So, Saturday.
Woke up, and after coming round, I notice that my room mate is missing... Being the kind, caring, considerate soul I am, I send her a message, asking where she is, and flick the TV on.
Eventually I realise I have a mouth like Gandhi"s flip flop and go downstairs to get something to drink out of the veding machine. After getting ripped off to the tune of £1.90 for a bottle of Diet fecking Coke, I sit with Bill Shephard for a bit, before having to run back upstairs to have a quick chunder. I must be getting old.
Again message Rodders, and meet him in the lobby and we get a taxi back to the Weatherspoons we were at the night before to get breakfast.
As we walk in looking for a seat, we spot irritating man and
look frantically for somewhere else to sit join him and order a big breakfast, which I also decide to accompany with a pint. This appear to sort me out, and at about 11.30 we decide to move over to the casino.
It doesnt seem to matter how many times I play APAT events, I will ALWAYS arrive at the casino far too early. The worst part of the weekend is the waiting around to start!!
We are joined again by a whole host of APAT regulars, including BRIAN YATES who convinces the casino to put his beloved West Brom on the big screen. What a crap match that was!!!
I buy in to the tournament and decide to take a wander into the card room to take a look around, and say hello to Des, who I havent seen in what seems like forever.
Des, as we all know, is a legend. If it wasnt for him, we would have none of this, and we wouldn"t have made all the life long friends we have now. He is also one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet, and we had a nice catch up.
Much to my surprise, he also had a Lucy with him! Apparently, she decided to sleep in her car the night before! Muppet.
Anyway, a few more beers were had and it was finally time to get sat down and play some poker.
As you may know, this was my first APAT main in 2 years, and I wont mind admitting that I was slightly nervous.
My starting table had a few familiar names on it:
8 - 1 Stuart Ward
8 - 2 Barry John Simpson
8 - 3 Craig Whitehouse
8 - 4 Kenneth Mcbride
8 - 5 Ben Russell
8 - 6 Dave Burns Bond Villain
8 - 7 Terrance Clayton
8 - 8 Kevin George Kent
8 - 9 Kevin John Odriscoll
8 - 10 Prosper Ifeanychukwu
I started off cautiously, keeping myself out of trouble and playing quite conservatively, my first real action coming after closing the action with 89cc after a raise and 3 callers.
The flop came
(suits approximate)
Kev bet the flop, and was called by Prosper, and I flatted.
Turn
Kev checks and Prosper fires out a heafty sized bet, which I flat again, Kev shakes his head and gets out of the way.
River
And Prosper fires out 3k, blatently ignoring my clear signals that I was happy with a check!
After a while, I call and flip my cards over, and he mucks fairly quickly (this would become a theme for him throughout his day!)
So a nice start, and in the next few levels, I pretty much played 5 hands and won them all, showing no worse than JJ each time!
First major hand of the day came at 100/200 when it was raised by MP and called elsewhere, I am in the BB and look down at
and repop it to 3600 and was called in both places.
The flop comes down
and after I bet out, the original raiser ships all in for 18k. I call and the cards are on their backs
He shows
Lovely!
The turn is the even more lovely
The river...
I wont lie. I was mildly peeved.
We chop the pot, i get up and go for a wander, regaling everyone who will listen with the story of the hand that had jsut transpired.
I return to the table a while later, and am promptly dealt AA again in the bb. It is folded round to the sb, who raises it up, and I obv put in a decent re raise. He peers around the dealer and asks me how much i have. Now i am fairly OCD with my stack, so am constantly counting and tidying it, so I already know what i have and tell him i started the hand with 38k. He sits back, and calls.
The flop comes Q x x and he bets out, I re raise and he shoves it in, which i snap off
He tables AQ and the board bricks out after I enquire him how he intends of wriggling out of this spot.
I continue to pick spots pretty well, and feel like I was playing my A game, hitting hands and generally in control of the table.
We then got broken, I was genuinely gutted, the table had been an absolute pleasure to play on, the people were fantastic, and I enjoyed all of their company immensely.
Anyway, the move puts me in the seat next to APAT legend Paulie D, who I arrive to find with a shortish stack and ready to make some moves.
A few hands later, and it folds round to Paulie in the sb and he looks at his cards, and immediately moves all in, i pick my cards up, look at the bottom one and see an A and declare my call. Paulie tables his 88 and i spead my cards to reveal the other A to go with the first one (MBN) and send Paulie on his way. Ooops!!!
At this point we are moving towards the end of the day, and things are starting to get a bit more serious. There is a gentleman with a similar stack to mine, with everyone else shorter stacked.
I take a decent pot off the other large stack, after raising pre and firing all streets on the Ax10xJ board, and getting him to fold his A on the river with my 77.
Then it happened.
I doubled up a short stack for a 26k pot when my K10 was no match for his K2 AIPF (hitting 2 more 2"s was just excessive IMO)
I then decide to get those chips back immediately and raise 78 suited from late position and was called by the bb.
Flop came K high, Paul checks, I bet and he calls, the turn comes a blank, but gave me a flush draw, so after he checks, I bet again, and he calls.
River comes a total brick and he checks again. So I start thinking (mistake number 1 i hear you cry, dear reader)
He has called me all the way down, so I am pretty sure that he will call a normal sizd bet, which by now would have been about 15-20k. I am convinced that he has a K, but I also know that I wouldnt be calling off pretty much all my stack (i think he started the hand with about 5k more than me) with 1 pair, this late in the day, so I pump my remaining 50k into the pot.
He sits there for a long while, and to be honest, I was pretty sure he was going to fold.
He didnt, and showed his KJ, I muck my hand and that was that!
Game over.
I wont lie, I was gutted. I was second guessing myself about the hand, and maybe I didnt need to play it, but now I think back on it, I am happy with what I did, and would probably do it again.
The facts of the day are that I only went below my starting stack once in the whole tournament, and I honestly felt in control of both tables that I played at.
I have really missed playing APAT main events, and this proved to me that I definitely have the game for it, and has given me the taste for playing more.
Anyway, I was found by Rodders sat at the bar with a beer and a shot at about 2am, and after another beer, we headed back to the hotel as everyone else had cleared off!
It was decided that a taxi was a better idea this time round, and we arrived back without any further issue.
