WPT - Spanish Championship

Why the WPT decided not to televise their recent event, the Spanish Championship, which ended on Tuesday at the Casino Barcelona, remains a mystery. It was a high class tournament – 253 entrants paying €5000 and contributing to a prize pool of $1,993,071 – in one of the world’s most attractive cities but it didn’t warrant a TV crew.

We can only think that the guys that operate mics and cameras couldn’t be bothered to haul their arses over the Atlantic and experience some culture. Either that or we are underestimating the amount of detailed preparation it takes before they are ready to film the audience at the Bellagio Cup IV in July.

For those who have been deprived of the telegenic appearance of poker’s finest, you can rely on us to keep your brow furrow-free. Think of us as the Oil of Ulay of gaming news – stay with us and you WILL have DRAMATICALLY younger-looking skin.

WPT Spanish Championship – Non-Televised Event (Can you believe that crap?)

1. Caspar Hansen - DEN - $665,720
2. Stefan Mattson – SWE- $346,621
3. Thiago Nishijima - BRA - $176,934
4. Andres Vidal – SWE - $137,703
5. Guy Sitbon - FRA - $118,166
6. Martin Lundenius – SWE - $98,157

GUKPT - Leg 5

The unfeasibly stimulating GUKPT continues to turn heads as it builds to its grand final in London in November. May saw the 5th of the 9 legs take place in Newcastle and it followed the tour’s history by providing an epic climax.

The heads-up contest between Doctor Ganesh Rao and rookie online qualifier Ian Farell lasted over two hours and featured plenty of swings. It also offered two highly contrasting styles: typically, Ian would be the aggressor, raising a lot pre-flop and capturing a lot of blinds but he was matched by Ganesh’s more patient style – often the aggressive bully was trapped in a pot and leaked chips.

The end eventually came at 1am when they were both showing signs of fatigue. Strange things can happen in long heads-up duels due to the accumulation of tough folds and intense pressure. Maybe that explains why Ian decided to go all-in holding 5-2. We will never show for sure. It was probably a simple blind steal but when Ganesh looked at pocket jacks, the band started playing.

Rookie Ian had the good grace to attribute some of his success to his seat placement earlier in the tournament. He said that he was lucky to be sitting with Pete Linton, who finished in 16th, as he learned to adopt an aggressive style. Maybe he will use some of his £33,075 to buy Linton a Newcastle Brown Ale.

However, the general practice is to shine the light on the winner and so we are proud to announce that the good Doctor was awarded £57,175 for his surgical precision on the table.

Roll on Luton’s Leg 6 in August.

Olympic Open Championship - Lithuania

As one door shuts, another door opens.

The month-long Olympic Open Championship has nearly reached its dramatic conclusion. A four week tournament spanning four nations and we still await the winner to be crowned in Poland. On June 1 we will see who emerges Champion but as soon as that happens, we will be expected to starting offering full-throated backing to one of the nations in Euro 2008.

It is not easy following competitions, unless, of course, you are from one of the UK nations. In that case, get ready to kick-back, drink some beer and play some poker!

You may as well continue to follow the news on Eyebrows as it might help offset the pain of failing to qualify for this summer’s ready meal of football. You will no doubt be delighted to read that Estonian Tom Zablockik won the Lithuanian leg of the Olympic Open and snapped up €7,543. Ok, ok, it is not a triumph for the UK but you better get used to that, right kids?

Given that field for the final leg in Poland (currently taking place at the Casino Sunrise Warsaw) contains no UK entrants, we are hoping that when the results are published, a further reminder of your nation’s inadequacy will catapult you from the couch and we’ll see June ablaze with the trails of Britain’s finest poker players.

Failing that, we hear you have a great chance in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Just ask Terry Wogan.

Olympic Open Championship – Lithuania

1. Tom Zablockij – EST – €7,543
2. Igoris Kuklis – LIT – €5,656
3. Rokas Smalstys – LIT €3,770
4. Arturas Antonianas – LIT – €1,885

Poker Unclogged

One of the best aspects of poker is that it rewards those who can make the most astute observations and then form connections. Manuals about the game can help - they increase knowledge of plays, talk about probability and hand you a superb set of starting requirements. Indeed, the latter is the probably the best help you can receive – most leaks can be plugged by a simple reappraisal of opening strategies.

However, assuming a table full of players who understand the basics, it is the one that is most observant who will take the money in the long-term. Essentially, poker is game of character and manuals will never cover the full range of nuances. Awareness of people and the world around you can equate to skill at the poker table.

