Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[Colchester Kev]

did the pair hold up ?

[RED-DOG]

BTW- Turk hits his 4 on the river but the 2 of clubs four-flushes it.

[RED-DOG]

I was chugging along in the £300. We were into level 6 and the blinds were still only 200/400 (How good is that?) and I was in my comfort zone with just below average chips when Ian “BUPA” Woodly got moved into the seat on my immediate left.

I love to have Ian on the table, (no pun intended) he’s just so much fun. He’s like an overgrown schoolboy, there is always a mischievous glint in his eye, and a smile trying to wrestle it’s way on to his lips. Ian has a scathing, sarcastic sort of wit, but the smile robs it of any offence. He can swear for England, but again it’s totally inoffensive. Mainly because he speaks with that sort of “Sarf London” accent that just seems to absorb profanity as part of it’s natural inflection.

“Faaackinew” He exclaims before every sentence, but no one hears it as swearing, it just means Ian wants to say something.

Anyway, as Ian sits down, we are discussing the subject of “Walks” i.e. having everyone pass so that you recover your big blind plus the small blind without playing the hand. During this period, there has been several “Walks” and I have been the grateful recipient on 3 consecutive occasions.

Now as it happens, Ian is listening to this while in the small blind. The action is folded around to him. Everyone looks at him expectantly.

“Faaackinew…What?” He exclaims. “Gimme a chance to look at me cards will ya?”

Ian looks at his cards and raises, the big blind passes.

Ian shows an ace to the table. “I bet your kicker was crap” I observe quietly. He shows a three kicker

“Faaackinew” He goes, “You mean you won’t raise my blind wiv an ace??

“Not with a three kicker” I promise.

So of course, the action is folded around to me when I’m in the small blind. Ian is saying, “Here comes me walk”

 Everyone at the table is laughing as I peep at my cards. I have 8 9 of hearts, but I know if I flat call, Ian will suspect the ace.

Ian was giving me the dirtiest look you can possibly imagine, it was totally hilarious. I was sniggering so much that I could hardly speak “Call” I croaked.

Ian is laughing now too, but I can see as he squeezes his cards that he is dying to find a hand “Faaackinew” He’ says, “Let’s see a flop”

The flop comes ace high, and everyone on the table stops breathing. I can see that they are absolutely willing me to represent the ace. Ian is posturing like mad, grabbing his chips and saying, “You dare, you fackin dare”

“Raise” I hear myself saying, and the whole table erupts into laughter. It was just so funny. Ian likes a laugh as much, if not more than most. So he played to the crowd and milked it for a while, but then he warned me “If you do it again Red Dog, I’m gonna stick it right up ya”


After he said that we all knew what was going to happen. Ben Callanhan got a walk and I got one immediately after him. Then it was Ian’s big blind again. The other players were giggling like naughty schoolgirls. Every one of them folded. Micky Wernick even passed a pair of sixes just to see what would happen.

I have K 9 os. Ian has a face like thunder.

 “I’d better get me fackin walk this time Red Dog, don’t say I didn’t warn ya”

The whole table is pissing itself.

“Call” I try to say, but I’m laughing so much that it comes out as a strangled squawk

Ian goes into full Sarf London lost it mode.

“Faaakinew!!!!” “Leave it aaht!”  “Ave a word mate!” “Wos your fackin game?” “You’re avin a bleedin larf”

The next round, the rest of the players were egging me on, but Ian was saying “Any Two” “I swear to Christ I’m pushing with any two” I bottled it and gave him his walk.

I have never laughed so much at a poker table, that is until Ian and I spotted a bag fruit pastilles belonging to the huge bloke sitting with his back to us…

[RED-DOG]

So there is this huge bloke sitting behind us, and on his little drinks table, there is a cinema size bag of fruit pastilles. I creep over and steal one, and Ian says if I don’t get him one, he’s going to grass me up.

So I steal a sweet for each of us and we sit there giggling and chewing contentedly. As soon as we are finished, Ian talks me into stealing two more, rinse/repeat.

Because we are sniggering, the bloke keeps looking in our direction. When he does, we instantly stop chewing and try to look innocent. When he looks away, we start chewing and giggling again.


The bloke’s table is broken, and when he moves, he forgets his sweets. I immediately pinch them, but when I sit down, Ian snatches them from me and stuffs as many as possible into his mouth. I snatch them back and do the same.
 

So there we are. Mouths stuffed with stolen fruit pastilles, looking like two overweight hamsters, when a large shadow falls across our table. We look around and see the huge bloke standing over us, hands on hips.

I immediately thrusts the bag of sweets into Ian’s hands as though it was a bomb, he thrusts it back. This goes on for a few seconds before the bloke grabs his sweets (what’s left of them) and seems to contemplate knocking our heads together while we stare up at him rigid with fear.

