News page - Birmingham City University Poker Society

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13/02/2009:

RESULTS

In a nice to change to proceedings last night, the Pot Limit Omaha tournament made up for the small field with some incredible drama. Ross Vickers overcame a 10 to 1 chip disadvantage at the start of heads up to take first place, with Tahir Rashid making his first cash of the year in second. Only ten runners signed up for the event, and so were given double stacks to make the game last a bit longer and allow more play. The effects were pretty spectacular with some crazy bluffs, big lay downs, Jonathan hitting a one-outer by finding the case King to make a bigger full house against Ross's Queen's, the ying of a dirty slow-roll with the nuts on the flop finding the yang of a runner-runner flush, and Tahir making a sick call nothing more than a set of 6's against Ricardo's check-shove-bluff on the turn of a board full of clubs. Finishing at 12:40am, I have to say this was perhaps the most eventful tournament I've seen in the BCU society. PLO is SICK SICK SICK maaaaan!!!!

The drama didn't end at the final table as Ricardo's third place finish and Esco getting a bagel catapulted the President to the top of the leaderboard, but it's sooooooooo close. Ross's victory puts him in second place and only forty five points seperates the top four. Here's a run down of the top twenty:

1. Richard 'Ricardo' Figari 680

2. Ross 'BeanZ' Vickers 667.5

3. Esco 'Tesco' Ju'Marie 645

4. Tommy 'Valentine' Mason 635

5. Ali Adib 529

6. Kevin 'Kev' Thompson 487

7. Yu San 'The Gentleman' Chan 482.5

8. Leon Henriques 472.5

9. Shaun Beresford 455

10. Peter Clarke 452.5

11. Jon Turvey 446

12. Anthony 'Mr Tony' Willis 413.5

13. Tom 'Farrocious' Farrow 372.5

14. Alex Kostiw 363,5

15. Sal Khan 305.5

16. Scott Hunt 297.5

17. Crispin Henley 230

18. Sam Moss 227.5

19. Peter Ensiz 227.5

20. Stephen Tanner 192.5

INTERUNI NEXT WEEK!!!!

Monday is the second InterUni Tournament of the year, and is a showdown between us and University Of Birmingham. They are bringing 15 players to this so it's really important that we're out in force to make sure we dominate the final table. Like last time it's a £10 for 5k, £5 for 2.5k buy in, so expect a bumper prize pool - the last InterUni tournament had a pool of nearly £500 with the top seven paid and £180 to the winner. No need to register before hand, just show up IN GOOD TIME (the earlier everyone is there the earlier we start, and the more play we can have!!) and no later than 6.15pm so we can start at 6.30 or earlier.

E-MAIL ADDRESS

The observant few of you will have noticed the switch of e-mail address that you receive Society updates from. This is due to Hotmail restricting the number of people that can be sent an e-mail to ten, and with over 150 of you receiving this I'm not sending it 15 times. We do still check the bcupoker@hotmail.co.uk address as well as this one so it doesn't matter which address you contact us by - we'll still read it.

FACULTY

Attached is this week's Faculty lesson, an introduction to Pot Odds. I don't think there are more than three people in the Society who really understand the true concept of pot-odds, so feel free to take a look if you wish to add this tool to your box of poker skills. Open it, hit F5 and e-mail me if you get flummoxed and I'll make time for you to give you the proper lesson.

That's all for now....

Good luck!!!

Ricardo

09/12/2008:

Good afternoon everybody.......

New kid on the block Stephen Tanner took down the last title before Christmas last night in a tournament played at a ferocious pace. With over three quarters of the field dead inside three hours of play, it was just a little bit longer for Tanner to edge out Kevin Thompson (4th), Scott Hunt (3rd) who had his aces cracked by Dale Needham's Queen-Three to get down to heads up. Dale, playing in his first tournament this year, failed to find patience in an immensely deep stacked heads up which could have gone on for hours. Both Needham and Tanner had around 45k of the 90k in play with blinds at 400/800, but somehow got it all in with top pair on a flop, although Needham was dominated and in bad shape. Turn and river bricked bricked for the boy from London, and on-line specialist Tanner was £47.50 better off for his win.

With most of the players at the top of the league finding gusto for early busto, there is no real change at the summit of the leaderboard. Tommy 'Valentine' Mason final tabled to edge just 10 points behind Tesco who remains in first place as we head into the the winter break. I have attached the file with the full leaderboard on it so you can see where you and you're friends are, and to set some targets for the end of the year.

News........