Take the wonderfully named Herbert O. Yardley.

His memoir, The Education of a Poker Player, has a gushing forward by Ian Fleming. (It is distinctly possible that the Bond author was able to use Yardley’s book a source for his novels.) As Fleming recognised, the book was less a manual of instruction (it does contain a few pages) and more a collection of real-life anecdotes. These stories made Ian Fleming a better player.

How?

Well, let’s look at the journey of the poker player.

Yardley was born in 1889 and inherited $200 upon the death of his mother. At the time, he was sixteen and claims he ‘did pretty much as he pleased’. Although he was Class President, editor of the school paper and football captain, he came alive when he played poker. It utilised his aptitude for mathematics and his ability to make shrewd judgements.

It also introduced him to Monty.

A God at the tables, a giant with his own gambling-den, Monty is the kind of character that can fold jacks-full in a hand that ultimately causes a young farmer to have a fatal heart-attack whilst trying to win a producer’s circus.

Yardley wins himself a position as Monty’s understudy by spotting one of the latter’s tells. It is classic stuff. He walks into the joint, past the stove polished by Dummy, the town idiot, and sits down for a game of Five-Card. The spittoon gleams.

He takes three huge pots from table-thumping Monty and then cracks that one of them was an outrageous bluff. The spittoon dings.

He later tells Monty how he was able to do it: every time the left-handed Master bluffs, he holds his cards in his right hand. Monty then grants him lessons but Yardley has already displayed a great talent: observation.

Monty admits he made a mistake and reads from The Purloined Letter, a story by Edgar Allen Poe. The character wins at a game of even and odd by correctly guessing if his opponent is holding an odd or even amount of marbles.

How?

As Poe writes, ‘It is merely an identification of the reasoner’s intellect with that of his opponent.’

In bloated, over elaborate, ways, that advice is in poker manuals – all it means is that if you over or under value an opponent’s brain you are likely to go broke – but it is better gleamed from Poe, or (even better) Monty or (best yet) direct observation.

As the memoir demonstrates, awareness of the wider world will improve your game and that is why it made Fleming a better player. Read the manuals, read Yardley but most importantly, just think and keep your eyes open.

You’ll soon have all of the school’s marbles.

Happy-Go-Lucky

When her driving instructor addresses Poppy, the main character in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, by her given name, she says she has not been called Penelope for years. One assumes it is because it has an adult ring to it, as she resembles Jemima from Play School and is twice as soft.

Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins, is a thirty year-old, London primary school teacher and the film opens with her riding her bike joyfully through the city. She stops at a bookshop because ‘I haven’t been here before’ and her face is full of wonder. She browses the shelves, finds a book on reality that is ‘not for me’ and promptly leafs through a children’s story. When her happy chat fails to elicit a response from the solemn book-seller, she leaves the shop with a merry nod and discovers her bike has been swiped.

The resulting narrative is about how to complete the journey into what Crusoe’s father called the ‘secure middle station’ without losing one’s sense of enthusiasm and the supporting cast illuminates different aspects of personality integration. There is the driving instructor, superbly played by Eddie Marsan, who lives a joyless existence, controlled by bitterness and anger; or her younger sister, who has achieved a suburban semi, a marriage and a pregnancy but doesn’t smile and wears dull cardigans. Both would benefit from some of Poppy’s attitude, but if they are too parental or too adult, it is also apparent she is too childlike.

The script slightly overplays the initial section as Poppy is on the verge of becoming unbearable. Thankfully, just at screaming point, we are introduced to a minor character, a teacher of flamenco dancing, who has a further permutation on role, enthusiasm and responsibility. She appears to be in firm control. She maintains that passion and self-assertion are crucial to effective dancing and then swiftly has a meltdown due to her intensely raw feelings for an ex-lover. It is a great scene. The timing is ideal as it provides an essential release to the irritation caused by Poppy’s personality and the film then changes gear.

She has a serious of encounters to introduce her to themes of adult responsibility and self assertion. Of these, by far the most dramatic is the tension during her driving lessons. Although slightly predictable, the spells when Poppy is forced to wear a seatbelt cause a gradual expansion of her personality and the dialogue is superb. Both actors elevate the scenes and the conflict is well maintained.

Ultimately, the film’s journey is a familiar one and you may become travel-sick in the first half-hour, but there are enough unique sights along the way. It also features one scene that has wonderful echoes of Abigail’s Party and Secrets and Lies: is almost worth the admission price for that alone.

