I was just reading Phil TC"s excellent blog and his account of his first APAT event and I thought I"d share mine as well.
I frequent the G Casino in Luton, as most of you know, on average once a week, and on 18th November 2009 I signed up for the £50 NLHE game on the Wednesday.
There was an abnomally large field that night (around 80 runners) and I can remember thinking that quite a few of them weren"t speaking English. Now this is not an uncommon occurence at Luton, as we do attract our fair share of Latvian car washers and Polish handymen, which along with a number of locals who struggle with the Queens version of the language, make for an eclectic mix at the best of times.
One guy in particular had me wondering where I had seen him before (it turned out to be Bruno Rilho from Portugal) as he looked familiar for some reason. Long story short, I busted about 2 tables out, as usual, but upon exiting I asked Niall the card room manager, he has the best name ever for a cardroom manager (anagram of All In), if he knew why there wer so many players there that night.
He informed me that over the next 2 days, there was a tournament called the APAT European Team Championships and this would be followed by a 2 day individual tourney to find the APAT European Amateur Champion. These guys had mostly arrived earlier that day and we going to represent their country and then themselves at the weekend.
As I had never heard of APAT, I looked it up on "Tinternet when I got home and saw some pictures of the various participents in the Team event. I noticed that Portugal had entered a team, and the penny dropped.
Their captain, the aforementioned Snr. Rilho, had played in a tournament in Vilamoura a few weeks earlier in October that I had also played in. In fact as fate would have it, we sat next to each other for most of day 1, which was pretty amazing, as the seat assignments were determined by each player picking a table and seat position from an enormous chimea/urn looking thingy at the entrance to the card room. What were the chances? I had folded top pair, top kicker twice, to the same guy, who showed a set both times, and Bruno had said "nice lay down" on both occasions, hence me remembering him.
Anyways, I managed to get a seat in the ECOAP 2009, through the seat exchange and turned up at Luton on the Saturday for my first "big" tourney. As I walk into the main casino area I see the Portuguese team standing near the bar, so I go over and say hello. Bruno recognised my and we chatted about the Vilamoura event and the team event before moving over to the card room for the ME.
Up until this point I had been playing in a local pub league, along with Susie P, Omar Khan, Gary Allen, Frank Moszkal and Rex Mault to name but a few (now) APATers from the Elite Amateur Poker League, where we played 2 games a night with 3000 chips and a 7/8 minute clock.
Therefore the APAT structure seemed like an eternity com[pared to this super turbo format, but amazingly, and despite sitting next to a certain "slightly" squiffy "Delboy" for about 7 hours (he was on my right fortunately), I managed to make day 2, knocking Bruno out along the way (it still annoys him today
).
I remember getting home around 3am absolutely buzzing with excitment and found it hard to get to sleep, but managed to get a few zeds in before heading back round the M25 and up the M1 for day 2.
Again long story short, I make my first (and as it turns out, my ONLY) final table, where I am joined by, John Murray, Alan (cant remember his surname), Stu Ward (the eventual winner), Delboy, Stu Fordham, Matt McInnley and Silke from the German team, plus one other guy who I don"t know in seat 9.
https://picasaweb.google.com/www.apat.com/APATEuropeanAmateurChampionshipDay2#5407013570568334386I actually finished 9th, when I shoved my short stack "all in" with
on the button, after 3 players had limped, but Stu Fordham called, having limped with
. Game over.
I was thrilled to have got this far and my affair with APAT started then and there. I am the only player to have played every live event since Dublin 2010, and I see no reason not to continue this further. The players (yes you lot) make these events and I look forward to every one wherever there are held.
Long may this continue.
