The one where Man Utd lose.

Thursday 3rd May 2007

OWEN - Outplayed is the only word for it. The Italians almost easily romped into the final to play Liverpool. Luckily I hadn't put a bet on them to win and will be backing Liverpool to lift the trophy.

Just a reminder that Jack will be back next week and we'll be looking for some crazy challenges, so feel free to post some future bets we could have.

The one where O'Sullivan loses.

Tuesday 2nd May 2007

OWEN - Higgins! Shire!

Aargh! That dreadful hobbit John Higgins put out O'Sullivan and lost me another £50. I'm beginning to have serious doubts over whether or not my bankroll is going to make it for the full three months.

Now with the Scotland vs England final looming for the snooker I'll have to back whoever gets through from the Higgins vs Maguire game and maybe hope to recover some of my losses, c'mon the Scots!

On the plus side though, the tales coming back from Amsterdam speak of drunken debauchery involving buffets and take aways. Hopefully my sensible eating will see me taking the 'Big Bet' in a couple of months time. Although as Roy Walker says "There's everything to play for in the ready money round".

The one where O'Sullivan beats Robertson.

Tuesday 1st May 2007

OWEN - The snooker championship game between Robertson and O'Sullivan was epic. Things looked slightly grim for me as Robertson took 404 points without any answer from O'Sullivan winning 6 frames in a row.

O'Sullivan never gave up though and played some absolutely brilliant shots that eventually saw it at 10-10. It was tense again in the 21st frame and only because of a poor safety shot did O'Sullivan get back into it.

O'Sullivan went on to beat Robertson 13-10 and will probably go on to win the championship. If he does that will be another £220 for me.

JACK - Balls.

OWEN - Jack's away to Amsterdam for a week so if you're entering the $50 blog competition, this weeks extra challenge is to make it something that can be conducted at distance.

Current Bankrolls

Owen £1,083

Jack £1,175

The one with the pizza and the weigh in

Monday April 30th 2007

OWEN – Another slow weekend. I broke my diet by having 3 slices of pizza on Friday at Pizza Hut, but it was worth it.

The weigh in on Sunday showed a much slowed down 2 lb loss for me and another slowed down 4 lb for Jack. This put us on a par with 11 lbs lost each.

Much of the weekend was taken up by snooker and betting with Jack having a reasonable wager placed on Robertson to beat O’Sullivan. Naturally I took O’Sullivan to win and at the time of writing it’s 8-8 with Robertson winning the last 5. The end of the match tonight should make for interesting viewing.

We’re still waiting for your big ideas so we can make another ridiculous wager, but so far we’ve not had a single suggestion! Remember you can win $50 cash into a Poker Heaven account, so get writing.

The one with Mr. Martingale

Friday 27th April 2007

OWEN – Not many takers on the $50 challenge yet, so we’ve not got anything too crazy to blog about.

We decided just to do a straight up casino challenge. We registered for an account on Blackjack Heaven (this really is turning into a corporate advert!) and got a $100 deposit bonus. We decided to take that $100 and see who could turn it into the most before without losing it all in an evening.

I’m sure every professional gambler knows that Blackjack offers the most competitive odds in the casino, however I’m equally sure you all know I’m a compulsive gambler.

My two favourite games in the casino are Casino War and Sic Bo, I love them, I could play them all day… if I had a bottomless supply of money, because I always win big for a while, then the odds catch up with me and I lose it all. As this was bonus money however I was going to go for it.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the Martingale system but it’s basically doubling your bet every time you lose and then starting again if you win. Using this I often make a few hundred dollars before losing it all and as this was just over the course of an evening I thought I could maybe stay ahead of the game.

I started on Casino War, figuring I’d have six (almost) 50/50 attempts to win a dollar. It doesn’t sound so great saying it like that, but it’s pure gambling fun. Anyway I must have gone to war (tied) about 7 times in the first 10 hands! This is a ridiculous amount and I wish I had some money on ties for all these hands as it would have given me a huge bankroll boost. Regardless I got up to $126 in no time and was slightly safer as I now had seven attempts rather than six.

After this I moved to Sic Bo and started betting small or big, again using the Martingale system. After a time I got bored of that and devised an elaborate plan for betting on 10 and 11. I was lucky and always caught what I needed to stay in the game and continued to drift between Casino War and Sic Bo as the mood took me until I was at about $600.