Rendez-vous a Paris

At promised yesterday, we now bring you a list of winners and losers* from the Rendez-vous a Paris. The grand fromage was Frenchman Roger Hairabedian, who proved he was no surrender-monkey by slicing through a smorgasbord of 138 opponents and landing the €10,000 main event. His slice of the booty was the non-too trifling sum of €419,250 so we suspect he’s now progressed to brandy and cigars.

Other notable winners from the 18 day Parisian jamboree include Tristan Clemenceau, Bachif Boumahdaf and Alexandre Viard. The first two scooped €40,170 and €22,370 respectively for their efforts in smaller Hold ‘em tournaments but Monsieur Viard proved his versatility by winning €12,370 in an event that combined Hold ‘em and Omaha.

It was an intriguing contest as it added a tactical dimension. Players had the option of choosing a re-buy during the early rounds or an add-on at the break. Obviously if you are dumped out in the first hand it is a no-brainer but the process of restricting re-buys meant the event wasn’t characterised by the usual senseless carnage that tends to beset these tournaments.

*Regular readers may recall yesterday’s post about two brothers of the Lane family, one called Winner, the other Loser. How did their lives map out?

They barely speak to each other.

Loser Lane graduated from Lafayette College and joined the NYPD. He is now a sergeant and rarely called Loser. Some give his name a French twist and say ‘Losier’.

His police colleagues call him ‘Lou’.

Winner Lane is now in his mid-forties. He boasts over thirty arrests for such jollities as burglary, domestic violence and resisting arrest.

He is currently unemployed.

Results from the Grand Prix De Paris

1. Roger Hairabedian – FRA – €419,520
2. Mickael Seban – FRA – €222,870
3. Talal Shakerchi – UK – €157,320
4. Ryad Abour – FRA – €104,880
5. Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier – FRA – €78,660
6. Nasrodin ‘Bandit’ Pirmamod – FRA – €65,550
7. Janne Lamsa – FIN – €52,440
8. Franck Kalfon – FRA – €39,330
9. Cedric Sequin – FRA – €26,220

Winners and Losers

We at Eyebrows know how difficult it can be to pick a winner. We can look down the list of players in a high stakes poker tournament and no name leaps out. The Rendez-vous a Paris was a particularly baffling time, as it featured eighteen days of intense poker and attracted players from across Europe, fighting it out over a range of games.

Christ.

If asked to select the player most likely to line his pockets, we would have been under intense pressure. It could be anyone. It is at times like these that we appreciate the efforts of a New Yorker called Robert Lane. After having several children, he decided to name his next baby boy Winner.

Winner Lane.

He could be in a movie scripted by Sylvester Stallone

If only lists of entrants of poker tournaments could be touched by the principles of Robert Lane, our lives would be so much easier. Three years later, he had his final baby boy and, for reasons that mere poker journalists can only bet at, decided to call him Loser. Just like trailing the Lane family tree, we could look at a long list of poker players and easily see the Winner and the Loser.

If only life were like that.

Until it is, we will have to rely on factual results and not life-influencing insights into the fate of man.

Tomorrow, you’ll definitely have the former.

We’ll do our best to provide the latter.

Don’t get your hopes up though.

We are not Robert Lane.

Iron Man

For every title in the movie database http://www.imdb.com/ , there is a section called Plot Keywords. For the recent film Iron Man, one of them is Exploding Bus. Further research reveals that there is a whole body suit full of these keywords, but most, like ‘Newspaper, Rock Music and Bald’ are not as informative.

(Incidentally, add another line to your ‘how to fritter away time on the internet’ list and click on some of the plot words for some extravagantly enmeshed films. It is possible to link Cinema Paradiso, Saving Private Ryan and Dennis The Menace by the crucial element of Person on Fire.)

It comes down to the exploding bus. The other details, like the cast, direction and plot are important, but your attitude towards blockbusters that trash public transport systems will dictate whether or not you buy the ticket.

If you do fork over your pennies you will find yourself watching Robert Downey JR ride a Humvee, in Afghanistan. He is playing a genius called Tony Stark who designs and supplies the US army with technologically advanced weapons. The guarding soldiers are anxious but he soon soothes their nerves by displaying his streetwise wit and sipping whiskey. The accompanying rock music helps too.