The bloke stomps off; we heave a sigh of relief and try to pretend we weren’t afraid anyway.

“Gimme one of yours” Ian says, “I swallowed mine all at once”

[steeveg]

 
brilliant, just as was getting the hang of how to steal the blinds now ive got to learn how to steal the pastilles.

[boldie]

brilliant, just as was getting the hang of how to steal the blinds now ive got to learn how to steal the pastilles.

yeah..class

[b4matt]

Absolutely priceless Tom, You've got Woodley off to a T. He's a great craick at the table, i really didi have a lol moment this morning reading that.

[RED-DOG]

I went deep in the £300 on Wednesday, but I bust out one level before the end of play. Ah well, although I was disappointed at not making day two, I was really looking forward to a good kip. For some reason, I was absolutely cream crackered.

By the time I got to bed, it was about 3:30am, and things were looking tickety boo on the sleeping front. Since we sold the mobile home, Mrs Red and I have moved into our small touring caravan, and because we are using it solely as a bedroom, with no cooking or eating paraphernalia, the girls have no reason to come clanging about in the mornings, it’s as quiet as a grave. Mrs Red can sleep until the cows come home if no one disturbs her, so she wasn’t likely to wake me up.

I always thought that the god of sleep was Morpheus, but apparently he’s only the god of dreams. It’s his dad Hypnos who is the god of sleep. Either way, I was looking forward to a long long menage a trois with both of them.

I was “Sleeping like a nightingale” as my old metaphor-mixing friend Evergreen Price (Remind me to tell you about him one day) used to say, when the quiet of the morning was shattered by the clamorous din of that infernal machine, the accursed mobile phone. I answered it with my brain switched off, but as consciousness slowly returned I was appalled to realise that I had somehow agreed to take my daughter to Alton Towers.

The story went like this. My daughter Kelly and one of her friends had taken their kids to Alton Towers on a two-day all-inclusive package with a night in the “Splash Landings” hotel thrown in. When Kelly collected her tickets from the hotel reception, she realised that there was one extra ticket going begging, hence the phone call to me requesting that I “Just drop Bridie off, It’s all free”.

Well it was not free. It was £20 worth of fuel, £20 for Bridie to spend, and my lovely morning in bed ruined. I was not a happy bunny.

Bridie and I drove to Alton Towers. I had my grumpy head on and my pet lip well and truly pulled, but my daughter Bridie is bright, smiley, gorgeous, vivacious and happy. She’s a wonderful conversationalist and she knows exactly how to handle me. “Look at that old lorry dad, did you used to drive one of those?”

By the time I dropped Bridie off at the theme park, I had thoroughly thawed out. It was a lovely sunny morning, and the Derbyshire countryside was breathtaking. I stopped the car in a farmer’s gateway on the side of a hill, and my little dog Kizzy and I spent an hour or so gazing at one of the most achingly beautiful landscapes you will ever see. Green rolling hills criss-crossed by miles of dry-stone walls. The occasional stunted tree, thrusting it’s bare branches towards the cornflower blue sky in anticipation of spring’s arrival, and here and there, a timeless stone cottage, clinging to the hillside with an air of such permanence that God himself might have commanded that it should be so.

I was overcome by a sense of awe. How lucky, how privileged I was to sit here and gaze at this magnificent scenery. Compared to this, the loss of a few hours sleep was a mere bagatelle.

[ripple11]

Absolutely priceless Tom, You've got Woodley off to a T. He's a great craick at the table, i really didi have a lol moment this morning reading that.

Ditto...brilliant!!

[RED-DOG]

So it’s GUKPT time again, and this time it’s at J10 Walsall, my “Home” card room.

I had been looking forward to this one ever since the schedule was announced. The plan was to play the £200 and the £300 whatever, and the £1000 main event if I got a touch in either of the first two, or ran good online.

Well I drew a blank in the preliminary events, and online I ran like a big girl in high heels and a tight skirt. So much to my disappointment, I decided I would have to put bankroll management first and give the main event a miss.

On the Thursday, while the lucky ones at Walsall were shuffling up and dealing, I was sitting in the village hall with my fellow members of the environment committee.

I hate committees. According to my favourite radio 4 programme “Quote-Unquote” You can

“Search the towns, search the cities
You won’t find statues of commities.

So why do I sit on one if I hate them so much? Well the members of this particular committee are all good honest caring people who actually get out there and do hands on stuff to improve the and preserve the local fauna and flora. I love that part; I just hate all that talking and debating about it.

