APAT Blackpool is always a fun weekend and this year proved to be no different. I played for BLUFF Europe at the East Herts team event last year and Jon asked me shortly after if I’d like to be part of the BLUFF team in Blackpool. As I wasn’t involved with Blue Blood at the time I was more than happy to accept. So on the morning of 25th January, I meet a few of my Scottish pals Clare and Ben in the Wetherspoons next to Edinburgh Waverley, we had some breakfast and refreshments for the journey down. A few more refreshments on the way down, a train change at Preston and we’re into Blackpool bang on time.
On arrival I dumped my bags in the room and quickly went over to the Velvet Coaster for the Blue Blood meal. I knew a few members already but it was nice to put faces to names for the ones I hadn’t met. I’m really looking forward to representing Blue Blood for years to come now I’ve been fully initiated 😀
After time well spent over dinner and drinks, we went over the road to the Grosvenor to play the PLO. I love playing PLO / PLO8 so won’t often turn down the chance to play. Anyway we grind away for a few hours and end up busting in 30th, I get it in good on the turn with top 2 v top pair and nut flush draw, and get rivered to lose to a higher two pair. Just the way it goes as there is so much variance in PLO.
By this point it’s about 11pm so I return to the bar area and most of my BLUFF teammates are there. They were all such a good bunch but it was amazing to meet John Hesp who is such a lovely down to earth man and refused to let me buy him a drink (not that you’ll find a Scotsman complain about that)! After a few drinks with the team I head back over to hotel for the night as I’ve got an early start on Saturday….
I had an escape room booked with some friends for 10am Saturday, so we were up bright and breezy for that and it was a chance to get the brain cells going for (hopefully) a long day of poker. Glad to say we broke out the room with just over 10 minutes to go so mission accomplished. After a quick pit stop at hotel we headed over to the Velvet Coaster to meet my team mates and talk some tactics before the team event starts.
Over to the casino we go and I’ve checked the seat draw in advance. It’s an absolute cracker of a table with Ky Hutchison on my right, Steve Redfern on my left as well as Jordan Hooper, Ian Ayre and Paul Pitchford on there too. The first few levels we struggle to really get anything going but the structure is so good that we still have plenty of room to grind away. AQ proves to be doing well for me as I take out Paul and Jordan with it in separate hands. Then Gaz Howard gets moved on to the table, he’s playing super aggressive and loose as by this point most of his team are out already so doesn’t really have anything to play for. I factor this into my thinking with a jam (78 suited) over Gaz’s late position open, he calls with 44 and we hit a 7 to double up. Naturally we have a nice debate about how the hand played out but I was happy with my shove given that the blinds were taking their toll and Gaz was opening super wide and if I get called my hand has a lot of potential. After that we really get a lot of momentum going and start raking in some pots. I increased my stack to 85k and happy with how it’s going. Then we get involved in a big hand late on: blinds are 1.5k/3k and UTG ships for 55k, we are UTG+2 and after some thought I call. Everyone else folds, he turns over 66 and the board runs clean for him to double up and take me down to 30k. Having played this over in my head many times, I’m now wondering if we can just fold it preflop. Yeah some of the time he is going to be shoving AQ and possibly KQ+ but his range is more pair heavy so we’re flipping a lot of time when have a stack where we don’t need to take a flip. Anyway that puts me down to 10 bigs and with play drawing to a close for the night I’m just looking for anything playable to get it in and try to double up. We look down at KQ in the big blind, we’re going with it. Even better we’ve had 2 shoves in front of us so getting loads of value. Lee Barrett turns over 88, Gaz has Q9. The 9 10 J flop is absolute gin for us, the K landed on river to give Gaz a chop. Lee busts and I frustratingly only bag up 45k for day 2 (11 bigs).
Anyway 3 of us made it through to Day 2 so Jon was happy that BLUFF have actually scored points 😀 Albeit Kat only had half a big blind so the onus was on me and Stephen Bradbury with 57k to try and make something happen. 11 bigs is a really easy stack to play, it’s shove or fold and no other thinking required. Sadly they only last 2 hands of day 2 as we look down at 33 and shove. Tristan Chaplin reshoves and flips over QQ. We don’t get any help from the board, at least Tristan goes on to put those chips to good use…
I take a break from the casino to pop over to the pub to watch the Rangers game. A comfortable 3-0 win and we pop back over to the casino to watch the rest of the team event play out. There’s a few familiar faces on the final table as Stephen from our team has grinded all the way there to make it, along with Tristan who busted me and Jo Chillmaid who is on my Scotland team for the WCOAP in Vienna. Stephen is pretty short and gets his stack in with AJ v KK v QQ. No improvement so he busts in 9th then very generously decides that he is splitting his winnings with the rest of team, and donating his own share to charity – Such an amazing gesture. Jo goes on to bust in 6th with top pair top kicker on flop v top pair but it’s a really impressive showing and I’ll be looking for the same level of performance in Vienna! Players bust pretty quickly after that and Tristan ends up heads up. After what seems an age, Tristan takes it down. Really pleased for him, I’ve spent many an hour in his company either on the felt or at the bar.
So what always is a great weekend on the APAT calendar is over in a blur, next up it’s Vienna for 12 days in April but I’m hoping to squeeze in a few local comps before then.
