When I signed up as Team Captain for Carlisle Poker Club, my aim was to grow the membership, put Carlisle on the APAT map - after a lot of years in the wilderness, and take a run at the Division 2 title.
Having been involved in running poker games for a few years now I know the amount of work it takes promoting events, relaying information, getting players excited and involved about the game, etc. Facebook is a wonderful tool for doing this.
So, with a Dirty Dozen signed up and ready to play, two very late sign-ups hitting my own predicted target for runners this week (thanks Ben Clifton and Jack Meldrum for helping us hit that number), we settled down across the tables ready to try and win this thing.
We had one of my top poker buddies, Ryan Hitching (I finally added two of my longer-term poker buddies from Kendal to the team) leading from the front for much of game.
I started well, adding chips to my stack when flopping two-pair three times consecutively. In contrast my pocket Aces and pocket Kings picked up the blinds alone. As the game progressed I found less spots and with my stack now at around 25 BBs and Aces in the hole again, I elected to call from the SB against a button min-raise and saw a flop of KQT(all spades). Holding the Ace of spades I check-called a flop bet and checked the blank turn, allowing my opponent to bluff or try and push me off the pot with a made-hand, protecting against the lots of obvious draws out there. As I had a big made hand myself and a raft of draws I felt this was the best way to get my opponent to put chips in the pot - retaining a huge amount of equity. Whne he flipped QT and the river bricked - I still had 9 men and 1 women to leave out on the tables for a march to victory.
When I checked back into the lobby shortly afterwards we had lost over half of our dozen, with 6 going out in the 20-30 finishing positions. However, on checking in first thing this morning, I was overjoyed to see a 1-2 from Mark Atkinson and Stu Irving and Ryan Hitching and Michael Martin chip in with points finishes to seal a first for our poker club in the APAT Online National League.
With only 2 points separating us from top spot, I think we are the team to beat now our numbers are up and I fully expect us to go from strength to strength in that department.
Come On Carlisle - there is cash, APAT added live seats, and the small matter of a Divisional Title to win.
