No Poker All Weekend!!!!

Did not play any poker this whole weekend!!!!
But i kept myself busy! Went to PeterB' for mates nephews bday party and went to see ARSENAL!!!! Beat Man Utd 1-0!!!! In their own back yard!!!!!!! Go on ARSENAL!!!!!!!
On a side note i was in the Man Utd Stand sitting with my friend PAV a Manchester Utd fan! hahahaha, i have never been so quiet when Arsenal scored!!! I jumped up and was about to open my mouth and then stopped as i saw 70,000 Man Utd fans drop their jaws in slience!! I look over to the Arsenal Section and they are going mental!!! I would have done anything to be in that stand!!! Oh well, still a great results!!! Guess Ashely Cole has no idea what he is talking about! Oh btw we did this without Henry and Van Perise!

To keep all the poker readers happy i dug up an trip report i wrote about the UK student Poker Championships 2005 and 2006, enjoy!!! (sorry for the poor English!!)

2005

I started off quite slow (after spending the night in James’s Volvo) and became increasingly bored after not playing the first 12 to 15 hands, so I decided to make a move, dealt Qd6d and raised in mid position. There were two callers (inc. Lego) and flop came A K J, the callers checked, which invited me to bet, one folded one called, on the turn was a 3 and it was checked to me and with a stronger bet took down my first pot, which after that hand I never went lower than 10k (starting chips)

The next crucial hand was a few hours in. Dealt QQ raised and then there was an immediate re-raise to my right. I flat called and flop came 3 rags with 2 hearts. I moved all in and the player to my right called instantly with a flush draw with his Ah Kh. He hit his flush on the turn, in a pot of 40k.

Was on slight tilt after the hand and got Ad Kd in the big blind a few hands later. Few limpers and I moved all in with my last 14k. One caller with Qd Jd (a bit loose!) and my AK held up and it was my first and last time I committed all my chips in day one!
The rest of day one was good for me slowly winning chips and knocking at least 9 people out on the way. Although with the increasing blinds towards the end my chips stack started to decrease as my attempts to steal the blinds were not always successful.
Finished day one with 48K, which left me 23rd out of the remaining 30.

After a long night (but thankfully in a bed!!) talking to the Warwick boys I picked up a lot of advice, which was thrown at me and was much appreciated, I had the confidence in myself to go on and succeed. On day 2 there was a roll back on blinds, which allowed more room for poker to be played. I quickly found myself short stacked and found Ah Kh after a strong raise by who I believe will be the next Scotty Nyguen (table talk!). I moved all in for my make or break hand. He called as the raise was very little with his pocket 8s. Flop came three hearts!

After accumulating more chips, I found myself flat calling a 1/3 of my chips away and was extremely frustrated. During the break I spoke to Dave Lu who gave some strong advice about calling my chips away and told me to either fold the big hands or move all in! This was some great advice and yet so simple. After the break and playing more poker my chip stack increased to 96k but the average stack was 140k but I felt comfortable. I again found Ak off suit in late position. Then ‘Scotty Nyguen’ again raised the same amount as he did with his 8s. I decided to take Dave Lu advice and move all in or fold after thinking for at least two minutes (which is a long time for me) I mucked the cards, decided I had enough chips not to race with. Scotty whose actual name is Alvin flipped over KK!!! The hand felt like a winning hand after making a strong fold and gave me great belief in myself to make the final table. An hour later I found myself all in again after finding pocket 8s after Phil (Mong Mob) made a raise. He had to call with value but only with an A2. The 8s held up which doubled my chips.

I made the final table by winning a few pots and trying to steal the blinds every 2 rounds, so the blinds would not affect me. I found myself in the final table on roughly 230k which left me in middle position. After an hour in a few players were out. A short stacked moved all in and I found pocket 7s which I pushed with and held up against his AJ. Later I raised with A10 and Lego found A9 (my favourite hand!!) and moved all in, which was less than my raise. A10 held up and unfortunately lost Lego who played extremely solid poker for a good 15 hours!

When four handed the poker chips were quite even and chips were swing all over the table. I could not pick up many hands and stealing the blinds were essential. The next big hand was against Darius who had 200k less than me. I limped in with 9h 7h and he checked in the Big Blind. Flop was A 7 2, I bet 50k and he raised after thinking for a while. I then thought about the size of the pot and it was difficult to put him on a high Ace with no raise pre flop. So I re-raised to put doubt into his mind of how strong his Ace was or if he was bluffing. The pot became over 400k and my heart was beating extremely hard. But he came over the top all in. I folded but felt I made the right move. But it did do me some good as it gave me the table image of someone who will try to win every pot.

