rather, ahem...how can i put this?, portly, rich guy(PRG), he clearly had pot-limit experience(and that doesn't necessarily mean he was a good player), which was good because he kept the game going and was most affable, and sat down with at least 10k, maybe more; seat 3, another young guy with a baseball hat(BH), he didn't seem too bad a player; seat 4, a local who was a total rock(Rock); seat 5, another local, who had kind of a loud voice(I don't mean this in a bad way, he seemed like a nice guy, I just can't think of another way to describe him, I'll call him Loudmouth); seat 6, a middle-aged guy called Harold, he was obviously not a very good player, and I suspect, one of the reasons the game was going(I'm not going to refer to him as an idiot-I always find it slightly offensive the way people on this forum call bad players derogatory names. Just because they don't appear to be good at the game doesn't make them an idiot or a bad person); seat 7, a japanese(?) guy(JG); seat 8, another rock(Rock2); seat 9, me; seat 10, another local, who I think was called Spiro(? hope I got that right). Incidentally, the whole game was played in a friendly spirit, although there was often confusion as to what amounts people could raise. On the whole the PRG told players what to do, as most of the dealers, with the exception of one or two, didn't really have a clue. In fact, at one point there was about a five minute delay when a player and the dealer could not get it right(for some reason, neither of them could work out that all you have to do is call first, and then count the pot, and then raise that amount-simple really).

I sat down with $600, apart from the aforementioned PRG everbody else had about $200 to $400 in front of them. Apart from Spiro and PRG, I sensed everybody was a little nervous about playing pot-limit, especially the japanese guy. I noticed right away that PRG was playing many hands, straddling and sticking little raises of $10 or $5 to build the pot up, and encouraging everyone to gambool and all that crap. He was obviously looking to gamble with a weird hand, maybe sending someone with aces or kings broke. This is what I love about pl-you can play rubbish like K10 off, or 22, UTG, if you want, because of the implied odds etc. Mind you, you better be prepared to dump it if things start to look bad. I'm not saying this is correct play or anything, just that if you have a good sense of where you're at and what kind of players you're dealing with, you can be more flexible with your starters at pot-limit(IMHO). Harold was also playing many hands. I won a small pot early on (can't remember anything about it at all) and then looked down to see...AA. Raise! I make it $25 to play. PRG and BH, the blinds, both call, and so does Harold. The flop comes something like 4, 9, A, rainbow. Basically a pretty great flop for a set of aces. They all check to me and like an idiot I bet $75. Fold, fold, fold. What the hell was I thinking?? Maybe I thought PRG was going to take me on or something, or Harold would call, but I guess the blood just rushed to my head. Not one of my greater plays...

About a round later in pretty much the same late position I find AK suited(hearts). I raise, making it 15 to play, and PRG calls and raises another 40. I think about re-raising, thinking i've probably got the best hand, but decide that I don't want to go broke on A high, so I just call. The flop comes Q x x, two hearts. Not too bad. PRG now bets 75. Hmmm...I don't think he's got a super-strong hand, so I decide to play mine aggressively(after all, I have got 15 outs) and call 75 and raise the pot, 270. He gives it the dwell and then decides to put me all-in, about 250 more. I call, and somebody says, "on their backs", to which I reply, "It's not a tournament", but PRG turned his hand over to show AQ. So I was kind of right, he wasn't holding a monster, but I was down to 12 outs. OOPs, make that 9 ‘cos another Q just fell on the turn. I'm funking for a heart, c'mon baby, but of course it's some useless rag club on the river(it's always a club, ain't it?). Oh well, back to the drawing board, so I pull up a grand.

After about half an hour Rock2, on my immiediate right, made a nice play. He had become fairly short-stacked calling a couple of raises to see flops and then having to fold when he hadn't hit. He got up and left. Sure, it was a good game, but he wasn't hitting cards, so why sit around going on tilt? there's always another game and another day. I wish I could cut my losses and just walk away like this more often.

