Excellent reading Carl, esp., the ealy stuff which was before I played and is always of interest.
Looking forward to the Stoke (Championeeeee"s 
) blog soooooooooooooooooon 
Well Rich here goes, got so much to say its unreal!!... please bear with me while i ramble on..
So like an excited little kid on Xmas day Friday has arrived!!! this can only mean one thing UK Amateur Championship time whoop whoop.
Have a trouble free drive from Ipswich to Stoke, book into Holiday Express at 12.30 and Emma bumps into Phil TC and James in lobby there off out to hunt down red hair dye
we head off to Genting..
Arrive to meet the usual crowd of degens at the bar, aswell as Lucy who we have the pleasure to meet for the first time, its true what people say she really is a lovely person, who as the weekend goes on Emma forms a nice bond with
.
Also meet my fellow team member Ken Mcbride for the first time, a true gent a pleasure..
So the five of us England A are ready to do battle cmon!! With fake tats, and other various props abound i cant wait for it to begin..
The infamouse Five..
Richard the lion heart Baker
Don the Hammer Roberts
Ken Mcbride
Glen Laming
and myself
So i sit down at the first SNG and are confronted with a table full of complete sharks ( and Stu )..Adam Sharples, Stu Ward who looks like "quote" a russian peado, the APAT final table monster that is Darren Shallis, Steve Rodderick!!, Kevin O hanlon, Tom Clarke and no other than MR Charlie errr Grant Spears!! easy table then hmmm...
So without much to talk about the key notes on the way the table played was Kevin got shafted very hard where it hurts when Steve holding Ace Five on a board of A.. 5.. T.. took on Kevin who was holding AT, obv Leigh cant push a button like he can online so instead he rigged the deck so the 5 would river... poor Kevin but like a true Gent took it well, But Kevin is a great player so winning the MTT was no suprise to me and justified why he was picked to represent his country, congrats Kevin well deserved..
Well back to the SNG was a tough grind believe me, Grant was down to about 1.2k very early on, and uttered the words " i can still do some damage".. ermmm and damage he did totally destroyed the table, ran like Usain Bolt as Grant will confess, but also played his stack very well when he got there, and was no suprise to me when he secured the win, beating Adam HU who played an absolute blinding game,... Now Adam ended up being the Highest individual points scorer out of the whole International field and should be very proud of this acheivment, and his medal he won with his team.. i know Adam was worried about being Justified for being picked as he explained to me that day.. Adam take a bow sir no need to worry mate. Me i grinded a third which i was happy with as i believe my best hand was JJ and i had to pick my spots very carefully, with Grant beating me up!!.. So after the first round of SNGs with Don winning his heat, and the other 3 all doing great England A was top going into the PLO..
So its PLO time... I love PLO so was excited, not going to lie though i played awful far to spewy and ended up going out 5th, no one could contend with Gordon at our table, he was a monster making some calls which to be fair if i was honest where rather loose, but it worked for him and he destroyed us all, my final exit hand was a three way all in when i was holding QQ88.. i was a river card away from tripling up on a straightning board, both Gordon and Stuart both needed one of the 2 remaining
in the deck to complete the straight (unfortunatley for Stu it was the dummy end).. haha dummy get it!! sorry Stu xx love you
.. and lo and behold Leigh had yet again rigged the deck boom 8 on river... but cant complain damage was done before then with my spewtard ways..
Richard showed his immense PLO capabilities and with no suprise to me won his SNG.. well done skip..
So after that set of SNGs there where still many things that could happen with the way the top 4 would be decided.. i dont thing Ireland could really do any damage unless basically the whole squad made a FT and Wales where also struggling.. so there was still lots to play for, Scotland B though was doing very well and if a couple made deep runs they would cruise into top 4 ..as they did
..
Now there are many debates ongoing about point scoring structure etc etc, im just going to say IMO its hard for the guys to please us all all of the time, sure timing etc etc needs to be looked at,,,, but at the end of the day basically its the same for us all so no one is benefitting more than another.. i will play whatever even if its a 3 min hyper turbo lol i just love it, so what ever is decided for future events im cool with if i ever have the honour again..