With only ten minutes left in the day, disaster struck. I foolishly began using the Martingale system starting at $5 on Casino War and lost 6 in a row. With my remaining $300+ dollars I put it down to hopefully double up and be in with a chance. Imagine my disappointment to be dealt a 3, then imagine my elation when the dealer is also dealt a three, then another nadir as I realise I don’t have another $300 to go to war and have to surrender.

I finished up with about $3 from my original $100, that’s including converted comp points. Another £50 no doubt going Jack’s way.

JACK – Owen doesn’t know what he’s talking about – Money Wheel is where it’s at! I sat down at the wheel and started betting on the two most unlikely outcomes, one paying 50x and one paying 25x my wager. I had so few sections to hit, after a few spins I thought I’d have lost my $100 in next to no time. But I’m a gambler so I carried on, and I was rewarded after a few more spins with a hit on the jackpot section which paid 50 times my $5 stake, which took me up to $240. I asked Owen how much he was on.

“Three” he said.
“Damn, I’m right behind you on $240 though!”
“No, THREE.” he repeated, a little more slowly this time.
“Dollars?” I asked.
“Dollars.” he confirmed.

Scoop for me – Owen gave up on his $3 and I performed a small-scale but far from insignificant little dance. In other news, the Snooker World Championship is proving to be an exciting affair, and my tip for the title Neil Robertson battled back from 8-3 down to bring it to 8-8 going into tonight's final session in his second round match with Ronnie O'Sullivan. If he takes down the tournament I'm quite literally going to be rolling in it. This is too easy.

Current Bankrolls

Owen £1,033

Jack £1,335

The one where you can win $50!

Tuesday 24th April 2007

OWEN – As Jack mentioned we haven’t really been doing anything “crazy” on a daily basis and therefore not living up to our Crazy Punts title. We could relive some of our greatest moments but we’d rather bet on something new and exciting. That’s where you come in.

Poker Heaven have kindly agreed to give $50 to any reader who can come up with a genuinely Crazy Punt. All you have to do is post your idea here and if we blog about it you will get $50 cash into a Poker Heaven account!

A few ground rules.
The punts cannot be illegal. We’re in the UK, so UK law applies.
The punts should not cause any lasting damage to any participant.
We must be able to wager on the outcome of any punt.
The punts should be entertaining and unusual.
The punts should be practical, no elaborate set up or overly costly equipment. We are not going to see who can be the first to reach the moon.

That being said; go crazy! Hopefully you are aware by now that we will bet on anything so let your imaginations run wild. We’ll recreate any prop bet moment you may have had in your past or any that you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to try out on some unsuspecting victim.

A few legalities.
All ideas submitted become the property of me and Jack.
If we carry out your idea and blog about it you will not automatically receive the $50. eg if you suggest we bet on the champions league final ,which we were going to anyway, you will not be eligible for the $50 prize. Try and avoid obvious bets and be more creative.
As the prize money will initially be deposited into PokerHeaven.com all territories that are unable to open an account will not be eligible for the $50 prize, but please still feel free to write in your suggestion.

I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of bets other people can come up with but have to admit a little trepidation knowing the sort of warped minds that are out there.

JACK - All you have to do to enter is post a comment below this entry leaving details on your Crazy Punt and your name. Don't forget to subscribe to this blog so you can see your Crazy Punts in action, and find out who wins - it'll probably be me.

poker

The one with snooker & our first weigh-in

Monday 23rd April 2007

OWEN – Well, we’ve now got a sign up option in the top left of the page. Put your email address and your first name in and we’ll send you a newsletter to let you know of any updates or special punting events you can take part in.

So the London Marathon was finished in 2 hours 7 minutes and 14 seconds for the men and 2 hours 20 minutes 38 seconds for the women. I got the winning lady right, C Zhou, but unfortunately my pick for the men’s pulled out after 18 miles and it was won by M Lel.

With us both getting one right in terms of time and one right with winners (Jack bet against me being right) the marathon turned out to be a bit of a no result for us. Luckily we had a few other bets on that day on various sporting events to give us a bit of a change on our bankrolls.

