General: Motor Show 2006

Went to the Motor Show at Excel in Docklands yesterday (Saturday) See http://www.britishmotorshow.co.uk/

I don't enjoy traveling in London anymore, it just takes too long to get anywhere and is hot, smelly and crowded, so wasn't looking forward to the travelling

Decided to get up early to miss the rush, so left home before 8am to go to the station. Got the first train OK, but when changing for the Waterloo train, found out there is signaling problems so all trains are delayed and/or cancelled.... oh great. In the end we get there OK, about 45 minutes later than expected so not too bad (although it took just under 3 hours to get there !)

The Excel is well organized and there are two massive halls plus a lot of things going on outside. Went to the Lotus stand first and had a good look around, then went to TVR and Morgan, then I could relax having looked at the most important cars there :-) It was a shame that TVR didn't let you sit in the cars but they do look fantastic.

The Ford stand was crowded and they were giving away free drinks which was great. The Aston and Jaguar stands were heaving and you couldn't get close so after a quick look through the bodies moved on. Strange how some stands like Kia and Hyundai always looked empty :-)

Not all manufacturers were there, Porsche and Subaru were the two I would have liked to have seen, but otherwise all the usual suspects were there and was a lot of cars to look at. Outside you could (queue up for ages) for a ride in a 4x4 over an obstacle course or drive a Mazda, but didn't bother with those. Was also water sport displays in the dock and with the hot weather it was nice to stand out in the cool breeze every now and again.

By later afternoon we had managed to see most things and were both a bit worn out ! A brief re-visit to Ford stand for another free drink also bagged us a free ice lolly as well, so well done Ford, we will definitely be visiting your stand every time we see one at a show :-)
The journey home was uneventful and only took 2 hours so a lot more pleasant than the trip up. It's great having air conditioned trains now !

Highlights for me were
Best cars
definitely the Lotus and also TVR, I really love those cars !
Most Interesting
The Honda stand had a hidden treasure having a dismantled F1 car suspended in a glass room, great idea and fascinating to see.
Best customer focused
Ford take the prize for being most thoughtful to what the crowds want (free cold drinks and ice lollies were definitely what was needed!)
Most boring
Cant remember I fell asleep, but probably Toyota. Don't remember there being a sports car on the stand. I think the F1 car was there, but no-one bothered to look
Most desperate
Kia staff trying to lure people onto their stands, offering a free carrier bag

In Conclusion, it was definitely worth the effort to travel to the show and really enjoyed it once I was there. Don't think I would go every year, but certainly an event I would like to attend regularly

General: Farnborough Air Show 2006

Went to Farnborough Air Show Saturday. We decided to park in the on site car park this time, although having taken 90 minutes to get there was questioning the wisdom. (it is only 5 mile trip)

Had a chance to wander around the static displays but only for about 45 mins until the flying display started. The red arrows are first up at 12:30, and at 12:29 we felt the first spots of rain!!! Been in a heat wave with record temperatures for about a week, now we are planning to be outside all day it is monsoon type rain. Of course the umbrella's are in the car (we didn't bother to bring rain coat either) so we end up back at the car a little wet....good job we decided to park on site. As it's lunchtime we decide to eat in the car out of the rain, but then the rain really came down and the displays got postponed until the lightning storm passed over.

One the rain eased off we ventured out again with the umbrellas, which were needed for a couple of hours as we kept getting short showers after that

Other than the weather, the flying displays were memorable and very loud :-) The Airbus A390 (the huge double decker one) was a sight to behold... it is huge ! The military jets all put on a good show, with afterburners blazing away most of the time. Great stuff

We came away slightly disappointed that we didn't get time to really look closely at the static displays and didn't even get into the exhibition halls... which I guess is a good thing as it means we enjoyed it. Next time we will have to get up earlier and get to the gates for 9:30am!