I moved up in chips after the beat and the table had more swings with Calum from St Andrew taking a chip lead. He then found KJ under the gun and moved all in. Dice man then moved all in with QQ, I folded my KQ quickly while Darius called with his AJ (but had low chips) the board came with 2 Jacks and 2 Fours, knocking Dice man out and giving Calum over 2 million in chips. Darius survived one more hand with the high blinds and it was heads up between me and Calum.

The heads up was a fantastic experience with the crowd cheering and the trophy on the table! (unfortunately the money was not there!) It was £1,180 each but the winner gets a seat into the WSOP 2005. Although I started with only 300,000 chips and Calum had a commanding chip lead with 2.25million. The heads up lasted about 15 minutes with Calum moving all in with any two cards (Also known as the Argyris approach.) I won 3 double ups but with the high blinds every fold almost took a 1/3 of my chips away.

Calum limped in under the gun, I saw 98 off suit and checked. The flop came 9 high, with me hitting top pair. I checked and Calum moved all in. I immediately called and stood up thinking this was my chance. A win here would put me on 900k and with a good chance to win. When I stood up Calum turned over pocket QQ and my heart dropped! The tournament was over!

2006
The Official Poker Tour of 2006 to the UKSPC Part One by Dhruv ‘The Kid’ Doshi

It was that time of year again for the Warwick elite to step up and travel to the annual UK Student Poker Championships and once again show their domainance in the field of Poker. We certainly have the largest poker society in the UK and in my belief we have the best Poker players on average then any other university. This was our chance to prove that statement as a team of 24 Warwick students came together to play in the UKSPC 2006.
However there already signs of problematic trip as a week before the main event, which was a £30 freeze out and with a seat up for grabs to the WSOP or WPT in Paris, the venue changed from the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh to St Andrews Student union, which created a big problem as we had booked into a hostel weeks in advance in Edinburgh but now we had to travel during the Saturday and Sundays mornings to arrive to the poker competition. It was absolute disgraceful that they move a 300 runner event 7 days before the event, even though details for the event were posted 6 months ago! It really reflects poorly on the student organization or the organization of the sponsors Betfred.

It is 30th March Thursday night and Tom Grundy, Gurvinder Singh and myself Dhruv Doshi leave my house in London just after watching Eastenders where Phil Mitchell escape death some how by 2 large skips crash his car with him inside but he manages to be ok. We head off to pick up the one member of the Warwick team who does not go to Warwick, my friend from London, Niraj or Neal as he likes to be called. We then set off but we were delayed about 5-10 minutes as my Navman was taking ages to find the route to Coventry. Eventually I gave up on the satnav and went ahead although 5 minutes after driving it started to work so things were looking good. We then have numerous conversations about the tournament and previous poker situations we have had. The next stop was Park Royale (Dave Lu you would love this place) where we were to meant another member of the Warwick Team Saef Shah. We got some food at KFC before Saef arrived and that we went to the megabowl to play some Arcades and the IT box. Both Tom and I cashed out some money, Tom playing Hex and myself playing Turbo 21, the machine was paying out!!! It was very difficult to walk away!!!

So we were off to Coventry, after driving for another 30 minutes we hit some traffic on the M40, which was surprising, it then came to a halt. We then saw police cars, ambulances and fire trucks driving by, this was not a good sign. Five of us we in the car in total darkness as all the cars had their engines off and cars lights off. The other decided to go for a walk on the M40 and see what was happening, they walked about ½ mile away from the car asking people if they wanted to play some poker, although another was asking them for some weed. Guv came back first and told me that it could take up to four hours and I was like ‘No way’ as we were playing to play a home game that night but a four delay would mean arriving at Coventry at around 4 am. It was about 12am and Tom said lets opening up a book to see how long we would be here. Neal optimistically took the first time slot of 1220-1230 and I went for 1230-1240, Guv and Saef argued for the 1250-1am time slot and Tom took the pessimstic view of 100-110am we were all along way away. We decided to play a game! (One of the first steps of a real road trip). Tom suggested some sort of mental poker. Then I refined some rules were we had a 5 man game. Tom and I went heads up. Saef gave Tom a random hand, Guv gave me a random hand and Neal the independent player would deal a random flop. Tom and I started on 100 chips with blinds at 5/10. The game did not sound exciting at first but we got a real kick out of it. Especially when we went all in and stated our hands, which we could not do as Neal would know what we had. If anyone wants the exact rules of Mental Holdem or any questions please contact me. The best moment of mental holdem was the matching up between Saef and Guv. Saef was short stacked to around 30 chips and gave had the lead with 170. Tom whispers to Saef ear a certain hand. I whisper to Guv Jack of clubs, Jack of Diamonds. Guv calls the BB and Saef pushes all in and Guv immediately calls and says ‘Jacks!’ we all start laughing as now Neal job of dealing a flop could not be random. A ruling was made and Saef said he was given QUEENS!!!! He is an 80% favorite! So to keep the game fair I gave a number between one to five to Guv and Neal had to pick the number. Guv has a 20% chance and this seemed like the best solution, a real deal could not happen as Saef had such a strong lead to double up. I gave Guv the number 3, we all looked towards Niraj, he thinks and looks towards the roof of the car and say ‘THREE!!!!’ Guv wins!!! Guv gets the outdraw!!!! (A sign of things to come maybe!) We had created a game with everything!!! We then heard word that a lorry had tipped over and spilt its content. By now it was 2 am and no one won the book! We then played some 5 card draw using some Landora cards I found in the boot my car, I have like 20 packs!! Then we played a word game, which did not last long. Tom the token white guy in the car won every game we played!!!! And in theory he sort of won the book of how long we were stuck in traffic as he picked the latest time slot. Time went by quite quickly and before we knew it, it was 330am and the cars started to move! YES!!!!! Only 3 and a half hours waiting on the M40!!!!!! We got to Leamington at around 4ish and dropped Tom off and then went to Coventry to drop Guv and Saef off while Niraj stayed at mine in Coventry.