Firstly, our diet bet. Sunday morning we stepped on the scales to see how much (if any) we had lost. I went first and was pleasantly surprised to have lost 9lbs! I was now a much more svelte 14stone 4lbs, taking me from being technically obese to just being overweight, hardly inspiring terms however I want to look at it.

I am required to lose another 32lbs to be “normal” and this would be my target weight of 12 stones. So if my weight loss continues at the same rate I will reach that in another three and a half weeks. Of course I know that my weight loss will slow down and I’ll be lucky to be losing 2 or 3 lbs a week.

There is a lot in the news just now about diets and size 0 models and it should be noted that losing 9lbs in a week is a lot. The safe level of dieting is round about 1 or 2lbs per week and I am going to manage my diet to be around about that.

I did a food diary and calculated that I have only been eating an average of 550 calories a day! This is ludicrous and can result in some permanent damage if I’m not careful. I wasn’t aware that was how little I was eating as I have breakfast, lunch and dinner and snack in between. To remedy the situation I immediately went out and bought myself a 6” turkey and ham on wheat from Subway.

However as things stand I still have a secret weapon – exercise. So far all my weight loss has been a result of changing my diet. I have not taken up any new sports or played more often and I have not gone running in the mornings to give me that extra boost. Once I have worked out a reasonable diet I will begin getting up earlier and going for what will probably begin as a mild jog and eventually building up to a run.

The weekends other bets comprised of Ronnie O’Sullivan winning his opening match at the World Snooker Championship, which he did and we both had a bet on that. Jack also had a bet on Steve Davis to win his match which was a nail biting 19 frame spectacular that he was slightly unlucky to lose. So, evens for the marathon, and I was £110 up thanks to Ronnie’s win.

JACK – I was concerned by Owen’s incredible 9 pound loss in just one week, and I was quite relieved when I stepped on the scales to see 15 stone 4 lbs, which puts me right behind him, having lost 7 pounds. However, we have both realised that we weren’t really eating enough, so I would predict that future weeks weight loss will be a bit less, hopefully around the 3 pound mark.

I had a healthy bet on Ronnie O’Sullivan to get rid of Ding Junhui in the first round of the Snooker World Championship so after Ronnie took it down by a very comfortable 10-2 margin, I had netted around £175 profit. Unfortunately, Steve Davis failed to beat his good friend John Parrott, and that cost me £90 so I was £85 in snooker profit for the day.

Owen and I have a £100 side bet over the course of the Snooker World Championships to see who can make the most profit from betting. I’ve had an early £110 on Neil Robertson to win the tournament at 20-1, which is fairly optimistic considering he has Ronnie O’Sullivan in the next round if he wins. But I have faith in his abilities, and his odds will plummet if he gets past the Rocket.

I’m going to join a sports centre tonight and start playing a lot of squash and badminton, and I can hopefully convince Owen to play me on the courts for a bit of cash, and anyway, it will benefit both of our weight loss plans.

We’ve been noticeably lacking in crazy bets recently, and we need a helping hand with inspiration so I think we’ll try to get a competition up and running very soon where you readers can help us out with suggesting some crazy activities we can bet on. We have to live up to our Crazy Punts name!

Current Bankrolls

Owen £1,133

Jack £1,215

The one with other people running

Friday 20th April 2007

OWEN - So the Flora London Marathon is just around the corner, metaphorically and literally and we need a bet.

Having studied the market for all of two minutes I’m placing a bet that the winning Men’s London Marathon time will be 2 hours 6 minutes 12 seconds and think it will be won by H Gebrselassie. For the Women’s London Marathon I think the winning time will be 2 hours 18 minutes and 24 seconds and be won by C Zhou.

I think I will be watching the marathon from a bar and cheering those I know competing in it at round about the 18^th mile. If they get too warm they can always stop for a beer.

I’m pretty sure my marathon times will be close so I gave Jack the option of over or under for both.

JACK – Owen knows nothing about any form of athletics, especially the London Marathon and I’m convinced he made those names up. He’s offered me the over/under on both of his predictions for our usual £50 a time and who am I to decline?