There is NO TOURNAMENT UNTIL AFTER CHRISTMAS so anyone who shows up next week will have Crispin's "I Am A Donkey" card protector tattooed on their forehead. However, there will hopefully be a home game next week once I can arrange a venue. It will be limited to the first few respondants to an e-mail so keep your eyes peeled. But in the mean time, well played to everyone who has taken part this semester and thank you for making the Poker Society the success it has been in 2008 going into 2009.

People have been asking me if they can come to the casino trip, despite it being a week after the deadline. The deadline was in place so I could get an amount to be funded by the Union, and was worked out based on those who said they were coming. These people are:

Ricardo
Ross
Kev
Matthew Smith
San
Sal (Shotgun)
Crispin
Alex Kostiw (Shotgun)
Chris Elmore (Shotgun)
Tesco
Jon Turvey
Jo Londors
Leon
Scott Hunt
Phi (Shotgun)
Peter Enisz
Jonathan Khazaei
Peter Clarke

These are the names I got by the deadline so if you're not on the list then we won't be able to pay for half of your buy-in. YOU ARE STILL WELCOME TO COME but it will be £22 to enter rather than the reduced rate. We are leaving from Bar 42 at 6pm and don't be late as we won't be hanging around. If you prefer to meet us at the venue it is Gala Casino on Hill Street, next to Spearmint Rhino behind New Street Station - get there before 7:30 as registration for this tournament is filled in rapid time I am told.

If anyone has any queries then give me a shout....07951273136.

I wish you and your families all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and look forward to seeing you in 2009!!!!

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ricardo

26/11/2008:

WEEK 7 RECAP:

Tommy 'Valentine' Mason pulled off a seemingly impossible victory in the £5 tournament last night. The ever-present rounder managed to overcome Pistol Pete Clarke heads up despite Clarke dominating the entire tournament and holding over 70% of the chips in play at one point. Clarke had been hit by the deck throughout the tournament, turning over aces twice, kings three times and a host of other big hands to accumulate a massive chiplead. But Mason held his nerve and picked his spots well (even dismissing a chop when it was getting late) to take down a victory which meant a lot to him. The 50 point bounty on psychologist (and Dr Who script writer) Glen McCoy went to Crispin Henley and his amazing Communist hat fairly early on proving that being able to read minds means nothing unless you have poker experience (great experiment eh? lol).

The win puts Tommy 6th on the leaderboard, with Peter moving up to fifth. Tesco extended his lead at the top to over 100 points, with Leon moving above myself into 2nd spot. Check the website tomorrow for the top 20, or e-mail me for full listings.

Next week is scheduled as a double points freeroll, although there were murmours of people wanting it to be money based. The freeroll is a great opportunity for new players to get involved with the society without risking any hard earned student loan (there are around 80 people who signed up and are yet to play a game) so if it is to be switched to a £5 buy in I will require 20 people to e-mail in. The verdict will be sent on Monday morning. If it is a £5 buy in there will be no double points.

News......

The UPL league has been cancelled, so don't tune in this week expecting to see a tournament because it won't be there, lol. You can still play on UPL if you so desire, the society takes a percentage of the rake which we can put into an online freeroll or something (but we may spend it on something else as online takeup has been pretty bad). Watch this space for what we decide to do.

We are PART-FUNDING a casino trip to Gala Casino on Friday the 12th December where the society will pay some of the buy in to the tournament they hold. You need to e-mail your names to me before the end of this week as I need to get the trip authorised by the Student Union to make sure it all happens. I think the start time is around 8.30pm but I will check this and we will all meet at uni, details to follow. I would appreciate it if any drivers can let me know how many people they can take with them so we can plan the travel expenses - the more people we carry then the more of the buy in we can pay for. THE SOCIETY WILL NOT FUND ANY PIT GAMES (!) so you degens can waste your own money on blackjack etc.

Good luck!!!!

Ricardo

19/11/2008:

WEEK 6 RECAP:

Leon Henriques emerged from slumber to take down the £10 Bounty Hunter tournament last night. He got the better of (T)esco in heads up play for the win, worth £80 including the knockouts he made along the way. The heads up went on for some time with both players evenly and deeply stacked, but two hands where Tesco's two-pair fell behind Leon's bigger two-pair sent all the chips to the man from Manchester (brrap brrap!!).

With the higher buy-in, Leon swooped to fourth spot on the leaderboard, but Tesco's second place was enough to oust Ricardo from his perch at the top. Esco is now 35 points clear of me, with Shaunie B Beresford in thirs spot. The updated leaderboard should be on the website within hours........

