Born 30 something years ago into a card-playing clan in the North of England: the low-roller's poker odyssey has taken him from the school common-room via down-trodden Midlands' casinos, smoky Cotswolds pubs, celebrity Soho drinking spots and of course the ubiquitous world of cyberspace to the home of poker itself, Las Vegas. Join his search for juicy take-downs, great pot odds and the occasional back-door straight as he goes for glory.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Is This Faintly Ridiculous or What?
The algorithm on Full Tilt never ceases to amaze me. Having just won a $55 Turbo Sit and Go, I am three hands into another one and find two black jacks from early position, so I raise the pot to $140 and get four callers, no respect and a flop of 8-7-6 all spades, so happy-go-lucky I dive all-in. The first guy folds, the big blind is of no concern and the button hits "time" - so far so good - the little shit calls eventually, "slow-rolling" his way through amazement via delight with a stopover at smirk-city, as he reveals the stone-cold nuts - 10-9 of spades, a straight flush, an everyday occurrence round these parts, along with his twin brother quads. I smile and reach for the blog button.
Sunday saw the culmination of Full-Tilt's regular series, a $500 buy-in event, for which I'd played three qualifiers earlier in the afternoon in Oxford. I'd finished my week of videos in Henley with Barry feeling as good as it gets - thank you, thank you, thank you. U-Tube "Barry Long" if you must, but unlike what I said last time he ain't for the curious. This planet isn't quite ready for BL just yet....
I bubbled the one qualifier, making a small profit, lost another, but won the key one, a $75 Sit and Go. I'd actually had no intention of playing, but had been 'instructed' by a curious pub sign, The Seven Stars, having hired a postal dvd of The Seventh Seal, which I had found out (too late alas) to be utter garbage, but felt a certain obligation to watch it anyway. Demi Moore, pregnant back in the 80s, with shades of Rosemary's Baby, shades of The Omen and shades of shite too, but my sort of shite nonetheless. So ten minutes in, sanity is only retained by switching on the lappy, logging in and playing a blinder. An hour or so later, my seat assured, I pack it all up with the clock closing eight and head to pick up my son from Worcestershire, where I'm met with the inevitable delay as I look for more of these postal dvds. Cancel the subscription, cancel the credit card and never go there again.....
Max and I are now in the motor, the Main Event starts at eleven and it's two hours up the M1 before I'll be back home......so I'm wondering who can start the tourney off for me - not my brother as he'll donk off chips for sure, not Tom as he thinks Tilt sucks, but there is Shaun out in New Zealand... so a couple of text messages later and he reckons he'll be home before me, once he's dealt with the bank in Monday-morning Kiwiville, so I take my foot off the pedal and ease into the average-speed camera police-state scenario. Three great tips for these:
1. Change lanes all the time (recommended by the internet).
2. Hide behind lorries (Russian roulette and not enough of them on a Sunday night).
3. My favourite, as yet unproven but a lot of fun: flash the headlights right in their face with a joyous "fuck you" and fingers.
So no tickets yet touch-wood. It's at this point that I discover that banks in New Zealand are as you'd expect, slow, backward and full of Kiwi sheep-shaggers as well as other monday-morning stereotypes, so Shaun's not getting home anytime soon. I now have to step on it, with some well-timed lorries, some full-beam bonanza and hope in my heart...."It's a mission from God". I get home and luckily everyone's asleep, so no delays there. Max my son is in bed in seconds, while the computer is warming up, although a new software update costs me a few more blinds. But I'm soon in along with nearly 5000 others, having lost only 40 minutes and 400 chips (out of 5000). There's two and a half million dollars in the prize pool, with nearly half a mill for the winner, a hundred grand for fifth and money right down to 648th. I'm also racking up four tables of Omaha cash to add a further 50% to the burgeoning bank-roll.
Anyway I start well, negotiate the bubble with a shortish stack, and reach 23rd place at my peak (with around 100 players left), before running out of cards and shoving $150,000 all-in from the small blind. There was $40,000 in the middle from the blinds and antes, everyone else had folded and I had AQ off-suit, after what had seemed like hours of six-deuce. The big blind insta-called holding A-7 of diamonds and flops the nuts, three diamonds to shouts of "robbed" and "rigged" from my rail buddies - Shaun and now also Texas-Jake from the villa who'd been following progress and dreaming of a big win with flights to blighty for a slap-up. It was not to be: out in 54th place out of 4880 runners but I did take home $4500 for my troubles to cap a $7K week. The key is surely to play less - weird but true. Enough of my bad beats - it was good to show the boys I can still play the game after some no-shows in Vegas. Not smoking is a biggy for me, Mr Barry Long is bigger still for me, and the rest is down to the cards. Maybe just one more game....
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full tilt poker referral code | November 19, 2008 2:30 PM
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