I have elected to take the over on the men’s marathon, and the under on the women’s marathon. I would explain my reasoning, but I used so many trends and complex formulas that nobody would understand. I will hint towards my methods using only two words. ‘Coin’, and ‘Flip’.

After my huge scoop on betting in the London Marathon, I will hopefully be taking advantage of Owen’s complete lack of sporting knowledge over the upcoming months through side bets on the Snooker World Championship, as well as the Champion’s League final, FA Cup final, and any one of the fifteen other football games which Chelsea and Manchester Utd happen to be playing around that time.

The one with the ice bath

Thursday 19th April 2007

OWEN – So we promised you something just that little bit out of the ordinary last night so here it is.

We were a bit disappointed with our recent lack of ideas for bets as we have a large back catalogue of prop bets to draw from. Whilst we’ve maybe not blogged about it we’ve had many years of Crazy Punting, ranging from who can draw the highest card to who can throw a pine nut to knock a can from a bridge. Most of these bets have not involved much in the way of physical endurance and after putting our heads together we thought to remedy that.

After leaving the office last night we went straight to the local supermarket and bought as many bags of ice as we could get our hands on then proceeded to drive home.

Upon arriving we emptied each of these bags of ice into the bath with a little water (I’m sure you can see where this is going). Wearing nothing but our swim shorts the challenge was to sit in the bath of ice, up to the shoulder, for the longest. As the winner of the last few bets, Jack went first so I would have a target to beat.

JACK – These kind of things always sound like a bit of a laugh and a good idea at the time, but when you’re standing in a pair of shorts staring down at a bath full of ice, you start to think that it might have been better to flip a coin for the £50.

I voiced my concerns to Owen in the form of a girly yelp when the first of my toes hit the ice-cold water, but it was met with nothing but a look that said “Get in that bath you complete pansy!”

It took me about a minute to get my shoulders below the ice/water line, which in retrospect was a horrible mistake as it was time spent freezing my ass off that I wasn’t getting credit for. As my shoulders dipped down, Owen started the clock.

This was honestly one of the worst things I’ve ever done. The only thought which was spurring me on was that Owen was about to undergo the same horrible experience. I thought about that for a good couple of minutes then decided that since I felt like I could possibly die if I didn’t get out right this second, I jumped up and grabbed my towel as Owen told me how long I’d lasted.

OWEN – So after Jack’s paltry 2 minutes 17 seconds I was fairly confident that I would be £50 up in no time, well in no more time than 2 minutes 18 seconds.

With a quick top up of another bag of ice I slowly lowered myself into the bath. It was quite literally freezing. Forcing my leg in wasn’t so difficult but as I got the second in and starting feeling the icy chill crawl up my thighs I had a sudden recollection about tales where people’s hearts stop as the hit Artic waters and became much more apprehensive about sitting in it up to my shoulders.

As the water passed my (not inconsiderable) waist I was already thinking that maybe 2 minutes 17 seconds was a quite a long time. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was squealing a little at this point as my body had to rapidly adjust to the temperature.

I closed my eyes and hoped that Jack wasn’t going to knock me unconscious and that I would wake up sans kidney and with Jack’s bankroll £500 richer. As my shoulders finally submerged Jack started the timer and I went to my happy place.

Jack was full of encouraging statements such as “That’s only been 10 seconds” and “Wouldn’t it be nice to be in the Caribbean just now” but I was determined to win. At the minute mark (all timings courtesy of my regular updates) I started to think that this maybe wasn’t worth £50 but I knew this wasn’t about the money. If I lost this bet I would have lost everything since the wagers started and I wasn’t about to let that happen.

I tuned out Jack’s “help” and focused purely on surviving for another minute and a half. I reached a strange plateau where time seemed to move slowly but it was over before I knew and at the 2 minute 18 second mark (helpfully counted down from 10 by Jack) I slowly raised myself out of the ice water, towelled off and went to sit by the fire.

Frozen, still little damp and thinking that this whole thing was ridiculous I was still pleased. This was my first victory for a new age of crazy punting; the ridiculous physical challenges. £50 the richer and I think this may be the start of a real comeback for me.

JACK – As long as there’s no more ice, I’m game.

Current Bankrolls

Owen £1,023

Jack £1,240

The one with sports and Poker Heaven

Thursday 19th April 2007

OWEN - So I've spent the afternoon speaking with Barry from Poker Heaven and we've finally got something sorted which should make things interesting. More on that tomorrow so stay tuned.

