TODAY - VOKINGHAM.

TOMORROW- ZE WERLD!

Steve  Deadmoney

Those of you with more than just a passing interest in the Phat Dogs will be aware that we have plans to achieve rather more in the world of poker than we've got any right to expect. It's a bit of a bluff on our part, but as in holdem, an aggressive attitude often wins the day.

So what went wrong? I hear you ask. Well, actually, nothing. These things take time to organise. However, there has been a general air of poker-fatigue amongst some of the Dogs lately. Maybe we had all been playing too much (OK, I didnt think that one through too carefully). Maybe its that, with our guests taking virtually all the available spare seats, scoring league points or actually winning a game has become a good deal harder. I for one have certainly noticed its harder to get a good deal...

Or is it simply that organising anything by committee automatically makes it boring, takes at least 3 times as long to make any kind of progress, and generally causes more grief than The Griefmaster 2000? - as seen on QVC (world patents pending). Frankly, Im not sure, and I cant make my mind up whether or not we should have a meeting about it either...

My dithering, fence-sitting attitude was brought sharply into focus this week at the game at Sparrows Nest in sunny Wokingham. Our host, Dave 2 chairs, was running amok with new ideas. Not ideas for consultation - oh no. Ideas to be implemented that very evening. He had obviously decided that talk is cheap and what was needed was some action. I should have guessed he would go a bit overboard with power - the clues were all there...

Dave had bubbled in the previous 2 games, and like any good player, was determined to try his damnedest to get a result. Moreover, his work for a large software company necessitates regular meetings - he understands how these things operate. Clearly being host was, in Daves mind, the equivalent of being the chair at one of these meetings. So, Dave 3 chairs? Not quite. It transpired that he had also held onto 2 of Adams chairs from a week or so back. Dave 5 chairs then. No wonder it went to his head. For Gods sake, DO NOT give him any more of your furniture!

So what were these changes? Well, in good Teutonic tradition, it was all about efficiency. Dave had clearly undertaken a time and motion study, and we were all about to find out how we could play more hands and yet at the same time, finish the game earlier. Next week will no doubt see the launch of Daves Kampf at Waterstones, and we can all look forward to the exciting world of Uber-Poker. That's probably a little harsh. Herr Obergruppenfuhrer Schparrow only has the best intentions for the Dogs after all - as he kindly requested me to point out whilst holding back 2 snarling Rottweilers and pointing a Mauser 9mm Luger at my forehead... I couldn't really blame him - my receding hair makes it a pretty big target.

There were 9 guinea pigs for the Kommandants experiments. 5 Dogs (I guess in Dave?s eyes that would make us English <guinea> Pig-Dogs) and 4 guests. The Dogs were Dave, Marty, Adam, Andy and Steve. Our guests (New Pete, Del, Nick and Craig) had all been along before, and I wondered what they would make of Daves New Order. They all seemed happy enough, which is just as well because Dave wasn't taking any prisoners tonight. I got the distinct impression that if any of them had questioned him, Daves response would have been Ve giff ze orders!

So, more poker in less time? Dave had been thorough. By assessing where all the time had been wasted before and implementing 3 simple alterations, his plan worked. Firstly, the initial chip distribution was made using more of the smaller denomination chips. With plenty of small chips on the table, our rebuys (all in 500s & 1000s) became virtually instant. Next, he had downloaded a Tournament Management program and ran it on a laptop that we could all see. No more questions about how long before the blinds went up, how long until the freeze-out, how much the winnings were and so on. Less stalling, more play. But the most effective time saver was even simpler. He refused to give Adam Ive got a fucking monster (mouth, that is) any beer.

No, that wasnt it, (but worth thinking about? sorry, Adz). Dave simply arranged for the small blind to shuffle a second deck during the course of each hand. As soon as one hand finished, the second deck was being dealt. Genius. Well, probably. They say theres a fine line between madness and genius, and the madness began on the very first hand.

All-in! Del is ex-forces, and he simply cant resist going over the top. His aggression started to pay off, Adam had decided to follow suit. For a while the game looked like a crapshoot, and Del was firing the biggest gun. Whether or not Adam has indeed got a fucking monster is more information than I want to know, or cared to pay to find out. However, what he has got is balls. A pre-flop all-in bet was called by 2 opponents who each revealed an ace, whilst Adz happily turned over 73off. He paired the 3 and won. But Del was playing more hands than he folded, and became chip leader by a huge amount.

