Poker4Charity NECS / NECC

[AdamM]

Davey asked me to make sure I started a thread about the weekend.

Saturdays NECS got away a bit later that planned at about 1pm but when it went, boy it went big. 120 runners including , Keith Hawkins Carlo Citroni (40+ buy ins), Ram Vaswani (40+ buyins) and Joe Beevers (a record setting 63 buy ins). If you read through the live feed in Tournament section of blonde you can find out how every one did. My Saturday main event, while great fun, was a bit of a disaster. My table was relatively quiet with the only notables being David Lloyd, last years runner up Mark Scope (also this years runner up) and Sam Citroni who, it has to be said was playing a lovely game of poker except for the odd occassion where Carlo would come over and interfere. I've alway been given to understand Carlo Citroni was a reletively tight player. He was obviously letting it all out on saturday and blowing off a years worth of steam. one time he came over to tell Sam he'd just cracked someones AA with 9,4, played Sams hand (and lost it) the went off to throw some more chips at his own table. Loads of all in blind for prizes. In with 7,2 or 2,2 got a spot prize and a 'free' set of chips to anyone who went all in blind 5 consecutive hands which with double top ups allowed made it a £100 free set of chips.

Last hand of the rebuy period I did all my chips to 'the table plucky amature' when his K,5 was far too good too get away from and my QQ was doomed. I finally ran into Mark Scopes AA with my A5 last stand hand.

as the main event decreased in numbers, many side SnG games sprung up all paying a small rake to the charity. there were auctions and a raffle and the cash kept going into the kitty.

personally did ok in the STTs getting some of my buyins back for the next day. Phil played a Omaha tourney and got himself HU with David Lloyd. Phil was 70/30 in chips but, after someone tipped him off as to Davids Omaha record and he accepted a 60/40 split in his favour and gratefully accepted some compliments tips and encouragement on his game. It'd been a long day for us so, as the final drew towards a close me and Phil retired to MotD at the hotel rather than join the many party goers heading into the city.

Sunday was a rather calmer affair. Only 60 runners in the Pot Limit NECC probably down to a combination of the Newcastle v Man Utd game, the hang overs, the fact it was Pot Limit and the fact it clashed with church.

I personally had a much better day cards wise. in fact it's fair to say the deck pretty much hit me in the face early doors. Q,Q / J,Jx2 / A,Q x 4 / 9,9 / 4,4 (flopped a set) / 3,3 (flopped a set, turned a house) lovely. My table included Stevey Bennett, Angie Newth, Robert HM, Last years NECS winner Shane Putney and a guy known to all that day as "Mr Dwell Up" more about that in a minute. Dispite my run of cards early there were so many chips in play I was only average stack and, as time went on the cards dried up and I fell behind the pack a bit. we got balanced to 4 tables of 8 and I got moved to a new table looking for a spot to make a stand. some poor guy who was chip leader on the table helped me out in 3 hands.
hand 1 blinds 500/1000. player to my right moved his last 1000 chips in I called with A,9 suited with only about 4000 back because some big stacks were still to act but a lot of family pots to knock out stragglers were going on and not much was beibng folded with an all in. my chipped up 'friend' raised all in enough to put the one remaining player to act and me all in. remaining player passed and while I'm coming to terms with A9 being my last hand matey boy shows his cards having forgotten about me. K,10 he has. lovely. A9 wins the pot and I'm up to 10500. later that round same guy moved from early position, I have AK and stick em in. he calls with K10 again and I'm 20k ish. next hand his BB. I move with AK again. he puts his last 10k in with KK and I hit an A on the turn. I think that's the worst beat in the game and my apologies go out to matey boy who went HU with me 3 times and went from chip leader to out and I went from 4k to 30k. I rode that stack to the final as, with 300k in play I liked my chances at the final.

