APAT

APAT is the newly formed Amateur Players Association & Tour. The aim of the association is to provide a voice and organisation for Amateur players like myself.

They held their inaugural live tournament event at the Broadway Casino in Birmingham on the weekend of 23rd & 24th September 2006. It cost me just £10 to join APAT, and a further £75 to enter the tournament. Due to the size of the venue, the tournament was restricted to just 120 entrants. To be honest, I left it quite late and didn't think I'd get in. I was quite surprised to get an email from them to say I'd been accepted. I knew some others from ITH were going, so that made the trip worthwhile in itself.

The prize structure was very top heavy with only top 9 getting paid. The top prize was £4000 plus a trophy, $1000 added to your Stars account, and an automatic entry to the next EPT event in Copenhagen (inc travel & expenses). A very nice prize indeed.

I got the train up to Birmingham around 10am on the Saturday. I had hoped to go earlier, but I was up until playing in a Stars 180 tournament the previous night (I came 3rd so it was worth it). I checked into the hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, and made my way down to the casino. After a while sitting in the bar, I met up with Suited_Jock (Matthew Milne), Ikeee, PaulNico & Biohazard. I have spoken to Matt & Ikeee many times on IRC whilst playing, so it was good to finally meet them in person (as of course the other guys). The tournament started at 3pm prompt. My main goal was to survive until day 2.

The play overall was very tight, and all of us commented that we hadn’t seen any really bad players. The competition was tough and we all knew it was going to be a long day. In fact it took about an hour and a quarter for the first player to be eliminated. We started with 10,000 in chips with blinds starting at 25/50 and rising every 40 minutes, so it certainly wasn’t going to be a crapshoot. I didn’t actually play a hand until the 2nd level. By the first break, I was on my starting stack.

With blinds at 100/200, I moved up to 17,000 with the following hand. I was in UTG+1 with KK. UTG had raised to 800. I reraised to 2000, he called. Flop was all rags. UTG checked, I bet 2000 and he re-raised me to 5000. My read on UTG was that he had been fairly tight but had a habit of overbetting some pots. I thought for a long time on this. Calling was out of the question as I didn’t want to see an Ace on the turn. Raising would have left me pot-committed, so I had to push. If he had AA (or an unlikely set), I was in trouble. He folded.

I kept around this level until the dinner break and finished that session on 16,500. Straight after dinner, I had a nightmare 3 hands in quick succession. Blinds were 400/800, I tried a semi blind steal in CO with A4s and got called by BB. BB was a good solid player and IMO probably the best player at the table (he eventually went on to finish 2nd). Flop was all rags. BB checked, I bet 2000 and he reraised me to 5000. I folded.

Next I was in BB with AK where I made a terrible play. All folded to SB who limped. I reraised to 2000 and he called. Again, flop was rags. He checked. I thought about it (for too long really) and should have pushed. Instead for some reason I simply checked back. Turn was a scary Q and SB bet 2500. I folded showing AK saying I knew I should have pushed the flop. SB said he knew I had that hand and showed K4s for the bluff.

The next disaster was a real beat. In fact I think it was the very next hand. It was all folded to me in SB with AQo. BB was short-stacked and I put him all-in. He called showing AQs (diamonds). Flop showed 2 diamonds and he completed his flush on the river. Ouch! I was now down to 6500 in 3 quick hands.

I managed to fight my way back with some pushes with JJ, QQ and Ax none of which got called. I then moved tables and manged to knock out a shortie with QQ again. By the final break I had fought back to 19,000 and was feeling good again.

Unfortunately it was short-lived as in the last session I went completely card-dead and had nothing to fight with. I was getting blinded away. In the meantime I saw Biohazard, Ikeee & PaulNico go out in quick succession (IIRC, I believe it was 67th, 60th & 52nd respectively, or close to that anyway).

They had a rule in the tournament that whenever anyone got knocked out everyone left should all applaud them. There was a funny moment when someone on our table hit a Royal Straight Flush. We all applauded, then everyone else joined in. We had to tell everyone that no one had got knocked out and it was a false alarm :-).

Shortly after this, Matt joined my table and he had been doing well with a stack of about 30,000. I was still card dead and hadn’t played a hand. There were a couple of occasions when I should have pushed with “any two”. I must confess that I just couldn’t pull the trigger when looking at total crap. This is a leak in my game. Maybe next time, I won’t bother looking at the cards :-). Anyway with blinds at 1000/2000, my stack had dwindled to 6000. UTG+1 had raised to 6000. I looked at 66. It was the best hand I’d seen in about 2 hours. I called and we got joined by the BB. Flop was something like QJxxQ. UTG+1 showed AK. This gave me hope as I showed. The BB very slowly turned over 77. I was out in 36th, just 3 minutes before the end of day #1’s play.

Overall I’m pleased at the way I played, despite the AK hand and the not pushing with any 2 cards earlier. I thoroughly enjoyed the day.

Matt went on to finish 3rd, and was really unlucky not to win the whole tournament. You can read about his exploits on the link to his own blog.

The next event is in Glasgow in November, which I won't be able to make. I do want to play more of these though in the future.