Poker: Bankroll strategy - part 4

The last round I have been playing $30 (+3) 6 seater tournaments with the following results

Game 1 : 40 mins : 2nd (+$39)
Game 2 : 20 mins : 4th (-$33)
Game 3 : 15 mins : 4th (-$33)
Game 4 : 20 mins : 4th (-$33)
Game 5 : 10 mins : 6th (-$33)
Game 6 : 30 mins : 5th (-$33)



Played 6 games of 6 seater $30+3 STT
Time spent 2 hours 15 mins
Won cash in 1 games
Lost 5 games
Layed out $198
Winnings $72
Loss of $126 (loss of $56 per hour)

Getting a bad run is bound to happen, and in fact consider myself unlucky in the first game as I was 5:1 chip lead when heads up and my interenet connection died.... got back on just in time to see my stack down to 1 big blind (I was not happy!) and the next two games were bad beats.... could be a lot different picture, but this time round it wasn't good results for me

Game 1 - First level I was getting lots of pocket pairs, but not really able ot capitalise as everyone playing tight. BY level 2 I had only gone from 2000-2250 chips. Down to 5 players now, and lost internet connection for a while. Level 3 saw three players (not me) all in after the flop with a huge pot to win. JT had 2 pr, J9 looked in trouble and AA was behind. In the end the J9 hit str8 on river annd we are down to 3 players. Level 4 sees me at 3200 chips and three players. Internet goes again ! Get back in and manage to knock out one of the players. Also manage to bully the other player to reach 10000 chips to his 2000.... I see QQ preflop and hit to raise button... then nothing happens. Internet has dies again. Thanks a bunch NTL ! Get back on eventualy and I'm all in. Manage to struggle up to 2000 chips but get taken down KT against A5. Not happy as I should have won this game!!

Game 2 - Quite wild play. Level 1 and level 2 see players dropping out. I hit A on flop with A9 and get called by 1 player. His Tx eventually hits straight on rover to take me out. Definately a bad beat !

Game 3 - Level 1, I get AJ and A hits flop. End up all in against A6 and win ! Level 2, I get AK and flop straight ! 3 players end up all in. One also with AK the other with JJ (trips) another T comes to make Full House and I'm out. Thought it was a bad beat, but actually I was about 6-4 favorite to split the pot.

Game 4 - Never really got into the game. Down to 1000 chips on level 3 with 4 players left. Took a gamble that didn't pay and out

Game 5 - One player playing like an idiot. I hit top pair (Q) on flop and went all in against him with my AQ. He called with Q2 but hit a 2 on the river.... another bad beat

Game 6 - Loose and crazy players in this game ! All 6 players still in at level 3. I am down to 750 chips and take out lower chip stack, but then get taken down by the chip leader


I have got enough in the account to play 6 seater $22 games, so will report back on progress after the next round of games

Computers: CD burning software

I was trying to burn an ISO image on my WinXP laptop today.... the built in facilities did not allow me to do this and RealPlayer reportidly allows you to do this as well, but just hung !

Searching the web I came across CD Burning software from cheetah - see them at http://www.cheetahburner.com/ which was easily installed and the 15 day free trial allows you to check it works for you. You can also get a free copy by telling all your friends about it :-) http://www.cheetahburner.com/free.html or it costs $15 if you are unable to do this

Did a good job for me, so I am happy to tell you about it...

Cars: Elvington Heath car show

Went to the car show (near fleet) today. Fantastically hot day, but lots of hot cars to see :-)

It only took an hour to go round the small field where the cars where, but as it's free entry and a nice pub lunch afterwards, it was definately worth the effort to go !

Must say the Lotus' were my favorite, but Lynn liked the old mini's that were there.

The Lambo's must have been the most dramatic with the old modified Pugs looking the most ridiculous :-)

Poker: Casino Trip July 2006

On Thursday the CamberleyBoyz went to the Casino to compete in the weekly Hold'em £10 pot limit rebuy tournament (billed as Beginners night!)

Events as far as I can remember....

With 1000 chips per buy in, the blinds started at 25/50 for 45 mins, 50/100 for another 45 mins then rebuys stopped and the blinds go up to 100/200, and keep increasing every 20 minutes thereafter (200/400, 300/600, 400/800, 500/1000, 600/1200, 800/1600)

40 entries
7 CamberleyBoyz (Me, Derek, Bill, Zoran, Alex, Sean and Darren)
Top 5 players get paid (about £750 for first, going down to £160 for 4th and £80 for 5th)
Started at 8:30pm and we left at about 2:30am !