The MTT ran its cause and i managed to reach the final table.. i was short stacked and all the maths basically meant if Gordon went out before me then i would have to finish either 1st or 2nd to push Scotland A out of 4th and us into 4th.. well the cooler blind on blind with JP holding AA and Gordond KK this scenario now had arisen!!.. i now had a rather large bullseye on my forehead
.. and not to mention a few kilt wearing bystanders funking on me to bust.. well the short of it all was i pleased the masses and errr busted next
Tom the Bomb woke up with the monster K2 off
and decided my calling range was?? any how with not many BBs AJ looked rather tasty to me, i snap call his all in.. Now its rather silly of me i know Leigh rigs the decks aswell sigh
but on a K2x flop im looking rather dodgy but a J turn did give me a little sweat and the team.. but blank river meant some rather happy scots and happy England B players
..
I normally would of hung around and watched to see how the HU matches finished, but after a 3 hour drive etc i was knackered and went back to the hotel for some well deserved sleep...
Oh just a quick move back to the MTT game, i must also congratulate Ruddrs Snr on what can only be a sick of sickest lay down reads.. when i flopped a set of
on a K high board, when i check raised him he announced i had 888 and he was laying down AA.. kudos sir kudos..
So i wake up Saturday afternoon, missed brekki ooops.. read the good news for Scotland B well done Davie and team well played... Also congrats to England C and B enjoy those medals, it was funny watching Stu shuffle up and down the cardroom like an expectant father lol..
But i had other things on my mind the little matter of the UK main event, couldnt wait to get started it was my first live individual game back since my ECOAP bink at DTD excited as always, as i have stated before i dont get out much lol, makes a change for me other than clicking buttons..
Arrive after a healthy breakfast of Burger king from down the road Double bacon burger obv FTW ( well it does have bacon in ).. get into card room find my seat, have Ben B next to me, doesnt look anything like Des if you ask me, des doesnt wear specs!! and also have Phil Colis opposite to me a very tough cookie to crack..
So cards are in the air and we are off... Ben started off his usual aggressive style, i was lucky to have position on so we didnt tangle early on, but he was getting outdrawn out flopped big time, and a guy at our table who was either very nervous or either a great actor, his hands where shaking uncontrollably from the off and was calling hitting every single hand, and soon 20+k.. me? well i can put hand on my heart and say it was the most un eventful 90 mins of poker i have ever played!! i even tweeted that day i had not won 1 pot the whole 90 mins and it was the truth, i had set mined a few times and limped folded AJ/AQ etc out of position i was down to 4 chips
12k...
Funny how your mind works, i was sitting in my chair looking around me at all the tables full of incredible players, thinking to myself how the hell am i expected to even make day 2 if i have yet to win 1 hand in the first 2 levels?.. 167 players with prehaps alternates there is no way!!.. then i remembered the fact that after making day 2 at DTD with 18 players left i had 1 big blind left, here i have in contrast gazillions of play left dont be so negative, patience the cards will come..
Well i didnt have any major card rushes, and was on my original table for the first say 9 levels, only memorable hand was when Susiepea got moved to my table, she raised early pos x4 i have QQ.. now i didnt re raise here as i know Susies range and believe it or not even calling scared me a little, silly i know but i smelt a big hand.. well the flop came AQJ Rainbow, well most would of loved that flop but if i was honest i wasnt thrilled lol .. but the oblig all in from her made me feel a little better, dont think she would ship top set so quickly but stranger things have happened.. so i aploogised and said im not slowrolling after taking about 10 secs to call, she understood and flippped AK, lucky me cooler flop..
Then i get moved after table breaks.. Rita Galvin moves with me to a table with Paul Guppy Guptha and Vaino (sorry if spelt wrong guys).. and the dealer deals me AA first hand in lucky for me not so lucky for the short stack Rita who went all in for her last 5k i announced " i will protect you " this may come across as a little angle shot, wasnt meant to be but i can see how it might and raised to 10k then Vaino re shoved over the top for about 15k i think it was with 77, Rita flipped over A7 of spades
no sweat for either really, think Leigh had missed rigging this deck (ok thats the last rigged deck statement promise) and i had about 40k my highest stack so far.. forgot to mention that i had CL Dan Field at my previous table.. WOW 200k infront of him.. two hours of folding was in order as he was raising my BB 75% of the time and i had absolute nothing to defend with in that time..