Don't forget the UPL tournament on Thursdays at 8pm, if you need Proxifire its on the facebook group. If you need to download it make sure you do it through this link: http://banner.universitypokerleague.com/cgi-bin/redir.cgi?BCUPoker

Next week is (supposed to be) 'The Mathematician versus The Psychologist', but unfortunately due to the lack of fun/smiles/humour/willingness to get involved displayed by some lecturers in the university, it is just going to be 'The Psychologist'. And who is this guy? I hear you ask....this guy is Glen McCoy, a qualified psychologist and hypnotherapist (he's even written an episode of Doctor Who!!!) who will be reading into your souls by watching your every move to determine whether your hand is good if you are bluffing. Incidentally, he has never played poker before so this is just the raw skill in the 'feel' part of the game. There's a fifty point bounty on his head if you knock him out too....£5 buy-in by the way.

If anyone gets stuck with UPL or has any questions/opinions, drop me a line and keep your eyes peeled for an e-mail about a (partially) funded trip to a casino coming up soon....

Good luck!!!

Ricardo

04/10/2008:

WEEK 5 RECAP:

Sal Khan's BCU badbeat nightmare came to an end last night as he took down the win in Week 5. Coming in to the final table, Sal and the aggressive Liam Donavon were the biggest stacks and put them to good use to get down to heads up. With a small field of 20 players, blinds were 20 minutes instead of the usual 15, so the heads up match actually had some play to it. The key pot came when Sal magicked a three-outer for his Queen-Jack to out-turn Liam's Ace-Queen giving him a huge chip lead. Despite some all-inaments from Liam to rebuild his crippled stack, Sal held his nerve and resisted a weak call untill he could get his money in with another suck out - his Jack-nine making a straight against Liam's King-Jack after both players flopped top pair. Both players were on their 'A' game in a well fought tournament, and Sal can not never tell another bad beat story after putting those two on Liam.

Sal's win gave him 192.5 points for the leaderboard and he rockets up to 7th place. I pulled away from the Farrocious Tom Farrow with a 4th position finish, and now have a 100 point lead at the top of the table. Freddie Everett picked up his first 25 points after knocking InterUni final-tablist Daniel Orgel for the bounty.

UPL ONLINE LEAGUE:

Our exclusive online league starts on Thursday at 8pm on UPL. It's a $5 rebuy event but the big attraction is that the winner of our league will win a seat in a $1,000 guarantee tournament at the end of the year where there will only be 12 players!!!! That probably works out to be a $450 top prize - not bad for a freeroll!!! If you've not signed up to UPL, make sure you do from THIS LINK: http://banner.universitypokerleague.com/cgi-bin/redir.cgi?BCUPoker

We get a percentage of the rake which we can put into a freeroll for everyone, so don't sign up through any other link!!!!

HEADS UP TOURNAMENT:

Next week is the first round of the BCU Heads Up Championship. This is a £5 tournament played out over the course of the year which pits players one-on-one. Winners go through to the next round with Semi Finalists and Finalists getting paid. For those of you who haven't seen the sexy trophy: http://www.fourthstreet.co.uk/shop/image.php?productid=110. Heads up play is very different from a full ring game, so show up at 5pm for a Faculty lesson on how to play successful heads up poker from Ricardo.

The full rules and structure are below, and if anyone spots any loopholes or downright dumbness then please tell me!!!

Birmingham City University Heads Up Championship

· One on One No-Limit Hold ‘Em Shootout

· Winners progress to next round of shootout and play down to one winner

· £5 buy in with unlimited rebuys in the first round

· Any player who rebuys will have a match against a player awarded a bye in the first round (byes explained later)

· Names out of a hat for match draws

· 40 min blinds

· 5000 starting stack

· Semi finals best of three matches

· Final best of five matches

· The first round will be played on the Monday 10th November 2008 (draw at 6.15pm), with later rounds played out over the course of Semester B.

· The final will be played on the penultimate week of term

· Some matches may not be played on Monday evenings due to ESPN television coverage (or not, lol)

· Payout structure: winner 50% of the prize pool and the trophy, runner up 25%, losing semi finalists 12.5%

· Mathematicians amongst you will recognise that there is a problem if the number of entrants does not fit the Basic Tournament Entry Numbers (2,4,8,16,32,64). Because we don’t want to turn anyone away, there will be a system of byes in place:

· Byes will be awarded if: the number of entrants is less than the halfway point between the basic tournament entry numbers

· If the number of entrants is more than the halfway point between the basic tournament entry numbers then everyone will play a first round match.

· In the event of an odd number of entrants, the last player in the hat will be awarded the bye, regardless of the volume of players

· Byes can be bought for £5, with the exception of the odd number draw

· Rules and structure all subject to change as and when Ricardo realises he hasn’t thought it through properly.

