Tango Poker League

Wednesday’s first port of call was the 235 Casino to confirm a few things regarding the TPL final on Aug. 28^th, namely, the bar discount for Tango players on the day! The Rhino orders 2 pints of Carling while i’m off looking for Doug, the card room gaffer..

“no, i only want 2 pints luv” i hear the big fella say to the barmaid, “yes i know” she says, then very politely tells him again “that’s £7.80 please” now i’ve never seen a Rhino knocked down with a feather before, but i reckon if i would of had one with me it may well have been possible!

The tiny “Barbie-doll” looking barmaid was anxiously waiting for this giant of a man to pay her & once she had given the change she disappeared quicker than a bucket of freshly salted slugs! To make matters worse for Johnny, i informed him that this trip was a waste of time because Doug wasn’t even on duty that evening!

THREE OR 3?

Anyway we arrive at the Three Arrows in Middleton, 2 tables for the end of month game. Most players put a £5 bounty on their own head in this 13,000 stack game. I get the beer in on arrival and paid a lot less than £7.80 & tasted a lot better for it lol.

With Johnny’s wallet still smarting from our stop off at the Casino i offer to get him another pint to balance things up while i go for a quick chat with the poker lads & take the name card round, this cheered him up immensely & he posted another 2 for good measure!….. good job i’m doing the driving tonight. A good game was in progress and a lot of action on nearly every pot with the bounties in play but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves bounty or not.

Off To Alti..

“i’m not ice skating” the big fella informs me when i pick him up & tell him we’re off to Altrincham.

Once again it’s the month end game but this time Lee, the Landlord of the Bridge puts up £50 for Tango player who have played 3 out of 4 games in the month (or 4 out of 5 if there’s 5 Thursdays in the month) now i think this is a fantastic idea and my BIG THANKS goes out to Lee for making ‘this’ Tango venue even better for Tommy & his band of regulars to play in.

The Toll Point was our next port of call, where it all began for Tango. The ‘Tolly’ was the first pub to sign up for the TPL & we had our launch-come-opening game here in July 09, a few of the usual suspects are still on parade plus new members are always directed to the Tolly to ease them into a Tango game night mainly because there’s ALWAYS sausages laid on at the break!

The Rhino is in some sort of text conversation that is making him rather too giddy for my liking, and after the final text he then tells me “i can’t make tomorrow night, i have to meet someone called Debbie & 11 other student nurses and show them around Manchester!” I demand to know why i’m not invited on this excursion. “it’s ok mate” he says “i’ve got this one covered, i don’t think there’s any need for a wing-man”

So Friday i’m off to the Hare & Hounds in Gorton for one of Tango’s deep stack games. Andy ‘the rebel’ Duff is the TD & starts everyone on 25k as it’s not a school night, we all pay a £2 bounty to put on our own heads, and a further 50p is collected off everyone & a name is picked at random for the ‘super bounty’… all good fun!

COME AND RESCUE ME!!!  The text reads on my phone, with a rather puzzled look on my face i decide to ring the Rhino for an explanation of his text. “what’s up fella? Too many chickens in your coop?” i ask.. “I WISH!” the big fella barks back at me, “let me put it this way, other than Debbie all the rest aint chickens, they’ve ALL got budgie smugglers on! And i’m stuck in the middle of the gay village because they ALL wanted to come here!”

I drop my phone laughing at my friends predicament and think to myself how glad i am not to be on this ‘nurse’s tour of Manchester’ where there seemed to be more mince than even Mr. Kippling could handle at Christmas, and i let him stew for about an hour before i send the text “Don’t worry… help is on the way!”

Step 1, I pick up Kev-2-Legs on my way to the City centre telling him we have to save Johnny from 12 student nurses, he blurts out that ‘he’ would look after them if i want to take the Rhino back to the pub with me.

Step 2, pulling up outside the pub i tell him to go inside, find the Rhino and he will point out Debbie “and after that it’s up to you mate”

Step 3, quick splash of Brute & the boy goes in! The car door didn’t get chance to close before the big fella was in shouting DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE! Lol, not heard off Kev since but i’m sure he’s ok wherever he is!

Day off on Saturday, but it’s the Tango Final Sunday!