Suddenly, they are attacked by a missile. It turns out it was not a punishment meted out by the Taliban because they heard unlawful music, but an explosive entrance from a lesser known organisation called The Ten Rings. Stark is captured and taken to a cave, where he meets the leader, Raza, a guy that reveals his malevolence in the way he tosses a spanner. He must have skipped the health and safety day at the forge.

After the awkward introductions have finished and they have shared some sneer time, it transpires that The Ten Rings want Stark to build them a missile. It proves to be a watershed as the man who builds bombs is horrified when he is asked to build a bomb. He refuses but is forced to agree when a fellow prisoner is threatened with torture.

Through various manipulations of objects found in the cave, Stark is able to display his knowledge of the A-Team box-set and build his way out of trouble. When he returns to California he tells his right-hand man, Obadiah Stane (played by a bald, bearded Jeff Bridges, who oddly resembles an aging Nordic fisherman) his days of arms building are over and he wants to work for peace.

And so the process begins that will result in Stark developing a high tech suit and fighting the forces of evil. It’s a blast. Director Jon Favreau let the cast improvise some of the dialogue and it helps lend a sense of freshness to a heavily mined plotline. It is almost like watching the guys from Swingers riff on the idea of being a super-hero.

It is polished, witty and strongly resembles the sixties’ comic books of Stan Lee, who based the hero on Howard Hughes. It just about stays the right side of madness and is a thoroughly entertaining romp. Like a lot of first instalments, it suffers a little from a need to establish so much back-story and the gladiatorial clash at the climax is not quite worthy of the build-up but Robert Downey Jr elevates it from cliché. He plays the hero as someone who his spent his youth car-jacking in Grand Theft Auto when he should have been riding his tricycle. It is a great journey. If you go for the bus, you’ll stay for the ride.

Poker Unclogged

Here’s an unexpected snippet from the race to be elected the Democratic candidate for the presidency: when Barack Obama was asked to name a ‘hidden talent’, he said he considers himself ‘a pretty good poker player’. There was a subsequent information blackout, presumably perpetrated by his minders who will be worried they will lose the vote of the Puritans. As James McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street puts it, ‘playing poker for tiny stakes has turned radioactive.’

It seems an odd state of affairs that a game that was frequently labelled America’s favourite pastime is at times treated with a level of respect usually awarded to workers of the world’s oldest profession. It wasn’t always thus: plenty of previous Presidents, some not immune to using persuasive powers to attract a spare dollar, have turned a few tricks at the poker table.

Truman, a man who had a sign on his desk at The White House stating ‘The Buck Stops Here’ was playing poker when he learned he was to be President. He continued to play the game throughout his life, at times with the White House press corps. When he was Vice-President, the game was a key part of his relaxation and some sources have argued had Hitler kicked back in a way similar to his enemies in London and Washington, he would have proved a great threat.

Truman later said, ‘He [runs] for office talking out of both sides of his mouth and lying out of both sides.’ He was referring to another keen poker player, Richard Nixon.

In his autobiography, Nixon wrote ‘I learned that the people who have cards are usually [those] who talk the least and the softest; those who are bluffing tend to talk loudly’. His stance obviously gave Truman a ‘tell’ and also possibly explains why, when he said in a TV interview broadcast in the height of the Watergate scandal, ‘I’m not a crook’, he was so softly spoken.

Although they would have hated to be paired together, both Truman and Nixon were highly profitable players, the latter allegedly partially funding his first campaign for Congress with his winnings. In a way, seeing a successful poker player become the most odious President of the 20th Century could, for some, be a more acceptable reason for some to criticise the game as moral Kryptonite. At least it makes more sense than being told that if you play, you are damned to hell.

Sadly, some of same people who know that you cannot judge the game based on one player, also fear eternity in an inferno. We will probably hear no more about Obama’s game. From what little information we have, he is versatile but avoids unnecessary risks. He wants premium cards before he gets involved. They sound like promising assets for the potential leader of the free world.

If he wins, we may see a change of attitude and those chips used by Truman, embossed with the presidential seal, may again glide over tables at The White House. We might even see the US online gaming laws changed for the better.

But let’s not go nuts.

Olympic Open Championship – Latvia

On May 17th 1792, the New York Stock Exchange was formed. It was born from simple origins: the Buttonwood Agreement was named because 24 brokers signed a piece of scrap paper under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street.

Today, its trading floor has a continuous auction format which demands precise human interaction and rapid, expert judgement from its traders: in other words, it’s poker with a health plan.

