Blackpool or Bust

[The Blonde 1]

Stardate : November15th 2007-11-16
Location : A bitter hard cold seaside ‘funtown’ in the North West of England, planet Earth.

I am stood outside the casino waiting for my ‘shirt’ to arrive. 175 happy gamblers have entered into the warmth and excitement of the latest leg on the GUKPT tour. This is my first, possibly only, event with a new sponsor ‘poker.co.uk’. They are kind enough to pay my entry fee in return for me wearing their shirt … the problem that’s its 3.10, the cards are more than in the air. They have been in and out of the muck on more than one occasion … and my shirt is still on the M55.
So eventually the muppet Singleton arrive with the said shirt. Now when they said ‘wear the shirt, it’s a smart shirt’ … well let’s say I believed them. No problemo.
So when Uncle Pete finally arrives, with ‘the shirt’, we dash into the toilets holding hands and my heart drops as I am shown the ‘luminous red shirt’.
Ah well, I’m a professional, poker.co.uk are paying, so lets get the shirt on, and lets get to work… so I sneak around the outside of all the tables to find my seat at the back of the room on table 6, seat 1. Meanwhile, our professional Singleton takes the direct route to … table 6 seat 2. There are 175 available seats, and he ends up sitting next to me.
My normally anaemic cheeks are rapidly approaching the same colour as the shirt as I fend of the banter and so-called compliments on my attire. The word is round the press core like wildfire and I’ve had my photo or video footage taken by 5 or 6 websites, a couple of magazines and even the channel 4 TV crew within the hour. Hmmm maybe the Matt Dale is a shrewder cookie than one gives him credit for?
Anyway during this ‘embarrassment phase’ of the tourney, I’ve managed to dwindle my 10k starting stack down 6200. predominantly due to playing a 10,9 on the button against a limper with 10,8. A board of 10,8,7,2,7 caught my interest but wasn’t quite what I was looking for.
Meanwhile my team mate Lucy, and fellow stokie, has exited before I had even had chance to say hello. She was unfortunate enough to flop a set against a flush and it was time for a walk along the prom. The poker gods can be a pain in the butt at times.
Fortunately by the time we get into the depths of level 3 and 4 I have begun to find my rhythm. I had fortunately flopped a nut flush and been paid of and was now almost reaching a state of dominance with a much more impressive 16k stack.
The dinner break came and went but my rhythm didn’t get disrupted, It was one of those rare occasions when the passive balance of the table was at the exact medium for me to accidentally fall into ‘the zone’, (Ed – what on earth is he talking about?)
Levels came and went and the stack climbed to 20, 22 and the heady heights of 27. And then we picked up a hand: Aces in the Big Blind. The perfect position for this hand. (do you smell the bad beat story coming?)
‘Raise to 800 blah, Iwan, my fellow Welshman called 800, button called 800, blah blah, I re-raise to 3800, pass, blah, Iwan pass, steaming button moves all-in blah blah, with a pair of 3s, very pretty dealer puts out a not so pretty flop containing a 3’
So, a nock-back which was followed by a drier run where the wind was probably out of my sails. The break at the end of level 6 saw me back below average with only 14k. Fortunately I managed to hunt out some Kryptonite though and we were back ‘zoning’ in level 7 and a sequence of small pots saw me rush back ahead of the field to 28k … until we got a little carried away.
Err, hum a mini raise with errr. 4,5 suited saw 4 of us looking at the flop of A,7,3 … Well I had raised so I felt obliged to follow thru representing the said Aces. My 5k bet was swiftly followed by an all-in move for 13k from the welsh-wizard Iwan bach. Oops … so now I had been asked to call for 8k to win the 27k in the middle. The size of the pot, the pot-odds and the fact I have recovery chips left over, were all screaming ‘Valuuuuuuuuu’ at me. I called, Iwan bach turned over top 2 pair. My 8 outs didn’t arrive but his full house did. And I was left with my 13k recovery chips.
Sadly my evil twin Professor Pete exited shortly afterwards having flopped a pair and a flush draw … but some pairs don’t make prizes, as they say.
As level 8 proceeded in the last level 9 I had fallen off the pace, I was getting tired and it was now it was the other welsh bach who was dominating the table. However, I managed to duck and dive and survive my way back to a useable 20,950 by the end of play. We had lost over two-thirds of the field and the average had risen to above 30k … hmmm and maybe, just maybe people were getting used to the shirt.
… tune in on Saturday folks for the latest instalment in the case of the red shirt … will it be lucky? will the blonde one get over his recent run of bad day 2 blues? Will Blackpool ever recover from its slump? Will the mad professor have 3 shredded wheat on Saturday morning? Will Iwan bach return to form? Will Kev O’Connell turn up for a whisky with Julian Gardner? Will Dina wear her sexy high heels again? Will the super casino that never was, wish it was here? … will anyone care?
…that’s all folks!

[DaMatrix]

Welcome to the forum Dave. Good luck in Day 2!

[kidgloves]

Nice tale, I'm Sky + ing the whole series

[CitrusSR]

Good post! and welcome - any pics of this red shirt??

[Dice Man]

Good report...well-played..etc..etc.

My question is: why are you spelling the adjective "blonde" with an "e"? That word denotes females with fair hair. "Blond" without the "e" denotes males with fair hair. I thought you would have known this. Now I just don;t know what to believe...

[Johnny5]

[Prowler]

"Right said fred reform for one off concert"

[The Blonde 1]

blondie ... I am in touch with my feminine side

can u get the pink shirt ready for the final on Sun ? ... just in case

[alexross1977]

gg and good report .

Something I have always wondered - why do you not wear blondepoker attire? surely it's more +ev than a buyin to get snapped blond'ing it up when u ship it?

[Raiser]

er.... which forum am i on??

El Blondie in a PUK' shirt! WOW!

Gl all. Shippppp it.