Sunday, June 29, 2008
Holiday : Devon 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Poker : Annual Satellite 2008 : Semi Final result
Sure enough John puts the paper down and bets 200 pre-flop.... Karen and Steve call and the turn is 8-3-J. Everyone reverts to type and check, and also everyone checks the A on the turn. A J falls on the river and John bets the pot to take the largest pot of the night so far.
Karen's strategy for the game seems to be to see a lot of flops and make lots of minimum raises, but seems to be working now as she is taking a lot of small pots uncontested.
Bit of excitement when 9-T-Q flop comes, as Steve and Lynn start raising. The turn of 8 is followed by J on river, giving both the straight, but its checked down as they both are playing the board.... Steve had a 9 and Lynn the Q, but the split pot was quite large This is soon followed by more action after the 5-5-7 flop is checked, the A on the turn doesn't prevent Lynn from calling and the Q on the river really makes it hot up as Steve takes the 1500 pot from Lynn with A-Q to Lynns Q-7
Level 4 continues the action, as John has finished reading his paper and calls with everyone else for a family pot. Its checked down to the river and Johns pot bet of 500 takes it uncontested. He shows his K high bluff. Johns relatively low on chips now, but his more aggressive stance falls foul when Lynn goes all-in on the turn and shows a made flush and Johns drawing dead
At the break the chips levels are: Lynn 5700, Karen 4600, Steve 3800 and John 1900
Karen and Lynn start what becomes a game long battle, with Karen betting 500 into 1500 pt and taking it down., but before that develops we see Steve John and Lynn getting a A-K-A flop. John bets 500 into 600 pot but gets called the turn and river bring J-5 and John is all-in thinking his J is good for 2 pair, but Lynn has hit her straight and sends John packing
We are now at level 6, with Karen still min raising and lots of checking going on. Lynn checks Karens min raising but on the river Lynn puts in a strong 1000 bet on K-6-8-A-9 board. Karens turn to let go and Lynn takes a good pot. Soon after another Lynn/Karen pot evolves with Karen min-raising and Lynn calling. With the board J-5-9-3-K Lynn sticks 1000 into 2000 pot and takes down the pot again
The next level sees pressure on Steve with the short stack. Lynn bets 500 into 2000 pot and Steve calls. The 9 on the river gives it to Lynn, so Steve under more pressure now. Its then Karens turn to bet 1000 into a 2000 pot and pushes Lynn off the pot The last hand of this level sees Steve pushing all-in although its only for another 600. Lynn and Karen both call. The flop of Q-9-8 doesn't make Steve look happy, although the girls check down the turn and river of 2 and 3. Karen takes the 6000 pot, knocking out Steve and giving a 2:1 chip advantage to Lynn
Lynn has around 4500 chips left, so it's soon over as a couple of hands into level 8 sees unraised flop of 7-2-3 Karen bets out 2000 and Lynn calls all-in Lynn's A-K was ahead pre-flop but Karens 6-3 is ahead. The turn/river of 2 and Q don't help Lynn so we have our winner
It was a well fought game by all and although it was a steady start, it had moments of brilliance, aggression and thought
See you at the final table !
We did have a quick cash game afterwards, and one hand was hillarious. We were down to 4 players and blinds of 25/50. Bill folded and Sean immediately went all-in for 2050. There was no way I was calling, but needled Sean a little about how he overbet the pot and was only going to get called by someone way ahead. Lee in the Big Blind insta-called with pocket A's and Sean giggled as he showed his 7-2 off suit. The first card turned was another A, but a 7 gave Sean a miracle runner, runner out. The turn paired the board to give Lee the full house, and the 7 on the River gave Sean a consolation lesser Full House.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Poker : Home Tournament - halfway there....
Sean seems to like finishing 11th, Mick has one 8th place and four 7th places and Alex seems to love finishing 2nd :-)
The least consistent finisher seems to be Darren with a 1st and a 14th, although Roger is close behind on this measure (1st and 13th) with a gaggle of players with 9 place differences (including me!)
If we ignore the players who only played one game, the highest average finishing position is Andy at 3.8, with the next closest person being Derek with 5.2 (maybe Andy consciously talks his game down so much to lull us into a false sense of security!)
