Poker Sunday night.

Me too – just signing up now

Im in TS – just making supper

In the interest of balanced reporting… here is what really happened…

The first official =XDC= poker tournament started off with a few warm up play-money cash games, which was great as it gave the players a chance to suss each other out before the tournament proper. It was very apparent that true to form Wolf had an inflated image of every hand he was given, however, lady luck prevailed throughout, and his now bursting poker ego meant tournament play was going to be quite interesting.
Further round the table Turks was playing a quite aggressive, and yet again a mixture of bravado and luck scored him some easy chips.
Next to him was Doc, who being the most experienced poker player took some bad beats against the lunacy of Turks and Wolf.
I joined later on and similar to Doc lost most of my hands against marginal cards from the Turks/Wolf combo.

To round off the evening we set up a fast tournament game.

From early on, Doc and myself established a chip lead, as the other two nutters decided to calm down their play somewhat. Turks, in contrast to the earlier game must have fallen asleep, and was involved in very little of the action, and Wolfs eagerness to beat Doc (and have argument material for the next month) forced him into a tight/passive profile.
However, despite early promise, Doc’s over valuing of his hands was ultimately his demise, and though he may have thought it was a bad beat, with a straight draw on the flop and holding a set of queens he was out in fourth…
At this point it seemed Turks seemed to come alive through boredom, and soon was back to his old loose/aggressive profile and a couple of bad hands later he was out which left myself as chip leader going head to head with Wolf, who at this point decided play like the proverbial nun’s chuff… However, looks, experience, and glossy apple-mac’s won over shouts of “Gay” and “Cock” and I emerged victorious.

I think we would all play a bit tighter had there been real money involved, and a few more XDC’ers would have made a fun game into a great game, so c’mon guys get onto pokerstars and sign up!! 😀

some more great games tonight!

The first tourney started off with a slow tight game from everyone until the 6th hand when Turks, emboldened by his off suit 8 k with a k on the flop decided to take a punt and when a 6 and a king fell for him he was cock-a-hoop. Unfortunately for him he had come up against Ben with his K 10 and he was knocked out of the tourney. The following hands saw Ben gain a bit of a chip lead
up to 3,725 compared to Doc’s 1295 and my 980, but a spectacular hand of k high flush saw off trip k fromBben and doc doubled up (+300 from me!) putting him in the chip lead. I thought I was out of it by this point but some luck came my way when I doubled up with a 8 to q straight against Ben’s two pair j’s and 7’s.

With the chips being spread out between doc (2860) and Ben (2020) with myself on 1,120, it was an open game and with the following few hands running in my favour I soon stood out as the chip leader with 2880 compared to Doc’s 1345 and Ben’s 1775 what happened next was one of the highlights of the evening! Doc started off with a K A in the pocket and with a K A 4 on the flop it was just a case of squeezing as much out of Ben as possible (I had folded an A 6). Tactically it was sublime, a casual check on the flop, followed by some small bets of about 60 and 120 which Ben was matching and when Ben re raised him to 720 on the turn Doc pounced and went all in knowing he had won a decent chunk of Ben’s pile. But let me take you back to the flop, that was A K 4 and with Ben’s pocket pair of 4’s Doc never stood a chance! There was, suffice to say, some cursing towards Ben’s direction. I have to admit from Doc’s side it was looking good, but Ben must have been pissing himself!

That put Ben and myself heads up. A cagey affair of more than 40 hands (sorry for taking so long guys) with both of us stealing the blinds as the other was only going to play good hands, even the second largest pot of the tourney being a split pot. The game went back and forth and after changing chip leader a few times it was Ben’s turn to pounce on a mistake by me, with a 6 7 in my hand an a flop of A 8 7 I was always going to fold when Ben raised to 1000, but I pressed the call button by mistake (I’m sure they will verify this on ts) and in my fury at the mistake and a little recklessly I went all in when an 8 appeared on the turn, two pairs ‘aint bad! Ben had a pocket pair of tens and won through. Great game for me though, Doc and Turks were unlucky, Doc maybe more so, but good tight heads up!