On my table everyone played loose from the first hand. Two guys went all in on the first hand, three on the second I think and so on. I sat back and let then fight it out, content to wait for a hand. AQ came for me so raised and got two or three called, then A came on the flop and I bet pot. 1 guy called me and he had nothing, so I won a large pot. Then we had an incident, which luckily I wasn't involved in! in that all the players tend to just throw their chips into the middle of the table, but with 4 players going all in with differing amounts of chips there was a big argument over who had put in how much (shows how sensible we are to leave the chips in front of the players!) After about 10 minutes of trying to reconstruct the hands, they called the supervisor over, who took another 5 or 10 minutes to sort it out.. chaos... one of the guys who had lost all his chips had enough agro so went home :-)

Few hands later I got AQ again and raised again. This time got 2 callers and the flop came AQQ - wow can't get much better than that! My check raise all-in only got one caller who had a sole A so I took another large stack of chips and was probably table chip lead.

At the break when rebuys stopped, I had about 11'000 in chips and was table chip lead. Sean had about 13'000 chips and was tournament chip leader at this stage, with two other tables having about 10'000 as the chip leaders. Derek only had 900 chips so was looking a bit shaky, Alex had 2000, Darren had about 3000, Zoran had apparently gone home ! Bill probably had about 3000 as well.

On the restart, the nature of the game had changed, with no more rebuys the guys with chips were playing tight and the short stacks had to get busy. I got AQ again! which was again kind to me and I took out our chip bank (the guy who had the most rebuys :-) ) The next crucial hand for me was when I was big blind with 89c The flop came 887 so had trips. Checked and the player to my left bet the pot. It folded round to me so I re-raised but then he went all-in which was vast majority of my chips. He had to have the other 8, but what kicker.... but I was pot committed and called. Luckily for me he shows 86 and lost, giving me a huge number of chips

It all gets a bit hazy after that but I continued with my policy of playing very tight and in the main the play on the table was tight aggressive overall.

As the number of players decreased we went to two tables. Sean joined my table with what must have been the tournament chip lead (or joint with one other player on our table) After a few hands, a nondescript flop of T86 (or similar) provoked the two large stacks to raise/re-raise each other. Sean called and showed T2 but was up against TQ and was out of the tournament (I am sure the hand will be replayed in his mind many times)

Before I knew it, we were down to the last 9 players and I had made the final table !

The final table had a dealer so the pressure was off on the admin side of the game, but only 5 places paid. I was about 3rd or 4th highest chips with 27'000 Darren also made the final table with about 10'000 and the blinds were at 400/800 (I think) There were 3 guys quite low in chips (less than 5000)

The first hand of the final table saw the lowest chip stack go all-in and get called and busted by the chip leader (around 40'000 in chips) After a round of play the blinds went up to 500/1000 which prompted the lowest chip stack to go all in. His A7 got taken by Darren so we are down to 7 players. Soon after another low stack goes, so we are on the bubble. This stage is particularly tough as everyone is super tight, not wanting to finish out of the money... and more so when the lowest stack doubles up. We are all in the 10'000 to 25'000 chip count range so very close between the players. I was lowest stack and saw K3c so with the blinds coming my way went all-in. Got called by big blind with KQ so looked all over for me. Two clubs on the flop were not enough and I started packing up, but then saw it was a split pot and there were two pair on the table.... phew a lucky escape for me.... Eventually another player was busted out so we were all in the money now.

