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My "unofficial" APAT Team Championship report.
So...APAT weekend. At the beginning of the qualification I honestly thought I had no chance. 6 weeks later I'm captain, according to APAT, as I posted the team over there. Oops. Especially as I knew nobody bar Joobs! Thankfully Dave was wonderful when it came to sorting out the team shirts and such so all I pretty much had to do was get there, collect money and pay. Simples!
My preparation for the weekend consisted of a £5 6 man SNG with Joobs, 3 members of the Chezger team and the Blonde captain. I thought I'd used up my run bad then, but as you'll soon find out, I hadn't even brushed the surface. Saturday morning saw us head over to Manchester to hit the G Casino for approximately 1pm, and I apologise to any of the Sky team and railers if I was a bit "away with the fairies", but I used to be an APAT and GUKPT updater and I probably knew half the field, and hadn't seen them for about 18 months. So there was a lot of hello's to be said! Paid us in and looked at the seat draw. Looked all right for everybody but me! I had the winner and runner-up from the last team tournament on my table, and was sat in the dreaded Seat 1 (I hate Seat 1) on a table which I knew was not breaking on that day. Lovely.
At 2.30ish, we get off the mark and I fold my first few hands. Then I pick up 88 UTG and limp. The 2 seat raises and Mary Martin calls, along with 2 other callers and myself. We see a flop of 8-7-K 2 diamonds. I check, and the 2 seat bets about 600. Mary flats and it's folded to me. I raise to 1800 and the 2 seat tank-folds, later telling me he has A-K (impressive fold). Mary again flats. The turn is the 7c, putting 2 clubs out there. I bet about 2500-3k and Mary again flats. I'm laughing inside as I figure she has a FD/SD or top pair. The river is the Qd, a perfect card, or so I thought. I push all in and Mary folds pretty quickly. I later find out she has 10c-9c and missed everything.
I win the next 3 hands (mini-heater) and am up to a massive 16k at level 1. Mary busts soon after and the atmosphere immediately lightens up as she was the first out. I then go card-dead and play 1 hand in 3 rotations, where I limped A9 in late pos against Paul from Team Orange and I pay him 3k over a A-2-x-x-A board, only to be shown A2.
At the first break, the whole team is left in and all appears well, not much movement. I hear about Phil's amazing FH vs. Quads hand that leaves me astounded. I know I would go broke there! After the break, a few more players bust and one of the FISO guys hits the 4 seat. He's playing pretty tight but his read on me is rocky. Then my big hand comes up. The 4 seat raises to 900 at 150/300-25 from UTG. Folded to me and I peek at AA. I raise to 2500 and only he calls. The flop comes Q-Q-10, and he c-bets 2k. I tank and eventually call with the plan of raise-shoving the turn. The turn is a 6 and next thing I know, FISO man shoves. I tank, putting the hand together in my head, and the only hand I can put him on that plays that strong is KQ. So I fold, and am down to 6.6k. Later on, I get told by another of the FISO guys that he's a rock and has it. I'm happy with the fold as I don't think I'm beating much. He doesn't need to make a massive bluff there and during all the time we were sat on the table, he had it every time.
We limp to dinner and all of Team Sky are still in, although most of us have below average and it's grinding time! The buffet was a bit rubbish, and I couldn't find anyone daring enough to try and stop SPT from getting to the front of the queue. I'm chatting to beloved_ltd about Phil as he was to Phil's direct left and he said you played very well and solid mate, just unlucky at times. A few more players were also telling me that they were surprised at how well the Sky team were actually playing!
After dinner, we head back and soon after lose both Mikes to shortstack pushes. I'm also in shove or fold mode and eventually get it all in with A-K against a medium pair. Ace in the window is nice and the K to follow it is nicer. This puts me back up to starting stack...so I'm still looking to shove. 3-4 rounds later I find JJ in the BB after Paul from Team Orange has spite-raised again (we have history) and shove. He tank-calls with K-10 and I'm sweating after a Q-J-x flop. Somehow he misses and I go up to my highest point all day, 19k. Phil busts soon after with JJ against AJ, a cruel rivered Ace sending him to the bar. I do a quick check on everybody else (when I double up I always walk away from the table for a hand or 2 to calm down afterwards) and everybody's hanging in there. Simon, Joobs and Dave have decent chips whilst Tina and myself are grinding.
I'm the next to go in about 80th, a couple of hours later, after folding junk solidly for 2 levels, I find 9-9 in mid position and insta-shove, only to see the 2 seat beat me into the pot. Oops. He turns over K-K and I don't hit 2 outers. After the obligatory hand-shaking etc, I head over to check how everyone else is getting on, and it's looking good for us. Joobs is the next to bust, she ran JJ into AA to finish 20 short of the points. Eventually, we get down to 40 and I'm pretty confident as Dave has good chips, Simon has average and Tina is hanging in there. 5 minutes later, it's all over. Simon finds AA in the BB to a raise from Laxie, the blonde captain, and shoves. She calls with 66 and spikes a one-outer on the river to send him home in 40th, with one point. Next thing I know, Tina has shoved all in short and is sent home in 39th, for 2 points! In the blink of an eye, we've gone from challenging for the win to out. It's sickening, but we tell Dave to play for the win and not worry about the team game, and he finishes day 1 in the midfield, with 31 left.
