Neil "Sillbags" Sillick

[Sillbags]

1 - WHO ARE YOU?  
Neil Sillick


2 - POST A PICTURE OF YOURSELF OR A LINK TO ONE (APAT OR OTHER)


3 - WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?
Weston-Super-Mare


4 - TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF?
I was born in 1977 and I live in Weston-Super-Mare with my wife Sarah. We have 4 children with 17 years difference from eldest to youngest. I work for packaging company Smurfit Kappa and have done for 10 years


5 - WHAT IS YOUR POKER BACKGROUND?
My elder brother introduced me to poker about 9 years ago, just as the poker boom began. We grew up playing many different games of strategy/gambling like chess, backgammon, many card games, and fruit machines (which I actually played professionally for over 10 years, but thats another story). So I immediately began very intrigued by poker. I made my 1st deposit on William Hill and jumped straight in to the £20-£50 SNG"s. I must have ran like god for the 1st week, because I could not lose. Well, over the next couple of years I was a break even player at best, not really knowing much about strategy. I started playing in a pub poker league sponsored by Matt Dale"s Poker.co.uk site, meeting other players, experimenting with other online poker sites. My 1st breakthrough moment was when I won a £550 satellite to GCBPT Bristol in 2008. This was a big deal for me, so leading up to the event I read a bunch of poker strategy books to try to prepare me for the biggest event i"d played in. During Day 1 I had shared a table with Julian Thew, Dave Colclough and James Dempsey. I Had the chip lead for a short period on day 1, but ended up folding to the bubble for a min cash on day 2. This was however, a good result and experience for me, having shared tables with some great players. Shortly after, I qualified for GUKPT Blackpool £1060, where I shared a starting table with Praz Bansi and Karl Mahrenholz. To cut a long story short, I ended up busting on the last level of the day with KK to AK    But again, I felt that this had been a great experience for me. The next year or 2 I spent "Bonus Whoring" (joining a new poker site to complete the sign up bonus and moving onto the next). I built up a bankroll of about $2000, so, in 2010, I decided to put it all on Pokerstars and start grinding MTT"s. At the same time, I started watching a lot of training videos. They were all very useful and informative, but mostly covered cash games. But then I found Tournament Poker Edge.com and after watching just a handful of their videos, I had a "ah-ha" moment. Everything started to make sense and within a week I had made 3 FT"s, winning 2 of them for just under $10k. Things were going great. However, in 2011 my wife fell pregnant with our 4th child and I realised something had to give as I was becoming totally consumed by studying the game. So, after discussing this with my wife, I decided to take a break from poker for a while, to allow me to focus more on the family and support my wife through the pregnancy. This was a tough choice, because most players take a break or quit the game because they are losing or are busto. However, it was necessary. So for most of 2011/2012 I played exclusively live, home games and local casino games every so often. When Pokerstars introduced Zoom in 2012 I found that it was a good format game for me to play in the evenings, while the kids were in bed and the wife was at work. I could quickly sit out or fold if the kids needed my attention. So by the end of the year I had racked up over 200k hands for a small $1k profit (+ rakeback). In June 2013 I decided to get back to playing online MTT"s. I jump in at micro stakes and within a week I take 2nd in a $2.20r for just under $3k. So, that brings us up to now (at time of writing).

6 - WHAT IS YOUR PLAYING STYLE?
Balanced. Being balanced is important to me in poker and in life.

7 - WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE POKER PLAYER AND WHY?
LIVE: Phil Ivey - Everyone seems to agree that he is the best in the world
ONLINE: Casey "Bigdogpckt5s" Jarzabek - He introduced me to Tournament Poker Edge and has chopped the Sunday Million 2 weeks running

8 - WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE POKER SITE AND WHAT IS YOUR POKER ID THERE?
Pokerstars - SillBags

9 - WHAT ARE YOUR POKER ACHIEVEMENTS?
Pokerstars
1st in daily $20k guaranteed for $4920
1st in daily $7.5k guaranteed for $2366
Chopped the daily $3.30 6max for $670
2nd in $2.20r for $2917
5th in $11 Deep Stack for $770
6th in Big 11 for $1899
16th in UK & Ireland COOP $530 Main Event for $1650

Live
3rd in One Way Poker Deepstack Bristol for £2900
23rd in GCBPT Bristol for £850
32nd in APAT WCOAP Main Event Nottingham for £300
4th in APAT UKCOAP Heads Up for £285

10 - WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT LIVE POKER CURRENTLY, THAT YOU WOULD CHANGE?
Too much unnecessary tanking.  I don"t mean the players who genuinely have a tough decision, I mean players who have seen the pro"s tanking on tv at some point and have decided to put it into their game when it is completely unnecessary.  

