With the closure of Reading Casino's card room for refurbishment until December (!!) I was happy to hear from Jon that there is a new Poker club in Farnborough just opened, TC Poker (see http://www.tcpoker.co.uk/index.htm for details) so decided to go down and try it out last night (Tuesday)
The slight drawback is that the games start late (for a work night :-) ) so went for the £40 no limit, no rebuy tournament on the basis that it would finish quicker than a rebuy tournament (for better or worse)
The club itself is basically one room crammed with poker tables, but gives it a friendly, cosy type atmosphere. The snooker club and is across the corridor and provides a bar and sport on TV in case you get knocked out early ! I like the idea that a dealer is provided on every table and that there are other games going on apart from the tournament itself. My only small criticism was the slightly chaotic organization, but I guess that will improve over time
The turnout for the tournament was disappointing but suited me to a certain degree as it meant the game would finish earlier. 18 players started, spread on two tables with the top 3 places being paid. The blinds go up every 30 minutes so is quite gentle to begin with. Game started about 8:40pm
Jon was on my table and we both seemed to get dealt good cards over the first few hands, but luckily didn't clash with each other. On about the 6th hand, Jon raised after the flop and got re-raised ending up with him being all-in against one other player. Job showed AQ with an A on the flop, the other guy had A7 so was well behind. Unluckily for Jon another 7 fell on the river taking him out after about 30 minutes play !
I was taking it steady to begin with and didn't have any hairy moments in the early stages. My early decent cards had given me a few hundred more than the 4000 starting chips but with some players busted out already was below average stack size (an unfortunate trend which continued all tournament for me) One big hand that hurt me was just before we went down to 1 table. Playing short handed (5 players) I got A4 diamonds on the 400 big blind when the button raised to 800 With the small blind folding I decided to call and see the flop. The flop of all medium cards included 2 diamonds so checked then called another 800 bet from the button. The guy in the button was actually Tony (as in the "T" of TC poker) and he told the dealer "no diamonds" . Of course the dealer then dealt blanks for me on the turn and river which were checked down. Tony's pair of 9 beat my A high, leaving me with about 3500 chips with 10 players remaining.
Now with 10 players on the table I had to tighten up, but luckily drew the button seat so had some time. With my chip stack going critically low I had to make a move with JT suited on the BB but luckily only got called by T9 off suit so doubled up. One off the button I got AJ so went all in and got called by the BB also with AJ and we split the pot. My final hand was A6 but felt the players behind me would fold unless they had a hand. Unfortunatlety for me the BB had AQ and I went out in 8th place around 11pm
The game was friendly and entertaining, the players were varying in standard so felt I had a chance to do well, so all-in all a good game and a good place to play poker.
Will probably try to arrange a "Camberley Boyz" trip to have a game or two there sometime soon !
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