We did promise you a crazy punt for today but perhaps tonight would have been more appropriate. Come back tomorrow to find out exactly what it was.

Since we're looking to the future here's a few sporting events which we'll be having bets on -

The champions league semi final. Chelsea vs Liverpool and Manchester United vs Milan.

If anyone has any suggestions then please make your views known in the comments. Any big tips appreciated as I can ill affored to lose another £50 side bet.

The Flora London Marathon 2007, we're not competing but will probably have a bet on the fastest time run.

The Snooker World Championship 2007, bets on the winner. We might not include O'Sullivan as he seems a big favourite again.

The one with the scratchcards

Monday 16th April 2007

OWEN – Well, in a strange twist of events it seems that my poker playing has attracted the attention of the room I play in.

If you check the comments section from earlier you’ll see that a young gentleman who works at Poker Heaven contacted us and because I’ve mentioned their room a couple of times and they like the idea, they are keen to help me promote our Crazy Punts blog.

Nothing confirmed yet, but it seems we may be getting our own page on their site, which is (flagrant promotion ahead) http://www.pokerheaven.com/. If we get our own page I’ll put a link up directly to that and of course keep everyone up to date.

Anyway, new found fans aside, I’ll get back to the betting.

On Monday we were busy in the office for most of the day and at a bit of a loss with what to make a bet on so we decided to fall back upon an old favourite – scratchcards.

We didn’t want to spend our evening rubbing a coin over little bits of paper so we decided if we both bought ten cards then we’d have a side bet of whoever won the most would get a £50 bonus from the loser.

We both bought the same type of scratchcards; 2x the kind with a leprechaun on it, Lucky Charms maybe, 2x the kind with pigs on it, 2x Lucky 7’s and 4x Aces High. We decided do go with the extra two Aces High cards as it had extra gambling connotations.

Jack was the first to get a win with a whopping £1. I came charging up the rear with a £2 win, followed quickly with another £1. We were down to the last few cards when Jack managed to score a mighty £4 on one card and with no further wins for me that was another side bet lost by myself. Surely I’m due some luck soon.

We decided that the next bet would have to be something a little more exciting or at least more competitive.

JACK – Owen refuses to acknowledge my superior skill in the fine art of pure, 100% luck gambling. Maybe one day he’ll reach my level.

We didn’t find much time to gamble on Tuesday or Wednesday as we were both busy in the office, but since we plan on slacking for the next few hours, rest assured we’ll make up for it with an interesting bet later on today (which I fully intend on winning, should luck have anything to do with it).

Current Bankrolls

Owen £973

Jack £1,290

The one where we start our diet

Sunday 15th April 2007

OWEN - So I awaken Sunday to a slight hangover and Jack ringing the bell. We’d agreed to play tennis and I’d slept in!

I dragged myself to the door and invited him in. I was somewhat off the idea of playing tennis and we sat down whilst I went to get ready. It was round about this time that we were chatting about how fat we were getting and decided to see just how bad things were.

We weighed ourselves with Jack coming in at 15 stones 11 lbs and myself at 14 stones 13 lbs. Using a quick calculator we worked out that we both had a body mass index just topping 30%!!!

With that in mind we decided that if we’re going to gamble it might as well be (or not be depending on how you look at it) with our health.

We wagered almost half of our remaining bankroll on who could lose the most weight after three months. £500 is riding on who can lose almost 3 stones to get into our ideal weight.

With £500 now being a deciding factor I was ready, tennis racquet in hand and out the door before Jack knew what was happening.

We’ll be keeping you up to date with the weigh-ins each Sunday.

A £50 side bet lay on the outcome of this match and as we’re both equally poor tennis players it resulted in quite a close match. I eventually lost 6-4, 6-3 but I was hoping my running around would help me with the earlier bet, by playing the balls close to Jack he didn’t have to run around as much. The £50 I lost here would be an investment for the future.

That evening we decided not to have any other bets but both of us went back onto Poker Heaven for some social poker. I played some $3/6 Omaha hi/lo and ended my session $245 up, which went a little of the way to mending the hole in my wallet these bets I keep losing were making.

