TV is magic…kind of

This one’s a bit different as I’m blogging from Granada studios in Manchester

I’m here doing some ‘bread and butter’ work for Eammon on an ITV show called the feelgood factor. As I’m a lucky boy I’ve been doing this kind of thing for 4 years or so now and a lot of the novelty / excitement has gone

However I’ve been struck today by how different it is for people that aren’t used to it. I was watching the audience come in and was reminded of how exciting a TV studio can be if you haven’t been in one before…after all this is where magic is made! (sometimes anyway). The first time a line I’d written was read out on a studio show it gave me one of the bigger thrills i’ve had. (i can still remember the specific joke).

Of course it can all be a bit much if you’re not comfortable. One poor woman on this show got a bit phased. Bear in mind it’s about losing weight, she and her friends have been dieting for 8 weeks and she’s had a rehearsal just before the record. Eammon asks her ‘what’s the situation after 8 weeks with the team?’ – she stares at him and replies ‘what with our weight?…. and Eammon instantly replies ‘no with your holidays’. Very funny – man is a legend – fact! Sadly this won’t be making it to your screens!

I think it’s a bit sad how films and TV have been demystified by dvd extra documentaries, green room shots, behind the scenes stuff and so on

I’ve also realised that shows like this – shiny floor studio shows – are probably a dying thing. They’re expensive and need big audiences and those audiences are getting less and less as people watch content online and so on. I should enjoy the studio magic while it lasts!!

OMAHA …. LIVE!

Just played my first live Omaha tournament.

It was part of the current festival at the Vic. Played the £500 event – courtesy of Virgin poker; gawd bless their cotton socks (that they give out on long distance flights).

It was not only my first time playing live Omaha it was also my first time playing full ring. I didn’t have much of a game plan going in except to play very tight from the first 3 or 4 spots It was a weird line up – really spectrum of players; household names like Chufty, Dave Colclough, Surinder and then some players who were – to be nice about it – if not dead money then money on life support.
It’s definitely hard to adjust to the walking pace of full ring live from 4 tables of six max… actually I’d have loved to have had my lappy there to play a bit while the tourney plodded on.

I’d write about some hands but I didn’t have too many interesting spots. I got chips early when my Aces plus nut flush draw held up against a wrap – that was a nice spot for me.
As the tournament wore on I started to run out of cards and spots to steal.
A couple of losing confrontations with all in players and suddenly I was short stacked. Kudos to the Vic though the structure was great with very slow blinds and plenty of time to play. With about 40 players left I got lucky to have my KK75 suck out on Surinder’s AA1010 – hey you gotta have one right!

Nothing much to report until the hand I went out on. A mid position player limped and I potted it on the button with As5sKJ – the limper called. The flop is QT6 with one spade. Basically a great flop for me – I’ve got 13 straight outs all to the nut straight and back door spades so I’m at least 50/50 ish against anything he can have He checked, I bet and he quickly checked raised. Obviously he had a hand but this is one of those Omaha spots where the money was going in whatever. He had TT43 for a flopped set – his hand held up and I was out. By the way I hate his preflop play; I’m winning that pot the vast majority of the time but there you go. Think I finished 15th ish.

Anyway – good tournament, good experience and well run by the Vic. Thanks to Virgin poker – I’ve got one more of these to play before Vegas so I’ll up date you all!

The second bi-ennual tri annual On The Rail tournament took place tonight on Virgin and a fun time was had by all!

Even me. And I sucked.

I think at one point I won the blinds…that was pretty exciting. The rest of the time I was handily pushed around by a whole variety of people who saw the great big bullseye on my back in the form of the bounty I was carrying.

All the moves I tried to make early failed. A theme which was continued after the early bits (I can’t call it middle that would be an exaggeration). By the end I was down to 9 big blinds. I decided I was shoving with anything decent. The problem with having a bounty is you’re not getting many bets through!

A couple of spots out of the blinds I found A diamonds 4 diamonds and the money was going in!
Of course I was getting called in a big way – with a Newcastle seat on my head. I think after the board had run out I was beaten about 14 different ways!!!! I finished 42 out of 53…there I’ve said it; impressive huh! Still it was all about giving a bit back …which I did in laughs to those playing and railing!

