We had a fantastic turn out at this event: over 100 players. We sold out the event in just over a week. One of our players even managed to flop a Royal Flush.

Don’t believe me? Check this out.

After nagging from Mike Jones, Dave Williamson and Dominic McAdden, I have finally given in and started to use Twitter, to enable everyone to follow pokercoder at least - see http://twitter.com/pokercoder. This will allow you to get instant notification of events, registration opening, changes in events, results etc.

Lot of people arrived early this time and in contrast, I scraped in there by the skin of my teeth at barely 7pm (the tournament start time)

I then had to do the registrations on my Mac, as I had forgotten to print off the attendee list. Grrrrr. This took so long that we didn’t start playing until about 8pm. After this, Adobe broke the news that Serge Jespers wasn’t coming and they wouldn’t be demoing Flash Catalyst or Flex 4 after all

So the event didn’t get off to a flying start, but hey, what event really does? And really it’s bout how you deal with the challenges set out before you.

Everyone was is great form and really up for the event. The Tshirts were all there and the first 50 registered got their event Tshirt. The first 10 knocked out got a full round of applause, their Loser’s T shirt and a crap prize of their choice, many of which were truly awful. Our lucky losers were:

In order of exit:

1. Biffer Rowley.
2. Chris Sees.
3. Dominic Crowhurst.
4. Jimmy Taylor.
5. Miguel Sanchez
6. Neil Bennett.
7. Chris Williams.
8. Mikko Tormala.
9. Byron Manley.
10. Stuart Lees.

I managed to go out in mediocre position and my night’s play was uneventful. I won a hand early on with a total bluff and by raising in position. Everyone folded to me. Suckers lol. However, the dealer at my table obviously had a whole stack of unlinked, unsuited low cards he had deliberatly put aside for me and by the time I was down to a tiny all-in stack I was lucky enough to draw a K+Q. Only one caller, but he had K+A. Ace on the flop and I was gone.

The Winners: In position number

1. Jonathan Craig - Tournament Champion (Web Premium Package - PC + ticket for FotB).
2. Alam Gill.
3. Alex Gounaropoulos.
4. Andrea Ottolina. (Photoshop CS4 Extended - Mac)
5. Sam Clark.
6. Surya Kona.
7. Irvin Suntokee.
8. Mark Schaschke.
9. Richard Lord.
10. Hamish Cross (Adobe After Effects CS4 for Windows)

Go see the photos of the night here

We finished up around midnight as usual, but lots of people were still there either watching the final table or playing at the numerous sit ‘n go tables that had sprung up as people went out. The last of us were thrown out at about 1am. Some of the hardcore crew even went on to The Empire casino in Leicester Square till the wee small hours in the morning to carry on.

No inane celebration of mediocrity. Just quick sharp facts about events, notifications, prizes, offers, benefits to you and the odd bit of begging for feedback or opinions on how we can improve your PokerCoder experience.

We have been having the problem that our emails hit firewalls and Spam blockers long before everyone gets them, as all our emails contain the word ‘Poker’ a number of times and we send out hundreds at a time. This leads to problems with our members not getting their notifications about events or not getting their confirmations.

If any of our members who attend have expertise in email batching, your advise on fixing this would be massively appreciated!

But for now…click HERE, then login and follow the PokerCoder feed, or if you don’t already have a Twitter account, please set one up. It’s free and you don’t get any spam as notifications are sent to your twitter client, not your email address. And they are only the people you choose to follow…which will obviously only be PokerCoder

For those of you who haven’t received the emails, don’t forget, if you registered for the event, it’s TONIGHT! Your names will be checked at the door. Everything starts at 7pm sharp so don’t be late.

Any questions, see the site.

Well you’ve waited patiently and here it is. The registration page for non members is now open, so if you want to join and attend THE Poker and Adobe Web Professional networking event then you’d better be ready. This time we’re extending the format a little as well. Adobe will have a number of experts on hand to demo and discuss Flash Catalyst (formerly known as Thermo) and Flex Builder 4. All new, shiny, exciting stuff.

The format, for those who don’t already know (though I can’t believe there’s anyone who doesn’t by now) is that only the first 100 registrants get a place (and automatic membership of PokerCoder, and thus advanced notification of future events).

Adobe lay on all the prizes and the booze, so thanks to their generosity, the venue and the event are all free for all of those who qualify to get in.

The first 50 people through the door wil each get a tournament Tshirt. The first 10 people out will be publicly humiliated, have rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at them, be put in a stockade for the rest of the night and given a Loser’s Tshirt to wear. Well, you’ll get a Tshirt anyway.

The players making it to the final table (10 people) will each get a Winner’s Tshirt and software point product of their choice, and the over all tournament champion will get an Adobe  Premium Suite of their choice (Design, Web or Production), the engraved Championship bracelet and most excitingly, a ticket to Flash on the Beach in Brighton in September.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT!

If you are an existing member of PokerCoder then you will shortly be receiving a member’s notification via email of a discount code that Adobe have issued to me, exclusively for PokerCoder members for Max in Milan. This is from the 1st to the 3rd of December. I will be going myself as some of the speakers are to good to miss and of course the Italian food and women aren’t bad either. And in case you ladies aren’t convinced by this, check out the Italian men.

