Guinness and Poker
It was about this very time on friday afternoon when my phone rang. It was a welcome break from the repetition of logging invoices. It was very welcome when I discovered who was on the other end. It was only the rather small, Guinness-swilling, poker-playing, uber-blogging, UK-touring, Iggmeister himself!
Having been touring Ireland, Whales, Scotland, and England, he'd arrived in London for a final couple of days before heading back homewards. I was dissapointed not to be able to offer a spot in my Friday night home game (write up of inagural event still to come) but there hadn't been enough interest last week and I'd already called it off. I rapidly rearranged engagements I had for Saturday afternoon and we made plans to meet at the Gutshot at 1pm.
I'm not sure what to blaim for my lack of sleep on Friday night - whether it was my exitment at meeting Iggy or the vast kebab I ate immediately before bed, we may never know. All the same, after a hearty brekafast (although I'm sure my heart didn't thank me for the immense quanites of colesterol ingested) with Mrs Pink I headed into town strong enough to beat the world. The closure of the Circle and Metropolitan lines did its best to prevent our rendez-vous, but enventually the unmissable Iggy came sauntering down Clarkenwell Road towards my vantage point outside the Gutshot.
We were going to play the £5 rebuy at 2pm but in the end we dicided to give it a miss and wait for a cash game to start, since we'd almost certainly be sat at different tables in the tournament. So we boozed for a couple of hours before our names were called for the cash game. The game that got going was a £50 max buy-in pot-limit holdem game with 50p-£1 blinds. It's quite a juicy game (certainly compared to the £1-2 game with no max buy-in, which can get pretty sharky) but, in my opinion if you're going to restrict the buy-in to 50 big blinds it should really be no-limit rather than pot-limit.
I recognised a few of the players from previous trips. John, a somewhat exentric recent graduate who now works for the Gutshot and was over in Baden last week covering the EPT and bumping into Otis, likes to make out he's a maniac, but is also a reasonably sound player. MadYank was sat inbetween in Iggy and me. He's a semi-pro player who got his name shortly after moving to this side of the pond and never folding. He's fun to have at the table and I've spoken to him a few times before, but he wasn't interested in being at all friendly that day and simply wanted to be the centre of attention at the table. Cock. I ended up telling him he was an arsehole for going into the navy and leaving his wife at home and no wonder it didn't work out when he got back. Ha! It wasn't an entirely unprovoked outburst on my part - he'd made some cinical remark about my prospects when it came up in conversation that I'd recently got married - but my reaction probably had a reasonable amount to do with the number of Guinness consumed by this point!
My afternoon's poker consisted of overplaying AK. I got it five times in total. The first two times I ended up all-in on the flop with only overcards (oops). By the third time I seemed to have learnt my lesson and got away from it when it didn't hit. The fourth time we were all-in three ways preflop. I hit a flush draw on the flop, but managed to win with just Ace high when the flush didn't come! God only knows what the other cretins were playing. I doubled up again when I was all-in against John's pocket Jacks and mamnged to flop a King. All-in all I ended up slightly worse than even, which wasn't too bad considering that I was in for £150 at one point.
The evening rolled around all too quickly. Iggy had to meet back up with his father and I had to head back to North London and attempt to sober up slightly before locating Mrs Pink. It probably would have been useful if I'd have eaten something other than breakfast before boozing it up all afternoon, but hey!
It really was fantastic to meet to Godfather of Poker-Blogging and to top it off he really is a great guy. I had a fantastic afternoon of chatting, boozing and pokering. Iggy did his best to persuad me to make it out to the next blogger gathering. I think December may be too soon to be affordable, but before too long, I'll be there!
Having been touring Ireland, Whales, Scotland, and England, he'd arrived in London for a final couple of days before heading back homewards. I was dissapointed not to be able to offer a spot in my Friday night home game (write up of inagural event still to come) but there hadn't been enough interest last week and I'd already called it off. I rapidly rearranged engagements I had for Saturday afternoon and we made plans to meet at the Gutshot at 1pm.