The second tournament started off with Turks, Doc, myself and Ben. Turks was first out with a ludicrous speculative all-in punt on an 8 10 suited against docs pocket pair of threes. with the cards of 8,q, 2, 6, 6 (none of them turks’ suit) came another pair for doc giving him two pairs over ace high putting turks out within three hands. It should be noted that the tournament was moot as Jim was trying to join and we started off not playing seriously, but that did change when it was me vs doc heads up. In an unusual hand I had an A 9 of diamonds and doc a j 6 of clubs. With the flop came a 4, 5 of diamonds and a 7 of spades, putting Doc on for a straight but hope of an ace high flush for me. The turn card came the 8 of diamonds, the perfect card for me and Doc, but putting me in the lead. Doc did what anyone would do and checked, but the cards had come down on my side and after the river card I put doc all in and he bit. Of course almost anyone would have done with that hand, but unfortunately for him I had him beat!

I’ll write up the third tournament tomorrow, it’s late and I have R Kelly’s “trapped in the closet” stuck in my head. I hope I don’t dream about midgets again…..

The third tournament was the first that Queeks played in, although he maintains he wasn’t playing seriously and, given his calls of other peoples hands later on in the tournament after he was knocked out I’m inclined to agree. this was another slow game for Turks, he played only three hands before being knocked out with a rather unfortunate 2 pair (j’s and q’s) against Doc’s full house (3’s and 10’s). It was unfortunate for the young man, but the cards just didn’t fall for him.

Prior to that we saw the demise of Queeks who’d been brought down to 280 chips and decided to go all in on an A 7 against my K J suited. The cards came down 2 3 J 9 6 and he lost out to my pair of J’s.

I then had a bit of bad luck with A 8 in my hand and 8 9 8 on the flop I thought I was in for a winner and re raised Doc’s 200 bet to 600. Doc is quite aggressive up to the flop usually so I thought he was bluffing but with 8 9 in his hand he stitched me up a kipper and all but wiped me out. From that point on it was a matter of survival for me, I was down to 190 chips against 4330 for Ben and 2990 for Doc. Taking some advice from Ben (and some mind games), who advised me that if you’re down to a low chip count it’s sensible to go all in on a decent hand and I managed to double up on the next hand and a couple of subsequent hands to claw my way back to 1390 chips which was immediately taken straight back down to 180 chips by Doc!

Meanwhile Ben was taking some big pots on not so great cards winning 3650 in one hand with a pair of 10’s whilst Doc was waiting for a straight and was the commanding chip leader with almost three times the amount of chips as his nearest rival (which was me at that point!) and after I yo-yoed up and down the chips (from 190 to 1390 to 180 to 520) I finally capitulated with a pocket pair of 9’s but the cards didn’t fall for me and Doc’s trip J’s won through, knocking me out and setting up what had been anticipated for the other tourneys but hadn’t happened, a heads up between Ben and Doc (lol, just realised Doc’s name is Gerry, Ben & Gerry, geddit’?).

This heads up was going to be a tight affair, the aggressive pot stealing Doc or the unfathomable strong hand playing of Ban. It really was too tight to call, but I had seen Ben win all but one of the tourneys so far, but then Doc had gone out to some rather tough cards at the hands of Ben so was probably due a slice of luck. after some hefty bets the chip lead kept changing until the hand that all but clinched it. Going into the hand doc was on 3475 chips and Ben 3815 so you can tell how close it was!

With Doc getting K 8 of diamonds and Ben 6 Q of hearts the flop was J 7 5 (all of diamonds). I can’t talk for Ben in this, but Doc’s habit of stealing blinds possibly made him try to call Doc’s bluff and he went all in straight from the flop. It was unfortunate that Doc had him dominated with a flush, made all the sweeter by the turn card of A of diamonds! Doc’s Ace high flush left Ben with 400 chips and the very next hand he went all in with A 7 (not suited) against Doc’s 6 3 (also not suited). the cards came down in Docs favour and despite getting nothing on the flop was fortunate enough to get a 6 3 on the turn and a 6 on the river, ending the tournament and salvaging a little pride after being beaten by me in the previous tourney (as an added note Doc and I played the earlier tournament in parallel with the final tournament, so I take pride in my multi tasking win!)

Great games, I discovered a lot about my game in them, just need the reclusive Matt to get on and play (and anyone else of course!). Although this is only for play money, it is good fun but not as intense as it would be for cash, sometime soon I may have some spare cash to chuck in to a proper game but I’m wary of going up against Doc and Ben for cash. I can’t say the same about turks and Queeks because they haven’t been in the games much through bad luck and some reckless playing!

added third tournament write up in as well

round about 10ish, get on TS though