Too Hot For This…

We called in on The Gardeners Arms on Sunday to see if they were actually playing outside because of the warm weather! No, was the answer as all 22 runners seemed to have the pub to themselves because everyone else was in the beer garden!

15,000 starting stack at the Gardeners starting at 8pm but all the talk in the place was about Tango upping the 1^st prize of the 2-month final to a $1,500 seat at the next W.S.O.P. with hotel & flights in Vegas. The top 70 players in the league will be invited to the fantastic 235 Casino in Manchester to play for the fantastic 1^st prize worth over £2,000!

The Rhino, my beer monster chum , asked me “if i come to Vegas with you, do i have to play poker?” not what you would call a lover of the game my friend, but saying that he doesn’t really like anything that gets in the way of discovering his own “perfect pint” never mind Carling’s!

“Don’t worry” i told him “your job when we’re over there next year, is to find out what’s best, Bud or Coors!” he seemed delighted by this and ordered a couple of beers to celebrate.

I spotted Alan Kinsey on table 2 and went over for a quick chat, ‘AK’ keeps telling me i’m much older than he is but i can’t see it myself as he has 8 grandchildren and tells me he’s only 46! Who’s he trying to kid? He told me he’s 47 in August, so from August Mr. Kinsey shall be known as AK47!

Over The Border…

Monday night seen us landing at The Victoria in Horwich, Bolton. It seemed really quiet in the massive vault at the Vic, mind you last time i was there on a Monday night Bolton Wanderers were at home & the Reebok stadium is just around the corner.  

Andy Winning runs the games at the Vic on Mondays & Wednesdays, both nights start at 8pm with 10,000 chips. The Bolton crowd got the ball rolling by starting a fresh name card i’m taking out & about with me. £1 per square and the winner will get a seat at Manchester’s 235 Casino on Sunday 4^th Sept. In their first £50 W.S.O.P.E. feeder games! So make sure you have a spare couple of quid with you for when i turn up at your game.

Off to The Albion in Middleton next for another of Tango’s Monday night games. Howard started with 15,000 in chips for his 18 players & we turned up just as the players went on a 10 minute break at the end of level 3, perfect timing! I thought, whipped out my name card and the smoking area was now full of players searching their pockets for £1 coins.

The Rhino taps me on the shoulder, then pointing a finger at Howard he said to me “first time i’ve seen ‘H’ at a poker game still awake” not as crazy as it sounds actually, i’m up to 9 different pictures of ‘H’ asleep in 9 different pubs! I’ve told him, as soon as i get 12 i’m making a calendar to raffle off for charity!

Back at the bar, The Rhino was sorting a few quid out for his Vegas Club. In case you’re new to Tango, “Vegas Club” is a savings club for anyone interested in going to Vegas next year in the middle 2 weeks of June, the idea being.. the more of us there is going then the cheaper it will be! If you want any more info on Tango’s Vegas Club check out our Facebook page.

Tuesday..

A quick visit to the 235 Casino to confirm a few details for Tango’s final on the 28^th August, only to find out that Doug, the card room manager is in Vegas! Oh well, fingers crossed that all is good for the 28^th, don’t want to start changing anything now the dates & prizes have all been arranged. (regular Tango players are not used to things being changed at the last minute! LOL LOL LOL LOL!!)  

So me & the big fella set off for Cheers Bar in Prestwich singing the theme song from the famous rubbish TV show. “i wonder if everyone really will know my name when we get there” the Rhino says to me when we got to that point in the lyrics, “doubt it” i said “people are usually just scared of you”

Johnny goes into Cheers while i pose for a photo with the sign outside, i decide to ‘dance’ my way into the place for some reason & thinking i was alone bustin’ moves, there was a couple who i hadn’t spotted in the corner who found this hilarious! In fact the young lady was suffering from some sort of breathing problem from my Elvis impression & found it hard to hold back some sort of bodily function???

The league’s Guv’, “Tango Dave” runs this game and his head popped up saying “behave yourself! Just tell people we start at 8 with 13,000 but the venue is subject to change on Champions League nights now both City & United are in it” so there you go, i’ve told you…… T1L

Intro….