11 - HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT APAT?
I heard about APAT from a couple of friends who played the Cardiff leg in Season 1. I joined in season 2 or 3 and have tried to play 1 or 2 of the closer events each season.

12 -WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT APAT TOURNAMENTS, STANDARD OF PLAY AND STRUCTURE?
APAT Tournaments are nothing short of excellent. The standard of play is becoming stronger each season and is at a much higher standard than a regular £75 live tournament. The structure in the early to mid stages is perfect, I can"t really comment on the later levels as i"ve never ran that deep  :"(

13 - HAVE YOU PLAYED AT AN APAT LIVE EVENT AND IF SO, WHAT WAS MOST MEMORABLE ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE?
I have probably played in about 10 APAT live events and my most memorable moment was probably the 2013 UKCOAP Heads Up which I took 4th place in. Had a lot of fun that weekend

14 - WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN INTERESTS OUTSIDE OF POKER?
Golf, Snooker, Movies, Drinking

15 - WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK OR FILM?
I have over 1000 movies, so it"s impossible for me to choose 1 favourite, but I watch Rounders in bed quite often. Favourite comedy is a recent film called "This Is 40", which has a lot of similarities to my life. "Heat" with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino is an all time classic. Favourite T.V shows would be "Dexter", "Breaking Bad", "Suits", "Game Of Thrones", "The Big Bang Theory".

16 - WHAT THREE MUSIC ALBUMS WOULD YOU TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND WITH YOU?
Biffy Clyro - Opposites
Counting Crows - August and Everything After
Jay-Z - The Black Album

17 - FINALLY, WHAT MESSAGE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEAVE FOR YOUR FELLOW APAT MEMBERS?
See you all at an APAT event soon

[AMRN]

..... and fruit machines (which I actually played professionally for over 10 years, but thats another story)......

How on earth does that work? To do something professionally, you must presumably have edge? I don"t understand how you have an edge over a fruit machine, especially when they only pay out around 70% of what is put in.

[Sillbags]

..... and fruit machines (which I actually played professionally for over 10 years, but thats another story)......

How on earth does that work? To do something professionally, you must presumably have edge? I don"t understand how you have an edge over a fruit machine, especially when they only pay out around 70% of what is put in.

Steve, some fruit machines had tell tale signs of when they were due to payout. Although they are set on a payout of 70%-90%, by timing the payout cycle correctly you can gain a decent edge. Generally when machines were full (filled by punters losing their money, not manually filled by an engineer) the machine would be "Ready" to pay out. All you then need to know is how to extract the maximum amount of money by playing it correctly, what wins to take, what wins to refuse and determining when the machine was "Dead". Also, from time to time, machines will be produced with a faulty program, which if played in a precise way, only collecting certain wins in a certain order, then the machine can be emptied completely every time (until the program gets updated). For example, a machine is produced with a faulty program that fails to recognise "Melons" which are worth a £12 win. So what happens is when you collect melons for £12, instead of the machine going "Dead" until it gets more than the £12 back, it actually increases to get "Ready" as it has failed to recognise the £12 win you have just collected. You will soon get to a point where it will be trying to throw jackpots at you and as long as you refuse them and only take these "Free" £12 wins you could continue like that till the end of time, or until the machine is empty, or until you get banned  This is just scratching the surface mate, but you get the idea. It"s a lot tougher to do this now due to the machines being more random generated. That"s why I haven"t touched one for about 8 years. Although I personally know a few of my friends, who continue to make a good living from playing them.

[hi_am_chris]

What do you do at smurfit?

[Sillbags]

What do you do at smurfit?

I am Corrugator Team Leader.  It"s certainly not my ideal job, but it"s only half a mile from my house and the money is good, so I can"t complain.

[fandango]

Welcome aboard Neil..

Very interesting about the bandits, never realised people played them for a living!!.. Seen many people who have had big gambling addictions with them.. I always thought there was always only "1" winner in the long run, we live and learn  

[hi_am_chris]

 I worked at Sheard packaging (sheet feeding factory) for two years in the design department, was more of a labourer. Definitely not my ideal job when I had to cover on the factory floor

[Sillbags]

Welcome aboard Neil..

Very interesting about the bandits, never realised people played them for a living!!.. Seen many people who have had big gambling addictions with them.. I always thought there was always only "1" winner in the long run, we live and learn  

Thanks Carl

[Sillbags]

I worked at Sheard packaging (sheet feeding factory) for two years in the design department, was more of a labourer. Definitely not my ideal job when I had to cover on the factory floor

I know what you mean Chris. I"ve been considering jumping ship for a few years now, but not easy when you have a family to support  

[bear21]

As above WELCOME !!

c u at the tables

[Santino67]

Very interesting reading Neil and some nice results, look forward to sharing a table sometime soon.

[hi_am_chris]

It"s all about the E flute