An idiot a-bored.... The inner workings of a mad mind.

[Sef]

After contemplating blogging my journies in poker, in life and just generally random thoughts (random, mad.. same thing ) for some time but holding back in the worry that I might sound like a madman half the time I finally thought fe** it I sound mad half the time anyway so why not get it written down. So I have decided to start a blog and what better place to start one than the place where half the people are mad anyway. 

I'll try to keep posts as short as possible as I do have a tendancy to start rambling worse than murdoch from the A-team on crack and wouldn't want to start boring everyone with random nonsense using 80's characters as comparisons to give a visualisation of what I actually mean. See what I did there? Teehee.

On the poker front I hope to have a challenge in place in the near future to replenish my diminished bankroll which I will be keeping you all updated with. I think this blog will help keep me motivated with you guys and girls hopefully following me on my journey.

Anyway I hope you enjoy reading as much as I hope I will enjoy writing.

[Fatcatstu]

Cracking title!!!

Good luck with this, i shall follow it, need to get mine back up and running!

[nosey-p]

Good luck with this

[Des]

Best of luck with the blog and challenge Paul.

[Sef]

Thanks guys, heading in town today to get the wee mans glasses fixed so not really much to write about but you never know the sights I will see in this town. 


Heading to the local rileys tonight for a game of pool, a few beers and to play the weekly donkfest they run so I'm sure there will be plenty write about after that. theres a few of us heading down so i'm sure we can turn it into a decent final table at least. I say as I think about famous last words. 

[Santino67]

Good luck with this Paul, I'm sure it'll be the 2nd best Scottish blog on APAT after this one  Go on click it!!!!

http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=2650.0

[Sef]

lol cheers Grant

Well last nights donkfest in Rileys was defo entertaining, it had it all... bad beats, arguments, fights and beer a plenty.

So it started with meeting up with the lads at 6pm for a few rounds of pool and plenty of banter flowing. We aint all been out together in a while but it was just like old times. lol. Poker was due to kick off at half 7 and with 21 players a 5k stack and 15 minute blinds with big jumps between levels, I knew the poker was gonna be bingo before too long. We knew from the start it was going to be eventful as people started arguing about how may to pay out, other people wanted a bigger start stack and arguments ensued and it became blatantly clear that the organisers had no real clue or control of how to the tournament, which for me personally I felt it a real shame as it's the tournament I used to run perfectly smooth bringing 35+ decent players a week and was always a great game.

So after it was decided a top 3 payout with a 5k stack we finally got the game going, the cardroom was louder than the champions league final and as much as it was all good banter the game was playing about 5 hands per level. I got off to a decent start picking up some nice pots without going to showdown which was just aswell cause i had air most of the time and was card dead the whole tourny. After about an hour n half and blinds at 400/800 I got it in with on a K5Q flop only to be called by KQ, no help on turn or river GG. Back to beer it was. Not too long after I went out I could see and hear more arguments and harsh words being thrown around and offers of "going outside" being given. So there we were splitting people up and trying to calm things down all the while wanting that next pint. lol.

After all was calm and the beer was flowing again we headed out to the club and started on the vodka and shots. Plenty of laughs, dances and drinks. It's all a bit blurry but with the exception of the the arguments it was all in all a good night.

Just a tad hungover today and cant quite decide if i need a sleep or a vodka.

[Sef]

It's been a pretty historical week in my life as it has been for many this week. I've witnessed the Queens Diamond Jubilee, Seen the olympic flame pass by my very eyes just mere feet away and I have managed to read papers leading up to an international euro competition where it hasn't been all "England are going to win" headlines. I'm especially glad my son Ben got to be part of these once in a lifetime scenarios and young enough to maybe even make them twice in a lifetime. You never know.

Last weekend was filled with celebrations for the Queens jubilee, with everyone having a good time wether celebrating the Queen or just celebrating the long weekend off work. Either way everyone seemed in high spirits.

