Thursday morning arrive at Luton Airport for flight to Waterford. A right mottley crew at the departure gate headed by Colchester Kev and Snatiramas. It takes all of 30 seconds in their company before they point out I am the only one of the three not to win a Blonde Bash! We look out at a rather small plane - one of those propeller jobs - and an hour and a bit later land full of hope and expectation in Waterford. Sharing a cab with Kev and Snat, we arrive at the hotel with Kev claiming to have no euros on him so I pick up the tab - it was only later he confided his intention to go the whole trip without buying a drink or paying for a cab so nothing new there then!
As the day goes on more Blondes start to arrive including M3Boy,Tighty, Mr & Mrs Laxie and various other shady looking characters. Thursday night is Super Satellite night so I throw in my hundred euros and head to the tables. I sit down on the same table as Tighty and it's shuffle up and deal. I cant remember exactly but I think there were 39 seats from about 185 entries, so I decide to play the same way as the Blonde team events - fold a lot, push hard with monsters and avoid 50/50 situations. Tighty eventually exits after a couple of big pots head the way of his opponent, and I see my stack build slowly. A few hours later were on the bubble and one fella has one chip left - 1,000 in total with blinds at 4,000 and 8,000. Even in this hand for hand situation people are raising and calling pots, I fold each hand without bothering to check my cards content to enjoy my pint of guinness. Eventually the single chipped lad is forced to play a hand, gets 3 callers I think (not enough!) and promptly hits quads!! Still, next hand hes all in on the small blind and hes finally eliminated, so I'm into the main event on the cheap! M3Boy also through and DaveShoelace.This calls for another celebratory pint... but as the bar shutters are down I simply head off to my room for some kip.
Friday arrives and today the big guns arrive. Sure enough, shortly after the hotel bar opens I spot The Duke, Dewi and RichEO sorrounded by pints of Guinness so I decide to join them, as it would be rude not to. Mr & Mrs Laxie join the fun but with the main event a few hours away I only have a couple of pints. I mention I'm drawn on table 8, seat 9 for the tournament. Duke looks at his ticket - table 8, seat 3.... then Dewi looks at his... table 8 seat 5!!!! Nooooo, this can't be happening! All the way to Waterford, 300ish runners, and I still cant escape the Blondes. Oh well, at least I'll be amongst friends??? Just before we sit down to play EricStoner arrives after a long journey. Compo makes an awful effort of putting Brendans buggie together despite plenty of words of advice from Tikay. Talk about cutting it fine, good old Brendan!
As I sit down at table 8, I look around the table and two to my right is none other than Jen Mason. OK, this is gonna be fun, but with 15000 starting chips I'm sure I'll be OK to cruise through day one. The first hand is dealt and its folded to the Duke... "RAISE" booms out from the other end of the table as Duke likes to ensure the dealer hears him when he's coming into the pot. I almost jump out of my chair having not experienced this before! Hand two and the action move around to the Duke again. "RAISE" again echos around the hotel and his continuation bet takes the pot down. I began to suspect Duke may not always be raising with the nuts when that booming noise continued in at least 50% of hands, and his stack was up and down like a yoyo. Meanwhile, between pints of Guinness Dewi is happy to pose for photos at the table - in fact at one point the dealer kept trying to point out it was his turn to act but he was oblivious to this while he instructed the cameraman "take one with my sunglasses on" .... "take another one at this angle".... Kate Moss eat your heart out. Still, Dewi proceeds to eliminate a poor fool who dared to raise with aces. Flop was three low cards and it goes check check, turn is an 8 and Dewi checks, matey bets and Dewi moves all in. Matey calls turning over AA and Dewi shows pocket 8's having hit trips on the turn. In hindsight a bad play from his opponent as a pot sized bet on the flop would surely have taken it down. As for me, I lose some chips to Jen early on when she raises my bb on the button and I defend with 79 offsuit, as you do. Flop brings a 6 and an 8, I bet out but thats a bad idea as she raises. I call to see the turn which is a complete blank I check like a rabbit in the headlights she bets 2k I fold. I decide to rock up for a bit and wait for a hand, but I dont even see anything close to a decent hand for 3 orbits and I'm beginning to get a bit frustrated. After a few hours Dewi gets moved and The Duke gets eliminated when he pushes on the flop with a flush draw eventually being called by top two pair and he sees no improvement.
I notice Tikay has an interesting strategy for day 1 - dont stay in your seat too long, just wander around the tables saying hello to everyone. He happily tells us he has 45000 chips after about 15 minutes of the main event - I blame the trendy new Blonde Poker chips - I expect Tikay misread the hundred chips for thousands!!
I start to get involved again and get my stack up to 19000 but that was as good as it was gonna get for me. With just 20 minutes of day one left I make an all in move on the big blind with pocket 4's after there were 5 limpers - I'm down to 8k at this stage but it was probably a bad move - well in fact it was definately a bad move as the first bloke had limped with aces!! Unbelievably no 4 appeared on the board and that was that - I was out. Outside for a cigarette and fortunately there were loads of people out there, all eliminated from the tourney so we all shared bad beat stories for ages. When asked how I got eliminated I lied of course and said I had aces and got called by some idiot with pocket 4's, so I got the usual false sympathy we all show to each other at such times. Does anyone ever really listen to bad beat stories, or do we all go into auto pilot just nodding and saying things like "Oh man, thats sooo unlucky" when really we're thinking about something entirely different?
The good news is that plenty of Blondes are still in, including Jen, Tikay, EricStoner, Tighty M3, Snat and AndrewT. In fact, most are still in although I hear that Dewi "did a Dewi" and went from big stack to no stack in no time. And this time the bar is still open, so it's time for a good few pints before dusting myself off and coming back for the 250 event the next day.
OK, that's about it for now but I'll post updates on the final two days soon. Be afraid Laxie, be very afraid
And I'll also talk you through a new strategy which I took into the 250 event after a deep strategic poker theory discussion with Dewi and The Duke!!!
It was a great weekend and I'm sure it will help to seriously increase the Blonde name throughout Ireland. Well done to all involved.
Author