In his place another local sat down. This guy had been watching the game almost from the beginning and was obviously some sort of "pro". He sat with $1000. Very first hand he gets, he raises. I fold, but a couple of others call, including Harold. Flop is something like x 9 10. Harold checks and the pro bets the pot(about 60). Other player folds and Harold calls. Turn is an 8. Harold checks and the pro bets 180. Harold now check-raises all-in about 700 in total. The pro now thinks for awhile and finally calls. Harold, of course, has JQ for the nuts and the pro disgustedly flicks KK in the muck( did you guess the hands right?). Like I said, this pro had been watching the game, and also seemed to know Harold, who, as I had also observed, was not that good a player. How this pro could call a check-raise from a not very sophisticated player I'll never know. Yes, yes I know it's all much easier when you're not in the hand, but you gotta think you're beat when the board is showing a straight and many 2-pair type possibilities(by that, I mean Harold could easily have played 9 10, 8 9, even 10 8 suited as his starting hands) and all you got is one pair, don't ya? The pro later turned round to some railbird and whispered something about "anyone else and I fold, but against him....", so he may well have had good reason to call, I could be judging him a little harshly.

Harold's weak style of play was demonstrated a few hands later when BH in seat 3 bet the pot when a card to make broadway hit the turn(having called a bet on the flop), and Harold, unable to resist with 2 pairs, called. The river was a blank and BH made a large bet again to which Harold made a losing call(BH had the nuts). The point being, I'm pretty sure BH would have folded to a bet if the board had paired.

I then found myself in early position with AJ off and limped in. About 4 or 5 of us saw the flop which consisted of Q K 10, two diamonds. Ok, I got the straight, but I don't like them diamonds.
Harold checks and JG bets, I call and raise the pot. Harold smooth calls...ok, he must have diamonds, and JG thinks a little bit and folds. Turn is an offsuit Jack, Harold checks and I bet the pot. He now check-raises me! Great, he's not only just made the top straight as well, but he's freerolling with the flush draw against me. Marvellous. I call and pray for a blank, which it is. Phew. Turns out Harold only had the bare ace of diamonds and while we chop the pot up he talks about having a draw to the royal flush(....?).

Next hand I decide to play is the 7 5 of spades in mid-position. I raise, for the sake of varying my play and hope I hit some kind of mystery(on the whole I'm a fairly tight player, and many in London think of me as absolute granite, but I like to mix it up a little-otherwise you never get paid off when you hit your flop, which has been a problem for me in the past). Several players call. Flop comes...all spades(sorry, can't remember the ranks). I bet the pot and Spiro, to my immiediate left, thinks for a bit and flat calls. Uh-oh, I've found him a tricky player to read, and my perception of him is that he knows what he's doing-is he setting a trap for me and slowplaying the nut flush? It's head's up now and 4th street is a blank. Hmmm, what to do? I can't give him a free card, but what if I'm betting into a monster? I decide to check and see what he does, and then make a decision whether I want to continue with the hand. To my delight Spiro also checks. The river card is a blank, and I decide I'm winning and make a questionable value bet of about 150(prob about 3/4 of the pot). I think I decided he had trips and maybe would call, and if he had the nuts he'd let me know, and I could fold, having murdered $150 in cold blood. He pondered awhile and then folded. As the dealer shuffled for the next hand Spiro told me he had the ace of spades. I don't know whether that was true or not, but if a fourth spade had hit the flop, my cards would have gone straight into the muck(I'm about 95% sure about that).

I guess around two hours had gone by now and new players were entering the game. PRG was actually losing quite a fair amount and had moved to seat 9(my immiediate right) and a new young guy(NYG) had taken his place. NYG raises in 1st position and gets several callers including me with AJ. Flop comes A 3 7, two diamonds, He bets the pot and everyone folds round to me. I think about raising, but I'm worried that I could be outkicked, so I just call(yeah, yeah, I know, if I'm worried I'm beat, why don't I just fold?). Turn card is a Jack-hooray, I got As up-but it's also a diamond. NYG bets the pot, but I don't think he's got a flush, so I flat call, hoping he'll just check it out on the end. The last card is a blank and he checks nervously, so I just turn my 2 pair over, hoping they're good. He turns over two black 3s to go with the one on the flop. Great. So if I had gone with my read on the turn and raised the pot, he may well have folded. My conservative play was not only due to lack of spleen, but also due to the fact that I had never played with this guy before-for all I knew, he had bet on the come, or maybe AK with the K of diamonds. Anyway, I never put him on bottom set. I also lost another pot to this guy, but I can't remember the details of that at all. Basically, I had been slowly crawling my way out of a hole, but since his arrival at the table, I was right back in it.