Still a tight game and everyone playing well. The chips were going around the table but it was Darren who finished 5th. Another blind round saw me all in with pocket 4's. The flop of 567 looked OK for me but the two callers both flipped over 89 so shared the pot with their straights on the flop.... oh well, made 4th place (I was about 55% to win pre-flop so a little disappointed)

In rough finishing order, the camberley boys were
4th - Me :-)
5th - Darren
13th - Sean
18th ? - Derek
Bill
Alex
Zoran

Great night out for me, great poker, very tense and exciting at times, dramatic and gut wrenching at other times.... this must be the beautiful game, you can see why it can get addictive ! Will "re-invest" my winning in the £100 freezeout tournament next time I think, but as I have the day off today (Friday) I might play some online poker :-)

Poker: Bankroll strategy - part 3

After my last post, I managed to win about $35 on cash game, which gave me enough bankroll to play a round of 6 seater $55

I thought this would be a tale of woe and lamenting how you shouldn't go above your comfort levels, but it turned out OK as you will shortly see

The last round I have been playing $50 (+5) 6 seater tournaments with the following results
Game 1 : 15 mins : 5th (-$55)
Game 2 : 25 mins : 5th (-$55)
Game 3 : 15 mins : 5th (-$55)
Game 4 : 35 mins : 4th (-$55)
Game 5 : 40 mins : 2nd (+$65)
Game 6 : 55 mins : 1st (+$125)

• Played 6 games of 6 seater $50+5 STT
• Time spent 3 hours 5 mins
• Won cash in 2 games
• Lost 4 games
• Layed out $330
• Winnings $300
• Loss of $30 (loss of $9.73 per hour)

This shows the importance of having a strategy and not being afraid to lose, as it would have been easy to cut my losses after 4 games :-)

I need to win another $15 before I can play another round at $50, so may play cash games again for a while... otherwise will go back to the $33 level


The games at this level are about the same as $11 upwards in terms of style of play and risks being taken by the players.... summary below in case you're interested

1. Game 1 - very loose game, lots of raises pre-flop and after. 1 player out on level 1. I blew out in level 2 with KJh against 77
2. Game 2 - steady game, especially me ! although we lost 1 player in level 1 again. Played too cautiously and was low chip count by level 3. Tried to make a move with A3 on a low flop, but got busted by K9
3. Game 3 - loose game from level 1, 1 player out ! Played pocket 8's to showdown and lost big pot to ATh (hit flush on turn) Got busted in level 2 when my JTh didn't hit and opponents 98 hit a flush on the river
4. Game 4 - first two hands got dealt monsters so was raising and only winning the blinds. 1 very agressive player so played very steady. Didn't loose player until level 3. My cautious play saw me low stacked by level 4, so stuck it in with K4s which lost to a QT
5. Game 5 - steady game, I was one of the aggressive players ! Level 2 got dealt AK and when A came on flop my opponent went all in... called and he had AT, and I took big pot. Droppde lots of chips in level 4 as play got more aggressive, but down to 3 players. Level 5 we're down to 2 players. After some tooing and frooing, my A5s got beaten by K5
6. Game 6 - another steady game, well after the first level when 2 players got taken out! My chips stack went up and down, but seemed to average about 3000 all game ! Level 4, 5 and 6 we played with 3 players and the chips went round the table (we all played tight agressive, very tense). I took out the third player and took 2:1 chip advantage to level 7... have to go all in most hands now, but luckily got good run of cards and ended up with my KK taking out the 2nd place player - phewwww !!

Thats it for now.... off to the Casino tommorow night, so hopefully will remember enough to write it up

Poker: July 2006

We were oversubscribed this month, so sadly Simon W wasn't able to play, but came along anyway to cheer on the boys and seemed to be enjoying himself :-)

Played my normal game, sitting back and letting the maniacs fight it out to begin with.. I won a pot early so went to about 1500 chips so could relax and wait. Sean and Bill seemed to be egging each other on and were often both all-in (and both loosing!) almost every hand or so it seemed.

First key hand for me was being dealt AT in big blind and raised to 100 to go, getting 3 callers. Flop left me needing miracle Q for the str8 and Joe bet 500. With Andy W calling I was only getting 3-1 odds but decided that an A was an out for me as well, so went with the flow. Luckily my miracle Q came on the turn, so trap checked to Joe, who put in another 500. I went all in and got 1 caller, winning the pot and taking me to chip lead on the table. Kept playing steadily and was still table chip leader when rebuys finished.

Second key hand was being dealt AT early position again !! I raised again and only Bill on the button called me. Flop came K-6-x but thought it probable I was ahead, so made bet of about half Bills remaining chips. He went all-in and I decided I was probably behind to a K, but as only had to put in 2000 against a pot of 6000 so decided to go for it. Unfortunatley for me, Bill had K-6 so was way ahead and he obviously won !

