Articles / John Tabatabai / 25 August 2011 /

I have had an eventful few days with me playing on Late Night Poker in Cardiff and sitting on 30 different tables trying to get someone to play me at heads-up, oh and researching into and eating a lot of hot dogs, more on that later!

Late Night Poker did not go too well and I was the first one out. I've played Late Night Poker twice now and been the first player out both times and I'd starting to think Betfair's money might be rigged! The show was good fun with lots of talking between the players so it should make decent viewing.

I actually only played four hands before busting out, the first saw it fold to me on the button, the blinds are 50/100 and I make it 200, a min-raise that basically gives me a greater stack to pot ration thus increasing my skill advantage over the other players. Although everyone on my table were obviously good, the only player I was weary of and wanted to stay out of the way of was James Dempsey, who is a technically good players. Anyway, I min-raise with 6d5d and Richard "Chufty" Ashby calls. The flop is As-6x-7x he checks I bet 200 and he calls. The turn is the 6s so I'm thinking to myself "Yes! I'm going to win my heat, Late Night Poker is brilliant etc" he checks again, I bet 500 and he instantly calls. At this point I put him on a rag ace that he is just not going to fold because he knows how aggressive I am so I plan to bet big on the river and get paid off. The river is the 2s, he checks, I bet 1,400 and literally the very second my chips touch the felt he puts out three 1,000 chips, effectively min-raising me. From how Chufty plays I know he is not bluffing but I can't see how he has backed into a flush, especially as the As is on the flop. I call and he shows Qs5s, brilliant. He reverse floated me on an A-6-7 flop with queen-five suited. I hate my call and it was my worst mistake of the tournament.

Later, Ross Boatman raises to 250, I call and a Welsh kid called Luke Davies, who I have played HUSNG with on Betfair Poker calls. I have jack-ten offsuit, not a great hand but I know where I am at all times so not worried. The flop comes down Jc-6c-8c, Ross checks, I bet 500, Welsh kid calls, Ross folds. Turn is a blank seven, I check and the Welsh kid bets 1,125. I look at him and give him a little stare down and he is super calm so I folded. He told me later he had flopped the flush and I verified this later in the Green Room when I saw he had Ac7c.

A few hands later I raise KdJd and get a couple of callers. The flop is K-6-3 with two hearts, they check to me and I bet 500, Dempsey folds, Padraig Parkinson calls and Ross raises to 2,000. Both Padraig and I fold and Ross had king-six for top two. So I have played three hands and each time had a hand but had to fold, correctly, to better hands. I'm now down to 20 big blinds thanks to the super turbo structure and these go in the middle during the second level. Dempsey opens to 500 with blinds 100/200, Andrew Feldman calls in the cutoff and I call in the big blind with jack-ten offsuit. The flop is T-6-4 with two hearts, it goes check-check, Feldman bets half the pot so 750 and with 2,300 in the pot and me having 4,000 I am obviously all in. Dempsey folds and Feldman thinks for a while before making a pained call with ace-ten, which is basically the nuts in that particular spot. So I was disappointed not to progress from my heat but I headed back to London for a private cash game and I won the equivalent of third place money so it was not too bad.

Online has been going really well and I have started playing heads up again, that is when someone will give me a game. There are just so many bumhunters around these days. I did play a guy on four tables of $3/$6 for about 40 minutes and won 11 buy-ins from him before he said he hoped I died and left! I've been playing a lot of ring games recently and I have got a little bored of them and had forgotten how much fun heads up can be. I love to have four tables open against the same person because it's like playing chess, trying to figure out all the puzzles and their possible holdings and how they play on ace-high boards, flush draws and straightening boards and the strategy changes as you get deeper. It really is the purest form of poker, so much fun, I just need to get someone to play me!

Hot dogs! Get Your Tasty Hot Dogs Here!

Before I wrote this blog I spent a couple of hours looking into sausages and hot dogs because a few of my friends and I are looking into launching a gourmet hotdog! It's a pretty random thing to get into but I think it could be the next big thing food-wise, should be fun and because there are a few of us willing to take punt we won't need to invest that much money into it. We are from all different backgrounds, one is an interior designer, another is a property developer so we all bring different things to the table. Now, whenever I go into a shop in London or talk to people I ask them all about hot dogs, do they eat them etc and most say they do eat them and enjoy them but not over here. I think this is because hot dogs are really seen as American and in London especially they have a bad reputation thanks to the hotdog carts that appear at about 2230 and are really disgusting.

I even spent a few days going to different shops in London that were meant to sell the best hot dogs and apart from one, which could have been the best hot dog of my life, the rest I would not have given 2/10. There is definitely a market for it but at the moment we are just looking into properties because location is vital and researching the actual hot dogs. I personally want all our products to be free range, organic and British sourced because British people are really proud of something that comes from our country. If you have any suggestions of the best hot dog or what makes a great hot dog / sausage then feel free to drop me a comment here or tweet me on Twitter!

This blog has got pretty big so I think I will leave it there. Thanks for reading and we will catch up again next week.

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