Wow…it’s been a while since I posted anything on this old thing.
Obviously, APAT ECOAP has now come and gone and what a great long weekend it was. I’d always planned on being there for the whole weekend but having dug myself into a small financial hole (with pre-paying for hotels and other stuff for the ECOAP and getting ready for the epicness that will be the Las Vegas Adventure in December) the events I’d determined to play were merely the Stud and Omaha.
As it was, when I arrived on Friday my weak will gave way and I bought into the 6-max comp scheduled for Saturday. 6-max is not my area at all, my HE game is tighter than a nun’s chuff usually but I thought the opportunity to LAG it up a bit might be a worthwhile experience.
However, I’ll try and deal with this day by day but the memory has started to fade.
Friday
I left home in the scarred motor (still waiting for a repair slot) and the drive to the Holiday Inn, Castle Marina took about 3.5 hours instead of the anticipated 2.75 thanks for road works on the M1. Oh well, not too bad I’ve had worse drives.
I rolled into the HI car park to be greeted by the always welcome countenance of Ger…who was waving goodbye to an AA van. His weekend had obviously not started too well.
We checked in and I took a few minutes to unlimber the laptop, splash some water where necessary and, as is my wont, descended to the bar. Naturally, himself was already in attendance so we chatted away while more of the APAT hard core made their own arrivals. Chris Peers, Glen Laming & Ian Thompson all made appearances while we waited for the Stockton contingent.
I’d fully expected them to be there when I arrived but, following the various Twitter updates it seemed there had been problems.
Before long, I managed to peel everyone away from the HI bar and we made our way over to The Water’s Edge, a Greene King pub (part of the Hungry Horse chain) for some much cheaper drinks and keenly priced food.
Before long Phil & Stu has turned up and it wasn’t too long before there were a dozen of us, including Rodders and Michelle, monopolising the seating area behind the pub. It was all very nice too, sitting by the canal with canal boats and other small pleasure craft passing by.
However, time stands still and all that and it was time to head off to DTD for either participation in the Team events or the Stud. A quick call to a local cab firm had them lining up to take us and we made the quick trip over.
We’re greeted by the ‘mostly-smiling’ face of Leigh Wiltshire who has been thrown back into the updating mix. He has that a resigned look on his face as though to say…”It’s my own fault, I should have known better.”
I greet him with “Welcome Back” and he looks at me with the “How many more times to I have to hear that this weekend?” expression. Amazing how much a couple of looks can cover isn’t it?
Before long however, the team games get under way and the Stud kicks off. I’d drawn a table with Stu Ward (sigh) and Chen Tam (deeper sigh)…this was going to hurt.
Apparently, Stu had practised for over an hour to learn how to play Stud and proceeded to explain to our table mates just how inexperienced he was. Frankly, it didn’t matter; Chen was going to play his typical Hold’em style even though we were playing a completely different game.
If it was limped round to him, he’d raise. Not bad strategy as it happens. I got some chips early on and thought I was cruising but eventually the structure really started to bite. Unfortunately, this coincided with me going remarkably card dead and I exited in mid-field if I recall correctly.
After that it was just a case of supping up at the bar and waiting for the end of the Day 1 of the Team Championships. It starts to get a little blurry but I do recall climbing into a taxi with Ger and Phil Tompkinson around 3am outside DTD.
Arriving at the Holiday Inn, Ger was most displeased to discover that, heaven help us, the hotel bar was shut. I left Ger and Phil in the foyer negotiating with the night porter for a bottle of wine.