Must state now i have never played live against Paul but he is a monster online his live game is just as impressive!! only a cooler took him out, but the time i spent with him at the table was a blast!! banter flowed and flowed..
So before i knew it level 13 had reached us amazed to have grinded my way this far it was the final level of the day with 30 odd left of the original 167 i had about 30 k which wasnt going to be enough.. this might of been the turn around for me.. was the final hand of the day every body milling around and i look down at QJ .. well i thought to myself i dont really want to come back tomorrow very low stacked maybe the risk of doubling up here might be worth a punt, even if no one calls my all in i add about 5k to my stack with the blinds and antes.. if i get called and lose the i can either play the PLO Sunday or take Emma for a nice meal before we head home... ALL IN!!... Guy next to me re shoves ooops.. every one else folds, cards on their backs Oooooopps he has KK oh well i have done well to get this far.. flop QXJ turn blank river blank .. Leigh perks up you will be comong back tomorrow
..
Sunday morning.. Miss brekki again got in at 4.30 am after a few shenannagins with the others, Emma had quite rightly let her hair down and was having a good time which pleased me as i owe so much to her having to sit hour upon hour with not much more to do than read books!!..
So leave hotel and grab a quick sarnie from Sainsburys before getting back into the action...
So 17 people get paid and 29 people return. now normally my stack size of 59k would of been near the bottom, but due to CL Dan having over 400k i was in fact sitting in 16th place with 20 k being the short stack..
There was a few quick exits and the numbers tumbled quickly to 20 i had doubled up to 70k after finding AA against George who was also going for a second APAT win..
I had yet to reach a tourney average and still was below but i wanted to at least scrape a min cash for my troubles and more important to me a point or 2 for the live APAT rankings..
Well as it happens at 3.00pm the bubble burst shame to see Karen and Michelle fall short, but it has to be someone i know just wish it wasnt a APAT reg and maybe a local would of been more fitting
Paulie had gone on a heater and was cruising
was nice to see... well i dont know what happened to Dan but was bizarre the way he blew up? Ian was the recipient of his chips after Dan decided to cold 4 bet all in with KT v his AA now Ian was also cruising, Dan fell away to the wayside and never made the FT..
So in what seemed a blink of an eye i had made it to my second Final Table on the trot!! wow i run good..
With the live stream running i wont go on about loads of hands and how they planned out.. but the main cliffs where.
1. Most important hand of my tournament.. My button shove with A4 George isolates from small blind with A5.. Ant folds AJ from his BB.. Ant calls im sent packing.
2. My min 3 bet with A4 suited v QJ then trap check flop of A4J
3. My KQ v Paulies A5 suited when i trap check flop of KQX
4. My 78 of hearts float heads up when Ben was agressor on a board of A95K i floated flop after a large C bet on flop and turn then Jammed my flush draw and inside straight.. Sorry Ben i know this was the turning point for you i could see the angst in your face..
With such a large CL HU the KK was perfect timing after i gambled on Ben having any kind of hand indeed him finding an Ace my over sized raise pre was the clincher..
BOOM!! OMFG had i just done it???.. now i never like to celebrate overly when i win as i have to consider my opponent sitting there, so my little fist pump was the show of just how much this meant to me.. UNREAL!!
Damn i said i wasnt going to waffle on so 2 hours on im gonna wrap this post up...
APAT is simply the best of the best thanks guys, you know who you are...
APAT members are simply the best FACT!!
Carl Pilgrim is the biggest APAT luckbox FACT!!
Carl Pilgrim is the biggest 2 time APAT luckbox Fact!!
Thank you all so much for the kind words on here and Face book , text messages, etc etc.
my personal chip stackers Paul and Chris.. i am totally humbled believe me it sunk in yesterday reading all the messages i was an emotional wreck FACT!!
Thanks Genting and the staff dealers, hope my little tip showed my gratitude..
So how long till the Worlds?
can i really wait that long oh damn its ages away
sigh...