The week started off well, also in good spirits as we celebrated my dads 55th birthday on the same night Scotland took back top spot in the APAT league with an unyielding win last Sunday and I personally had my highest place finish in this tough league so far. I felt a bit ignorant taking my laptop to my sisters house to play while the party was going on but when explained they understood and it didn't stop me joining in the festivities.

Monday came and surprisingly hangover free we decided it was a nice enough day to take a trip to largs for the day, done a bit of family visiting then down to the promenade for Ben to relieve me of money for the fair, arcade, ice cream n sweets. Played some football, skimmed some stones and had a good family day out.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet until Thursday where I went to the Alea for some much needed live poker and met up with a couple of APATers 1 of which I met for the first time and, as expected and like everyone else, was a really nice guy. As far as the poker was concerned it was a semi-decent game with some much wanted pre flop mistakes made by others but unfortunately the poker gods seemed to like thier style of fishing for instance my aggressively played  4bet preflop was called and beaten by  on a    taking me to 6k stack (start stack 15k) I managed to spin my 6k back to 45k by the time it got to the 2nd break after calling a flat/3bet all in just before it on the button with  which was a tough call cause the guy mde the same move with aces earlier in the tournament against someone anyway he turned over  and I flopped 245 and turned 3 then, just incase, rivered J. With around 30/102 players left and 35k (average) I bust in 2 hands.... blinds 1k/2k I get  on BB, MP (loose aggressive) flats with around 15k behind (something not right I think to myself) so It's folded to me and just check. Flop comes (can I be behind here) I think no so in goes the chips he insta calls with  and sure enough turn  . 2 hands later I jam button with    and called by  and the rest is history... GG.

Although I was unwell Friday I took my boy to see the olympic flame passing by which again was amazing (I'll post a couple of pics shortly) everyone was having fun and it was a good afternoon. I just wish I wasn't ill at the time. The parade was fun to watch,everyone was waving thier flags, cheering and generally enjoying the occassion.

So on to today i was getting a bit worried earlier, I had a power cut (the whole town and surrounding 3 towns as far as i'm aware) No tv, no internet, my phone was nearly out of battery and even with battery had no signal my back up dongle had no internet signal. I started to try and think if I knew anyone Amish that could help me cope without technology. It was a scary 45 mins i don't mind telling you!! I also started freaking out incase it wasn't back on in time for the league tonight. The laptop was off to save power for at least a little play tonight (dongle permitting). Hungry and in need of a cuppa I wondered how long it would take to boil a cup of water and cook some toast with a lighter!?!?!? Deciding this would be an unbelievably idiotic task i started reading. After about 45 minutes the electricity came back on..... YAY all good!!! WRONG now virgin was down and I had no internet and no tv (dongle still wasn't working) so I decided to brainstorm while making a fry up and a cuppa. After many attempts of using facebook on my phone to ask if anyone elses virging was not working I finally got it posted. I also decided to phone virgin who said "it might be a problem in your area but we will send an engineer" nice one!!! "tomorrow afternoon" NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Anyway after all that everything came back on about an hour later and I am calm again.

What did we do before technology??

Anyway, I have rambled on on for much longer than I intended to so I hope I aint bored you too much.

Til next time

[Sef]

[Sef]

Pretty uneventful week so far, full of football and vodka with next to no poker and plenty of losing bets. Although played a couple of tournaments online and have a questionable spot which i will post for you all to comment on. There is more but I forgot to save the hand numbers so you only have 1.

It's Friday night so for a wee change from the midweek antics I think i'm gonna opt for.... yep you guessed it, football n vodka!!  With the added twist of a chinese. Good times. 

Will be catching up on all this weeks WSOP goings on and catch a live stream later if there is one. Might even learn something... like how a live stream looks plugged into the tv. lol. Heres hoping they stream HD and i'm not watching something more pixelated than a pokemon on crack.