Of course the worst thing about the entire debacle was that Kara won our last longer! Couldn’t help noticing how quickly she went out after that … almost as if it was her only aim!

The tournament went great – thanks to Virgin and well done to seses, HectorMcG for claiming the bounties from Kara and me. Well done to the cashing players – black28, Wils14, MrCrown1, bozponty, Farse, KAZIPOP, HectorMcG (again!), teaulc1, EMS_rico3 and especially well done to overall winner joyjoy.

Look forward to seeing the seat winners and as many of the rest of you as possible in Newcastle.

We’ll definitely do more tournaments and look at the possibility of an On The Rail league in future.

I’m off to relearn this no limit holdem mullarkey….

On The Rail Tourney – 8pm tonight!

The JFK assassination….the moon landings…the Berlin wall collapsing….Obama’s inauration….are all important historical events.

Why not think about them all as you play the 2nd bi-semi-annual On The Rail tournament.

It’s tonight and it’s at 8pm and you can knock out Kara Scott (unless I get there first) and win a seat to the Newcastle poker festival ….what more do you want from a Tuesday? It’s on Virgin – if you haven’t got an account go get one and I’ll see you there for a couple of hours of inappropriate table talk.

Still Hot…

In some ways 2009 has not been my favourite year; in poker terms I hope it never ever ends.

I’ve been running ridiculously good online. Obviously my Omaha game has improved a lot over the last six months and playing better has combined with being…you know…”hot”.

i’ve moved up (or I’m in the process of moving up) to $1/2 so I’ll keep you informed of  how that goes – I’ll post some hands here next time

lots on the horizon playing wise as well. Next Tuesday is the second On The Rail tournament on Virgin – I expect to see you all there! There’s seats for the Virgin festival in Newcastle on 4th April up for grabs; will be really good fun so I hope lots of you qualify one way or another

Finally I’m playing my first live Omaha tournament as part of the Vic festival on 22nd. It’s a 500 buy in and i can’t wait to see the level and type of play. I’m expecting some very very good players playing an old school style and some real properly horrible play as well….i’ll let you know what I find!

On The Rail Launch

Welcome to ontherail.co.uk – new home of the on the rail podcast and lots of other stuff besides. When Kara and I started the podcast about 18 months ago it was as a bit of fun for us chatter on about poker but also because there weren’t any decent poker podcasts based in the UK. Over the 23 shows to this point the podcast has grown it’s audience and it’s reach. It’s the most listened to poker podcast in the UK, one of the most popular anywhere and has had some of the biggest names as guests. So we’re pretty proud of if and really excited that it now has this new home.

Ontherail.co.uk will be the place to get the podcast first – it’ll be up here before anywhere else so make sure you guys subscribe to it here. It’ll also be the place where you can comment on the podcast (play nicely though) and suggest content, guests and so on for future shows – knowing it gets straight to us.

As well as the podcast the site will feature lots of stuff to entertain and inform you. We’ve reviewed our pick of poker rooms and products to help you throughout the minefield of stuff you can spend your poker bucks on. Over the coming months we’ll be constantly adding to site plus we’ll also bring you exclusive deals; like the one we’ve done with Virgin poker for our launch. We’ll have blogs from the on the rail ‘crew’ (we are so street), articles and columns for you to while away a couple of hours.

The site will also be home to a new strategy podcast which will be launched soon, so watch this space, as well as a lot of other content to keep you happy. Make sure you check back often but also subscribe to the newsletter to keep informed and make sure you don’t miss out on deals or new content.

If you’re into Twitter you can also follow us at twitter.com/ontherailuk. It’ll keep you micro-blogging fans up to date with what’s happening on the site, plus what we’re up to in our travels through the world of poker!

Have fun on the site – let us know you’re thoughts and what you’d like to see and we’ll do our best to get it for you. We’ll do all we can to make the site as entertaining as possible – BBC’s iplayer might have slightly more programmes but then they don’t have Matt Broughton’s little beard.

See you all soon.