Sadly, the history of poker is harder to trace, and not just because it is hard to find 24 players who will gather under a tree (that’s outside, for Christ’s sake!) and nod in agreement. Some say it has its origins in the Persian game ‘As Nas’, others hold that it was born in France and named ‘Poque’.

Whatever mysterious circumstances led to the game being hatched, players have been matched and dispatched for centuries. However, on May17th, 2008, Jukka Juvonen managed to avoid the ultimate curse and won the Latvian leg of the Olympic Open Championship at the Voodoo casino.
The event was part of the four weeks of tournaments hosted in four different countries across Eastern Europe. The series will now move to Lithuania before climaxing in Poland. Such an undertaking has clearly involved some handshaking, negotiation and deal-forming: it was done by brokers, not players. However, unlike the Stock Exchange, this institution can open its floor to someone who is not employed by a member firm. It is a club for those who don’t want to join a team and therefore it is perfect for poker.

Results from Olympic Open Championship – Latvia

1. Jukka Juvonen – FIN – €8,350
2. Valdis Muiznieks – LAT – €4,640
3. Aleksandrs Karlins – LAT – €3,155
4. Timurs Sahnovs – LAT – €2,405

Voodoo Casino

It is happened.

Never doubt us.

We have discovered the secret.

We now know what it is.

We understand the power of the Terminator Chip and there will be another tournament harnessing the force of this awesome chunk of plastic next week at the Olympic Casino Lietuva, Lithuania.

The tournament forms part of the Olympic Open Championship 2008 which is currently rampaging through the Baltics. This weekend will see it tear through the Voodoo Casino in Riga, Latvia, and interested parties can buy in for €1000 to play the venue’s main event at 6pm today. However, it is time to divulge the secret of the terminator chip.

In ‘Terminator Tournaments’, a certain part of the buy-in, usually 10-20%, is allocated to the value of the chip of death. Every player receives one and the tournament follows standard NL structure. If you eliminate an opponent, you win his terminator chip. It doesn’t add any value to your stack but it is a bounty for his scalp. You can trouser it and cash it out later or you can follow local custom which is to buy a beer for the player with the biggest stack at the table.

Upon first reading, that might seem to be capitalism at its cruellest: a broke punter is hoofed out of the tournament, desperate for some alcohol to dull the pain and is presented with the sight of his moolah paying for the richest guy to enjoy a free cold one.

However, it might be more about wealth redistribution that it first appears. Think about it: the guy doing well could end up with a lot of free beer. After a while, he could be bear-hugging his fellow players, singing Sinatra and blowing his stack. Suddenly, he’s not chip leader and someone else is pursing their lips around the free chalice of beer.

The custom has the genius of Shakespeare and the same potential to end in tragedy or comedy, depending on whether the table finishes littered with bodies or with a rendition of New York, New York and a young couple retiring to a hotel penthouse.

CAPT Innsbruck

It is refreshing that the Innsbruck outlet of Casinos Austria requires that gentlemen wear a jacket when they attend major poker tournaments. There is a tendency for male poker players to be strong individuals with their own idea of what constitutes acceptable table wear. Consequently, some casinos look like they admit gamblers who still have milk teeth.

A player, like Mihai Manole, who waddles away, freshly pacified by, say, €55,650, should look like he can dress himself. Unfortunately, though, it won’t catch on – even the popularity of the Bond movie Casino Royale, with its hero playing high-stakes hold ‘em in a D-J, have failed to make a difference. Events like Saturday’s €2000 NL Freezeout will continue to be the exception rather than the rule and printed ‘comedy’ T-shirts will still have us rolling in the rails.

Today’s Eyebrows’ poker blog has been brought to you by ‘Fuddy-Duddies of Europe’, a sometime contributing organisation. If you ever read the expressions ‘Why, oh why did he call’, ‘Poker players today just don’t……’ or ‘ flops like those never happened in my day’, you will know you are safe in the hands of the FDs or some other Darwinian also-ran.

Main Event – CAPT Innsbruck

1. Mihai Manole – ROM – €55,650
2. Hans Fest – GER – €40,300
3. Christian von Rohr – SWI – €28,790
4. Peter Hanke – AUT – €19,960
5. Karl Weiss – AUT – €15,350
6. Febrizio Leonardi – ITA – €11,500
7. Antonio Turrisi – ITA – €7,680
8. Hansi Suppan - AUT – 5,760
9. Christian Segala – ITA - €3,840
10. Michael Keiner – GER – €3,070

Olympic Open Championship

Kristjan Rummel is an Estonian poker player. According to his statistics from the Olympic Poker Club, he has participated in 450 tournaments and amassed 13220 ranking points. Following his success at the Olympic Open Championship held in Tallinn last week, he can now also call himself a Texas Terminator.

