The APAT WCOAP at Dusk Till Dawn was a fantastic experience, most of which will stay in my memory for a long long time (unlike the spell between drinking jagaer bombs, sambuca and JD then getting back to the hotel on Saturday night
) That Saturday night alone made up for any disappointment that would follow at the tables, I had such a great time with so many great people. Thank you to all the regular APAT"ers, and just as importantly, the new faces I got to put names to and got to know a bit better over the weekend.
Despite my best laid plans the poker consisted of the main event, unfortunately only on the Sunday, and the Omaha on the Monday. A brief summary of both below:
ME - Started very well (despite being *cough cough* randomly drawn with Ian "Pables" Thompson on my left) and got better very quickly, before the end of level 1 knocking out the unfortunate Harry Briggs with
on a 4/4/7 flop against his KK, all in on flop. It seemed to be a bad day for many with KK by all accounts in the room, Ian also came a cropper against QQ all-in pre and Q hit. I went slowly downhill afterwards raising then missing with premium starting hands (One I recall involved AQ called down by 2/3 and he hit a 2 on turn) or raising and folding PP"s with overs/draws etc on board. Costly but really only denting my stack slightly. The most costly hand came against Linda Iwaniak when I flopped an open end straight draw, bet out and called by Linda, then in addition turned a flush draw, bet out, raised by Linda and called by me. Hit the flush on river and check called suspicious of bigger flush and duly ran into the nuts, just sigh
Think by end of level 6 I was down to about 10k, moved table and quickly doubled up again to over 20k on a stop and go in my BB, calling with
9H, hit 2 hearts on flop, shoved by me, called and hit
. Then had some fish trouble when raising in LP with
and getting called by BB, who proceeded to check call me on a 10/7/4 flop and raggy turn only to hit a second pair on river with 4/5 (ffs!). Just that kind of day with my aces tbh, most days your happy with his play but horrid when they donk you with flopped bottom pair. My run of bad luck was complete after catching my ace on flop with A4os against QQ, only to get 4 flushed and busted lol. 10pm Sunday night, 100 left in day 1b and I wasn"t among them
Never mind another day brings another opportunity and Monday was either the DTD £50 game or the APAT PL Omaha, I rightly plumped for anything with the APAT logo attached. This, even though I knew £50 spent on Omaha was really just for some more experience and learning, to get a better understanding of the head hurting 4 card variation. I can recall very little about this hand or that hand other than 3 in particular. The one that busted me out (KK again lol v Bainn"s AAQ10), the JJ98 hand which flopped 8 high with 2 hearts for my flush draw, I bet out and was called, then the J on the turn was declared dead when Danny Partridge stated he"d raised on me on flop (he did actually put more chips in middle than my bet and was given change). Watching that Jack disappear was brutal so I gave up my hand, then the QQ hand I (correctly) laid down that would"ve hit the nuts. I absolutely loved it, the banter from other players, the international flavour round the table, the format and over all I think I played my best Omaha so far. Finishing 28th of 114 for me was a very respectable result and could"ve been ever better, but for my timing with Bainn behind me with his big hand
I suspect I"ll be explring PLO a bit more in the near future.
I also loved railing the guys who were going along nicely in all the Sunday & Monday games, well done to you all for cashing, winning, FT"ing and just generally being awesome people (you all know who you are
)
As ever I"d be very glad of any feedback from those I shared a table with, always keen to learn more and expand more - other than my ever growing waist