Notable inclusions at the final were last years winner Stewart Woods and last years NECS winner, Shane Putney. also Eugene who having done a great Job assisting Mel running saturdays game had played the Sunday instead. I went out 5th when "Mr Dwell" who I mentioned earlier for the one and only time in the tourney didn't take between 30 secs and 5 minutes on a decision called my raise in a heart beat with Q,J. I swear it was 3 minute dwells then show 9,4 as he passed. this time his massive Q,J beat my lowly 5,5 and I was crippled. Steward Wood finished me off two hands later with 6,6 against my K,Q.  Eugene went next with a A,10 when he caught Shane bluffing but got outdrawn. Dwell up went for 3rd and the HU battle beteen reigning NECS and NECC champs ended with stewart beating A,9 with Q,10 and retaining his NECC trophy.

The Whole weekend was fabulously run by all involved and I thouroughly recommend attending one of these event in future. I wont be missing one if I can help it. next event I think is Nottingham in December (yay, local) but I'll leave that to Davey to announce properly.

Thanks to P4C for lett8ing me set up a little stand. Ram, Joe and Tikay are now my super star endorsees and shirt wearers and I'm sure a lot of future interest in my shirts will come from the event.

Nice to meet fellow blondites too. see you all at Nottingham December.

[stewart]

nice post adam, i did hear that ram had to many rebuys and had to lend some money of joe lol, ah maybe they thought 400 quid would be enough lol,
our trip up started on the friday where we went to the wrong casino,  being Grov instead of banyanthingys lol, which ended up ok, cost me a few quid in rebuys ( still carnt stand the way it is run there), but dad finaled, before going up agaist the chip leader who couldnt pass his flush draw he was getting at least 1.5-1 on his money though lol, luckiey most of the reqular cash players were not there, and i managed to make a few quid in the cash game, where i said, is it dealers choice?, to which they answerd yes, so i said on my deal,  superstud - they said no we dont play that, ok i thought padoki, nope not that either, ok then scotish after all its not that far from here, ? nope dont play that, ok my final choice 5 card omaha hi-lo, nope not that so i ask what can i play ?  omaha/irish/holdem lol, luckiey for me they played every game like it was holdem and i manged to make 400 before i left an hour later getting back to the hotel at 4am, haveing to be up at 9am for the pre-paid for breaky, then back to bed and up for 11:45 for the trip down to the event, which started the same as last years  8 rebuys in the first 20 mins lol, i managed to get a few chips ( by virtue of the top-up's lol) and ended the rebuys with 12k or so, which i played around with for 3 hours or so, makeing it up to around 18k, then i looked over at joe's table and thought ut-oh dont put me on there, they didnt they put me on a simlar one with silmar chips lol, so when i  raise UTG with JJ, i have to fold to a re-raise and a flat call, with AK/QQ which i would of made quad JJ's on ouch, get blinded down and eventually with 3 limpers i decied on the button to make a move with A8 suited, run into KJ off-suit in the blinds the limpers pass,  and i go out, rather early with 50 or so left, look to find a cash game but no takers so i dont play the SnG's and waite for eric to come out of the comp,  with 2 tables left, his 10's to match for andys AK, played itself that one, and we get back to the hotel for around 12ish, and a early night perfect although the hotel had sky sports and i ended up staying up watching the cricket replays then the footie results, we went back the next day and got there around 12:30 and i had said i would deal,  because it is dificult to self deal Pot Limit, i dont play a hand for about 30 mins then remember i am playing not just dealing and call a few dodgey hands trying to get some chips,  then i get a mighty K10 on the BB after a raise, and i annouce i dont pass on my BB, and call the flop comes 10 6 6 i throw my last 2k or so all-in, he calls in a flash with his KK, but does he not know i was dealing? with a 10 on the turn, perfect, and i was on my way, from there it was relitively strait forward, picked up a few pots, ended the rebuys with 8.5k chips and with the 40 quid worth of top ups it makes itself into 10.5k,   unfortunaly i couldnt compete with steve liu's 13 top-ups lol mind u he did lost the last hand so he only had around 7k chips, i play my stack keep it up there, and waite for a hand to move with, i find AK on my BB after a raise, i decide to flat call and play it from there the player who raised i play with week-in week-out in blackpool so i know his style, the flop comes A high im pretty mutch sure im ahead with 6k in the pot, he has around 6k, so i check to him he bets out 2.5k, i flat call and set him in on the turn, he throws his hand away and leaves himself shortstack, and im up to around 20k in chips now and move onto Jo's table, i raise the 1st hand to annouce myself, get a raise-re-raise and a re-re-raise on my BB so i decided my 29 isnt much good and pass, then i raise the shortstack from the SB which he passes, in the next round on my BB i find 99 after a raise from a farley lose player (FuGu) i decided to re-raise and set him in, his raise was 5k, blinds 1-2k, he had 5k back and if i lost that hand i still had 14k and gambled it with him, my 99 made a set with the first card on the flop, and that was that,  on the next round on my BB again, m3boy makes a move with AQ i look down with AK suited really hopeing for someone else to raise as he is 2nd/3rd in chips on the table, alass it doesnt come and i re-raise to set him in he calls , and my AK stands up, he went out on the bubble so final table now, in the same seat as last year, with eugene 2nd in chips before it started he says i wont raise your blind with nout, the very first hand im on the SB hes on the button and he raises FF's i think and look down at a raggy hand i decide to call, i connected big time with the 4Q7 flop rainbow, and i check as does he, i check the turn again and now he bets 13k with 16k at the back, i decied to flat call, an A comes on the end i hope that hits him but i carnt check incase he checks behind me, so i bet out 13k he throws his hand away and i have a nearly a 1/2 of the chips in play with 150k, and 300k in play,from there i nick a few hands here and there to keep me active, and knock a few players out with some half-decient hands, actually got caught by adam but id raise'd more than he had with my 66, so no chance of passing there then,luckly it stood up, and then nothing mutch happend until we was down to 3, it went on for a few hands 3 handed, with the dwel up guy's BB my main attention to raise his BB everytime, mainly just looking at 1 card, i knew shane would pass, and he would pass virtually anything, he was dweling up for a long time with 4-6/5-9 etc etc, with shane raise my BB every round and me raiseing the dwel up's, after about 5 hands of this shane again raises my BB and the dwel'up moves -in shane looks a little shakken by that i look down at 99 and decided to re-raise to get rid of him he happliy folds his 10-6, and my 99 takes out the other guys 44, and we get heads up, first hand i find A5 and limp he goes all-in i pass, 2nd hand i find K10 he raises so i set him in he passed, next hand i have AK i set him in he passes, the next hand he flat calls i set him in with Q10 this time he only has 40k, i have the rest he calls with A8 and my Q10 turns into a monstor on the flop of Qxx10 2 clubs and i regained my thophy the ride back home was a little nevey with the bike i won in the raffle on the roof lol,

