Game 1 (£20) The first game of the day started a little on the late side as some of the regulars get stuck in traffic jams and car washes. Daz manages to get massively lucky with the best hand against me and I never quite recover, leaving me in a prime position to deal the game out - what a brilliant mistake to make. The game progresses nicely until we're down to the final 3 players, Nige Heid and Daz. These three then proceed to make a bid for the longest finish to a poker game ever, anywhere. Daz is getting a great hand every time (must be he keeps raising after all) and the other two can't seem to pick up a hand to play back at him, so we see stack dwindling blind steals happening until finally, in the third week of the game, Nige finds the cheesey powerhouse 99 and attempts to nick Daz's BB. Sadly (for Nige) Daz makes a loose call with AA which holds up and we're down to heads-up. Heid's all-in coup with K3 is called by Daz holding KQs, not a great spot. The turn comes a 3 though and after the river card, Daz congratulates Heid on a good game and starts to rake the pot in. An excellent comedy moment then ensues as we point at the 3 on the board and explain the ranking of poker hands to him. Heid is still at a significant chip disadvantage, probably about 2-1, but proceeds to come alive and play some excellent back and forth heads-up eventually losing out with her AJ unable to overcome Daz's TT on a K5KT6 board. The heads-up pretty much had to end this way as both players were being aggressive but cautious, well done people. Game 2 (£50 double chance) Game 2 starts off with Rich (Tighty) receiving a total pasting, from everyone, at every possible opportunity, eventually leading to an early bath so that he could watch the football. Highlights of the destruction were KQ vs Daz's Q4o, 63 vs Liam's 66 on a 632 flop. When the tables merge into a final 8 we've lost Heid as well and Liam and John are tied for first with around 21k each. Everyone is playing carefully but slowly we start to lose players. It comes down to a final 4 of Colin, Me (how did that happen?), Rick and John. John has decided that the strategy for this game is the rocket-launcher approach, blasting all his chips in frequently and taking down a lot of pots uncontested. Colin, on the other hand, is waiting to find premium cards or divine inspiration before entering a pot. As John moves in for approximately the millionth time, God gives Colin the nod and we're looking at QJo for John and J9 for Colin. We proceed to deal it out and in the end the board plays 2 pair with an ace for a split pot. John is not deeply pleased with the result and is so tilted by this he actually forgets to move in on the next hand! I seize the opportunity to steal Colin's big blind with a T7, only for him to call immediately with QQ. Obviously I hit the 4 card straight to win the pot (sorry) and knock Colin out, as per plan. He takes it well and we're down to 3. We manage to circulate the chips around and around for a seeming eternity, everyone going down to danger levels and returning to comfortable. I lose a decent size pot doing something stupid and now I'm the short-stack (how unfair). Rick moves me all-in on my BB and I call blind to find 73o (Yes!). Rick has A4 and hits a 4 on the flop, leaving me 3 outs - and so I'm done with one card to come, I'm getting my coat on but a 7 arrives to save me. Rick is understandably thrilled for me. The blinds reach 1500/3000 by the time I finally do something (else) stupid and we're looking at my A9o calling an all-in of John's K7. A 7 comes and stupid, poetic justice sends me out in third. Heads-up begins and lasts for around 30 - 40 minutes. With both Liam and I dealing alternately from two different decks, we are getting a lot of hands in and the play goes back and forth. Rick tries calling a few hands from his button, in order to try and play some flop poker but John's not keen and pushes him off every one with a massive raise. Eventually, with both players playing well, All the money goes in and John is victorious. An excellent game which lasted for more than 4 hours. Chinese Food (£10) Everyone won as the chinese food was very nice indeed. Game 3 (£30) Game 3 starts in usual style with me completely failing to recognise when I'm beaten and calling Ali's 2 pair down with just second pair. Ali slow-rolls me in an amusing way by showing me the bottom pair card first. Sadly I'm not fooled and she has to admit that she's got a top-pair kicker. I manage not to show-down the crappy hand I'm playing / calling with which is lucky as I have a pretty tight image and I don't want to spoil it. The game rolls on at a decent pace with nobody getting knocked out for a while. The conversation picks up during the third game, as opposed to the first two games which were fairly quiet. During the seemingly harmless conversation, someone (probably Sheriff), asks who sang that Word-up song in the red codpiece. There ensues a good half-hour to 45 minutes of almost everyone singing (kind of) random hits from the seventies and eighties. The main protagonists in this nightmare were Ali, Rick and Richard. A musical trip down memory lane. The good news is that as memory lane seems considerably longer for some people, Liam was able to nick about 16 rounds of blinds before everyone calmed down again. We make it down to the final table and we've been playing carefully for a while when someone asks what the time is. It's around 12:30 and Nigel realises that he's late for something and has to go. We are 6 handed when Nigel starts his Run of Death (tm). In 3 hands Nigel has eliminated Sheriff, then me, then Rich. The man is unstoppable and there's a glimmer in his eye (or some other strange twitch). The final 3 are Liam, John and Nigel. Liam is dispatched shortly afterwards after putting up a good fight leaving Nigel and John heads-up for the money. Nige becomes aggressive when it's short-handed and puts on a display of power poker that leaves John with few options. John manages to pick up AA and eventually gets all the money in by the flop on a 932 board. John grins and shows the AA, Nigel smiles, and shows John 93o for 2 pair. John almost has a coronary, but a running pair keeps John in the game. John picks up AA again the next hand but Nige doesn't find anything as good as 93 to call with. Eventually, with the twin-dealers arrangement from earlier working well, we're all-in with Nige's KJ vs John's A2. The first card off is an Ace and John is visibly pleased. Clearly he doesn't play with Nige often enough. The next two cards on the flop are QT giving Nige an unbeatable straight. No miracle split cards arrive and we have a result. Cash Game (£500) Nobody stayed to play a cash-game afterwards so I did considerably better than I expected and broke even. Summary An excellent day - let's do it all again next month. .