Grant's Glasgow Banter

[Santino67]

Happy New Year to all you lovely APAT members out there. Not the best start to mine after soemone hacked my Facebook and Hotmail accounts but thankfully limited the damage pretty quickly. Look forward to 18 sleeps and our next encounter in Brighton  

[Santino67]

Well it"s been almost a fortnight since I"ve updated on here, not much to add TBH as I"d been working through Xmas and New Year up to 8th January. Went to visit my brother Graeme and family in Pontefract on 9th, always a great time to be had when we get together, even more so since we lost our brother Gary 7 years ago this very day. I also celebrated my lovely daughter Corinne"s 21st last night and generally been enjoying life a bit too much while I"m on holiday till 25th  

Only down side over the last couple of weeks has been the lack of poker, including the disappointment of missing the APAT online Euros last night. I can only add that I"ll be aiming to make up for this in 5 sleeps when I hit Brighton   Look forward to seeing you all on Friday!

[Santino67]

Brushed off the cobwebs with my first MTT in 2012 in a $3 Betfair game. Have to say I"m happy with the overall play, used advice from George and Co about value, bet sizing etc when I had the goods. More advice about spotting weakness with absolute air, then the good old fashioned 8 BB shove in open cut off with A/10 once I"d cashed 23/222. Called by BB with K/J, 10/J/Q flop kinda finished me off before my 2 pair on river drove the last spike home. Good to be playing again and so much looking forward to being in amongst the APAT crew at Brighton again on Friday  

[Santino67]

Been really enjoying Ray Crowe"s blog "rays life and poker" and just remembered I"d promised if he resurrected his blog that I"d share a wee story with you all. After reading about his horrendous accident with the chimney stack, his fighting spirit and his attitude to life, I"m pretty sure we have a few things in common. His blog has had me sometimes gasping, sometimes laughing, sometimes in awe and fully aware that he's out on his own in the story telling department..but here's mine anyway :p

Sept 1994, saw my daughter Corinne (then 3 years old) go through a horrid illness with kidney problems. This night in question saw us wait for the on-call doctor for a number of hours to come visit her, and when he arrived I knicked out to buy cigarettes from the local ice cream van as I"d none left.

On my way back 2 guys jumped me and gave me a bit of a beating with a hammer. Physically they made a real mess of me, skull fractured in 3 places, cheek fractured and almost made me visit the local registrar afterwards to change my name to John Merrick. I believed I was facing the big au revoir when i was lying on the pavement with blood coming from different parts of my head, thankfully that same doctor got me an ambulance pretty sharpish, wrapped a towel round my head, and almost got into a fight himself when my mates tried to bundle me into a car instead. Wish I could thank him today, he surely saved my life.

I"m not ashamed to admit I got a long spell of counselling afterwards, leading to me understanding a bit about the brains instincts. I questioned myself for months about what I could"ve done to stop what happened, to finally be told by my counsellor that my brain automatically went into fight or flight mode. It"s safe to say that initially I was more British Airways than British Bulldog and tried to leg it. My vision was a bit wonky after the first hammer blow to the face so I ended up over the bonnet of a car, which thankfully wasn"t in flight mode at the time, but it still did enough to thwart my progress and meant I had no choice but to enter fight mode for a while till they left me to my fate.

So if you see me or Ray in Brighton at the weekend with a smile on our faces, it"s probably because people like Ray Crowe and Mr Sheen are so damn glad to still be here enjoying the good things life can throw at us and doing our best not to worry about the more minor problems we also face. Win, lose or draw in poker or life, I"m so grateful that we still have the opportunity to be taking part

[SirPercival]

Amazing story Grant, hope you stopped smoking after this.