a great few days and for a change i ended my bad run of 12 tourneys without a win,  oh and i won my own bounty on my head lol

see you all at the next one, not sure about notts can never think that far ahead, almost didnt make theases because of the mini-fest down in notts, but it doesnt really compare lol

take care all
stu

[snoopy1239]

Smashing post Adam!

A thoroughly enjoyable read. 

[tikay]

Agree, great stuff lads.

And a big up to Davey & all the P4C crew - they worked very hard & it was a good "do". I hope they made plenty of dough,

[AdamM]

£10 000 Davey said

[RED-DOG]

Well done guys

Thoroughly enjoyed it

[Gamblor21]

i'll post something tomorrow... i'm off to another rebuy fest not for such a good cause tho!

Ian

[Robert HM]

I will post something as well but trying to sort out in my head all that has happened in the last few days is awesome.

[Robert HM]

My memories of the weekend start with an ungodly 3.30am alarm call and then onto the road a short while later. So feeling somewhat weary I find the road I am looking for but can?t see the hall, I stop on double yellows as I see two passing plods to question. As they approach I can see what I was looking for and say ?Can you tell me where that is please??, pointing out the hall, at least it seems the natives have a sense of humour.  There at the door is Davey, jumping for joy and looking forward to the weekend ahead, but hiding it so well 

I go off for some breakfast and return to see familiar faces have arrived or are arriving, including tikay and Jen. I meet peeps from the forum for the first time, such as the effervescent TraceT and Jo. I know I met a whole load of others and I can?t remember them all, if I list a lot and miss some out I will offend, so I won?t mention many so I can equally offend a lot, isn?t that fair. The place is soon filling up and the main event ends up with 120 or so runners. Pros including Carlo Citrone, Ram Vaswani and Joe Beevers are in attendance. The present European Points Leader is here, Keith Hawkins. Davey introduces a book auction before we are even allowed to touch a pack of cards and sort out cold decks (kidding honest). Books are going far in excess of their face value and the price goes up if the pros write in them, Carlo ready agrees each time, as long as the punter pays even more money!