Was left with about 1500 chips now, so struggling a bit, but played steadily and ended up with about the same going onto the final table, albeit being lowest chip count

On the final table I drew seat 8 so had some time before I had to make a move, but the blinds being at 800/400 meant I had 7 hands to find something I could win a pot with. Roger was big chip leader, which became even bigger when he knocked out Bill, Martin and Joe in quick succession !

Two hands away from the big blind, I got dealt A-8 so decided to go with it. Alex ahead of me raised enough to put me all-in, but I went with it anyway and only Roger (chip leader at this stage) called as well. Although an A hit the flop, Alex had A-Q so won the hand and also knocked me out

The last four played very well, with bluffs, big hands and bad beats all over the place, but the chips seemed to just circulate. Derek was dangerously low on chips, then Roger just managed to pip him to 4th place about 5 mins from the end of the session when Darren took him out.

After that the game played itself, as Derek needed to double up every hand to get to 2nd spot and Alex just needed to fold every hand to win by a reasonable margin.....which is pretty much what happened

Great game as always, looked like everyone enjoyed themselves (after a lot of swearing when they got knocked out) and this time we finished well before the club closed! (after dropping 15 mins from the 2nd level)

The match details are uploaded to StatsGenie (http://www.statsgenie.com/poker/) but couldn't get the direct URL to work, so you may need to search for CamberleyBoyz organization to find them

Backgammon: Swing tournament strategy

Entered a Swing tournament for 10 players after my poker session (just to relax :-) )

First game was OK, doubled up and won the game

2nd got a bit lucky at one time but played OK and won doubled up again

3rd lost but only 300 pts

4th playing much higher ranked player and got slaughtered ! luckily only for 100 points

last game, again a much higher ranked player, this time I was in a good position, doubled then got a bit unlucky, got doubled back again then got slaughtered when I got a piece taken whilst my opponent had all the points covered in his home area!

Finished 6th out of 10 in the end

Lessons to be learnt

• Don't play backgammon when I am a bit tired, at the end of a poker session!
• Don't be so aggressive with the doubling cube (I think I doubled in every game, probably a bit marginal in places)
• Stick to the lowest entry stake swing tournaments as they require consistently good and focused play in order to get to the money stages (only the top 2 get money back)

Swing tournaments are great as they allow you to get about 4 or 5 games for a fixed stake and the doubling cube plays a large part in your strategy, so will definitely continue to play them, but I certainly need to look at when I play backgammon if I want to get any money back when playing it

Poker: Bankroll strategy (update)

In my previous post about Bankroll strategy (See Poker: Bankroll strategy) I described how I was going to organise my bankroll, playing in rounds of 6 games.

The last round I have been playin $30 (+3) 6 seater tournaments with the following results
Game 1 : 40 mins : 1st place (+$75)
Game 2: 20 mins : 4th (-$33)
Game 3 : 20 mins : 6th (-$33)
Game 4: 30 mins: 1st (+$75)
Game 5: 30 mins: 2nd(+$39)
Game 6: 5 mins : 6th (-$33)

• Played 6 games of 6 seater $30+3 STT
• Time spent 2 hours 25 mins
• Won cash in 3 games
• Lost 3 games
• Layed out $198
• Winnings $288
• Profit of $90 (about $37.24 per hour)

So where next ? I am just under the bankroll level needed to progress to $50 or go to 10 seater $30, so will probably spend up to $100 on cash game (just for a change) then go back to the $30 6 seater for another round

So far so good still :-)

Gambling: Betfair strike again

In a previous post (see Gambling: How to go bankrupt with Betting Exchanges) I was lured me into the murky world of gambling on betting exchanges
with the promise of free money..... well they have done it again !

