Weekend Away

Last Saturday saw a break from the drudgery and grind of the online world and a venture into the bright lights of live poker and what a weekend it was.

I quite often visit the laddies forum, which is a home for all the reprobates that started most of their poker life on Ladbrokes. Laddies used to have their own forum, which was very active, but sadly for whatever reason they shut it down. Fortunately, thelodger, one of the forums more active members decided to setup a new forum in homage to the old. So www.laddiesforum.com was born. The commnity spirit on this forum is second to none, it really is like one big happy disfunctional family. Lots of love, lots of rows, a real typical family atmosphere and once your are part of it, it is difficult to not keep popping back to see what is going on.

So, back to the weekend. The forum, decided to organise a live tourney for all to play in. The venue chosen was Dusk Till Dawn (DTD) poker club in Nottingham, a truly magnificent venue for live poker. There were 72 entrants, all members of the forum, with lots of online buddies all raring to have a quiet drink with each other.

I decided, rather wisely, as it happens, to arrive on the Saturday. Others, inlcluding a wild bunch from the Emerald Isle all turned up on the Friday and starting drinking on the lunchtime. As you can imagine a wild time was had by all, including a starter bout in preparation for the Ricky Hatton fight the following night.....They were not a pretty sight on the saturday.

I managed to get a few beers in when booking into the hotel and met a few of my online buddies before heading off to DTD. The club was very impressive and laddies had done a great job sponsoring the event. A few more beers were had, then the tourney started. As I sat down on my table, my immediate thought was, "oh fck, I might as well go home now" My table consisted of - thelodger, spread, RiverMaid, PaulScot1, banksoir, calita-reese (MrsLizard) richlizard and Ken007. At least I could get to the stts early and get some beer down me......

With 5000 starting chips and 30 minute blinds, there was plenty of room for play. I would like to tell you about all of the wonderful plays I made and how I managed to hide all my fears and dominate the table. But....as you can guess, it just didn't happen. In fact, I was completely card dead all of the tourney, considering we started with 5000 chips, I can't remember getting above 7.5k, but somehow managed to hang on until the last two tables eventually going out 18th, with hammy rivering an 8 with J8, vs my A9 push, he had to call, no choice as I was short stacked.

The only real hand of note, was one I won by a technicality. The hand also proves how good the spirit is amongst the community. I think we were down to the last 3 tables and I, like all tourney was short stacked. I had about 2.4k and the blinds were 300/600, I had to make a move. I saw what I thought was emmerson post his Big Blind and I looked down and saw QJ, so I pushed. It was at this point, I realised, emmerson wasn't on the big blind, but had raised UTG, what a twat I was, I was done for. It all folded round to patyp who was on the big blind, who re-raised. I was def fcked now. Emmerson thought for a while and mucked, then the killer punch. patyp had not noticed I had pushed and mucked his cards thinking he had won the hand. The dealer pointed out that I was all in and the chips for mine. Was not my fault, but was expecting summat to all kick off, but no, patyp just accepted the decision with no qualms whatsoever, the only cursing that went on was him kicking himself he had not noticed. I have to take my hat off to him, I think a lot of other people might have reacted differently, so well played patyp, your a credit to the game.

It was shortly after that I met my final demize and went searching for more Winona and some sit and goes, which I found both and continued endulging till 5am when I was deserted by all and had to catch a cab on my own back to the hotel, annoyingly finding at 5:15am, the bar was shut, ffs, whats wrong with this country.

I met so many wonderful people, it would not be fair to single anybody out, but I suggest if you have not paid a visit to the forum, follow the link on the left of the blog (not an affiliated link) and join in what is the wonder of The Laddies forum.

Can't wait till next year.

Crank ya sound up to the max !!!

Slipknot - Duality