Day 2 will have to be updated by somebody else (Jamielou?) as I was unable to get there until the FT, as Joobs was working. I got some comments from my housemates though for shouts when I read updates over at APAT. When I get there, Dave is 5th in chips on the FT with 135k, however, this was 11BB and below average, as Johnel Bracey has 25% of the chips in play. The start of the final table sees lots of short-stack double up's, and Dave slips down to 100k before he shoved with 88 and the BB had AK. A 9-high board saw Team Sky happy and we carried on. Sadly, Dave was pretty much card-dead and when there was 7 left, he was forced to shove 4BB from the SB unopened with 7-8, however the BB (and eventual winner) snapped his hand off with A-A and the A-Q-3 flop meant he was shaking hands and walking away before the turn £250 richer. In my eyes, Dave deserved a medal for the way he played; I didn't see him make a single mistake. He was just desperately unlucky at the final table, as anybody there could have won it.
As a team, we beat established major forums such as Blonde Poker, A World of Poker, Poker Player, and the unofficial favourites, Chezger, who had APAT winners and professional players in their team. I'm proud of being part of Team Sky and proud of our showing. We definitely exceeded expectations, with most people saying that they were expecting us to be, well, rubbish, because of the reputation that Sky has. Hopefully, from a Sky perspective, this was a success despite not winning, a credible 12th place finish for us!
Well played team, we did good!
Comments
Nice of you to say I didn't make a mistake, such a deep stack is my game and aided by good early cards and winning most of the coin flips helped, you are right about the FT, one failed bluff and massive blinds, I didn't mean to get as low as 4BB but never found the shove hand, I had decided to go in on BB or SB that orbit and Johnel raised my BB and as I only held Q9 off I decided to go with any 2 on the SB, folded to me my 78 looked acceptable but the speed of Billy's call to my shove had me knowing my fate and I was dead after the flop but he was a nice guy and deserved the win.
Dave
It was 2am and faced with a 90 min drive back to York and then back again for 2pm I decided to check in a hotel as I had never expected to actually play 12 hours to make day 2!
I got a real boost before play started as Gordon (Dollie) paid me a visit to wish me good luck, I quickly built my stack up to 100k and players were exiting all around me, my table was a bit shove or fold so I continued to steal as much as possible, most notably with 45 from the button, my fiancee Yorkie74 sat behind me saw the cards and nearly had a coronary!
We were down to 16 left and I needed 9th or better to cash, I was about 10BB when I picked up 88 in the big blind, the button raised as he always did and I shoved, he had me covered and I was pretty happy to see him turn over A 3 but he hit an ace on the flop, the turn blanked and I turned away to leave as the dealer delivered me an 8 on the river, saved! Billy went on to win the tournament and he was pretty nice about having just been rivered!
Then I ended up in another pickle as I looked at a lovely pair of ladies QQ, short stack shoved for 44k, I am eager to call and mop him up but another player with 88k pushes as well, I had 120k so had them both covered but in all reality if I lose to the 88k man I am felted, I asked the dealer how long I had to decide and took about 3 minutes before calling expecting to be against AK and hopefully a smaller pair, it was actually AK and AJ and 4 blank cards had me one card away from a chip stack of 200k, unfortunately a King on the river gave 44k man a treble up but I broke even on the pot as I took the side pot. This was reported on the APAT site as Sky Dave in trouble when in reality I still had over 100k as CT quickly spotted in his thread. I was moved to the other table as we had 10 left and 9 was the bubble, I was sitting pretty now and played fold poker till the bubble burst, to cash in a tournament of this stature was my biggest poker achievement and I wanted the free dinner too lol !!!
Kaidus pretty much sums up the FT perfectly and it is very kind of him to say I deserved a medal!! Tried a bluff that failed early on dropped me to 80k, doubled with 88 v AK (88 was my hand in this tourney!) and then went card dead with my best hand in 2 hours being Q9! Eventually the blinds went to 20k / 10k / 2k ante and I was sat with 80k, I decided to shove with any 2, it was all going so well as they all folded round to me, I had 7 8 so I pushed but Billy called before my chips were even over the line, he had aces and a further ace on the flop had me drawing dead, Billy was the victim of my rivered 8 earlier and is a top bloke, he went on to win.
Rail from Joobs, Adam, Jamie, Mike and Sian was fantastic, every time I reached for chips they were jumping up , forum updates were being relayed to me by the amazing workhorse we know as Sky Des so I knew OnlyOneCT was having heart attacks over my yo yo moments, I got home about midnight on Sunday after 2 mentally exhausting days, incredible experience and in Sky Poker Forum's first year a 12th place finish, something to build on for next year!!
Dave
I took out the horse with the QQ in the 3 way pot, just how do you get a read????
This is obviously the look I give when someone steals my blinds!
Nice one Dave and the rest of the team, sounds like a lot of fun and as you say something to build on for next year.