Friday 31st March, I picked Guv and Saef up and we went to Warwick University to meet up with the rest of the Warwick poker team and to pick up the new token white guy Stuart Black who knows a lot about Everything! We all met up at the Car park with 2 other cars there however we were short two cars, porno Mark’s car had car problems and Dave Lu’s car team were meeting us at the first stop off point, as he was getting back from Reno in USA after playing the WPT event and reaching day two. We got given the car challenge sheet, where we had to take part in various car challenges. The win would apparently get a free diner trip to wing wah. We completed the first challenge very quickly with a photo of people standing on a round about! Then we were off to the first services stop about 120 miles away. Was a good trip with standard talk but we moved away from poker for a world and experienced the knowledge Stuart had on the Wrestling world. A point which was quite interesting was how clever everyone was in shot gunning the front seat or trying to seat behind me, (as the leg room was more on my side than behind the passengers seat) Guv was very clear in that respect going for that position rather than the difficult job of shot gunning the front seat, Saef was amazingly quickly at doing so to be fair. He managed to get the front seat on more than 80% of the time. We got to our first stop and decided lets complete Time Crisis 3 between my car and Andy Fong, we failed big time! And moved on to the pool challenge which never cashes out but Saef managed to win back his pound! After the rest of us wasted a £1 each! The next stop was another 100 odd miles away at Gretna in Scotland. We played some dodge 5 card draw with lives, instead of chips, started with 10 lives and each round you ante one life and if you wish to change cards it would cost a life, then if you win the showdown you gain a life, was a great game but a little bit dodge as I was driving on the right lane and was swaying along and rub my car against the barrier, while trying to look at my cards! Do not try this at home! I eventually won the game! Playing heads up with Guv and changed all five cards and getting 5 jokers in return! (What a Fish!) YES!! We got to Gretna and got some food and were off quite quickly, this was our last stop before Edinburgh and to be honest I was very disappointed that we could not find the Monopoly roulette that we found last year on the summer poker tour!!! Oh well!

We arrived in Edinburgh at about 9-10pm, although we made our first Scottish visits at a pizza pasta kebab place but we walked in and there was an Italian TV programme was on and the people in their were Italian! Oh well we tried to get some Scottish culture in us! We got to the hostel and was very impressed, they had a cinema room an internet lounge with around ten computers, the rooms were small but nice and also a bar. We finally got some poker going. We had to cash games running. One was a 10p/20p and the other was a 20p/40p games, they had a TV lounge also which was perfect for a good poker game. Decided to keep the game quite small as we do not really want to go broke before we even got to St Andrews. The games were very lively and we had a waiting list on both games! By the end of it everyone was up or down £5 no real big swings but we had a good game. I probably should mention at least one hand as this is a poker report and so far I have not talked much about poker. One hand that stuck out in my memory was when I got bored of playing quite nutsy I thought I was time to make a move. I limped UTG and I think Tom raised on the button. Niraj called and I re raised. Tom call as I’m sure he was playing a type of hand we all like to crack big hands, and the Niraj called as well. The flop cam down J high and two rags, Niraj bet out and I raised with Ace high, I think I had something like As10s. Tom quickly mucked and Niraj thought for while folded and showed me top pair. Then at the end of the night I cashed everyone out and a few people went straight to bed. As we know in all cash games there is always like an odd or difficult number to cash out because people have like £2.25 owed or £0.60 and in the pot is all £5 notes at the minimum. So I introduced ‘Whore Poker’ which is something my local home game does at the end of the night. Anyone with a random amount of changed left over gets to play. Whether it is £3 or 20p they get to play. It ends up that there is around £10 or £5 left over, in this case there was £10.10 left over. Myself, Jaime, Kader and Neal all had a round amount left over. So I deal everyone a hand. I had AK, Jaime had K9, Kader KQ and Neal 53. I was looking strong but a lot of cards to dodge, I needed an Ace. Flop
8 8 8!!!! Looking good for me. Turn J even better river Q!!!! Kader rivers me and scoops £10.10!!!!! We then went to sleep however it took another hour to get to sleep as people were making prank calls and making jokes. I tried to knock knock trick but no one fell for it. This was me knocking on the wall expected people to think someone was at the door! We had bunk bed by the way! I think we got to sleep by 4ish and ready to wake up ay 845 am!!!!!