We still don’t know what that means.

We do know that, in addition to a truly awe-inspiring title, he won €3,089 but the money somehow feels irrelevant.

We just need to know: what the hell is a Texas Terminator?

Last week’s entreaties have, sadly, yielded no satisfactory answers, but thank you to the punter who suggested it is George Bush’s evil twin. (Ed – George is the good one??) We do, however, realise that it is our duty to unearth these mysteries and vow to forego alcohol, sex, and sleep (Ed – highly appropriate order) until we have the answer.

Watch this space.

In slightly more boring news, here are the final results for the €1050 main event of the Championship.

Yadda, yadda.

Olympic Open Championship 2008 – Tallinn

1. Lasse Ludvig Nielsen - €20,299
2. Jan Svendsen – €18,732
3. Ilari Tahkokallio – €13,160
4. Selim Mustafa - €9,606
5. Taivo Egel – €6,436
6. Morten Sembach – €5,187
7. Tom Zablockij - €4,035
8. Nils Krogstad - €3,554
9. Jesper Hornekaer – €3,170

Poker Unclogged

Regular readers may remember that Poker Unclogged brings you strange poker tales every Tuesday. Sometimes that can involve back-breaking treks into the wilderness, our only company a mouse with a strange third button. (It must have been designed by a frustrated woman to help her boyfriend locate the nub of the matter.)

However on other occasions, stories are available on tap and all we have to do is sit at the bar and become intoxicated on their mind altering substance.

As an example of the latter, consider these two tales, one about poker and the other about an alleged crime: – you have to work out which one is true.

There was a recent case of a man being conned out of $35,000. He was told by a Frenchman that if he left a mixture of real cash and blank bills to marinate in a magical liquid overnight, he would double the value of his cash. When he woke up next morning, (surprise, surprise) both the cash and the alleged con-artist had disappeared.

The victim could not even afford to buy some beef cutlets and utilise the remaining marinade. Maybe the cutlets would have become a cow which he could trade on the way to the market for some magical beans which his mother would then throw out of the window and then …….ok, ok, we digress

The next tale is about the WSOP.

A few years ago, Harrah’s, the hotel-casino chain acquired the rights to the largest set of poker tournaments in the world. The casino wasted no time pissing off the players: the tournament was moved from May to July. Vegas is a hell-hole in July: too hot, the decent shows stop and some of the hookers take vacations. It was clearly a move with the player’s best interests at hears and not a brilliant idea to fill Harrah’s empty rooms.

Not content to exposing players to heightened risk of skin-cancer, the chain has now decided that they are going to delay the final of the main event until November so they can ‘maximise coverage’. So, after the final table of 9 is formed, there will be a 4 month gap until play is resumed. Players will be able ‘to heighten their media profile’ and it will be good for ‘the popularity of the game’.

Read these two tales again.

On initial reading you might think that the first is unbelievable. How could someone think that dipping money into a jar of Chicken Tonight could result in a windfall?

However, look again at the second.

How can an organiser of a poker tournament think it’s a good idea to have a four month gap before playing the final table?

If you think about the tales together, you may think they are ultimately the same story: one individual/group telling another: ‘this will benefit you!’ whilst trousering more cash. The Frenchman makes an easy $35,000, Harrah’s sells much more TV coverage.

No matter that an innocent is now broke or that a great poker tournament could be subject to a scam, blackmail or even the death of one of the participants. As long as someone is maximising their take, why should they worry about the consequence?

BTW – sadly, both stories are true.

The Frenchman was caught and will go on trial.

Harrah’s are yet to be charged for any impropriety.

In Bruges

In his latest film, actor Colin Farell’s character Ray is in a gallery looking at a picture and says,

‘Purgatory is when you’re not really bad and not really good ….. like Tottenham.’

The movie stands a better chance than Spurs of making it to top of the table heaven as it has the creativity of Barcelona and the structure of Chelsea.

