Karohemd's World

Yesterday noonish I made my way down to the depths of Bedfordshire. Traffic was alright but I got confused due to the lack of signposting and the AA's directions so I missed a turn, came onto the A5 the wrong way and then missed another turn I remembered too late from last year so I came in through Leighton Buzzard down centre which was quite busy but miraculously I managed to find the right road and got to the school in plenty of time.

The Boss of Bosses mobster freeform was good fun and my governor actually made it alive through the end, which couldn't be said of most of the mob. Result. :o)

After a break, loads more people arriving and setting up the room, the poker tournament, run by Graham A and mr_malk went ahead.
Suprisingly, I did really well in the beginning, moving tables twice and waving good-bye to various people who had utterly outplayed me last year. I guess it was a combination of actually having a good few hands, and much luck but I need to be more confident and aggressive on the one hand and fold more often on the other.
Staying in as long as I did also meant I got into the "Last Chance Saloon" (the losers' table) quite late which in turn meant I was horribly short-stacked and didn't get the hands I needed to get in properly.

The final table was very strong (as to be expected) and consisted of both very experienced players and absolute "virgins". The last hand was awesome when chomper99 went all-in with 6 and 2 off-suit which turned into a Full House which beat Andy's Flush. o_O
Due to time-restraints, the winner was determined by number of chips which meant (can't remember her name) came out on top, beating both chomper99 and Andy. Very cool.
I'm sure mr_malk will be posting the final numbers of money raised but IIRC, it was around the 1500 quid mark.
Photos tomorrow.

Back from the CarribbeanRetford (got to robinbloke's in record time, well under two hours drive and I got in at about 5:30.
It was a good weekend, lots of fun playing, catching up with old friends and making new ones (does Frances have an LJ?)
Friday
We made good progress from Bar Hill at first but traffic on the A1 slowed down soon enough so the journey took us almost three hours. Very good thing that we left as early as we did as we didn't get stuck as many others did later...
Checked into our room, unpacked a bit and went to the main hotel to pick up our character packs and say Hi to people in the bar.
Due to a crash on the M1, many people were delayed so the schedule was pushed back by an hour which meant we had plenty of time to chat and make introductions, relax a bit, eat awfully bland and overpriced bar food, read our character packs and get changed.
Things got started with the brief and rules introduction and then it was finally time-in.
Spent some time milling about and trying to see who was there and what my options were. Other things happened, too but I won't get into details in case this will be run again somewhere at some point. At least I got to work on my objectives and getting somewhere, too.
Saturday
After a lardy breakfast there was voyaging, treasure hunting and working on my objectives. By Saturday night I seemed to have the reputation as the best lookout in Freetown, considering even Henry Morgan and Morgan Adams - then the Pirate Queen - wanted my services.
After not being happy with the "bar food" we decided to skip the set dinner (the menu sounded great but judging by last year, it would be just as bland as the bar food) and got some rather nice Chinese take-away instead which not only saved us 15 quid but also some time I spent by processing some photos.
Happy to still be alive after Saturday night with actually having done something in terms of game and character development, I got a nice dram of some 15 year old Malt from the bar and chatted with various players including Dave who usually gets paid for playing a pirate (they have a complicated URL which I can't remember).
Sunday
I screwed up setting my alarm so we got up an hour earlier than we wanted but hey, we had at least time to eat breakfast and pack our bags before the Sunday session started. This was good fun, too, as I got to play a completely different character (my previous character having escaped to join his employers, the Royal Navy, after Saturday night's events). Some very scary photos resulted from that session, too....
After it was done, we got changed, piled our plates with free (and actual not bland) food and were debriefed during which various bits of plot, secret identities and so forth were revealed.
Said our good-byes, got on the road and had pretty much plain sailing back home, roadworks only slowing us down a bit twice this time.

All in all, a good weekend indeed.

Next year's big weekend freeform will be

I will post details as soon as I have them. Due to various potential clashes the exact date isn't set yet but it will be in November again, at the same place (Retford).
davedevil, don't say I didn't warn you ahead of time. :oP

Just received my "character sheet", if you can call an eight page PDF document that.
Wow, these people really put a lot of effort into their games. I've heard lots of good things about them and when I saw the announcement for this one last year, I signed up immediately. I'm sure it'll be a blast.

Gah, and then I realised that I completely forgot to care about costume. I assume a variation on my Balthasar costume will have to do. I have a hat, which is good. Black shirt, waistcoat, pocket watch. A frock coat would have been nice but there's no way I'll find something affordable until then.