Quick last thing... They stopped the France game because of heavy rain?? Christ if they did that here a season would last a decade! Man up it's only a bit of water ffs.

[Sef]

So not played much poker for a week or two and lifes been spent with family doing family stuff. Although I made my return to poker  on Saturday in a live £22 donkament which finished with a 3 way split for £400. Sounds not too bad eh? Well I suppose it wasn't too bad although I wanted the £600 up top and was on form for getting it, not the £400 which was 2nd place money anyway. Initially I knocked back the 3 way split and opted to play for the win, then 5 mins later a twist was introduced and we were told we had 5 mins til the tournament ends and we split the cash regardless? WTF??? I had a few questions and words to say about that and was just told it's cause there is a game starting in an hour!?!?! Surely there must be a table set aside for this to finish then? Nope!! So tilted at this point by how poor the situatuation was i said we may aswell just take the split in that case as we were roughly same stacked at the time. Which the other 2 were still happy to take so we shook hands split the cash n that was that! Still not happy about being forced into a split but it was clear the floor were never going to change their mind. Happy I made the top 3 but I still feel I lost £200 on quite a ridiculous scenario.

Fell asleep last night n missed the tournaments I wanted to play so it's on for some online action tonight.

[Sef]

Apologies on the lack of ECOAP blogging.... I was too busy recovering from the alcohol abuse of a great weekend. If I can remember what day was what and what happened when, I might get round to getting something up. But then again I dont remember 2 days ago so wont be holding out much hope.  

My post today is to tell you all a little story of perfect timing.

So there it was, a Wednesday evening just after ECOAP weekend and it was our turn to have the family round for dinner. Being the first day after a long weekend of alcohol abuse that I felt any sense of normality, both physically and mentally. We had a lovely dinner and were all sitting chatting and I'm telling stories of the weekend in Nottingham with the APAT crowd.

As everyone gets ready to leave I fire up the laptop and login to APAT/poker.co.uk to look for a tournament.  As soon as I sign in a tourny pops open. "whats this"  I say. After checking it turns out to be a new depositors freeroll with 2 seats into a final. Oh well I'll play this as I was only looking for a bit of fun poker, I wasn't here to grind and I didn't even know about this tourny. Playing the 415 field there were a few sit outs as you can imagine and everyone seemed to want to steal the blinds. I slowly but surely built a stack and before I knew it we were down to 30 and I was chip leader. After we got to about 18 someone mentioned top 10 also get €100. Sweet "brucey bonus" I think as I begin to wonder what the final prize pool is as I hadn't paid much attention, after all I just logged on for a bit of fun at the tables.

To cut a long story to a bit less long I got top 2, a seat in the final and €100. Not bad for a free tourny I didn't know about eh?!?! So whats the next step? Check out this final! After looking at what I had qualified for it turns out to be a 10 man SNG with a €25k prize pool. "That cant be right" I think to myself. So after checking again and again and looking for the catch I finally accept it and the excitement all but kills me. Did I really just qualify for a chance to win €20k with only a 10 player field because I happened to sign in at the exact moment a tournament I knew nothing about started? Yes a feckin did!!!  

So tonight is that final. Tonight is the night I might just hit that first 5 figure win. Can tonight be my time?? I sure hope so! Bring it on!! Buzzing is not the word  

And that is the story of how timing can be everything.

Now for the hard part!!






Prizes

1    80%    €             20,000
2    5.2%    €              1,300
3    4.0%    €              1,000
4    3.2%    €                 800
5    2.4%    €                 600
6    1.8%    €                 450
7    1.4%    €                 350
8    1.0%    €                 250
9    0.6%    €                 150
10    0.4%    €                 100


P.S. Feel free to rail!

[Santino67]

Good luck with this mate, I'll try to rail at 7pm if I'm awake 

[Sef]

Thanks mate.

[PHIL_TC]

Good luck Paul...

10% please