All was not lost however, because a little later on, I found a pair of 8s in mid to late position. I raise(hell, I didn't come all the way to Foxwoods to limp in!) and my man, NYG calls from out of the blinds. Flop is all undercards with a flush draw (yikes! there might have been a straight there, I can't remember), NYG checks, I bet the pot. He thinks and calls. Turn card is a blank, he checks so I bet the pot again. Now he thinks awhile longer, and then calls. Looks like he
could be on the flush draw, who knows, I fancy I'm winning at the moment. Last card is, aaargh, the flushing card. NYG dwells and dwells. He's thinking of bluffing it, I'm sure, oh wow, I'm gonna have to call a fair sized bet with a lousy pair of 8s, why the hell did I raise it and keep betting like I actually had something good? Knowing my luck he's got trips again....he finally checks, thank God, and I turn my 8s over while he turns over A5off(the 5 matching one on the
flop). Phew, I won a pot.

Another interesting coup occurred when I raised in late position with some rubbish(I can't remember, but it doesn't really matter) and found seat 4, the local who was a complete rock(remember?) and the PRG calling. The flop featured two clubs. They both checked to me, so I thought I'll bet out and take the pot right here. They both called-hmmm, have I got a plan B? I was especially concerned when the Rock called because I had barely seen this fella play a hand; he really was super-duper tight. Anyway the next card comes and it's a club, and that's it, I'm through with this pot. They both check to me, and I look at the Rock and he's just dying for me to bet, it's so obvious it's a joke. Like I said I had given up on this pot so I just checked along. River is nothing special and now the Rock bets 200-I knew he had the nut flush! PRG calls and I fold with the satisfaction of seeing my brilliant read. Rock now turns over a pair of 10s(huh?)
while PRG is the one with the nut flush. So much for my understanding of that situation.

The game had been going on for a while now when up came perhaps the most interesting pot of the night(unfortunately, I was not involved). A little background on the three participants first.
Loudmouth, in seat 5, had for sometime now, been raising before the flop and taking pots down without his cards being seen. Indeed, he was playing well and winning quite a bit(probably had about 3 grand in front of him). PRG, like I said above, was losing quite a lot, maybe stuck about 1000 or so, maybe less. NYG(remember him? he did me with the trip 3s) had started with 300 and, in the space of about an hour, had built it up to about 1500. Anyway, Loudmouth raises UTG, PRG calls, and NYG now re-raises the pot. Loudmouth now raises again and PRG calls while muttering something like, "time to gamble", and NYG calls. I'm pretty sure that's how the pre-flop betting went, but basically they all put-in about 180 each before the flop. I definitely remember the pot was 560, because that was how much loudmouth bet, when he saw J 7 9 in the middle of the table. I know he bet the pot because his favourite expression was, "I'll bet the pot!", being one of those players who always bet the max. Now, the PRG hesitated a little and then said, "make it two thousand", while counting out twenty 100 dollar bills. Now the look on the NYG's face was priceless, the blood literally drained from this kid's face, I'm pretty sure I even heard him say,"oh shit". Whatever the case, he looked pretty freaked out and it dawned on me he had pretty good hand, but maybe not good enough. By now, there was a pretty large crowd gathered around the table watching the action(btw, quite a few times there were many players from other games coming over to watch. This was a good game and there were several big bets and pots generated during the evening. Whilst not being a super-huge game, I think many of the players watching were 10/20 and 15/30 types, and they could imagine themselves in this game. I noticed this same phenomenon at the Bellagio in Vegas once, when some english friends and I set up a plh game, with exactly the same blinds. At the table next to us was Doyle Brunson, Jennifer Harmon, Annie Duke etc playing HUGE, maybe 3000/6000, but everyone in the room was far more interested in our game. I was also bemused by the reluctance of these same players to get involved in our game-I'm sure many a time they've found themselves stuck 500, or even 1k, in a 10/20 or 15/30 game, yet don't want play 400 in a plh game in case they blow it all in one hand.) So, NYG starts to think, and Loudmouth says,"c'mon kid, it's 2 grand to you" (I don't think he was feeling too grand). NYG looks a little peeved(and who can blame him?) and says, "yeah, I know", thinks for a while and folds. Now, it's back on Loudmouth and he goes into a 5 to 10 minute think, which as you all know, is a looong time in poker, before he too throws his hand in. What's interesting about this hand is that NYG later said he had Aces! Surely, he should have raised a third time pre-flop(he definitely had enough money in front of him to make calling difficult for the other two, and if Loudmouth had KKs he would have been in a whole world of trouble) and taken the pot down there and then? I reckon PRG's possible holdings were J 9, J 7(for 2 pr) or 10 8(for the straight). I think he would have laid down a small pocket pair for a large bet before the flop, and if he did have a set he would have slow-played it, but, then again, what the hell do I know? As for Loudmouth's hand, I can't even begin to guess. Like I said, he really had not shown down many hands(in fact, at one point, he folded UTG and accidentally exposed KJ off-this resulted in much ribbing; "what a rock!", "he's just showing off!" etc) and was one of the stronger players in the game.

