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The grotty old casino where we met? In order of likelihood, would that be......
Stanleys in Derby, in the smoky old upstairs room, frequented by Davilfish, Taffy (70 years old with a 23 year old floosey on his arm), Ash & the like? Oh, & "x", who later went down for 12 years. Don't think it was for shoplifting.
Napoleons in Sheffield? Smokiest cardroom on earth, 12 players to a table, the chips were so filthy you could not riffle them, as they all stuck together. In Tourneys, which started at 25-50, they had a 200 denom chip. What?!
Gala Nottingham. Full of dodgy cash games (at the time.....), the Tourneys were self-deal, half the players were "same village", & the Dealers regularly dealt off the bottom of the pack to their mates. One guy had just finished an 8 year sentence for fraud, then got banned his first night back for dealing off the bottom of the pack. His name? Iffy. No, really, "Iffy". He's straight now, runs a 'phone shop or somesuch.
She is still one of my closest friends to this very day. I suppose most of those I began playing poker with still are, which is rather lovely, though poker being what it is, a few have gone busto along the way.
Galas Notts was where I first met Maria, maybe 2001 or 2, ditto Thewy, & so many others.
Maria & Thewy remain two of my closest personal friends - real friends, we've done all sorts as a trio, travelled the circuit, bought action in each other, everything.
She still does some work for me, as a sort of PA, because I can't really cope with some stuff myself.
One of my proudest moments was when Maria - Sky Poker alias "RedHotChili" or similar - won the first ever SPT at DTD, 4 or 5 years ago. Can't tell you how proud I was to present the Trophy to her. She played the recent SPT 6-Max, too.
She runs a chippie in Grantham, her whole family are in the chippie business. Very pretty lass, lives with a smashing lad, Glenn, they have a nice house just outside the Town.
Her Uncle used to play at Gala Notts, too, his name is Peter Costa, at the time he was the most successful Tournament player in the whole world - look him up, he was nigh unbeatable in 2002/3/4. I saw Peter recently, he's lost a bunch of weight, & lives in Vegas now, married a Dealer out there. He was back in the UK a few weeks back, but has returned to Vegas now. He is regularly staked by Phil Hellmuth.
Her other Uncle - well actually she has dozens of them, like most good Greek girls! - is Kim Constantiou, one of the best Dealers Choice players I ever met, & huge fun to play with, a perfect Gent.
He used to play that big cash game in Birmingham, & one night he was £80,000 up, then managed to do the lot. "Goodnight Gentleman, been a pleasure as always" was all he said as he got up & left, totally skinto.
Proper bloke, real Gent, love him to bits.
Thewy & I once staked Maria into the GUKPT Grand Final, we took 30% each, 2007 or 8 I think, she managed to get all-in three way with 4 tables left with Q-Q & was up against K-K & A-A. She binked the Queen, lol.
She finished 5th I think, for about £25,000. Happy days for all three of us, we had a nice divvy-up that night.
"Rich" is Richard Wootton, who I have known for about 8 years.
When we first started APAT, back in 2005 or whenever, he was a big opponent of it, & we had some bruising Forum debates, the thread ran to 60 or 70 pages, I got beaten up good & proper, everyone thought APAT was too good to be true, no reg fees, good structures, added value, those things were unheard of in those days for £75 Tournaments, & APAT had no Membership Fee.
I'm incredibly proud of what APAT done, it is probably top of my Poker CV, it's good to give something back to our wonderful game.
They recently merged with an Online Poker Site, so I had no choice but to resign my Honorary Chairmanship as it was a conflict of interest with Sky Poker. It is owned by Des Duffy, who used to be Head of Poker at Sky, & he & I met through APAT, he chased me all over the UK to get me on board, then 3 years later, he turned up at Sky Poker, where I was already. Small world.
Once Rich realised APAT was kosher, he was very gracious, & we became good pals. He is (Des is Head of Poker for a European-based poker site these days).
Rich was Cardroom Manager at Stoke Circus at the time, then later moved to DTD for a few years, & now, as you say, he runs Gentings in Derby, which brings us back to where I began playing poker. Incred.
Ali & his rebuys? Unbelievable. He'd regularly have 10 or 15 Rebuys in those Tenner Rebuy jobbies. I saw him last week I think, he's not aged one bit.
I bet all the kids are tut-tutting at us old boys chewing the cud. I can't help but reminisce these days, poker has given me so many happy memories & endearing friendships which have survived the years. We have ups & downs, of course, but it's all good really.
Keep Posting!
These first two photos were, I think, at Late Night Poker, which Maria finalled in. Oddly, her Uncle, Pete Costa, played it & won it, many years earlier.
I went down to Cardiff with Maria when this was filmed.
Here she is with Ram Vaswani, of The Hendon Mob.
....and Jac Arama, a big name back in the day, he played SPT Luton last year. .
This third photo is incredible, it's like a game of "Connect".
2nd from left (standing), is Bev Pace, wife of Norman Pace, who used to be on the Channel.
3rd left, seated, is Jen Mason, now an Analyst on 861, & one of my earliest poker friends, & quite the most intelligent & likeable girl you could ever wish to meet, we did Live Updates all over the world for several years. She lives in Brighton these days. We remain very close friends.