[samuel_9]

hope your little girl is ok .......and nice 2 c  you r as well ...they cant keep a good man down ...just inposible can not be done... hope 2  see u in season 6...and glk at brighton glk

[Santino67]

Thanks Ray and Stu, yeah she"s fine Ray and way too quickly turned 21 and all grown up lol. Nowhere near as remarkable a story as yours Ray, to endure your accident as a kid and come through with a smile is pretty incredible. Look forward to catching up with you in season 6 mate  

[Santino67]

Home with reflections of the APAT European 2011 in Brighton at the weekend and have to say it was a bit of a rollercoaster all round  

Friday saw a straightforward jaunt from Glasgow to Gatwick Airport, beer with Davie Pilkington and shuttle to Gatwick train station. All going well till I attempted to get my train tickets from the automated machine and discovered I"d left my phone in the pub at the airport....so shuttle back to the airport bar (dragging poor Davie along for the trip) and thankfully got my phone back, thanks to the staff at the bar  

Got to Brighton slightly later than hoped but had a nice relaxing night in the Bright Helm pub with a few drinks and a lot of laughs with great company Paulie, Glenn, Asa, Michelle and the aforementioned "Slightly Awkward Situation" Man. Went back to the hotel, enduring what can only be described as a 100 yard Stag/Hen assault course to get from one building to the other and had a fairly early night after a fairly long day.

Saturday saw another telephone induced detour walking from hotel to the West Quay for lunch, when my phone Sat Nav decided to steer me away from the lovely walk along the prom, way up the hill to Eastern Rd to what was clearly Brighton Prep School, no suitable location for a refreshment or 6  . Again, slightly later arriving at the original destination and lunch, this time with Andy, Caz and Davie...........and then there was the small matter of a poker game to play!

[Santino67]

A nice stroll along the Brighton prom


Why is my Sat nav sending me up here?    


Found the bar at last, now if only someone had told me it was right next to the casino  


......So the APAT Euro started well when i saw table 4 included JB, JP and Ian Matthews, and turned out to be a very enjoyable experience with a good bunch of others as well. The game started poorly, early on down to about 6k after making 2 crying calls on turn and river against JP"s K high flush after flopping a set. Almost went out soon after with on a   flop against AJos but thankfully hit on river to get back up over starting stack. I then went on a run with very nice hole cards or hitting just about every board i was involved in, including a lovely turned and rivered   to go with my     after a checked       flop   Cranked my stack up to about 31k before JP then commented he was posting a headline "Grant Speirs Didn"t Hit Shocker" when I missed with (I think) an open end draw.

Then the wheels came off in Level 8 with KK, which I believe I played fairly well pre (straightforward 3 bet to 2700 for 1/4 of Catalin Pedescu"s stack) but very badly post flop on A/Q/10 flop and doubled up his A/10os. Just before the end of the level the final nail arrived when I 3 bet jammed with JJ and ran into Mike John"s AK and he got his pair on the turn.

Well done to the 4 from our table who went through to Day 2, including JP and JB, very well played guys *looks unsuccessfully for little tipping hat icon*  . I also thoroughly enjoyed the Sunday deepstack turbo game at the casino, good fun but far less memorable, almost as disappointing though, going out with   v   when all in pre. To anyone I met along the way or shared a table with, thanks for the memories, here"s just a few of you  

More Scaredy Cat than Pables Cat  


JB Railing Bruno and Co or waiting for a pit stop?


Learned from the Des Duffy Photography School


Think he owned me in the Sunday Turbo.........but I have a valid excuse  
.........................

[samuel_9]

nice 2  c u had a good time hope 2 c u in season 6

[Santino67]

Just spectacular, that is all!
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

[bhoywonder70]

Good stuff grant....just catching up with apat stuff n ur blog...always a good read...roll on season 6 for hopefully more adventures..

[PHIL_TC]

Love the write up Grant.. sorry I missed it mate, hopefully see you in around 3-4 weeks time fingers crossed x

[Santino67]

Cheers guys, looking forward to Season 6 already. In the meantime, here"s a few more of the APAT"ers who provided a load of highlights from Brighton  

Jason and Kylie?


The wonderful Frank Bailie (....or The Mighty Cormach to some)


A slightly fuzzy, but still fantastic, Michelle Gascoine (my fault, not hers)


Ian Thompson (again without Brazil Top ) with Naz Wrigley

[pables]

Love the photos Grant, especially love the one of Naz, I will recount to you all later in the week on the hand where Naz absolutely pwned me with Aces