BCPC Season 15, Game 2 – Friday 4 December2015
Whistle crew get ready! Horns crew get ready! Ravers get ready! Cards in the air!!!!!!!
I think all poker players struggle to get the balance right between being competitive and just enjoying the poker. Winning is such a great feeling that, inevitably perhaps, anything but first place always feels like a kick in the nuts. So you have to constantly remind yourself that you play because you enjoy playing, and if you cash or even win then great, but if you don’t then that’s OK because you had a good time anyway. It really is the taking part that counts.
And I think as you get older and have played the game for longer, then you do get better at shrugging off the bad beats and coolers. Plus when you hear of friend-of-the-club Steve Ball’s battle with cancer it really puts it all into perspective.
The point to all this is that the BCPC is the one place more than any other for me where I can have a great game of poker with a decent structure and also have a laugh and a giggle with everyone. We take it seriously, but – for the most part – not too seriously. And I love that. Last night was no exception as everyone seemed to be having a great time, laughing and joking and, er, dancing a bit as well. 🙂 Gaz was first out but took it great as always, dusted himself down, and then offered to deal to the table. And that’s the kind of thing I mean.
The venue
I think it worked pretty well. Lorna’s asked me to compile a list of the small gripes we might have had so that she can feed them back to the manager and hopefully improve what they do going forward. So the lack of Guinness will be on that list, and the fact that they didn’t have any stock to replenish the Carling and Strongbow, which is a bit bizarre. Some players had to resort to double vodka Redbulls. :-O
The lighting was a bit all-or-nothing as well – would have been good to have it a bit duskier.
On the plus side, car park was good, albeit I don’t think anyone trusted me that we were allowed to use it. 🙂 There was loads of space, and the music was AWESOME! I especially liked the happy hardcore version of Braveheart and Jake’s nag-me-to-death-until-I-play-it Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden. Stirring stuff.
Leaderboard after Game 1
The early leaders were:
| Position | Name | Points |
| 1 | Gareth Howard | 15 |
| 2 | Nic Rawlings | 12 |
| 3 | Chris Baker | 10 |
| 4 | Liam Pickering | 8 |
| 5 | Mark England | 6 |
| 6 | Claire Thornton | 5 |
| 7 | Jay Scott | 4 |
| 8 | Simon Smith | 3 |
| 9 | Tod Wood | 2 |
| 10 | Tony Trippier | 1 |
Rewind, rewind, rewind
No Shirt of Shame on view this week as Matt Kay was unable to make it.
Matt Wilson seemed to be the fastest out of the traps, playing like a bleeding maniac! Raising every hand, reraising frequently, he was a machine.
Over on the secondary table it was Jake Poxon making the early running. His chipstack seemed destined to grow further after his tens saw a flop of 789 against Chris Baker’s 9T. A ten on the turn made him 80% favourite but the 6 on the river meant they chopped the pot with the ten-high straight. Doh.
No high-hand winner again this week so that pot must be nearing £100 now. Although Mark England thought he may have won it as he scooped a nice pot with a ROYAL FLUSH!. Unfortunately his hand Ah7h contributed only one card to the RF, so no jackpot.
According to my notes, Yan was knocked out with TT v Nic Cross’s KK. Who’s Yan? Perhaps this was Jay. Fair to say the alcohol had kicked in by this point.
Tony T failed to make the points this week, his flush draw missing against Chris’s slow-played kings.
Chris himself followed soon after, but kept busy by giving a kind of half-time team talk with the flipchart. Brilliant. (Lorna promises me she’ll get a photo of his analysis when she’s there on Thursday.)
Then when the manager arrived at midnight to relieve the barmaid (oo-er), Chris was like, “Excuse me! Er, who are you?! You can’t come in here!”
“I’m the manager.”
“Oh.”
In the end though, it all got a bit too much for the big fella.
Cash game
Brilliant fun as always. Especially the inclusion of Stomaha into every variation played. So we had:
- 6-card Omaha hi-lo. With Stomaha.
- 7-card Omaha 3 boards swap a card at the end. With Stomaha.
- 6-card Omaha hi-lo 3 flops, 2 turns, 1 river, deuces are wild, get a free card if the ace of spades is on the board and swap 2 cards if the ace of clubs is on the board. With Stomaha.
Hard enough to play at the best of times but then we inexplicably used the 1000 chip as the £1 chip. I did not cope well with that.
Final table
I’m not sure I got the blinds quite right but it all seemed fine and we finished around the usual time I think. Our braves heroes who made the points this week were:
| Position | Name | Words |
| 10 | Mark England | Didn’t catch the exit hand, but another points-scoring performance for Mark. |
| 9 | Dale Macchiarelli | Ran AJs into Jake’s pocket aces. |
| 8 | Nic Cross | Not sure what Nic had but it wasn’t good enough to beat Adam Smith’s flush. |
| 7 | Adam Phelan | Pushed on the flop with a gutshot holding K9, lost to TJ. Can’t remember who had that, Claire maybe. Can’t remember the board. Can’t remember much! |
| 6 | Tod Wood | Low on chips after an ill-advised bluff against Claire, eventually waking up with QQ only to run into KK. |
| 5 | Matt Wilson | Matt’s turn to run into pocket aces, this time Adam Smith’s. Matt’s A4 in big trouble and no miracle came. |
| 4 | Claire Thornton | If my notes are right then unlucky to get it in way ahead but finish up behind with KK v Simon’s JJ. |
| 3 | Jake Poxon | My notes say Jake AK. Make of that what you will. |
| Runner-up | Adam Smith | AIPF I think, AT losing out to AQ. |
| Winner | Simon Smith | A terrific performance and first league win for the other Mr Smith. Now sitting pretty at the top of the league. |
Current Leaderboard
At the top we now have:
| Position | Name | Pts |
| 1 | Simon Smith | 18 |
| 2 | Gareth Howard | 15 |
| 3 | Claire Thornton | 13 |
| 4 | Nic Rawlings | 12 |
| 5 | Adam Smith | 12 |
| 6 | Chris Baker | 10 |
| 7 | Jake Poxon | 10 |
| 8 | Liam Pickering | 8 |
| 9 | Mark England | 7 |
| 10 | Tod Wood | 7 |
A great night of poker.
Thanks to everyone that helped out and for Claire for giving me a lift home. A have little recollection of the journey.
Next league game (usual venue: New Talbot)
Friday 8 January 2016
TV
Peep Show finishes it’s final ever series soon. If you’ve never watched it then, well, watch it. They’re all on 4OD or All4 or whatever it’s called these days. Am looking forward to the Shark Cage final. Although in general there’s too much backstage crap, it should still be good to see Ivey, Negreanu and Esfandiari battle it out.
Merry Xmas all and a Happy New Year. See you on the other side.
