Topless for peace (June & July 2010).

Many of the people who read this blog know I am into poker, football horses and the like but not many will know I am passionate about world peace and travel Europe campaigning tirelessly, but more about that later.

Firstly apology's for having to do June & July's blog in one but I have been rather busy of late.

In Mays blog I left you all with a run of 18 out of 23 final tables at Teesside.
June and July were no different and I managed a further 6 out of 9 finishing in the following positions.
1ST, 2 SECONDS, ONE 5 WAY SPLIT, 1 FOURTH & A EIGHTH.
I also fitted in one Friday night where I finished second for £660.00.
So the run continues locally at Teesside and now stands at 24 out of 29.

I managed to fit in the monthly £300.00 deep stack at Dusk Till Dawn in June.
As regular followers will know winning this is competition is my only goal in poker.

I survived day one and reappeared with 50 odd other hopefuls hoping to grab the first prize of 25k.
Sadly the poker gods did not look down on me and I lost 3 races, twice holding pairs v ace big and once holding ACE KING v POCKET 5'S which failed to connect.

A big congratulations goes to "sugar" Ray Ryder who managed to involve himself in a 3way chop ending up with £13,500.00 the biggest cash in the north east this year.
A fantastic performance as coming back on day 2 he was the lowest stack, well done Raymondo.

Newcastle Grosvenor held there summer series festival and I played the £200 freeze out and the £300 main event.
In the £200.00 I finished 8TH for £250.00 and the main event in about 30TH for nowt.
However back to back final tables on the circuit so things were looking up.

Aspers at Newcastle held a mini festival but with a awful anti structure was very disappointing and got the numbers it deserved.

Next in line was the Coral Gala masters poker tour which was held just down the road at Leeds.
I only played the main event the £500.00 Freeze out.

This competition will always be remembered as the tournament of outdraws.
Daniel Trett got his ACES busted by Steve Holden's pocket kings,first card a king.
Quad 9's got busted by quad Queens on a 9 9 2 flop!.
I outdrew pocket queens with ak the list was endless. That's poker I guess nice to see the outdrawn players taking it in style.
I managed to make the second day with 17 other hopefuls all after the 12k first prize.
I made the final table with little difficulty along with Newcastle player Ross Johnson.
Ash Hussain was also another notable gracing the centre stage.
My game plan was not to get involved in too many pots with Ash as he is very dangerous with chips and one hell of a player.

That plan went straight out of the window as I doubled him up with JJ v his KK.

One by one the players departed leaving 4 of us left. Me and Ash were hanging on for dear life as the two others had mountains of chips.
Then a hand occurred that beggars belief.

The two chip leaders collided Ross and some other.
Mr some other who had 40% of the chips in play gift wrapped them all and sent them to the ever so grateful Ross who played the hand perfectly.
Ash went in third leaving me with a mountain the size of Everest to climb. One hand later it was all over I finished in second place for £7,230.00.

A awesome well played to Ross who played one of the best final tables I have seen for a long time and fully deserved his success.

JUNE & JULY'S WINNERS FROM THE NORTH EAST.

Ray Ryder. (3RD) £13,500.00 dusk till £300 deep stack.
Ross Johnson.(1ST) £12,500.00 Leeds gala poker tour main event.
Paul Gardener (2ND) £7,2000.00 Leeds Gala poker tour main event.


Last year I had the pleasure of attending my good mate Dave Maudlin's stag do in Prague.

To be honest it was a class weekend , good craic but with non of the high jinx's and tortures that sometimes accompanies a stag do.
No arrests , no traffic cones up the bottom and no waking up to find every hair on your body had disappeared over night.

The Sunday before the day we were due home we all went for a cultural walk through the magnificent City of Prague.a awesome place if you have never visited.
We walked into the main square and walked straight into a peace gathering with over 1000 peace marchers.
A closer look at the marchers and there banners bought the realization the march was no ordinary peace march but a...


"topless for peace march"

All men and more importantly the women were topless.
Some had painted important peace signs over certain bits of there bodies , but some had not.
.
My top was soon off followed closely by Howie & John Cairns.
As Howie and John skirted round the edges I got right in the middle.

I am a great believer in "why look at a few pair of boobs when you can look at hundreds".


Right in the middle I got talking to some Swedish Guy who I Told in conversation that I had come from England especially for the march.
I was the founder member of the Teesside peace movement and 13 of us had travelled over especially to support world peace.!


This was a fateful mistake.
With in seconds and from nowhere he produced 3 t.v crews one from the premier t.v channel in the Czech republic, German channel R.T.L and Frances national news channel.
The guy I happened to be talking to was only the march organiser and to drum up publicity had grabbed the media and sent them to interview the leading peace activist from England.

With microphones under my nose and what seemed like every t.v news channels in Europe pointing there camera at me I quickly realized I was in the shit.
I have been in the proverbial many times and managed to come out of things smelling of roses but this time there looked like no way out.

In broken English one t.v guy said speech please and the crowd went quiet. They were expecting a inspirational speech, sadly I was speechless.
Looking round for support the remaining 12 were no where to be seen.

Then like a bolt of lightening it hit me.

( I am a massive Beatles fan and know all the words to all there songs)

I opened my mouth and out came...




Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation,
Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance


John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper,
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna
Hare Hare Krishna
All we are saying is give peace a chance

and at the top of my voice I shouted to the audience "what is our message"
they eagerly replied
"give peace a chance from the top of the voices followed by a round of applause.

Phew a close shave.

When we got back to our hotel the receptionist shouted us over.
"I have just seen you on the news. I am so sorry I thought you lot were just a load of drunken Englishmen on a stag do or something, I did not realize you were hear for world peace

Priceless.

If you google or you tube topless for peace 2009 Czech you can see my interview.