This time Betfair offered £10 worth of free bets if you placed £10 in bets across two markets, Wimbledon Tennis ! Mens singles winner (without Federer) and Womens singles winner. Going against my own advice, I decided to leap into an area I know nothing about (it's free money - right ? :-) )

I decided on a lazy strategy of simply picking the 2nd favourite in each case, Lleyton Hewitt and Justine Henin-Hardenne. As luck would have it, they both got as far as the quarter finals now, so I have now sold my positions and will still get a reasonable profit if either win, but will get my £10 back whatever happens !

Feeling a bit adventurous, when I heard that "Barrys Bismark" (Channel 4 racing) was red hot favourite "Hard Top" in the 3 o'clock at Newmarket on Saturday (1st July) I decided to try and make a book on that race, laying off the 5/4 favourite (meaning I don't want him to win) My favoured filly was Ouninpohja who unfortunately ended up 2nd to Admiral's Cruise, so although I didn't make my fortune I did make a small profit overall.

This time round it is "so far so good", as my £10 investment currently sit's at around £22 (assuming I haven't picked the Wimbledon winners) but need to get time to investigate the markets and focus on the odds and options available.... will report back sometime to update with progress and what seems to be strategy to take (or for you to avoid if I loose it all again)

General: trip to Brooklands Motor Museum

You can see concorde at Brooklands, but interior closed until August 2006


We are "friends" of Brooklands Motor Museum (see http://www.brooklandsmuseum.co.uk/), so really should go at least 3 times a year to get value for money....well we finally managed to get there this weekend so just got to go back another two times later in the year :-)

The main driving force behind our trip (pardon the pun) was the "MG Extreame" Rally car rides. As we have been there several times in the past, it is nice to have some event going on to ensure you see something different.

There have been quite a few changes and additions since our last trip, in particular I didn't realise they had finished re-assembling Concorde so although you can't go into the plane until August (interior being refitted) to actually be able to get close enough to "kick the wheels" is worth the visit by itself. As it turned out, the Rally car rides were £30 for a ride lasting about 4 minutes, so decided not to bother so just as well there was other things for us to see !

The planes are definitely worth seeing, with the knowledgeable volunteers there to add interest to your experience of sitting in the pilot seat. The Sultan of Oman's VC10 is defiantly the highlight for me, well until Concorde is open anyway......


Car wise, it is difficult to pick a favourite, but the 1930's Bentley Blower sticks in my mind right now.

After going round the planes and looking at the cars, we had a nice lunch sitting by the hill climb. Lynn wanted to go into the shop, but managed to resist the temptation to buy anything, but we did have to buy an ice cream! We then climbed up the hill climb track, it isn't very far but the 1 in 4 section at the top is a real lung burster, especially in the blazing sun ! (or maybe we are just not that fit?) The top of the hill provides lovely views all around and the bridge over the track is essential to see, as it is only from here that you really get a feeling for how scary the banked track really would have been for the drivers, especially in our case the MG rally car was running along the top of the bank whilst we were there


MG Rally car running on the banking at Brooklands. Just a bit expensive in my view!


We needed to leave relatively early to get home for the England match (already said my piece about that in my previous post!) so we "only" stayed about 4 hours... it's a great day out and we will definitely be going back when Concorde is open later in the summer and also maybe when they have their Morgan day in October, so should get our value for our membership this year :-)




Lots to see and do at Brooklands

World Cup: Final report for 4 years !

England v's Portugal, well what can I say !

England played quite well the first 5 or 10 mins then looked like going behind the rest of the first half.

Beckham going off injured and Roony being sent off seemed to make the players realise that they actually had to play football and score goals to win.... and whilst playing with 10 men actually looked dangerous and like they could pull off a famous victory against the odds

I actually think Rooney got sent off for pushing Ronaldo rather than the foul.... his "foul" probably came about as a result of the two players pushing him around and he probably didn't know exactly where the other players were anyway

As it turned out, when It went to penalties and Frank Lampard went up to take the first kick, I knew it was all over ! Respect to Frank for the effort but he hasn't found the net all tournament and his luck didn't change on his penalty either. Gerrards miss was the crucial one really, but it was never looking good for us

It was an entertaining game, and a glorious defeat which will probably be remembered much longer than the mediocre victories leading up to this match.

Lets hope the new manager will be able to get a sense of urgency into Englands future games and teach them how to score goals