Watching sky poker one night, this small grey haired wrinkled old man was rabbiting on about trains and train stations thinking that he must be the local nutter who had escaped from the local asylum I was reaching for the remote wondering if the playboy channel was on yet. When he started to talk about a new organisation called APAT and how it was amid at the recreational player. So I sat back put the remote down thinking that the free show on playboy did not start while 11, and listened to what this strange man had to say. After about two minutes, it was like he was talking about me someone who believed in himself but did not have the finance to achieve is goal. "Low buy-in tournaments with big buy-in starting stack giving you the big game feel" are something on those lines, well it was two years ago I cannot remember exactly what he said. Then he went on to talk about things that only someone who was a card short of a full deck would understand, I think his name is Ironside
The next day the latest edition of Pokerplayer fell through the letter box and in it was an article on APAT confirming that all what this old man (who would not look out of place in a nurseing home pushing a Zimmer frame around) was saying. The first thing that drew me to APAT was the structure of the on-line tournaments, at that time you could not get such a good structure for $20. The live bit did not interest me at first (more on this later) as it was good value at £75 but it was still out of my reach.
So the game began the first game of APAT on PS 200+ runners. Before the game had even started some Irish guy called Des was saying good luck to all the tables, "what a nice guy" I thought (more on him later). The one draw back was the wife; playing poker on a Saturday night was not her idea of a good time. But two bottles of wine later and she was fine. Five hours later I was on the final table, what I liked about it the most was the support of the other players who was watching the game, people who you have never met or spoke to before was wishing you luck and encouraging you, o and that guy called Des.
Before this game my biggest buy-in was $5 (we all have to start somewhere) and the most I had won was about $200 so at $20 this was a big step up for me. The final table became heads up but unfortunately was unable to convert my 3 to 1 chip lead into a win but did get about $700 and a silver medal (I don"t what I liked the most the money or the medal, wait a minute.....it was the money)
Two weeks later I FT again giving me the first back to back FT"s of APAT and I was first in the rankings this when I had my first run in with Des (what a nice guy)
.....more to follow
What do you do with AJ in EP on the final day of a national event?
Ask Sir percival