Well, it got to around 3.30 in the morning and I decided to leave. Unfortunately I was stuck $800, but the game wasn't quite as good as it had been earlier(Harold had quit winners long ago, and PRG left not long after the pot described above) and I was tired. So, yes, I did my absolute bollocks(as we say in England), but it was, despite the result, a very enjoyable session. On a final note, the game went strong for at least 5 hours, with new players coming and going all the time, and looked like it was going to carry on a while longer, so all those fears cardroom managers have about pot limit breaking the live ones too quickly maybe a little exaggerated. Kudos to Foxwoods for spreading the game, and also love the non-smoking.

Fossilman’s reply

(My original text in italics)

As a longtime lurker of this ng i thought i'd post a trip report,

Thanks for de-lurking.

Onto the game;10-handed pot-limit hold'em, buy-in $100, blinds 5-5 off the button, $5 from each player every half hour(a reasonable rake?).... seat 2, a rather, ahem...how can i put this?, portly, rich guy(PRG), he clearly had pot-limit experience(and that doesn't necessarily mean he was a good player), which was good because he kept the game going and was most affable, and sat down with at least 10k, maybe more;

I'm not sure if I've been insulted or compliment. I guess portly is nicer than fat. ;-) That was me, Greg Raymer (FossilMan). And 10K is a bit more than I had, it was only about 5-6K.

seat 5, another local, who had kind of a loud voice(I don't mean this in a bad way, he seemed like a nice guy, I just can't think of another way to describe him, I'll call him Loudmouth);

That's Roby, also called Limit Man (you'll understand why later).

seat 6, a middle-aged guy called Harold, he was obviously not a very good player, and I suspect, one of the reasons the game was going

Not really. I was the one working hard to get the game going, and although I had been working on Harold, I didn't expect him to sit down.

seat 9, me;

Welcome to Foxwoods and Connecticut. Other than Spiro, I had tagged you as the only other capable pot-limit player in the bunch.

seat 10, another local, who I think was called Spiro(? hope I got that right).

Yes, you did. He's a great guy, very friendly, and does very well at NL HE tourneys.

On the whole the PRG told players what to do, as most of the dealers, with the exception of one or two, didn't really have a clue.

I am an attorney, and an ego-maniac, and suffer from "Table-Captain Syndrome".

I noticed right away that PRG was playing many hands, straddling and sticking little raises of $10 or $5 to build the pot up, and encouraging everyone to gambool and all that crap. He was obviously looking to gamble with a weird hand, maybe sending someone with aces or kings broke.

Damn, you saw right through me.

