Post is tldr
I know that this thread is supposed to be about poker and I tend to leave trip reports and discussion on live events to those people who are good at it (usually Ger or Paulie). This past weekend though has been worthy of even me writing up what happened.
On Friday morning I left Swansea to travel almost the length of the country to Glasgow. I jumped on the train. Played a little bit of poker until the connection became too poor to continue. The journey was a good one and I arrived at Bolton in good time. I met up with Asa and we headed off the Glasgow. We got stuck just outside Carlise for about an hour but we didn"t care as we were busy playing 10 card double flop PLO8.
We arrive in Glasgow get food and head over to the casino to have a look around. It seems nice and we order a taxi into town to have a few beers with Grant. A good night followed talking about football and the Home Nations. We then get word that everybody else has arrived and decide to go back to the casino. We jump into a taxi and head over. I jump out of the taxi (literally) and head in. At this point the doorman decides that I am clearly to drunk to go in. Now whilst it is true that I had been drinking I was certainly not about to fall over, throw up in the toilet or not be aware of what I was doing, which is more than I can say for some of the people who we saw in there over the weekend. Sigh whatever. Me Asa and Adam go back to the hotel bar and play a DC game. I did make the mistake of reporting all this on Facebook which may not have been the best plan (Ger played a blinder as always).
Next morning I check the facebook status, trying to explain the reality of what happened seems pointless at that point so just go with it. I go and meet Adam and we go for breakfast at Wetherspoons. We find the only casino in Glasgow that does not open until 5pm on the way back to Alea. Adam is already planning what we do after the tournament day one ends it seems to involve a lot of gambling which is a great shout. We go back to Alea where we meet a few of the regs. Good to see some of the Scots again they have some great players and had a strong representation with Grant, David Blacklaw and Eck leading their assault. New England skipper Richard Baker was also present as he always is at these events and I sometimes wonder if there is anything this man can"t do. The Stockton Massive were out in force, Both Garys, Brian Harland (Great player) Lucy Amos (who I met for the first time shes cool as the rest of them), the very lovely Michelle (you are just awesome), and of course the AWESOME Phil_TC (mate - YOU ARE A TOTAL LEGEND),
I would say it could not get any better but the missing in action list was quite long this time. Darren Shallis (who I understand was busily binking local tournaments instead - what a shock), Ger (no Ger is just wrong at these), Paulie (see Ger Comment), Stu Ward (Was on duty sorting out his England team, so please you are an England captain mate) and Sharon (Thanks for the support yesterday) were all not able to make it. I look forward to seeing you all in Stoke.
Anyway we then have to play a poker tournament. I have Craig Dawson on my table which was a pleasure from a personal point of view and a pain from a poker point of view. I get the table figured out and play fairly loose seeing flops. I make a bad call on one river but generally end up going in the right direction and double my starting stack the get KK and 3-bet it and we get all the chips in on an 8 high flop and I hold against TT. I try to push it quite hard to get a stack, peak at about 100K but drop down to 82K at the end of the day which is still OK and I felt happy with my play.
It is now about 1am for some reason everybody goes home so me and Adam (after playing with hotel lifts for a while) head over to Gala to play blackjack and rail the tournament over there where Michelle and the Gary gang :-) are on the final table. Phil has a new friend who is the APAT chip leader) One of the Garys eventually binks it. The night that followed this, well I just can"t do it justice. Ringing Stu at 2am, 35p - no really 35p, taxi journeys, The hotel reception (not our hotel reception by the way), the poor girl outside that hotel reception. 23os. We all end up in ALEA, We all get in despite most of us being more drunk than I had been the previous night. We watch a 3 card poker table (OK we weren"t actually watching the table). We end up getting back to our hotel at about 5:30am.
So onto Sunday, we go for lunch with the Stockton Massive and Phil manages to get them to put breakfast back on even though it"s gone midday, the man is just brilliant. Anyway I get back to the casino and it restarts. I get AK first hand and take it down with a 3-bet shove. It seemed to go on for ages without an elimination then loads come at once and we go from two tables to the final really quickly. I started the final table as chip leader but manage to mess that up by misplaying jacks. I was really feeling like I could win this and am totally focused. Alan is playing great though and as the players drop down the clash seems inevitable. When we got 3 way to be honest Alan and myself were really battling hard and he got the best of it in the end, quite rightly he was the best player at the final table. I was pleased to see him take it down heads up.
After it ended Alan, myself and the rest of the APAT crowd who were still there played super poker with super blinds and a super river. Alan knocked me out again but Curly took the win. We have a few beers and just generally round the weekend off really well.
I have not done this trip justice here, great it was.
OK last thing on a more serious note. I few people have pointed out that I said around this time last year that I was basically done with live poker. Nothing has changed this is still the case. I don"t play live poker at all any more except for APAT and I would not play those if it was just a poker event. The people who are at these events are the reason for going and as long as they stay I will probably continue to do so.
See you all in Stoke.