Eventually the seats are drawn and and I get a seat on a table with Joe Beevers, we chat and he remembers me from the online league games , as The_Brief, and says I was one of the ?sensible ones?, I let that wash over me for a bit and decide not to get too upset 

So the rebuy period starts, I am given the task of making a note of who buys how many on our table, a simple task you may think, but not when Joe and others are determined to leave with nothing it seems. As you are allowed a rebuy as soon as you are ?down? to your starting chips, that means that before the cards are not even in the air before there is a huge multiple cry of  ?CHIPS!?.  Joe, especially, continues his rebuy frenzy until the end. At one stage he legs it to the bar, but fearful he may lose the chance to part with more money, he leaves a bundle of notes behind, the instructions are simple, ?I?m all in blind every hand, if I lose I want a double rebuy each time and if that money runs out you?re lending me what I need ?til I get back?

This blind all in began to catch on with a couple of players on our table, it seemed unsporting to look a your cards if you knew someone as going to go all in blind. In fact it was a good system, twice I managed to get some good hands after this type of action, perhaps I ought to do that more often!

Anyway at the end of the rebuy period Joe has amassed 63 rebuys and add ons, he wanted to break the record, which he thought was about 57, I think. He did beat the record, by about 25! Somebody gave you duff info there Joe. A special mention to another chap on our table,Ian Bland, who amassed some 41 rebuys and add ons.

Anyway, after the freezeout section started it tightened up somewhat, not surprisingly, my stack was building slowly but surely, 4 pots on the trot without a showdown also helped, but it didn?t go un-noticed by the tables Mob member, my explanation, that you can?t help it when cards hit you like that, went down with a raised eyebrow from him. A couple of hands later I had a bit of a battle with Joe and is documented in the live updates. Now up until then I thought Joe was a fine man, pleasant company, good sense of humour, a generous donator to charity, and potentially my chip stack. However in an instant I saw through all this. I was in the BB and he in early position, after the flop he checks, I bet, he asks if I fancy a gamble? Asking me such a question indeed?!?! He pushes his chips all in and I call, his top pair was in pretty good shape as I drew to my nut straight and backdoor nut flush. Now how can he call it a gamble of he has top two pairs! I was conned by the man. Good game folks and handshakes all around (I think Joe was just checking to see if I had any more chips in my hand he could take off me, I?ve always like that Barny bloke!) then I swam off to find calmer currents. I met Joe in the bar later and we had a chat, he is a genuinely likeable chap and I had the chance to meet his lovely wife, Claire. I wonder what he has I haven?t, other than the ability to play poker, that and money, youth (ish) and a waistline, etc etc.