JACK – We are both fairly inexperienced, and therefore dreadful, at tennis. I think the extra edge I needed to win came from my badminton playing days. That reminds me, I must try to get Owen onto a badminton court for £50 – it’s money in the bank!

When we got back to Owen’s, we decide to forego our usual Sunday evening beers and plumped for some healthy fruit juice instead. This could prove to be a long and hungry 3 months.

On the poker front, it was a decent night for both of us. I played 4 tables of $1/$2 NL Hold’em and finished around $350-$400 in profit – I wish this was counting towards our wager, then at least our bankrolls would be looking a bit healthier (much like we hopefully will be in 3 months). We decided that we should keep the £500 for the weight-loss bet in our bankrolls until the 3 months is up – the last thing we want is one of us going bust after a week!

Current bankrolls

Owen £1,030

Jack £1,245

The one where we lose on the Grand National

Saturday 14th April 2007

Seconds out, round two.

OWEN - After the late night poker session we both had we got a few hours sleep in, for it was an early start the next day with the Grand National taking place.

Jack and I met up at around eleven and reminisced about the betting the evening before. As we had a hearty brunch we decided that in order to make this interesting to read we need some sort of goal or target and to that effect we’ve decided to make our wagers a little more structured.

We’re going to start with a bankroll of £2000 and make as many bets as we like from it. The only stipulation is that both parties must be aware of the bet being made before it is placed and they all have to have a side bet with each other if it’s not a direct competition. Whosoever of us has the most money after 3 months (14^th July) wins another £2000.

As it was the day of the Grand National we agreed that any bets on were now to be deducted from the bankroll total and that we’d have a side bet of £50 on who could make the most.

Now, I already had £800 worth of bets on the National, but I’d put them on weeks ago and had Point Barrow and Joe’s Edge at more than double what they started the day at, so was quite happy to agree that the bets would count, of course Jack didn’t need to know that.

We were going to another friend’s house for a barbeque and bets day and Jack thought he better catch up in the wagering stakes and chose to bet on the first couple of races of the day. I don’t know what he bet on but they were both donkeys and one of them finished dead last. Good start for me.

After a few beers and a couple of hotdogs the main race was about to start. I’d ventured down to the bookies and put £100 on Hedgehunter as he was the only horse neither of us had covered and were worried about. I’d also put £20 into the sweepstake for two horses. Le Duc (40-1)(le donkey) and some 150-1 horse whose name I forget.

Grand total wagered - £920
Jack’s grand total wagered - £805

So after an eventful race Silver Birch won, with Mckelvey 2^nd, Slim Pickings 3^rd. Another 10-15 yards and both of us would have shown a profit as Mckelvey would have taken the win. As it stands we won... £0.

Neither of us had backed Silver Birch and all of our bets were to win rather than each way. Not the greatest start to our challenge as almost half our bankroll had been wiped out!

If only Cloudy Bays came home I’d have been £11,000 up but alas it was not to be.

The rest of the evening was dominated by drinking and eating although it was a fairly early night and I was in bed by midnight.

JACK – So I won £50 from Owen by not betting as much as he did – suits me! We also got talking to some guy at the Grand National party and the subject of our prop betting came up. We told him the whole story and he said he wanted to get his name in the blog, so he suggested that we both try to guess his birthday, with the closest guess winning. A £50 handshake later and we were both deep in thought, pretending to use some kind of skilful technique to randomly guess the birthday of this guy we’d never met before. We eventually gave that up and we both said our guesses at the same time:

Owen said “10^th of June”, as I simultaneously said “21^st of September”.

The guy said “Oooh… 9^th of February!” and we spend a good 10-15 seconds in silence trying to figure out who had won. Eventually we came to the conclusion that Owen was the victor and I gave him my last £50 I had on me.

Well, the day was a lot of fun, but ultimately disappointing bets-wise. Surely it must get better soon or we’re both going to go bust.

Oh yeah, and after all his efforts to get a mention here, I’ve forgotten the guy’s name.

Current bankrolls

Owen £1,080

Jack £1,195

The one that started it all

Friday 13th April 2007

Welcome all to the gambling blog run by myself, Owen and my partner in betting, Jack.