Marty had 4 or 5 rebuys and decided a rebuy of 2000 wasn't going to be much use against Dels 20 thousand plus, and left early. In contrast to Del and Adam, the rest of us were all waiting for a half-decent hand to play. Just before freeze-out Adam went all in, only to be called by Dave, who was armed and dangerous - holding a couple of bullets he had picked up from his arsenal. Adam was shot, but not fatally wounded.

With Adams chipstack back at a modest level, Del was way ahead of everyone. Craig, Andy and Nick all found a couple of playable hands and then sat tight - in Nick's case I think he only played 3 or 4 hands prior to the freeze. No decent hands for New Pete though, who got so low, he didn't bother with an add-on. He didn't find the cards after the freeze-out either and went out.

Adam lost out when his big slick paired the king, only to lose to a flush. Dave then managed to take a big chunk of Dels stack when he hit trip 6s on the turn. Hmmm - Dave, 666 - where have I seen that number before? The little devil wasn't so much making work for idle hands, as making idle hands work. And they worked a lot better than that feeble pun...

Incredibly, both Adam and Del went out next. Steve had been slowly accumulating and bullying his way to the chip lead, with Dave and Andy close behind. Craig and Nick were the shortstacks. An 885 flop had both Dave and Steve on trips, with Dave losing to Steves top kicker. Next, Andy was bluffed out of calling with pocket QQ when Steve put him all-in on the river. The flop was AKJ, and Andys fold was the longest decision all night - probably about 3 minutes. Steve didn?t reveal his 9T suited - he was too busy trying to breathe again... Andy was out soon after, with Craig following when he failed to believe Dave had paired his Q on the flop and re-raised all-in. That left the 3 for the money.

Steve and Dave were about even with Nick a very shortstack. Even a modicum of patience would have seen Nick out in 3^rd place, but with a good chance to knock your arch rival down, you have a decision to make. QT suited looked pretty damn good with Q88 on board. Steve had beaten Dave before when they both had trip 8s. What were the chances of him having them again? To Steves considerable chagrin, the answer wasn?t less than 5% as he calculated, but in fact, 100%. Twat! You fucking twat...

Dave immediately called the all-in, and neither Steves flush draw nor a third Q materialised. Herr 666 was obviously a big fan of 888.com, whilst Steve was left hating maths even more than during his schooldays. He left to join the UN Peace Corps - its one of the few jobs where you get given a big gun...

Heads up and Nick was now so far behind, he could only have won if Dave had done a Paula Radcliffe. But Dave didn?t feel the urge to go, and 2 hands later it was all over. I only just managed to resist adopting a German accent and telling Nick - For you Tommy, ze vor is over. Fittingly, it finished virtually in the 11^th minute of the 11^th hour (poetic licence - Daves clock might have been 9 minutes fast... ) That's the same licence that allows me to use this report to dis our first class host who played a blinder all night to win.

Next week - can Dave clone his victory? The experiment game will be held at the Mengele household in deepest Argentina, and we will post directions as soon as the Doktor gets back to us with the address.

Congratulations to the Kommandant, who now moves on to bigger and better projects. Having chosen English as the preferred language for Europe, the EU has commissioned Dave for a feasibility study into ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments. I shall let Dave explain it to you.

English spelling is unnecessarily difficult; for example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations.

In the first year, for example, I suggest using S instead of the soft C. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard C could be replaced by K, sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.

There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it was anounsed that the troublesome PH would henseforth be written F. This would make words like fotograf twenty persent shorter in print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. We would al agre that the horible mes of silent Es in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend.

By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing TH with Z. Perhaps zen ze funktion of W kould be taken on by V, vitsh is, after al, half a W. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary O kould be dropd from words kontaining OU. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, or difikultis and evrivun vud find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vud finali hav kum tru. 

Well that was very insightful Dave - maybe you could do something really useful afterwards, like reforming the US electoral system. Nah, actually that would take too long. Just get your Mauser and shoot the monkey instead. Sometimes bullets beat the ballot...

And heres the 2nd report by Dave 'Two Chairs'...

We were at The Sparrow's Nest in Wokingham this week. Nine players: Dave, Marty, New Pete, Steve, Andy, Adam, Del, Nick, Craig.

Two parts to this report: Firstly the game itself, then later some news about a few changes that I tried out as the host.

It was one of those mad games where there were all-ins flying around right from the start. Del was winning enough to give him a massive chip lead. After the first three levels Del had close to 20,000 chips, with most of the rest of us having under 3000. Adam made a few good plays, plus his outrageous all-in with 7 3 offsuit won a three-handed all-in pot when the 3 hit(!). This at least gave Del something to think about as he couldn't risk a big loss against Adam. The rest of us were struggling, as virtually any raise was going to be called by either Adam or Del and could well turn into an all-in before you knew it.