Anyway, the environment group meeting finishes at 9pm, that meant that I would miss my regular 8pm tourneys, which was a shame because even though I was resigned to missing out, I still secretly hoped to have a good cash and be able to play day 1b at Walsall.

By the time I got home and fired up the computer, there was 28 seconds left to register for the $100, 12.5k guaranteed double stack FO on blonde.
I don’t play this one very often, but I should, it’s a great little tourney.

Nothing exciting happened, it was just plod plod plod, and somehow, 5 hours later, I found myself on the final table.
I jumped up and searched frantically for my “A” game. Suddenly, I had a chance of playing the main event at Walsall after all.

I would have won it at a canter save for a nasty outdraw with 3 players left. My AQ beaten by A2, causing me to have to use the whip in the final furlong.

I was ecstatic. I could play Walsall without breaking my own self imposed bankroll rules. I did half-heartedly say to Mrs Red “Perhaps I should give it a miss anyway, I haven’t been running very good”.
“Who are you trying to kid?” She replied, “We both know you’re playing it”.

[RED-DOG]

I arrived at Walsall early and paid in. Parting with a bag of sand to play in a poker tournament always makes my eyes water a bit, I guess I’ve worked too many weeks for less than 5% of that to become complacent about it.

The place was buzzing, and as always before a big comp, that familiar tingle of nerves and anticipation washed over me as the heady mixture of tea and adrenalin seeped into my veins.
I was determined to do well. Nothing fancy during the early levels, see cheap flops, try to catch something big or stay out of trouble.

I find AK on the button, it’s folded to me and I make it 350 to go, some London geezer calls from the big blind.

The flop comes 55K and London checks, I bet 500 and he calls.

The turn card is the 6 of hearts, putting two hearts on the board; London bets out for 1000, I smooth call.

The river is the 5 of hearts, London bets out for 1600 and to be honest I have no idea where I am in this pot. I just call. He turns over K5 and I’m mortified to lose a 3rd of my stack. I still don’t know if I donked them off or did well not to lose more. Opinions appreciated.

I ducked and dived a bit, and by the break I had worked my stack back up to 9k, which was fine considering the lovely structure. Then the first hand back I managed to lose 3k with 99 to 1010 on a 7 high board. Bugger!

After that it was a real grind. Card dead for level after level, stealing a pot here and there, but slowly slipping toward the point of no return. Then I picked up QQ again. I raise and The London geezer sets me all in. I call and he flips pocket tens. My queens hold and I double up.

I see this as my cue to try this gear changing that I’ve heard so much about. I make 3 consecutive raises and get them through, and then Pete Linton in the small blind makes a raise on my big blind. I have pocket 44 and I smooth call. The flop comes A high and Pete leads out. I just don’t believe he has an ace; he likes to raise with rags and trap with aces. I come over the top and he lets go immediately. I’m up to 17k and feeling good.

A table is broken and Nick Hicks and Chicken Joe join us. Nick has about 6k, Joe about 60k. I find kings.

I make a standard raise, and Nick pushes all in. I call, and am happy to see his JJ. I’m even happier to see a K as the first card off. Unfortunately, it was the K of diamonds, the rest of the board cards were diamonds too, and neither Nick nor I had a diamond so it was chop chop. Double bugger!

We move into the penultimate level. Now I fancy I will make day two after all.
Jerome Bradpiece makes it 2200 to go from early position. Chicken Joe comes over the top for 10k; I look down and find QQ.

Time for a think. I’m not too worried about Jerome, he’s been raising any two from early position all night, I’ll take my chances with him, on to Chicken Joe.
Chicken Joe is renowned for these kind of bets, he could have anything, but surely he doesn’t play aces or kings like that. If I push, it’s only 7k more to him to call, so I know he can’t pass. If I win this pot I will have almost 40k, well above average and in great shape for day two.

I have to be ahead here….. don’t I?

I push, Jerome folds and Chicken Joe calls, he has pocket jacks.

The first card off is a Jack, and in that moment I go from well above average chips, the prospect of day two and a shot at the final, to nothing.

Character building they call it, but that’s not what I called it last night.

[Longy]

Ugh sounds like a tough day, nothing wrong with that ak vs k5 hand imo, you lost the absolute minimum.

[sovietsong]

Unlucky Red.

[77dave]

A great read as ever Red how have your opinions of Walsall changed since DTD opened.  Sounds like a great festival, shame they are fewer and fewer these days.

[RED-DOG]

A great read as ever Red how have your opinions of Walsall changed since dtd opened.  Sounds like a great festival, shame they are fewer and fewer these days.

I've always loved Walsall Jim, The staff try really hard, and they have a great bunch of regular players. I just wish that they had the same day to day good structure comps that Luton/dtd have instead of the £10 chip throwing contests.