I used to stay at her place in London, where she lived with Snoopy & Dana (both of whom have been on 861), & I fell asleep on their sofa many a night. They'd stick Post-It notes on my tie & dump me on the 0500 Derby-bound train home, the Post-It notes said "wake the old fella up at Derby please".
Next to Jen is Kara Scott. We worked together at Poker Night Live, then at Sky Poker. She is with Party now, having also been with 'Stars, & she always gives me some great interviews in Vegas, & looks after me with introductions & all sorts. So proud of her & what she has achieved.
Far right is Maria.
Yikes, crash bang, what a picture......
Some of these were just about unplayable, £5 / £10 buy ins with a 1000 starting stack.
As you can imagine half the table were all in every hand trying to build a stack.
Others however were great value where for a relatively low buy in you could be playing for really decent sums of money.
One such comp was at Gala Nottingham on a Thursday night.
£50 buy in with one rebuy and one addon and a good clock.
With around 100 regulary playing these and lets say on average the majority of the field taking either the rebuy or addon you were looking at a £10000 prize pool.
Starting stack was 5000 which was big in those days and so 'proper'poker was played.
I entered this comp one night a few months after starting to play and with a bit of good fortune i was going quite deep.
With around 12 left i got it all in preflop with AK and probably a little relieved to be honest i saw the other guy had AK too.
He then made the fatal mistake of immediately saying 'chop it up'.
Obviously 4 card flush hit me and i now had the chip lead going into the final.
Raj Dhiri, a good local player grabbed me as we were waiting for the final to begin.
He told me in no uncertain terms to basically pass everything and i would make the top three and lock up a good win.
I agreed and thanked him for the advice.
The final begun and Raj had his head in his hands i was all in on the first hand!
I had KK and raised and got reraised. Terrified off losing a huge hand right at the start, i just called.
Flop was K high with no danger. Remember, i was new to the game. I could hardly breathe and panicked. ALL IN!
He folded QQ face up and so i really made the most of my oppurtunity there!
However, i had increased my stack and now i did follow Raj's advice and passed and passed and passed.
Now down to three and there is a reg with a good sized chip lead and myself and Nick who like me was playing for his biggest win.
This all leads us to THE WORST DEAL EVER!!!
The payouts were roughly £3300 £2200 £1600
Nick and i begin to confer, we're both desperate not to finish 3rd.
He suggests the other guy is obviously going to win and so why don't we give him the win and split 2nd and 3rd place.
I obviously snap his hand off.
Reg has stayed very quiet during the negotiations. We look at him pleadingly, will you accept this please sir?
He thinks for a short while and says that, yes, he is prepared to do it but thinks it's only fair that myself and Nick do the decent thing and look after the waitresses with our winnings.
We readily agree and are a little surprised as he jumps out of his chair and runs off giggling.
If i've done well online i like to go and play live whenever i can. The likelihood is that i would do better online but i love live poker and go with the attitude that it will just be an expensive night out and anything else is a bonus.
I cheated last week, i haven't played much recently but just thought sod it i'll go anyway.
Trouble is live poker is obviously rigged! and i was out fairly quickly including rebuy. Flopping a straight and then a set of kings was obviously never going to be good enough.
So i decided to wander off to the cash table and everything i love about 'live' was there in front of me.
For my first ten minutes i had a young chap telling me about other players polarised bets and his 5 bet bluffing range.
Fortunately he decided to go home to grind online as he could never beat bad players!
Then i got talking to a lovely guy who was a retired ladies hairdresser from Italy and someone who said he was playing way too high but needed to win as he was struggling financially. I grimaced but was delighted for him when he got up and left afer he had doubled up.
I ran like god. First time this has really happened for a long time and it felt brilliant. I didn't play well particuly but never had a bluff called and was looked up everytime i 'had it'.
2 weird hands were when after straddling i looked down at KK. it had been raised to £10 in front of me with 2 callers. I popped it up to £60 and was somewhat surprised to see everyone call. Flop A K 3 rainbow.
Hmm, not bad i lead out for 80 and 3 instants folds! aaarrrggghhh..
Then on next straddle it was limped to me and i had 45. I just check my option, flop 2 3 J. It checks all the way to river when an Ace hits. I quite like this and just went for a silly bet thinking an ace might call me. '£40' i announce into the pot of £8.
Although i'm a little drunk by this stage i'm sure i hear a cry of 'all in' I quickly check i haven't misread my cards and call.
He had AA. Said he was trapping me as i always raised the straddle.
Last 3 hands were announced and i looked at my watch. Ten to Six in the morning and had been playing since Seven the previous night. Felt like ten minutes. I thought i had been sensible with my drinking just a pint an hour something like that. No wonder i felt battered, at my age i can't drink like that anymore.
The Gent you mention is Dave Welch, as you say, he was on several series of LNP, & he later married a young lady, Debbie Berlin, who was also on LNP.
He was a feature of the Live scene from the mid-nineties, & has a Database entry as long as your arm, though nothing for the last 4 or 5 years. Incidentally, his surname is "Welch" not "Welsh".