Next I went into the madness that is a Pot Limit Omaha STT with a re-buy or add-on. I had Phil on the table and some lads from Luton and David Lloyd, who I had the pleasure, and I mean a pleasure, of playing on a table with in the William Hill event at the Gutshot. By now the 3 hours sleep I had so long ago is proving hopelessly inadequate and I am overdosing on Red Bull and caffeine. That, mixed with having to concentrate of 4 cards and somebody on the next table who has the guffaws of the laughing policeman on acid, meant I was almost trying to give my chips away as the game went on and on and I was losing the will to live. So out I went and on the bubble thought ?that was good, let?s do that again?, and I did. I vastly improved the next hand and managed, not without a little skill, to get out a place earlier.
After the final table was done and dusted (see elsewhere for better report than I can manage) a small group of hungry individuals hit China Town, for those that don?t know where it is, it is under the shadow of the great St James Park footie stadium, where, in olden times they used to play football. The merry band of egg fried rice devourers, consisted of  tikay, Jen, Jo, Mel, Eugene, Malc-M, Jaggers, wormster and yours truly. We sent tikay to recce the first chop suey joint and were denied entrance. Possibly tikay being behind the front runners managed to get us in this time or it may have been the fact that the member of staff on the door saw a couple of Poker425 shirts and smiled and uttered ?I?m or-in?. Fancy that , A chinese guy into gambling! We managed to get a table for all of us and ordered the banquet for 9, as you do. We were treated very well and one particular member of staff was very attentive to tikay who responds by saying ?Thank you Sir, or is it Madam? We had to agree it was a close run thing but the consensus of opinion was that if tikay took him/her out the back he would be packing more than a spare rib. It didn?t help the confusion when a poster for the local ladyboy production was displayed on the door on the way in.

Course after course was delivered and ceremoniously placed on the ?lazy susan? wheel in the middle of the table with more than one of us thinking a quick spin would be the most effective way of serving out the grub. All in all it was a struggle to get through all the food and we failed. All in all it was a fun time, the decorative vegetables brought much mirth as did the huge fan on the wall, just behind Jo, when Mel says,in her best South Yorkshire accent, whilst looking towards Jo, ?look at the size of that big fan ee?

Anyway to bed and an early morning, I didn?t want to miss breakfast!. I met up with Malc-M, Jonathon Rabb and his partner, whose name I can?t pronounce, never mind spell, along with Paul Moss and his Mrs. For those who play on Ladbrokes, he is FATMARRA, and he was especially generous to the Charity the day before by supplying an auction prize and the buffet.

Off to a more manageable 60 runner Pot Limit event which started off with Adam, Angie and me on a table together, thanks Angie for the litre bottle of neat taurine, or so it felt. I was jumping of the ceiling after a couple of Red Bulls and that bottle. I could hardly manage to calm down enough to see the lady on the next table, poor girl had difficulty seeing past herself to see what hole cards she had. Adam supplied a fair description of the event above but I will simply add I bubbled the bubble prize by getting knocked out in 12th. The chap to the right of me had less than enough to get him through the blinds and I could have probably hung on for the final but I found K Qo so I thought, if it works for Joe B it will work for me. I was matched with Eugene?s pocket , which, like my hand, failed to improve. So it it doesn?t work for me after all!

By now I am pokered out, I wave good bye and set off for Surrey, quite a few pounds latrer thought the waistline remarkable the same.

So thanks all for a great weekend, I think I better start saving for next year. Well done especially to Davey, Angie, Malc-M,  Jen, tikay for the organisation and updates. It took a lot of work and goodwill to set up something like this. The pros for talking time away and the players ought to be remembered for attending the comp that had the least financial value in the country but they made it most enjoyable. Here?s to the next one.

[tikay]

"...the guffaws of the  laughing policeman on acid..."

Boy oh boy, did that laugh GRATE - after the first 5 hours. WTF was HE on? Imagine being married to someone with a laugh like that - you'd murder them for sure.

As for the "Sir or Madam", it has to be said, the Chinese gentleman/lady did have long hair & an effimiinate nature - it WAS hard to tell, & I did not mean to give offence, so I covered all bases........

"How many ducks went into that?" - classic stuff...

[Robert HM]

"How many ducks went into that?" - classic stuff...

Oh Gosh! It's flooding back now!

Jaggers "how did you get a carrot THAT big?"

Mel "I could eat a scabby donkey"
A.N. Other "One scabby donkey chow mein coming up"

tikay "I don't want any of that green stuff"
A.N. Other "true, look at the life expectancy of your average rabbit!"

tikay to waiter "An ashtray for the lady please"
Jen to tikay "I don't want an ashtray"
tikay, with fag in mouth, "yes she does"

[Trace]

Hi guys

Few pics from Newccy can be found here http://photobucket.com/albums/a334/TraceT/Newccy/

If anyone wants me to email them a certain pic, please PM me.

Trace