I’ll start with a little bit about why this blog came into being. Picture it, London, a warm and sunny day, we’ve been drinking by the banks of the Thames all afternoon before meeting up with some friends in town.

Jack and I have known each other for about 5 years now and we recently started our fourth business together. We met at a casino in Scotland, where we both come from and I took Jack away from the tables and got him into poker. We’ve been regular players ever since, even going on holiday together to some major tournaments such as the recent Johnny Chan Invitational.

Anyway, enough background, we were heading into town. So we meet some friends in a bar one of them owns and it’s not long before the drink leads the conversation to gambling, namely proposition bets.

Hunger having got the better of us we ordered a small jar of pistachio nuts from the bar. Before they were opened however Jack said “How many nuts do you think are in that jar?”, “I don’t know I replied” keen to just get on with eating my salty nutty goodness.

“About 50?”
“Less probably”
“I bet I can guess closer than you.”
Never one to avoid a bet I said “How much?” to which Jack replied “Fifty”.
“Fifty pounds or fifty nuts?” I asked. “Pounds obviously” was the answer. We both agreed and then Jack made his guess. “Fifty” he said.
“I know” I said “but how many nuts?”
“Fifty!”
“Oh, that’s your guess. Okay, I’ll guess forty-five, closest wins.”

So we emptied the nuts into the unused ashtray and counted them. I unfortunately lost with fifty-two nuts being the winning number.

That was the flash point for the whole evening, bets were being made for the rest of the night, ranging from ‘name that tune’ (first person to guess the next song played by the DJ) to who can pour closest to 1oz of alcohol (knowing the owner helped in this one) as well as a few more outrageous ones.

The night finished up around 2am and after a quick tally up of the wagers we we’re both dead even!

We left our friends who’d had a good night and went home, but as we left one of them said “You know, you guys should write a book or something about all your crazy bets” and thus this blog was born. As both Jack and I lack the necessary talent and time required to write a proper book, we’ve taken it to the internet for all to read.

If you are reading this you probably know either Jack or I but if not then I hope you enjoy it.

…

Of course that wasn’t the end of the night.

Neither of us could believe that after 4 hours of making silly bets we’d somehow ended up evens, we knew there had to be some sort of resolution as to who was the winner and it had to be tonight. We both rushed home and logged into Poker Heaven (online poker room) to settle once and for all who was the better gambler!

We both put in $500 and gave ourselves an hour and a half to make as much as possible. The winner would get an extra £100 from the loser as well as whatever they made (or lost).

My initial tactics were to play with $200 on a $2/$4 pot limit Omaha table and just push as much money in whenever I had a good hand with a redraw. Whilst waiting for a good hand I was playing heads up at $50 a time. As Jack had a similar idea with the heads up we agreed not to play each other.

Play was fast and furious down to the last five minutes, I was down to about $350 and Jack was down to $250. We agreed we could finish whatever tournament we started and I sat down at $100+$10 heads up and Jack did the same at a $200+$15.

Whoever won was going to win the bet.

I played my usual heads up game (albeit slightly drunk) and wore down my opponent by chipping away with raises and re-raises. He was really passive for a $100 player and I soon built up a big chip lead. He did start making some moves back at me but the blinds were still quite low as I now had ¾ of the chips and I just waited for a big hand came over the top and took all his chips. I was finished my game with $430 in the bank, it all now depended on Jack.

I’ll let him tell the tale…

JACK - Only one person stood between me and a dramatic victory which would surely guarantee me bragging rights, for a good few days at least. I would love to tell you my opponent’s username however, since it consisted entirely of punctuation marks, I had a hard time pronouncing it.

We’d been duelling aggressively for 10 minutes or so with not many chips changing hands when I was dealt T8s, in possession of the button. I made my standard raise and he came over the top with a slightly larger than minimum raise. I called, and the miracle flop I found myself praying for came down – QJ9 rainbow. I’d flopped a straight. I’ll save you the long sob story and I’ll just tell you we got all in on the flop -he had a set of 9s and filled up with a jack on the turn.

Game over, and bet over, I hand over £100 to Owen. His gloating begins immediately, and the only straw I can find to clutch at is that I have more advanced skills in estimating pistachio nut quantities.

This was not a good start.