Please let me know if you still haven’t received your email notification by the weekend and I’ll email you directly with the discount code if you’re on the PokerCoder database.

Well it didn’t all go exactly according to plan this time. I guess it can’t go perfectly every time. Adobe were a little thin on the ground at the tournament. They are usually very well represented but Andrew Shorten stood in well for them all. I had to cut short all announcements because neither of the Casino microphones worked, so there’s a lot of stuff I’ll be announcing via the blog here over the next few weeks, so check in regularly.

Unfortunately none of the Standard, Winner and Loser T shirts turned up this time, so for those of you who won or lost, we’ll be sending you the Ts in the post (provided the addresses I have for you on the PokerCoder database are correct).

I am proud to say that I was NOT the first person out this time. That dubious honor went to Jamie Badman, who on this night, did NOT live up to his name. I did in fact post a respectable bit of play and would have done well if it weren’t for “the excellent play of a gentleman called Jiten Pitamber”. And by ‘excellent play’ I of course mean ’stroke of dumb luck’ and by ‘gentleman’ I of course mean ‘moron’. LOL, no, not really. It was a great hand of poker, probably one of the best head to heads of the night, and for those of you who want to learn more about poker, it’s called a ‘Bad Beat’ and here’s what happened: Read more

If you are attending the Adobe sponsored PokerCoder Tournament tonight at the Grosvenor casino, don’t forget YOU MUST HAVE PHOTO ID IF YOU DON’T ALREADY HAVE MEMBERSHIP. A passport or photo driving licence are the only acceptable forms of ID. Obviously if you are already a member of a Grosvenor casino then you’ll be fine. IF YOU DON’T HAVE THIS ID YOU WON’T GET IN and there’s nothing I can do about it at the casino.

The event starts at 7pm but please arrive as early as possible as you will need to get membership at the door. It’s free and comes with no obligations. The casino simply get a few more official members and the possibility that when you next want to go to a casino, you’ll go to theirs.

We’ll be having dealer lead training at the tables by about 7:20pm, so if you’re new to Poker get along on time.

CONFIRMATIONS: If you received a members priority invitation and you clicked on “YES” you’ll be attending, then you are in. Consider yourself confirmed.

Roll up, roll up. But do it quick. We are just a few places away from being fully booked, so if you’d like the chance to come to the Adobe sponsored London Poker Tournament next Tuesday then get over to the site and register straight away.

If we have any members who didn’t receive their Member’s Notification email then please email me (sean@pokercoder.com) and let me know. I suspect there may be an issue with the member’s notification system but it’s a difficult one to track down with out the members help.

A quick ‘hi’ to all those people I met at Flash on the Beach, though it was amazing to see just how many people either didn’t know about the PokerCoder events or who thought you had to know how to play poker to come along. I would ask you all, if you have a blog, then please blog on the event if you’ve attended. This brings more suckers in, uh, I mean, players, eh-hem, and encourages greater and continued sponsorship.

Also, if you’ve never played poker before then this event is specifically for you. We have the club instructed that most of our players are beginners. We have 15 minutes training at the beginning and easily 50% of the attendiees use that. Invariably the final table is full of beginners as anyone who has played before has already gone out as a direct result of trying to bluff a beginner. I know, I’m usually one of them. As I say, easily 50% of our players are beginners or complete novices, so come along and give it a go. It’s free, so is the beer and you get to meet truley nice people (players and sponsors)

Prepare to be vigorously Pokered. Ok, so now I can finally reveal that the PokerCoder event was postponed to allow CS4 to be released first. This means that you can all fight for brand new CS4 products if you get to the final table. With the tournament champion getting his/her choice of CS4 Creative Suites. How awesome is that!

Put October 14th in your diary. For all my regulars (could I sound more like a hooker?), those of you who meet Adobe’s fairly strict criteria should have already received an invite to the tournament. If you have attended before and you haven’t then email me and I’ll check it out.

If you’re new to PokerCoder events, then sign up quick. They’re free, you get to meet many talented peers, network and drink free beer. You will receive tutoring on how to play texas hold ‘em poker (it’s very easy) and if you make it to the final table then you’ll get prizes to. Everyone enjoys the event. It’s very informal and it’s great to meet many of the people who’s blogs you read or who’s company you’d like to work for. It’s a chance to exchange ideas, talk to the sponsors about their software and play some damn fine poker

At PokerCoder careers are improved, friendships are forged, prizes are won, fun is had, beer is drunk, IQs are flexed and sheep are dressed in leather. Oh, no, actually that last one is a different event

The event is being held at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino off Edgware Rd. Check the site for directions and a map. If you attended the very first PokerCoder event last year then you’ll have already been to the casino and more importantly, you’ll already be a member.

IMPORTANT: I can’t stress this enough - When you come to the casino, if you are already a member then there should be no problem (bring your membership card, though you might get in without it), BUT if you are NOT a member, you WILL NEED PHOTO ID to get in. I can do nothing about it if you turn up without membership or photo ID, so don’t forget it (Passport or photo Driving Licence). The casino are very strict about this. If you want to know more then contact the Casino directly. Their phone number is on the PokerCoder event site under ‘LOCATION’.

See you all at the tournament. I’ll be the one NOT going out first this time.