21/10/2008:

Hi everyone,

Congratulations to Yu San 'The Gentleman' Chan for his first win in the BCU Poker League, he used his big chip lead to over come newcomer Ali Adib heads up to win the £46 top prize.

I'm still top of the leaderboard despite being first out this week, the Jon Turvey Peter Clarke, Antony Willis and Shaun Beresford failing to make the most of the misfortune in my boat being sunk by Sam Moss's battleship (deuces full of nines blown up by nines full of kings - Sam you were 14% to out-do me there you lucky git!!).

As you should all be aware (as I haven't shut up about it for a few weeks), next Monday is the InterUni Tournament and you need to have your name down for it. WE HAVE SIX PLACES LEFT and it's first come first served so e-mail me now!!!! £10 buy in for full chips, and we're hoping for about £550 in the prizepool - top spot I have calculated to be around £200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can anyone tell me if they managed to find our tournament on UPL on Thursday @8pm? I had a look but couldn't see it, but I might just be stupid. This is a tournament exclusive for you guys so if you're more comfortable online then this is your chance to shine!! There will be an online league when it gets going and if enough people play regularly I might even get you a trophy!!!

Talking of trophies, I'm sorry for forgetting to bring them to show off on Monday, I will try and remember this week!! We also have a new chipset and two more tables arriving this week so hopefully that will be the end of the annoying PokerStars table cloths.

People were asking me about how to get the hoodies.....you order them yourselves from www.kitlocker.com/bcu and can have them delivered directly to you or pick them up from upstairs in the Student Union.

Take care everyone and good luck!!!

Ricardo

15/9/2008: As there are events taking place in Bar 42 on the first few Mondays of term, you will find the Poker Society upstairs in the Café area of the Student Union building (outside the shop!!). Get there at 6pm for tournament registration, or 5pm for the opening seminars of the Faculty Of Poker.

13/9/2008: Come along to our stall at the Freshers’ Fayre in Bar 42 on the 24th September. Ricardo, Ross and Esco will be joined by special guest Jason Medley from Badbeat/UPL who will pay £10 into the UPL account of anyone who can beat him heads up!!!

01/9/2008: The BCU Poker Society will be back bigger and better than ever for the new academic year!!

New for this season is the Faculty Of Poker, teaching aspiring players the fundamentals of poker such as Pot Odds, Deception and Tells & Psychology. Just show up an hour before the start of the tournament for a FREE seminar with a member of the exec committee to help you improve your game.

We will also be holding a Heads Up Championship spread over the course of the year so you can pit your skills against an opponent one-on-one going for the cash prize. Details will follow in due course.

And don’t forget to win as many points as you can in the weekly tournaments for maximum chips in the end of year ‘Cash’ finale!!!!

17/01/08:Happy new year everyone and welcome back to the poker society. Now that it is 2008 we will require you to pay us another £5 for membership. Im just kidding so don't start abusing me just yet. We will be setting up the regular tournaments again soon and ask you to come along in your droves like last year.

Here are some updates for you regarding the society. First off, I have decided to knock the society hoodies idea on the head until futher notice. This is because of a lack of interest. If however I recieve a substantial amount of emails regarding this then something can be arranged.

Secondly, we are in talks with VC poker and UPL regarding setting up freerolls for our society. The VC poker one would be a live one and the UPL and online one. So far these talks are in the early stages though. With the help of VC poker we are still trying to be allowed to play in bar 42. This so far has been frustrating to both myself and Ross because of a lack of support from the university. The person that we were in discussions with has since moved on and as of yet to be replaced. This means we are back to square one. This is why i have enlisted our friends over at VC poker to help us out in terms of pushing the bar managers a bit harder. I will keep you updated with this situation.

28/11/07:Email us if you wish to participate in the upcoming inter university tournament against Cakes, Aston and Birmingham University. It will take place on the 6th of December at Bar One, the Maltings. Registration starts at 4.30pm with the tournament starting at 5pm. The tournament is a #5 buyin with the prize pool being doubled by the University Poker League.

29/10/07:I am currently looking into getting some clothing made up for the society. I will be posting images or proposed ideas for hoodies and polo shirts in the gallery promotional material section. If you would be interested in purchasing one please email to let me know.

29/10/07:The manager of Bar 42 has told us that they would be extremely interested in us holding our tournaments inside the union bar.

28/07/07:We are currently still looking for a place to hold our tournaments. We have yet to hear back from the university with regard to this issue.

26/07/07:We are just finalising our plans for freshers fayre which will be held on Wednesday 19th September.