PART TWO

It’s the early hours of the day and I’m awake after Saef shouts at me as he is leaving the room to get up! Its 845am and to anyone who knows me that is very very early for especially as I went to sleep at 4ish the night before. We all got ready and met for breakfast downstairs where they gave us bread and butter but we had to make our own toast which was fun was good to get some food in us. We left for the main event. I set my Satnav to St Andrews, I was on my way with Stuart Guv Niraj and Saef in my car, I forgot to mention in the report part one before that Stuart came up with a team name for us, which was the BCKs, which was the Brutal Collusion Kids team. For those who do not understand the name, it’s basically a combination of all our nicknames. Stuart is known as Brutal Stack, Guv and Saef’s mob name is CC with they phrase being ‘collusion’ and as you know I’m the Kid, Niraj did not get in but he became an honorary member of all three groups! So the BCKs were off, my Satnav said the trip would take 74miles! Ouch!! Was not happy to see that but we were off, Tom ‘Animal’ was following me to St Andrews and later on Dave Ralph who was in Animals car mentioned I was going the wrong way! The problem with the Satnav was it avoids toll roads and therefore took a route, which tool an extra 30 miles DOH!! But as we had started the trip and already 45minutes in , I thought turning rounds would not make a difference so we continued! It ended up taking two hours to get to St Andrews instead of one, another and not the last problems my car had on the trip. This was very frustrating as it added more time to the journey and I was very tired. Everyone in the car except Stuart I think actually went to sleep on the way to St Andrews, which is fair enough but left me half awake on the road! But lucky nothing went wrong.

We arrived at St Andrews and from the start they did not fix problems that I think occurred last year. When drawing the seats last year they would make you register then pick your own seat by picking a random card out of the 300 available. On the UK student forums Betfred and St Andrews university asked for some feedback and this was a problems many people commented on as people found themselves on the same table as the guy behind them in the queue, which tended to be people from the same university. So I expected this year to be different to avoid this, however they did something even worse. They had 3 different stalls where universities would go to. Therefore all the Warwick players went to the same stall to pick their cards, which makes it less random. What’s the point in asking for feedback if they are not going to listen to people’s suggestions? I also heard that the organizes did not even have a Tournament Director program on the day of the event and they had to get one of a student at the last minute. This unfortunately was not the last of the problems the tournament had. I drew seat 3 table 3 and headed towards the venue one room where the tournament was bring held. I looked around at a very familiar scenery with a bunch of young poker players, chip riffling, wearing hats, sun glasses and one guy had a mask on like in the film Jason X. I looked at my table and I was on the feature table and a little smile was put on my face and realised this has to be a sign of things to come. Then I heard Rob Jagger was on my table and I enjoy playing with Rob but I realised it would be difficult to be table captain as he is a very strong player and can be very aggressive, no one else on my table looked familiar or looked the part to be honest and I was feeling confident and felt playing small pot poker would payoff in the long run as the blinds are very low early on and there was time to play, although this was not the case later on in the tournament. Ok now the poker talk begins!

Just before I sat down I went over to Guv and said this was the table I sat on last year, which eventually led me to second place so good luck! To see Guvs report click here