"controversial"? Umm, just a bit, though not so much "now" as 7 or 8 years ago.
Probably best to leave it at that.
He used to live in St Albans, but I believe he lives in Burton upon Trent these days, but I've not seen him or Debbie for a good few years.
He had the poker nickname of "The Ambassador".
Jeez, you have opened the memory floodgates with that name!
It was very atmospheric, up a set of stairs, dimly lit, very smoky (you could smoke in cardrooms in those days), & you've never seen such a set of characters in one room in your life.
Devilfish was a regular there, as was Peter Costa & his brother, Kim Constantiou. The locals were a really mixed bunch, & I still see & chat with a lot of them regularly, Taff, Ash, Ali Bag of whatsits, Jez, Big Micky Jones, Phil the Power, Ali Mallu, Micky Wernick, Rob Yong, Qualif, Assif, strewth, so many.
It was there that I first realised that in Live Tournaments, especially rebuys, (& most Live Tourneys were rebuys back then) it was always imperative to know EXACTLY, allowing for colouring up, how many chips were in play.
I made a final one night & I have always had a peculiar mental "tic" of calculating numbers in my head, & I suddenly realised that there were nearly 30% too many chips in play. I sat there for a moment, & wondered why, & then the penny dropped - a lot of the rebuy money had gone into someone's pocket, so the amount of chips did not tally with the prize pool.
I refused to allow play to start until they sorted it out, & it all got a bity messy & shouty-wouty, & so I never went there again.
This would be in around 2000 & I gather they "cleaned the place up" by 2002 or 2003. Once computers arrived, of course, fiddling the rebuys was not so easy, but it was a common occurence in Cardrooms everywhere in those days, & I can think of 4 rooms off the top of my head where it was prevelant. Recently, of course, Rich Wootton took over as TD & Cardroom Manager, Rich is as straight as a die, there won't be any funny business whilst he is captain of the ship. Give him my best regards please. We used to have professional differences of opinion over APAT, but we are super cool now.
Sorry to invade your thread, but you touch so many memories for me.
Keep the stories coming please.
I was reading the other day on another forum about a dealers choice hand at DTD.
2 of the players in the pot were guys who were playing £30 freezeouts with me back in the day. The pot also involved a very prominent forum member on here. they got it all in preflop for £11000!
Now one of these players is a very successful businessman, so fair play. The other was just like me a few years ago. Someone just getting into poker. The big difference between us though was he was a gambler. Was he any better than me at the time? probably not. Is he now? undoubtably.
How do players get to this stage? Obviously binking something big after satting in is the stress free option.
More likely though, rather than turn over an ok profit at small stakes like me and staying there he moved up.
I've always treated poker as a game to enjoy and hopefully make a few quid from. However, i do often wonder if i had had enough 'gamble' in me could i have done more?
Not sure. Right now i can't even comprehend the idea of getting in £5000 in a cash game but it's all relative i guess.
A friend of mine has starting playing recently on here 30p dym's. When i told him i lost a £550 pot a few days ago he said that he wouldn't be able to sleep for a month.
Due to a decent year, while it obviously stung a bit, i could take it and i guess it's the same for the guy with 5000 in the middle, different bankrolls.
We all have varying levels at which we are prepared to gamble i think.
For some on here i see that they've deposited a certain amount and don't wish to redeposit again and stick strictly to their bankrolls. Others reload on a regular basis and 'take a shot'.
I don't think there is a right or wrong, we are all just built differently.
Both began playing at the same venue - Gala Notts - & same time as me.
One of them has been busto plenty of times, the other runs a very successful business.
If you are a nit, my advice would be that if you end up on the same table as them, make sure you sit to their left.
Then just use hand-selection, pot-control, patience & discipline VERY carefully, & it'll be just fine.
Me
1st pot was actually £10000 i believe and the other hand involved our member.
I remember being heads up with Richard Berridge one night and he had a good sized chip lead.
Was a little surprised when he said i could take 1st place money as long as he was given 1st for the leaderboard.
They were doing a promotion at the time and he said the money didn't matter to him. Must be nice.
The other player as you say has been broke a few times. I guess we all have different responsibilties. Going broke wouldn't be an option for me.
It's funny, we must have started playing at similar times and yet, i don't believe i have ever actually sat at table with you.
I do remember 'Chipie?' telling me one night about how he had got heads up with you and you LIMPED into his big blind. He shoved and you had the ACES.
Did you ever play the Sunday night £100 rebuy they had? Seems crazy now, £100 rebuy with 2000 starting stack.
Yes, I remember Chippie, I still see him from time to time, & I bumped into him last week in Nottingham, he even fetched me a latte.
The "incident" with the Aces must have been 10 years ago, but he still reminds me of it to this day every time I see him, lol. When it happened, he was a bit cross with me, "you trapped me" (!!), & in those days, Gala Notts was full of "same village" softplay, so I think he expected me to go easy on him. He is a good lad though, he apologised for his outburst the next day, & we've never had a cross word since.
Never forget to incorporate Implied Humour Odds into your equity calculations.