Poker : Home Tournament - June 2008
The game started off fairly briskly on my table (probably because Bill was on it !) although Bill managed to fold several winning hands in the first level, including what would have been four tens !! My play was not on top form but was also hampered by Bill calling down and hitting his hand. I managed to dodge his 7-3 when it hit trip 7's on the flop, and didn't push hard enough when I was ahead and ended up laying down a couple of hands by the river, so my chips were disappearing fast. Derek on the other table took his top up first, but I soon had to do the same. Even then my bad run continued and was down to around 900 chips. Luckily I hit A-K and went all in after a couple of callers and took a reasonable pot without having to play. I then got Q-Q and went all in again, this time Alex called me with K-J and didn't improve so I was back in the game with nearly 4000 chips
My memory is very woolly about the proceedings (due to the cold unfortunately) but by the break I was up to around 5000 chips, with Roger on around 6000 and the others slightly under chip average.
The restart started seeing some action on the other table, with Steve busting out first Sean (at least it wasn't after two hands...) then Steve W in quick succession. I was the lucky one to change tables, but was 2nd in chips to Steve (who had a huge stack) The first hand on the new table saw me with A-9 suited, so put in a standard raise. Derek quickly called behind me but the others folded. With flop of T-9-x I was hoping Derek had missed the flop and with the pot at 2300 put Derek all-in for his last 2200. As it turned out Derek had missed the flop but called with his A-J. I was a little disappointed to see a J on the turn and blank river, so was down to around 1500 chips. A few hands later I was down to 1000 and the blinds 500/300 I had to go for it, but on the other table Bill went out in 10th so I tried to hang on to make the top 8 for one point. Unfortunately my 9-3 on the big blind didn't hit the flop and had to fold to Andy's bet (he showed Pair so was the right choice) then the Small Blind saw me all in and taken out in 9th.
The final table started off with some technical problems with the tournament software, which was resolved when I realised I had managed to turn on the keyboard lock ! That's what a lack of Adrenalin does to you when you got a cold. The play was tense and cautious, as the blinds were starting to hurt most people. It took some time, but with the blinds at 1000/500 Darren found he had to go for it..... but Steve took him out ! Mick followed suit the next hand, but Simon taking the scalp.
Andy was getting some stick for moaning about not getting any picture cards (he had only got 4 all night apparently), but suddenly got an embarrassment of riches when he seemed to have nothing but pictures and was taking down some pots.
As we came into the last 20 minutes with blinds at 2000/1000 Derek was the next victim by Alex this time. The action died down a little and the chips were being passed around, but for the last few hands there was an explosion of activity as Roger came alive and hit some stonking hands. First took down Simon to get a large number of chips, then went all-in again on the next hand. Steve decided to call and Andy chose to stick in his remaining chips, despite having the option to play tournament strategy and let the others fight it out. As it turned out, Andy made the wrong choice, as Roger hit big and took both out, Andy being 4th by having less chips than Steve who took the 3rd place prize money.
With Roger a huge chip leader over Alex and two hands to play, it was all over. Roger took the deserved win and an sure Alex was happy to have seem Roger blitz the remaining players to promote him to 2nd.
Another exciting and enjoyable game, which leaves the leader board wide open at the half way point.
Andy (who never has any good hands or any good luck according to himself) is at the top of the leader board with 100% point's finish record (how did that happen !) but the top 8 are split by only 12 points, so a win could take anyone anywhere in the leader board, so all to play for and should be an exciting rest of season. The title can literally still go to anyone.... !
Monday, June 02, 2008
Travel: Visit to Stratford
Went to Stratford-upon-Avon Saturday, on the way to Nottingham..... had a nice walk about but was dismayed (well one of was) to find the Teddy Bear Museum has moved to Wimbledon !! Still managed to find a shop that sold bears, but also found a nice tea room for Tea & Cake :-)
We had a lovely weekend away, coming back Sunday. The cruise there and back at 60mph on the motorways did have one beneficial effect (other than me not getting ear ache :-) ) and that was achieving an incredible 48.75mpg in the Fiesta !!) Won't see that kind of fuel consumption when I'm on my own in the car I bet !!