I played a quite tight in the first level but picked up a few interesting hands like tens, Ak, AA and some suited connectors, unfortunately I did not connect on any flop for a while and lost 2k in calls and raises The table was not as I expected. Last year players were very tight and did not want to go out but on my table people were very aggressive at the wrong times. I explained to people at the break that it was Donkey vs Donkey on my table and the outcome was a Donkey gets a double up early on. For example one guy raises 6-7 x BB when he raises. One guy slow plays A10 on an Ad 4x 8d 5x board and when he hits his two pair, which gives the flush out he bets and gets raised and then he pushes and the guy had KdJd, and calls with the nuts. Another hand someone raises 7 x BB UTG and pocket 55 calls, by the way the raiser has not played a hand for 50 minutes. Flop comes A K 5 and UTG goes all in for 9k and the guy with 55 calls in a flash, I felt I dealt out AA and KK. UTG has KK and takes a 20k pot down. I won my first pot when Rob raised up 3 x BB I looked down and saw tens and flat called and so did the cutoff and the BB. Flop A 10 5 - 2 clubs. BB checks and so does Rob, I bet as I like betting sets when there is an Ace on board and I feel Rob may check raise me here. As Rob is a very strong player if he feels that you are slightly weak he is not afraid to put his chips in to find out and I know that so I feel I strong bet here may induce a steal however Rob gets a good read on me and put me on a monster. The cut off calls and everyone else folds. Turn brings a 5 and I have my house, feeling the guy is drawing to a flush which I now hope he makes. I check and see what he does, if he comes out betting I feel he does not have the flush draw maybe a rag Ace or he was fishing around with a KQ or a J10, which means I would flat call and value bet the river. I feel if he checks behind he looks to be flushing and if the flush hits on the river I can put a bigger bet out and if it does not hit I mite check the river and induce a bluff. He ends up checking behind me and I feel he is weak and I am not getting paid. The river is a big card but cannot remember so if he was gutshoting or playing to high cards he has connected, so I bet out and he takes a while to call and shows A8 off he says ‘I called because I’m interested in seeing what you have’. My read was wrong but I guess I was just hoping he had a bigger hand. I’m up to about 12k. Then something really bad happened. I did not want to be there! I felt really tired and started to walk about. When I was at the table I kept my head down on the table. I was not watching the game and was just playing my cards and playing badly. I was extremely tired but that is no excuse I should have been able to focus on move away from the table for a while until I was focus. I then made a move on a very tight player with J high on a As Qs 8c 3c 7c board with 3 clubs. He checked all the way and so did I as I had a flush draw on the flop. He then bet the river and he was a solid player and raised him, he thought for a while and called, I mucked and he showed three 7s. Word got round that the winner of last year was out! In the first or second level! I thought that would have encouraged me but it did not help. Lucky the break was close and I felt I needed a break to get me focused. I then won a big pot with AK which was a 3 way pot but checked down till the river and the BB bet out when the Ace came, I smoothed called and it was good. The break came and I was very annoyed with myself I knew I was not going to do well as mental I was not in the mood for the tournament, I spoke to Jaime another driver and he felt the same way as I did. We could not really hack it, which I think now Dave Lu needs a mention as he was playing great poker and he had a very long trip indeed. After being knocked out in Reno at the WPT, which must have felt horrible he went on back to England and drove straight from Heathrow to Scotland, which really must have taken it out of him but Dave was going strong. At the break Warwick had lost a few men. Niraj won the fisherman prize of first out, which was one of the car challenges so BCKs got some more points but he was unlucky as he had middle set and was raised on the flop by top set only for it to go all in on the flop. That is a very difficult situation and you will not find many players who could get away from that. Most Warwick players were sitting on around 6k – 12k with Stuart and Guv on about 14-16k.

After the break I found myself short stacked as many people were doubling my on my table. Rob went out before the break after moving in on a gutshot against a player with two pair. We had a few new players and the players were not of great standard but they getting chips by battling the donkeys on the table, I was just praying to get into a hand with one of them. I was left with 7k and blinds were 150/300. I found JJ UTG and raised up to 900. I got called by two very fishy players and thought great. But needed a half decent flop. Flop comes K 5 3 and I check. The other two check behind. Turn brings a 2 and now two hearts. I check and plan to move in if one player bets. The next player bets out my stack and I was definitely calling. But the other player in the hand pushes for 4.3k. I had about 6k left and the first to bet was on 18k. The other player pushed and I had a decision. I know I am beating the first better however I cannot call to go to win a side pot. I eventually put the second player on K6 or a similar hand. I then said I’m beating you to the initial raiser and showed JJ, he goes you are right as I fold. He shows 77 and the other guy has Qh8h. I could not believe it! I did not think he would put all his chips in on a flush draw and he was flat calling draws and not sticking all his chips in previously. 77s hold up and I feel absolutely gutted. I was steaming as that pot would tripled me up and got me in a position to play some poker. A level later I push with 77 and someone thinks for a while and calls with KKs. Nice! I walk away from the table disappointed but felt I did not deserve anything especially as I was playing poor poker and was not in the right frame of mind. As I spoke to other Warwick poker players I found out we had lost about 10 out of the 24 who entered. It was not going well however Guv Dave Lu and Animal were going strong.

