This weekend saw Leg One of the International Charity Heads Up Council’s match between Great Britain and Ireland, for which I was lucky enough to be part of the team. The format (as gleaned from the P4C website):
- The challenge will consist of eleven heads-up matches, comprising
the following; 8 No Limit Hold'Em, 1 Pot Limit Omaha High, 1 Pot Limit Omaha
Hi/Lo, 1 Pot Limit Seven Card Stud High. The captains may select the
participants for the non-Hold'Em events, the participants for the NLHE games
will be determined by random draw.
- The starting chips and blind levels will be decided by the appointed
Tournament Director and games will be played in accordance with host rules.
- The initial event will consist of a buy-in of Euro200 with the
following split; Euro125 to be staked by each player on the result of their
heads-up match, Euro50 to be added to the 'team pool' the sum total of which
will be awarded to the winning team and Euro25 to the charity pool.
- The charity pool to be split 50/50 between P4C and 1% Pledge.
- A low buy-in rebuy NLHE tournament to be held in conjunction with
all heads-up challenges – once again charity pool to be split 50/50
- An annual 4 nations championship on similar lines to be organised
for 2006
- 4 nations hosting to be Ireland, England, Wales & Scotland
But that last part is jumping ahead in time…I arrived on the Saturday, with about an hour to spare before the first of the heads up matches were due to start. It was the coincidence of my birthday with the Friday, when everyone else seemed to have gone over to start heckling the opposition and generally enjoying themselves, which made the start to the day for me a decidedly queasy affair. Without providing too much detail, suffice to say that enjoying more alcohol the previous night than I am used to didn’t prime me for the tube/DLR/plane/taxi combo which spat me out looking greenish in front of the Fitzwilliam around lunch time.
The enthusiasm of team GB was some kind of tonic (and the chilli fries probably helped – I’d like to think so) and within a couple of hours I was proudly wearing a very loud TEAM GB shirt emblazoned with a Union Jack coloured lion thing just like Captain Flushy, Manager Kev, and team mates Pab, Pav, Clothey, JP, Booder, Rudders, Dewi, McIntosh, Belsize and Jamie. They didn’t look too bad considering that the verdict was “great time so far,” and I was worried I would be the slightly nauseous link in the chain.
In fact, I had a breather while the first lot went for their matches – and Poker4Charity’s own Davey Newth set the time-to-knockout very low, beating Dave Kingston and giving a shot of confidence, one imagines, to Pav, who next defeated Daragh Thomas. The whole Irish team, incidentally, was ever so slightly intimidating, comprising:
Mike ‘Luckyblind’ Lacey
Eoghan 'Son of the Don' O'Dea
Ken 'KPNUTS' Powell
Oliver 'World Speed Poker Open Champ' Boyce
Daragh 'Hectorjelly - Irish Heads up Champion' Thomas
Johnny 'Samba' Downes
Collette 'Late Night Poker' Docherty
Karl 'Mr Paddy Power' Hutson
Stephen 'Online qualifier' McCarthy
Marq 'Wheel' O'Neill
Niall 'Style' O'Callaghan
But although the early stages had us neck and neck for a little while, a combined series of very lengthy matches between George and KPNuts, booder and Collette, and myself and Marq O’Neill slowly pushed Team GB to an unassailable position. Dewi (whom it was a pleasure to talk to in between lying with my head gently resting on the table and bad-beating ‘The Wheel’) described his defeat as “a terrible outdraw situation” whilst every match, in fact, was taken very seriously, with dealers and proper tables and the generally excellent welcome of the Fitzwilliam Club provided. I was won over almost instantly – the place is a high-ceilinged pleasant environment with the sound of tournament, and later cash poker being played echoing long into the night.
I only really know what happened in my match, as I was desperately trying to concentrate as the rather seasoned-seeming Mr. O’Neill with his suggestive (for Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo) nickname quartered me after about a half hour’s play, and left me with between 1 and 2k for the next hour and a half. I held on by my fingernails, until I scooped a pot I really should have at best found half of (OK, I’ll be honest, I moved my pitiful stack in with the bottom part of a straight draw and a low draw – which I thought would get me half – when Marq already had the straight AND a set for good measure. So how did I double up to over 3k, thus providing the chips to start a late comeback? Runner-runner flush including a low card, of course. Yikes.) Then I just found myself on the right side of a few big hands, hardly avoidable with the blinds at 300/600, and a somewhat chagrined O’Neill eventually lost an all-in, where I had been so fortunate earlier.
I have to say it was a very enjoyable experience, seeing as there are so few opportunities to practise live Omaha hi-lo, against people who clearly know what they are doing. A certain rumour that my opponent would have to shave his beard off if he lost made it all the more so…
If the detail of the heads up matches themselves is somewhat hazy in my mind, the competitively good-natured welcome we received from our camouflage-sporting opponents is not, and to convey the spirit in which we attacked the €25 rebuy tournament that evening is difficult, without a recording of Flushy yelling so loudly he hurt his throat. The Charity part of the buy-ins seemed to set my table in particular off on some kind of frenzy with Booder taking the prize for most ridiculous number of rebuys, followed by our Brave Captain James Dempsey himself. Part of the reason for this may have been the presence on the same table of both those two, myself and Mike Lacey, who presumably was looking for some sort of vengeance for his final defeat at the hands of an overjoyed Flushy.
Eventually he knocked Flushy out, and I imagine he felt much better. But his heads up forfeit was to wear one of our pairs of comedy UK sunglasses.
All in all the whole experience was great, the organisation by Davey and Angie, the reception from our Irish hosts, the money for charity and the satisfaction of playing with a great, enthusiastic team against another. And winning. Bring them all over here so we can do it again, prove our victory wasn’t just a fluke, and entertain them as well as they did us. Congratulations all involved.