After 4 or 5 rebuys Marty decided he'd have to quit, as he felt the 2000 chip rebuy wasn't enough to make a play against the big stacks and his money was ebbing away. So we saw a rare pre-freezeout exit from the tournament. New Pete and Craig were staying very quiet and apart from a couple of early pots Nick and Dave hadn't played much either. The blinds were beginning to start to bite though and a move needed to be made. At least Nick had made just enough in the first couple of hands to withstand the blinds at this stage.

Just before the freezeout Craig finally hit a pot and this gave him about 5000 going into the freezeout - survival achieved!  Also at this time Adam went all-in with his huge stack pre-flop but Dave called all-in instantly. Adam knew right away what he'd walked into and sure enough Dave's two red Aces held up. Dave now had enough to play and Adam was down to a normal stack size. This left Del way out in front. New Pete wasn't as lucky as Craig or Dave and he never found the necessary big hand. He went into the freezeout with a very short stack and decided that an add-on wasn't really going to help his situation much. He was either going to get a hand quickly or he'd be out.

The payout was decided at this point as being ?85, ?50, ?30. On to the freezeout.

Adam had a nightmare hand. He put in a fairly big raise pre-flop with AK and got a couple of callers. A king hit on the flop and in goes all the money.  He was called by two players and then was outdrawn as a flush hit. No way of avoiding that and his stack was slashed.  Dave picked up pocket sixes and in a two-handed pot with Del, Dave made trips on the turn and managed to get Del's money in the pot. This took a big chunk out of Del's stack.

New Pete finally succumbed to the inevitable and went out. Adam and Del also went out at around the same time - a big turnaround from the rebuy stage. That left Dave, Steve, Andy, Nick and Craig. Andy and Craig were the shortstacks with Steve leading and Dave just behind. Nick was in the middle, still having only played in about 4 hands all game! Craig was itching to get involved in a pot to try to double-up but couldn't find the opportunity. In fact he was quite literally itching, as for the first time in a Phat Dogs game the request to the host wasn't "Do you have another beer?", but "Do you have anything for an insect bite?" - hmmm.

Dave took a fairly big hit when his 8 matched an 8 8 5 flop. Steve played a blinder as he also had an 8 but with top kicker to the trips, taking about a third of Dave's stack.  Steve played a great bluff on Andy to make him fold when Andy was way out in front. So good in fact, that Steve only admitted it much later at the three-handed stage to great admiration from Nick and Dave. This pretty much killed Andy off and he was out shortly afterwards. Craig went out after Dave raised with Q x x showing on the flop and wasn't believed - Craig re-raised all-in. Dave had Q A though and Craig was out.

So the money was going to be split between Steve, Dave and Nick. Nick's ultra-cautious play had seen him through the earlier rebuy carnage but now he was looking sadly short-stacked against Steve and Dave.  I have to admit I can't remember what exactly caused Steve's downfall but Dave won the crucial pot. Dave was heads-up against Nick who only had about 8000 with the blinds at 1000/2000. Two hands later it was all over. Nick went for it but Dave's K J turned out to be good enough overcards and won the game.

Now about those innovations.

1. The laptop tourney manager. Thanks to Phat Friend Luke (organiser of the Chinese Poker sessions) for this one. Everyone agreed it was a great improvement and it's sure to make an appearance at future Phat Dogs games. Hosts please contact me for details.

2. Initial chip distribution. I put out the stacks with what I thought would be enough 25s and 100s to provide change for the whole game, without overdoing it. This meant that all rebuys/add-ons could be done simply using 500s and this made things a bit slicker. In fact I think I had a few 100s too many initially, but it was close :)

3. Dual decks. While one hand is playing, the Small Blind was shuffling a second deck. This meant that after the showdown they just needed a quick cut and then they could deal, with no break in the game. Last night we probably got through more hands with 15 minute blinds than we used to get through with 20 minute blinds. Again, everyone present agreed we should continue with this idea in future games.

One last point. The game finished at 11:20 (at least an hour earlier than normal) and at only the 1000/2000 level. I'm not quite sure why. It may be that a result of playing more hands per hour is that we get more all-ins per hour in the freezeout stage, so naturally we're going to see more people go out. We'll have to see if this trend continues - let's hope so.

Enough from me for now,

Dave "Two Chairs"