Ken and Ray, a pair of Irish hit-men, have been forced to skedaddle from London and are lying low ‘In Bruges’, awaiting instructions from their boss Harry. The father figure of the two, Ken, played by Brendan Gleeson, is using the lay-up to achieve ‘a balance between culture and fun’. However, the city’s medieval architecture is struggling to impress Ray who ponders ‘Maybe that’s what hell is, an entire eternity spent in Bruges’.

The script, written and directed by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, who won an Oscar for the short film ‘Six Shooter’, regularly serves up uncertainties as the characters are exposed to circumstances that could prove to be either purifying or damning. The tension resulting from the imposed spell of quarantine causes explosively rapid fire patter set to the Christmas card background of Bruges.

When the main characters stumble upon a dwarf American on a film set, their plans to sit tight and wait for instructions are peppered with bullets. The subsequent events are chaotic, clever, and surreal. They also boast by original characters in unique scenarios.

The casting is superb and the relationship between the two main characters is thoroughly believable as a father-son dynamic. In the latter stages, Ralph Fiennes swaggers on as the big man and gives a performance that could be the mob-boss lovechild if ‘Sexy Beast’ ever met ‘Snatch’.

The film wears its influences well and is a joy throughout. Like ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ it explores themes of loyalty, morality and powerlessness but it adds intellectual depth and improves the comedy. In one scene Harry is presented with a table full of guns, sees a semi-automatic and comments,

‘An Uzi? I’m not from South Central Los Angeles. I’m not planning on mowing down a bunch of ten year old black kids in a drive-by. I need a normal gun for a normal person.’

It unlikely that would appear in a Tarantino script and it is to Martin McDonagh’s credit that it features In Bruges.

Olympic Open Championship

This weekend will see the climax of the Olympic Open Championship at the Olympic Casino, Tallinn, Estonia. The two day Hold ‘em freezeout event will begin at 6pm today, local time, and players who are eager to pay the €1050 buy-in are advised by a Tallinn tourist site to ‘be prepared, be active, be curious’.

Quite.

Plenty of side games are expected and smaller tournaments have been running all week, including one called ‘Texas Terminator’. If there are any enlightened folk out there who are aware of the nature of this event, please post a comment: it has the team here scratching body parts at a level not seen since Alf brought in the itching powder.

We would particularly like to know what a ‘terminator chip’ is and if we can use it on the annoying practical joker in the office.

Comments are also welcome if anyone knows of a good non-irritating soap.

CAPT Innsbruck

It is good to see that the CAPT event taking place at Casinos Austria, Innsbruck is including a €200 Pot Limit tournament, starting at 2pm today.

Pot Limit deserves a wider audience. In most scenarios, players are unable to cram their chips into the middle, pre flop and so it forces them to make more decisions, playing down the streets: it can easily been seen as the thinking person’s game of poker. It’s never been very popular in America. Make of that what you will.

In Pot Limit, it is pretty impossible to force players, pre-flop, off their small to mid pairs so you see a lot more flopped sets. This is where the game becomes particularly interesting. Experienced Hold ‘em players will regularly lose their stack as they are unable to throw away big pockets, not realising that the pre-flop caller is now perched on three snowmen, dangling a carrot of a small bet into the raiser. It can be carnage but it can also be very rewarding if you prefer a game that requires a little more stealth.

Predictably, however, the biggest prize on offer at the CAPT Innsbruck is €2000 NL Freezeout which begins at 2pm Saturday and concludes on Sunday. Although the NL game will always be more popular as it has greater razzmatazz and forces players to call more coin-flips, PL can provide a cheaper alternative. It is also a great place to hone your skills.

Scottish Amateur Poker Championship

There are plenty of ways to celebrate May Day in Scotland but Jason Jones opted to mark the occasion in his own style by winning the Scottish Amateur Poker Championship at the Gala Maybury Casino in Edinburgh. His efforts earned him £3,000, a silver cup, a gold medal and an expenses paid entry into a GUKPT event.

The long weekend and the low entrance fee of £75 caused the tournament to sell all of its 132 places. Players were also attracted by the slow clock, the 10,000 starting chips and the friendly atmosphere but, by the end of Day 1, only 22 had survived.

By the time the final table of 9 had formed, Jones was 6th with a below average stack. He needed something to happen. It did. Imagine how he felt when he glimpsed aces in the hole and someone had just pushed 76,000 chips into the middle. It’s at times like this when you cry ‘Come to Mama’.

The other guy had J-T. It’s not an awful push, out of position, with plenty of chips, but it does suggest a player that might struggle to take too many steps forward as he’s too busy kicking himself in the arse.