I'm not sure what to blaim for my lack of sleep on Friday night - whether it was my exitment at meeting Iggy or the vast kebab I ate immediately before bed, we may never know. All the same, after a hearty brekafast (although I'm sure my heart didn't thank me for the immense quanites of colesterol ingested) with Mrs Pink I headed into town strong enough to beat the world. The closure of the Circle and Metropolitan lines did its best to prevent our rendez-vous, but enventually the unmissable Iggy came sauntering down Clarkenwell Road towards my vantage point outside the Gutshot.
We were going to play the £5 rebuy at 2pm but in the end we dicided to give it a miss and wait for a cash game to start, since we'd almost certainly be sat at different tables in the tournament. So we boozed for a couple of hours before our names were called for the cash game. The game that got going was a £50 max buy-in pot-limit holdem game with 50p-£1 blinds. It's quite a juicy game (certainly compared to the £1-2 game with no max buy-in, which can get pretty sharky) but, in my opinion if you're going to restrict the buy-in to 50 big blinds it should really be no-limit rather than pot-limit.
I recognised a few of the players from previous trips. John, a somewhat exentric recent graduate who now works for the Gutshot and was over in Baden last week covering the EPT and bumping into Otis, likes to make out he's a maniac, but is also a reasonably sound player. MadYank was sat inbetween in Iggy and me. He's a semi-pro player who got his name shortly after moving to this side of the pond and never folding. He's fun to have at the table and I've spoken to him a few times before, but he wasn't interested in being at all friendly that day and simply wanted to be the centre of attention at the table. Cock. I ended up telling him he was an arsehole for going into the navy and leaving his wife at home and no wonder it didn't work out when he got back. Ha! It wasn't an entirely unprovoked outburst on my part - he'd made some cinical remark about my prospects when it came up in conversation that I'd recently got married - but my reaction probably had a reasonable amount to do with the number of Guinness consumed by this point!
My afternoon's poker consisted of overplaying AK. I got it five times in total. The first two times I ended up all-in on the flop with only overcards (oops). By the third time I seemed to have learnt my lesson and got away from it when it didn't hit. The fourth time we were all-in three ways preflop. I hit a flush draw on the flop, but managed to win with just Ace high when the flush didn't come! God only knows what the other cretins were playing. I doubled up again when I was all-in against John's pocket Jacks and mamnged to flop a King. All-in all I ended up slightly worse than even, which wasn't too bad considering that I was in for £150 at one point.
The evening rolled around all too quickly. Iggy had to meet back up with his father and I had to head back to North London and attempt to sober up slightly before locating Mrs Pink. It probably would have been useful if I'd have eaten something other than breakfast before boozing it up all afternoon, but hey!
It really was fantastic to meet to Godfather of Poker-Blogging and to top it off he really is a great guy. I had a fantastic afternoon of chatting, boozing and pokering. Iggy did his best to persuad me to make it out to the next blogger gathering. I think December may be too soon to be affordable, but before too long, I'll be there!
posted by Pinky @ 3:33 PM
3 Comments:
At 8:07 PM,
-EV said…
Hey man, good to hear from you! You had asked about the "Pink Chip Game" at the Trop. The chips are not, as you'd suggested, priceless, but worth $2.50 instead. They're blackjack chips, apparently... if you want one I'll send you one (you know, Pinky/pink chip).
The game is $7.50/15.00 limit hold'em, and due to the 3 chip/6 chip structure, the pots LOOK massive and the fish tend to GAMBOOL a lot as a result. Fun times.
At 10:36 AM,
Pinky said…
That sounds like an awsome game. I mean, Pink freaking chips! Next time I'm in AC we'll hit it up for sure!
Would be cool if youre able to send one. Email me at mrpinkmcpink[at]another[dot]com and I'll give you my address.
Have fun this weekend!
At 1:12 AM,
Anonymous said…
COCK YOU
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