I won a small pot early on (can't remember anything about it at all) and then looked down to see...AA. Raise! I make it $25 to play. PRG and BH, the blinds, both call, and so does Harold. The flop comes something like 4, 9, A, rainbow. Basically a pretty great flop for a
set of aces. They all check to me and like an idiot I bet $75. Fold, fold, fold. What the hell was I thinking?? Maybe I thought PRG was going to take me on or something, or Harold would call, but I guess the blood just rushed to my head. Not one of my greater plays...

Unless I had flopped 2-pair or better, you weren't going to get any action out of me on that flop. ;-)

About a round later in pretty much the same late position I find AK suited(hearts). I raise, making it 15 to play, and PRG calls and raises another 40. I think about re-raising, thinking i've probably got the best hand, but decide that I don't want to go broke on A high, so I just call. The flop comes Q x x, two hearts. Not too bad. PRG now bets 75. Hmmm...I don't think he's got a super-strong hand, so I decide to play mine aggressively(after all, I have got 15 outs) and call 75 and raise the pot, 270. He gives it the dwell and then decides to put me all-in, about 250 more. I call, and somebody says, "on their backs", to which I reply, "It's not a tournament", but PRG turned his hand over to show AQ. So I was kind of right, he wasn't holding a monster, but I was down to 12 outs. OOPs, make that 9 'cos another Q just fell on the turn. I'm funking for a heart, c'mon baby, but of course it's some useless rag club on the river(it's always a club, ain't it?). Oh well, back to the drawing board, so I pull up a grand.

Thanks for the action. If you had reraised the pot preflop, I would've folded.

After about half an hour Rock2, on my immiediate right, made a nice play. He had become fairly short-stacked calling a couple of raises to see flops and then having to fold when he hadn't hit. He got up and left. Sure, it was a good game, but he wasn't hitting cards, so why sit around going on tilt? there's always another game and another day. I wish I could cut my losses and just walk away like this more often.

If you've got money and aren't on tilt, why walk away when the game is good?

In his place another local sat down. This guy had been watching the game almost from the beginning and was obviously some sort of "pro". He sat with $1000. Very first hand he gets, he raises. I fold, but a couple of others call, including Harold. Flop is something like x 9 10. Harold checks and the pro bets the pot(about 60). Other player folds and Harold calls. Turn is an 8. Harold checks and the pro bets 180. Harold now check-raises all-in about 700 in total. The pro now thinks for awhile and finally calls. Harold, of course, has JQ for the nuts and the pro disgustedly flicks KK in the muck( did you guess the hands right?). Like I said, this pro had been watching the game, and also seemed to know Harold, who, as I had also observed, was not that good a player. How this pro could call a check-raise from a not very sophisticated player I'll never know. Yes, yes I know it's all much easier when you're not in the hand, but you gotta think you're beat when the board is showing a straight and many 2-pair type
possibilities(by that, I mean Harold could easily have played 9 10, 8 9, even 10 8 suited as his starting hands) and all you got is one pair, don't ya? The pro later turned round to some railbird and whispered something about "anyone else and I fold, but against him....", so he may well have had good reason to call, I could be judging him a little harshly.

Harold has been known to slow-play and check-raise top pair with a medium kicker. It was correct to call him down here. Of course, no disrespect to you, as you don't know Harold like we know Harold.

Another interesting coup occurred when I raised in late position with some rubbish(I can't remember, but it doesn't really matter) and found seat 4, the local who was a complete rock(remember?) and the PRG calling. The flop featured two clubs. They both checked to me, so I thought I'll bet out and take the pot right here. They both called-hmmm, have I got a plan B? I was especially concerned when the Rock called because I had barely seen this fella play a hand; he really was super-duper tight. Anyway the next card comes and it's a club, and that's it, I'm through with this pot. They both check to me, and I look at the Rock and he's just dying for me to bet, it's so obvious it's a joke. Like I said I had given up on this pot so I just checked along. River is nothing special and now the Rock bets 200-I knew he had the nut flush! PRG calls and I fold with the satisfaction of seeing my brilliant read. Rock now turns over a pair of 10s(huh?) while PRG is the one with the nut flush. So much for my understanding of that situation.

Me too. I put you on a raise, which is why I flat-called. I completely misread some movement you made on the turn.