Jason then bullied for a while, raising pre-flop but seeing no action. He was gaining momentum but he showed his patience when faced with an all-in re-raise to 166,000, as he mucked his AJ suited. It paid off a few hands later when he was blessed with the good fortune to flop a set against pocket kings.

When his QQ held against AT, he was chip leader of a table of 5 and his tournament was ideal – cards when he needed them, good decisions and a flopped monster – it’s all you can ask for. Oh, and flopping the nut straight (with flush draw) in a three-way pot and killing off 3rd and 4th – that helps too.

He was now heads up with a 9-1 chip advantage over Glen Taylor, who, three minutes later, decided to go all-in with 8-3. Jones called with an ace and he, when it held, he was crowned champion. Taylor was the 7th finalist he had eliminated. Not bad for an amateur.

Result of the Scottish Amateur Poker Championship

1. Jason Jones - £3,000
2. Glen Taylor - £1750
3. Ian Wheeler - £1000
4. Stuart Brown - £500
5. Chris McDonald - £500
6. James Eccles - £500
7. Stephen Coope - £500
8. Robert Ingoldby - £500
9. Simon Auckland - £500

Poker Unclogged

Welcome to the second week of Poker Unclogged, our new column that brings you obscure facts and features about the game that drives us wild.

We start with a children’s joke:

Q: Why did the bumblebees go on strike?

A: Because they wanted shorter flowers and more honey.

During the California Gold Rush of the mid-nineteenth century, there were those who wanted their share of the pot. They didn’t want the long hours and the dirty hands that were consequences of panning. Some say they were concerned about environmental damage, others argue they were bone idle.

Whatever.

These individuals soon found themselves in San Francisco’s saloons. We are sure any student of human behaviour will be stunned to learn that these places of ill repute, flushed with new money, soon began to offer liquor, women and games of chance. We know, we know - it’s truly shocking, but they were heady days, ok?

Instant wealth was everywhere. Gone was the time when people would accumulate a little bit, year after year. They wanted it now, gawd-dammit, and if they couldn’t get it through panning for gold, they could always play poker. Players sharpened their game and it wasn’t long before there was a demand for private, high-stakes poker rooms and fortunes started changing hands.

The Cinch Room in the Palace Hotel quickly became one of the most alluring, presumably because it was ‘richly equipped with innumerable brass spittoons’ and it welcomed players with high expectorations: the richest spitters in town played for probably the highest stakes in poker’s history. Pots regularly topped $100,000 and ones of $50,000 were very common – today, those amounts would equate to several million dollars.

Notable players included:

James C Flood – not only did he make a fortune investing on the basis of advice of punters in a saloon he owned, he also made $1m dollars playing poker, which enabled him to form Nevada Bank, which later became Wells Fargo.

Senator James Graham Fair – ‘Slippery Jim’ – One of the founders of the ‘Bonanza Firm’, he was a habitual adulterer who was not invited to his daughter’s wedding. However, he was obviously not bitter as he managed to leave his family $40m in trust funds when he died, an amount boosted by his poker skills.

Senator William Sharon – A member of the Republican party, famous for a judicial ruling that after his death caused a knife fight in the courthouse, his poker skills earned him $1m dollars.

Whilst many people left California with little more than they arrived with, there were others who, without getting their hands dirty, amassed personal fortunes and greatly influenced the direction of its cities: a fair proportion were talented poker players who worked short hours and knew when to strike.

Rendez-vous A' Paris

There many ways to occupy your time on May Day, particularly as deducing the symbolism of the maypole does not occupy too much time. If you don’t fancy joining students in Scotland to rush, naked, into the North Sea, then maybe you could purchase a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 and deduce whether the main character, a tooled up psycho with a murky violent past, really is modelled on Roy Keane.

Alternatively, you could scoot over to Paris, honour the custom of giving someone a lily of the valley, and then saunter over to the Aviation Club de France to try to work your lucky charm.

The casino is attempting to justify its claim to have ‘the best cash games in Europe’ by offering an 18 day, poker extravaganza called ‘Rendez-vous A’ Paris.’ It promises to be quite a celebration, with a wide range of tournaments, culminating with the ‘Grand Prix De Paris.’

Starting on May 15th, players with €10,000 to spare can enter a NL Freezeout and try to win a prize which is likely to top last year’s €422,560. Although it might not be enough to force Roy Keane to smile, it has to better than exposing your bits in Scotland.