Midcon

[peterbirks]

This year, the receptionist wisely did not ask me whether I would like a morning paper. Given the hotel's failure two years on the spin to achieve what one would imagine to be a relatively simple task -- deliver a morning paper to a room by 8am -- I was not prepared to gamble on it again. Unlike Homer Simpson, I eventually learn from my mistakes. I would walk round to the newsagent's myself.

This year, I also managed to catch a couple of hours' sleep as soon as I arrived. This would prove useful for staying awake later.

General chat in the bar was followed by a meal at Zebs in Ladypool Road. An excellent Indian.

We then returned and, against my better judgement, I played poker until 3am, for the grand loss of three quid. Because the buy-in was restricted laughably low, Toby Harris decided to play LAGGY in an attempt to build up a decent stack that made the blinds of 25p and 50p reasonable. This resulted in lots of all-ins.

Since a few of the other players were worse than awful, you needed to get cards to build a stack, and I got naff all. It was also the first time I had played live no-limit cash for, well for a long time.






"My God", Sharples thought, "I hope he plays like he shuffles."




"I am not drunk. I have just suffered a bad beat and I am trying to avoid going on tilt", said Toby.

++++

Saturday dawned: I went to buy a paper, ate breakfast, read the paper, and went back to bed.

Saturday dawned again:

We played Caylus, a highly popular game and "the hit of Essen". Although it's rather "bitty", it has some clever game mechanisms, particularly the one which changes the player order (going last is bad). This means that you avoid the problem of Puerto Rico, where everyone wants to sit to the left of the bad player/novice. I managed to come second, but I suspect this was mainly luck. Webley got stuffed.




John Harrington, Geoff Challinger (hidden), smug Liverpudlian fat bastard Oakes, bemused John Webley, playing Goa, I think

After that we got in a game of Puerto Rico. Webley got his own back and pissed on us all, and I came second again!. Unbelievable, two games on the trot and I had yet to finish last.

In the evening we went to the marvellous Carlo's. It's hard to fault this place, except perhaps it's too cheap, which means that it's too crowded. £30 for three courses and coffee! A joy, as ever. I spoke to Rob Thomasson and Webley, while at the other end were Harrington, Oakes, Challinger and Pete Berlin. Pete had arrived from Paris the previous evening, sans wallet, which he had left at the Paris security check-in. Marvellous. So he had to head back to Birmingham airport to pick up his wallet, which had been transported on the next flight and, miraculously, had not ended up in Barbados.

We were also scheduled to be joined by Alan Sharples and Richard Beattie, but neither had actually bothered to find out the name of the place, or where it was, which made it rather difficult for them when they arrived at the lobby to discover that everyone else had gone. Oh, and they also failed to get a mobile phone number of anyone else as back-up. So, sometimes not having a contingencyplan mens you fuck up and, in this case, they did.

Saturday night's poker was, if anything, of a worse quality than Friday's. Oakes managed to break Dave Thomas with a hand almost identical to a pot limit hand that I won six years ago in the Plaza. Oakes has AQ, Thomas has KJ. Flop comes KT4 rainbow. Thomas bets, Oakes calls. Turn brings a Jack. Thomas bets, Oakes mini raises, Thomas goes all in and Oakes calls with the top straight, which stands up.

Oakes got a bit unlucky to Andy Bate, who was, to be frank, just there for the whiskey and fun. Robin had limped with Aces. Paul followed suit with J8s. Andy came in with Q7 of hearts and Nick Parish came in with T7 of spades.

Flop came J98 two hearts. Robin bets out with his Aces. Paul raises all in. Andy calls with his Q7 of hearts and Nick raises with his flopped straight for all that Andy has left. Robin calls (not clever). Andy calls.

Turn brings a rag and the river brings one of the last two tens, giving Andy the hand with the Queen-high straight. Most entertaining.


Got to bed about four, having been stiffed one hand (flopped straight in small blind on board of 256 of clubs. UTG turns out to have limped with AK of clubs. Oh well), but recovered with extreme marginals against players who were obviously going all in pre-flop with garbage when they got short-stacked.


++++

Sunday dawned.

Read papers, played marvellous German game based on building a power grid. This was a cracker that I really enjoyed, perhaps because it was about something macho like building, rather than the normal poncy trading games or settler games we always seem to get these days. Rob Thomasson won and Paul came second, but I managed a good third, maintaining my "always finished in the top half" for the whole weekend. Don't think that I managed that before.

Trip home was a bit shitty, being an ordinary commuter train for two hours and a quarter! Numb bum time, mate. Oh, and a "playful" two-year-old on the seats opposite. I put on the Rio Karma and cranked up Green Day to the max. There was no other way out of it.

Home by 8pm and knackered. But, a good weekend. Met some old friends. Great to see Mr Webley the day before his 50th.

Comments

It's clearly been a long time

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

... the last time I saw Sharples, he had hair.