The game had been going on for a while now when up came perhaps the most interesting pot of the night(unfortunately, I was not involved). A little background on the three participants first. Loudmouth, in seat 5, had for sometime now, been raising before the flop and taking pots down without his cards being seen. Indeed, he was playing well and winning quite a bit(probably had about 3 grand in front of him). PRG, like I said above, was losing quite a lot, maybe stuck about 1000 or so, maybe less. NYG(remember him? he did me with the trip 3s) had started with 300 and, in the space of about an hour, had built it up to about 1500. Anyway, Loudmouth raises UTG, PRG calls, and NYG now re-raises the pot. Loudmouth now raises again and PRG calls while muttering something like, "time to gamble", and NYG calls. I'm pretty sure that's how the pre-flop betting went, but basically they all put-in about 180 each before the flop. I definitely remember the pot was 560, because that was how much loudmouth bet, when he saw J 7 9 in the middle of the table. I know he bet the pot because his favourite expression was, "I'll bet the pot!", being one of those players who always bet the max. Now, the PRG hesitated a little and then said, "make it two thousand", while counting out twenty 100 dollar bills. Now the look on the NYG's face was priceless, the blood literally drained from this kid's face, I'm pretty sure I even heard him say,"oh shit".
Whatever the case, he looked pretty freaked out and it dawned on me he had pretty good hand, but maybe not good enough. By now, there was a pretty large crowd gathered around the table watching the action(btw, quite a few times there were many players from other games coming over to watch. This was a good game and there were several big bets and pots generated during the evening. Whilst not being a super-huge game, I think many of the players watching were 10/20 and 15/30 types, and they could imagine themselves in this game. I noticed this same phenomenon at the Bellagio in Vegas once, when some english friends and I set up a plh game, with exactly the same blinds. At the table next to us was Doyle Brunson, Jennifer Harmon, Annie Duke etc playing HUGE, maybe 3000/6000, but everyone in the room was far more interested in our game. I was also bemused by the reluctance of these same players to get involved in our game-I'm sure many a time they've found themselves stuck 500, or even 1k, in a 10/20 or 15/30 game, yet don't want play 400 in a plh game in case they blow it all in one hand.) So, NYG starts to think, and Loudmouth says,"c'mon kid, it's 2 grand to you" (I don't think he was feeling too grand). NYG looks a little peeved(and who can blame him?) and says, "yeah, I know", thinks for a while and folds. Now, it's back on Loudmouth and he goes into a 5 to 10 minute think, which as you all know, is a looong time in poker, before he too throws his hand in. What's interesting about this hand is that NYG later said he had Aces! Surely, he should have raised a third time pre-flop(he definitely had enough money in front of him to make calling difficult for the other two, and if Loudmouth had KKs he would have been in a whole world of trouble) and taken the pot down there and then? I reckon PRG's possible holdings were J 9, J 7(for 2 pr) or 10 8(for the straight). I think he would have laid down a small pocket pair for a large bet before the flop, and if he did have a set he would have slow-played it, but, then again, what the hell do I know? As for Loudmouth's hand, I can't even begin to guess.

For the whole story on this hand, go to twoplustwo.com. In the PL/NL forum, you'll see two posts by me. In the first one, I tell about the hand and my thinking. In the second one, I tell the post-mortem from a week later, as I saw both of the others that night and we all shared our hands with each other. The posts are titled "Interesting Reason to Semi-Bluff" and "Follow-up: Interesting Reason to Semi-Bluff", or something very similar. Let's just say I was in third place after that flop, knew it, and still won. ;-) It really was a pleasure to play with you. I liked your game, and know that in the long run, you'd make a clear profit against the line-up that night.
As long as I didn't crack your AK too often. ;-)

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

______________________________________________________

Hugo Martin writes for Poker Verdict, a free service catering for the online poker community. It offers a unique and powerful tournament search tool as well as news and views from online poker experts. The site is owned by Easyodds, a free service that compares odds from over 20 big name online betting companies (Ladbrokes, Betfair etc) to allow users to find the best price for any bet.

______________________________________________________