After a couple of meetings with Manchester Confidential, who are a HUGE on-line magazine with over 100,000 readers in & around Manchester, they have asked me to write a weekly blog about pub poker namely Tango poker.

Man.Conf. are very well connected with various people (and possible sponsors) but mainly from our point of view they are connected to Manchester’s 235 casino. Together with the 235 they will be holding £50+£7 “deep stack freeze out” tourney’s every month to send people to the WSOPE tourneys all over Europe. The buy-ins will pay for the seats and Man.Conf. will be putting up flights & hotels.

The 235….

The 235 casino has had a re-furb over the past few months and they now have a very impressive card room, i’ve been down there for a tour & a meeting with the staff who told me that they intend to follow the WSOPE by running games each month for seats at the next game on the tour. WSOPE feeders will be dealer-dealt tourneys with a free buffet for the players (hence the £7 rake lol)

The 235 is more relaxed than the G casino or any other casino by the way you don’t have to provide ID to join, it works like any other pub or club, if your dressed smart and you don’t look under age then you’re in!

Also keeping “in” with 235 we get to find out about anything else they might start doing and maybe some freebies off them if we keep filling up the WSOPE seats…. who knows??

Using This Blog….

My idea for this blog is for it to work in a few different ways, i will be visiting all the venues on the Tango calendar taking a few photos & jotting a few things down, not only about the poker but the pub itself. I think this will be good advertising for pubs on the circuit when you think of the amount of people reading the blog via the Man.Conf. tab.

Also if a pub is holding a charity night or some other sort of fund raising activity then i can push it into that week’s blog. Most pubs seem to be taking name cards or raffle tickets round each week raising money for someone or something local so why not use this to let 1000’s know about the cause? Speaking of good cause’s…..

I will be “replacing” Tango league games for fund raising games across the fixture list about every 2 weeks or so, the 1st will be at the Strawberry Duck on Wed. 13th July. just for one night the normal league game will become a fund raiser where players can win £50(+£7) seats to the WSOPE game at the 235 as well as seats for Manchester Confidential’s £20(+£5) double chance game also at the 235. All Tango players that attend will be given 150 league points plus all non Tango members will be given instant membership and 150 points! (hopefully this will kick start these people into becoming regular players in the TPL and maybe introducing some new venues) contact me direct for buy-in details by email at  tony1leg@gmail.com  or PM me on facebook  Tony OneLeg

I will be trying to attract a bigger audience with this blog than just poker players, i’ve enlisted the help of my beer monster chum Johnny “The Rhino” who will be giving his “drunk’s eye view” of pubs & venues we visit. The last blog i did was about the up’s & down’s of Droylsden FC. we built up quite a following from people who didn’t care less about the football, they just wanted more of what we was getting up to & slagging off! but as the saying goes, any advertising is good advertising! so if i write this blog in the same sort of way hopefully more people will be bookmarking the address at the top of this page. This means if you are somewhat of a character in the TPL your photo plus whatever slander i choose to write about you will end up all over Man. Conf’s. website for 1000′s to see! lol lol…………. you know who you are !!!

Finally…

Pokershark is a free on-line magazine and they have a website promoting all local pub poker in Manchester and advertise Tango games (here) worth a look and don’t forget…. it’s FREE!

Read about Manchester Confidential’s Poker tourneys (also where this blog will appear) on the new poker tab (here)

To give you an idea of how this blog will look my Bloods (Droylsden FC) blog is still open for now (here)

Thanks for reading this folks… please add to the discussion page on Tango’s Facebook as ALL and ANY feedback is both wanted & welcome…… T1L.

Withington Bowling Club

Birch Acre Grove (off Derby Road), Withington, Manchester, M14 6UX

Tel: 0161 224 2846

first things first….. THE CLOCKS GO FORWARD!!!!

registration will open for this game at 12pm Sunday 28th March until 1.15pm. PROMPT! the game will start at 1.30pm & each player will start with 15,000 chips with the following format….

the payout on the day will be…………

1st   =   UKIPT seat at Dusk till Dawn

2nd   =   180 kudos

3rd   =   120 kudos

4th   =   80 kudos

5th   =   60 kudos

6th   =   40 kudos

7th   =   30 kudos

8th   =   20 kudos

9th   =   10 kudos