Fruit!!!! Move to the side Johnny Chan because the Warwick poker society has out done you. The last week of term we had a fancy dress poker tournament with Dave Lu going as Johnny Chan by bringing an orange with him to the table. Tom, Flash went to Tescos and bought some Kiwi, a Lemon, an Orange, a Banana, some grapes, a Cabbage, a Melon and a Mango and gave to all the players still left in the tournament. After the lunch break and a few levels down the line we only had six players left. Guv, Dave Lu, Sunny, Animal, Porno Mark and Andy Fong. It was not going well for Warwick poker soc but the players left in all had the ability to get to day two. I was watching Dave Lu and Guv a lot. From what I saw Dave was controlling his table without showing any cards and he chip stack was growing and even started to cover his Cabbage! Guv was hitting a series of hands and may have outdrawn a few players but was playing great poker and one hand I remember he called someone down with Ace High in a nice pot and it was very good.

Cash games got going and Sit and Go’s as well on the side. I played some cash and donked off my stack. Rob replace my seat in this very loose game and called a guy down in a £100+ pot with 33 on a Q 9 5 7 A board and it was very good! Go Rob!! I played a Sit and Go after for £10 and did a 50/50 deal with Saef who was also playing. I told Tom that I would play like a lunatic and limp UTG and re raise as much as possible, I also missed the first level off play. So I played my first hand and we were down to 8 players from ten I was UTG and limped. Tom was in the background laughing and I could not keep a straight face. But anyway everyone follows the limp and the flop comes down and is checked to me. I bet and everyone folds. I then raised many pots and overbet the flop if I had it on not. When down to 5 players I raised with Q2 UTG and SB pushed I called in a flash. He had JJ, first card out was a Q!!!! Oh well!!! It got to heads up and I took it down with £50, Saef came in 3rd. So we took £70 between us and split it.

Then news came that Andy was out and only 5 Warwick players left with 50 players to go. The support was great for the players as many of us stayed to watch and support our fellow Warwick players. Tom ‘Flash’ was the biggest cheerleader of them all and I quote claims ‘Dru I sweat Warwick Blood’. What a line! How is he not going to be president next year! Suddenly there is a big pot and Animal has moved in, the Warwick Mob cover the table and surrounded it, but wait! Porno is thinking! And he goes allin!!!! Someone from Warwick is going to get some chips! By wait the BB calls and I’m thinking this can not be good; there are only 2 hands he can call with in this spot. (Assuming he is a good player) Big Blind turns over KK, Animal AQ and Mark AK. Flop JKJ!!! Warwick lost two players in one hand!!! But they played great and did well to get that far into the tournament which started to become a crap shoot. Only Guv Sunny and Dave left. 31 players left and Guv is second to act on his table and see he has a tough decision. He had jus doubled up with 10s against 22s and was comfortable, he looked troubled and folded. He then came over to me and told me he had KKs!!! I was not happy! I thought he had AQ or 99 and maybe AK, but he felt a raising war with the Big stack in the BB would not be good, I felt it’s the wrong move as more chips tomorrow the better even though it was the bubble. Speaking of the bubble Betred’s ‘Tournament Directors’ were awful, early in the day they made a poor ruling on my table about the wrong turn card and on the bubble there was no hand for hand!!!!! That is shocking, everyone tournament whether small or big or online or landbase goes hand for hand but this tournament did not!!! However Guv Sunny and Dave got through to the next day, a great achievement by all. Guv had 110k, Sunny on 80k and Dave on 70k, with the blinds rolling back to 1k/2k for day two it looked promising.

We then went all together to get some food at a Pizza Kebab place, which was too funny! We packed out the place and the owner started dancing about when some 50 cent music came out, we got a group picture with everyone, I’l try and upload them soon, should be in the picture section.

We then got to the hostel played some Omaha and the STA casino, which was great fun and I eventually got to sleep by 5am!

PART THREE

I have woken up again at 845am! On the 2nd of April 2006. After going to sleep at around 5am after taking part in the Kader Jac and Jambon Casino, when I say taking part I’m mean dropping £15 to the house after Jambon constant hit amazing cards in blackjack, even if felt sorry for me and he was the house! So I woke up feeling very tired but knew I had to get out of the hostel as we were an hour away from St Andrews and a £20 freeze out was starting at 11am with registration ended at 1045am and with 100 capped players. So we had a quick breakfast and we were off. I set up the Satnav so it took the toll road, which meant it would only take an hour and I also followed Jambon just incase anything went wrong. So got to St Andrews in just under an hour and rushed to the door and the little bold man told us we are not open yet, it was 1050am. We were confused but realised it was down to another poor student organised event. We waited about in our cars as it was cold and wet eventually the doors opened and they started to register us. A few of the Warwick lads including myself and Flash decided we were going to play like donkey and do new crazy stuff in this tournament that we would not normal do. My normal game is appear as the table captain who deals the table and control the pots, in term of presentation and helps out people or certain rules but I went for the flip side. I looked at my cards by picking them up and putting them next to my eyes, started to raise with abosulte junk in early position and so forth. Flash claimed he would do the same and check raise on any draw. Jamie got a last long bet going. Everyone put £5 into the pot and the person who lasted the longest wins the lot. We had 7 entries, Jamie, Tom, Rob Crowley, Niraj, Chris Burton, Andy Fong and Myself. As me and Tom were going to play like donkeys we did a 50/50 on the last long bet, as with our new style we would either get a lot of chips or be out early. However Tom did not play this style as two hands in he flopped a set against two players who had 2 pair and more than trebles up. I however played like a fool and started raising up and was re raised twice but still called with J5 and 106. Lost a few chips but gained a few with Q6. I limped UTG and mid position raises, SB calls as so does the BB, I re raises Q6 and the table folds although the initial raiser thinks for ages. He later shows JJ and I’m outraged clamming I had QQ, I went on for about 5 minutes going how can you fold, you should have doubled me up etc. My table broke and word got out that Warwick had lost about 4 players already! I moved to Jambon’s table and we both smiled at each other as he knew how I was playing. First hand I find Ad3d UTG and raise and everyone folds to Jamie he thinks for a while gives me a smile and folds, I show the Ace. I then re raise someone pre flop with KcJc (Happy Guv!) the raiser flat calls and the flop comes two clubs and 9 high. I push all in and the raiser folds. The player on my left says you are lucky I folded. I said why he said he folded 99s, the nuts on the flop, could have been trouble for me. I actually had a nice stack about 4k, starting stack 2.5k, with around 70 of the 90 players still left. I then actually fold a hand QQ and I raise and I get flat called. Flop comes 10 high and I push only to be instantly called by AA… ouch!
I then start to walk around got some food and saw Flash was doing well. I came over to him and he tells me, ‘that the guy in the car was well happy he folded JJ pre flop’ I looked at him and he was the guy I re raised with Q6 to, as I had something invested in Flash I tried to tilt him and said I had pocket 10s.

Main Event Day Two
Sunny and Dave Lu were put on the same table as play resumed at 12pm. Guv was on the feature table, again where I started off last year with 30 players left. Although there were only 29 left this year. The atmosphere was not great but the Warwick boys got a lot of supported, but every once and a while we kept hearing bad news, Guv lost a big pot with top pair against a set, all in on the flop and Dave couldn’t pick up any hands however was grinding it out, he didn’t get many chips but was winning small pots with cards he was getting. Sunny was going strong but was stealing the blinds on the button a bit too much and it cost him some chips. After Guv lost a big pot with AQ against the set, he pushed with 86 and 72 both times hitting to stay alive and got his chips up. He then found tens and raised, he got re raised and called. The other guy had QQ and hit quads! Unlucky Guv but well done. You may have got lucky in some hands but you played very good poker to get to day two. A mention must be made about the blind structure, it was a crap shoot!!! Blinds were doubling up every 30 minutes and there was no room for play. We then hear news that Dave was out. Mid position raises with K10 and Dave in the SB finds AQ. Dave thinks about folding knowing it’s a 60/40 but also knows that you rather push all in than call an all in. Also Dave’s game on the flop is amazing and never needs to stick it all in pre. But Dave made the correct decision and pushed, which the other guy had to call. River is a ten and we lose Dave. Again well played, he must have been exhausted especially coming from Reno to London to Scotland in a very short period of time. A few moments later we got to the final table with Su-Ho representing Warwick!!!!!

Black Jack
On the side action, Rob Crowley and Flash were going very strong in the tournament. I was offered a chess game by Stuart after stating I do not want to play any more poker but he is too good and it would not even be a challenge for him. I then saw a 3 packs of cards I said, ‘I’m going to try and get a blackjack game going’, as I thought I cannot be the only one tired of poker, this is me nicking the STA casino idea. So I sit with Alex Straight making sure everything works out. I made a blackjack table, with min bet of 20p and max bet of £1. I started to walk around the room asking people if they wished to play, but most people laughed and walked away. I got one customer though and the game started of small and he bought in for £5 using 20ps and 50ps, which was good as it is easy to pay people out. We played for about 5 minutes and it was quite even. Then people started to watch and Jambon came to play as to a few other students. I allowed 7 boxes max with max of 4 players playing. The game got very popular and we had a waiting list of 3 players. Jambon then decided to set up another game. He did so and he filled upped his seats very quickly. Was a great laugh and shows you do not have to play poker all weekend. I ended up about £30 up and had a great time, even the people who lost a few £s here and they were happy to play! It was probably the cheapest game around as well.

Final Table
Ok Final table! As soon as it started I crashed the black jack table, although Jamie kept going, which proved to be a mistake as he was paying out big! Just as the final table started Flash bubbled in the £20 freeze out and Rob Crowley was flying the Warwick Flag. He ended up in 4th place and took around £150 but I’m not sure exactly how much it was. Sunny was very short stacked on the final table and could not do much but fold or push. Sunny was in the SB and pushed against the BB who folded and the Warwick fans cheered very loudly, it seemed we were the only ones who cared as others played cash games on the side. As the blinds were so huge most players were short stacked and Sunny called an all in against a big stacked, at the time he felt it was the right decision because he knew the blinds were folding and felt he was getting good odds against anything but an over pair. But the guy had KK and Sunny’s 65off suit was no good and Sunny finishes in 8th place with £385! Well done Sunny a great weekend and you did Warwick proud! The Warwick team left St Andrews slightly disappointed as we just expect great things as we are clearly the elite society in the UK, especially after seeing the shocking bad play by some players in the tournament, which I like to see as Donkey vs Donkey.

Mission ImpossibleWe left St Andrews at around 545pm. But the car had changed Stuart was replaced by Tom and the token white guy remained in my car for the whole journey back to London. I set up my Satnav to Coventry where we would lose Guv. The Satnav said 365 miles and my eyes dropped! I was on about 3 hours and an half hours sleep. We were driving pass a country home in Scotland and Tom said look at that sign, it was outside someone’s house, a sign that said ‘Honeysuckle Cottage’, we thought it was hilarious and felt this could be our team steal. Saef ran out of the car and ran back into the car in a panic as the people were at home and vision of an angry Scotsman coming out was not pleasant. But there was a problem the sign was too big and Saef just managed to get it into the front seat as I sped off the edge of the sign was about half an inch away from my eye. We then laughed for about 5 minutes as we got off the country and safety put the sign in the back seat! So we set off and before you knew it the whole car was sleep, which is fair enough I would do the same thing in their position. My eyes started to feel very heavy and I woke half the car up as I drift off and the car drifted from one lane to another! That woke up realising I nearly killed everyone! I told everyone that I need to stop so we stopped at the next services station and I got some food. I woke up a bit and the car set off and everyone was talking again. But an hour later everyone was back to sleep and I was very tired. The loud music did not help and looking at the same M74 road for an hour got my very sleepy. So the next service stop at Gretna we stopped and I told the lads to go inside the service stop while I slept in the car and I said come back in an hour. I started to drift off then the car next doors alarm went off and did so for the next 15 minutes. Then I started to drift off but then Tom came knocking on my door! Asking for poker chips! Which I gave and then said ‘Do not come back!’ I then woke up an hour later and we were off. Apparently the guys played a very crazy Omaha game, which I could just about follow. We stopped off at the next services stop but just to fill up on petrol and the un thinkable happens. I was still a bi tired and drove into the lorry petrol stop instead of the car petrol stop. As I drive away from the petrol stop I hit the risen up curb and drove up above it to get back down but there was a problem, I could not move! One of my wheels were in the air! The wheel was spinning but there was only movement at the back wheels. We were stuck on a sort of curb! We were all tired and had no idea what to do. Saef got out the Honeysuckle sign and placed it under the wheel to allow it to touch the ground and I would drive off it but it did not help! We had no idea what to do! I decided we need to lift the car, there was five us but we could do it, we lifted and tried to pivot the car round but it was useless, we made some progress but the car was in trouble. Then a huge lorry drove in to fill up his tank and a giant of a man came out and like five little girls we asked for ‘help’ He said he a deep husky voice, ‘there are 5 of you LIFT the car’ So we all got on the side of the car and lifted and the car moved with ease as Colossus moved the car single handily, it was an incredible sight! We were shocked, stunned by this Colossus. He then kicked the front of the car and it came straight off the curb! I felt a lot more alive and it was another 220 miles to Coventry! I told Saef in the front seat who kept winning the shot gun that I think I can drive all the way back, no more stops! I felt alive and so did the car. It was just passing midnight and we called up Pav to sing happy birthday to him! Then to try and keep everyone awake Tom suggested a memory game, where each of us had to remember the last thing the other guy said. So Saef started of saying ‘I went to shop and bought a bag’ then I would say ‘I went to the shop and bought a bad and some underwear’ then Guv would say ‘I went to the shop and bought a bad and some underwear and a leather jacket and so one, we ended up getting 24 items before the game ended, if you get an item wrong you are out! It is a lot harder than it sounds! Please contact me for full rules of the game! Then game last about an hour and the drive was going well. We stopped off at Guv’s house in Coventry and left to London another 112 miles away and I was feeling good! An hour later I dropped Saef off in Central London and an hour after that Tom in Balham and 10 minutes later Niraj in Norbury and 2 minutes later arrived home at 6am!!!! The trip took about 12 hours!!!! It was crazy! But it was done, the travel was crazy but it was an amazing trip!!!!!