Thinking Out Loud

[Des]

20 May 1989

It was a Saturday and I remember it being particularly hot.   I was on a passenger bus, somewhere in the middle of Ireland, on a journey that had started in London a day earlier and would end on the West Coast of Ireland sometime later that night.

I was sweating hard and felt sick to my stomach.  It wasn’t the sick feeling you might have after a dodgy meal or a heavy night on the town, it was a feeling akin to having the weight of the world on my shoulders.   I didn’t like it, but it wouldn’t be shifted.

I’d lived in England for the two years prior and I was moving back to my hometown Westport.   I was leaving behind a good job and friends; including a girlfriend who I was very close too, and that and a lot of other stuff was weighing heavily on my mind.  

The bus rolled on, and it seemed that each of the driver’s actions swayed me from side to side in my seat, leaving me unable to sit still or rest.  The ventilation seemed non-existent and I remember seeing my sweat glisten as I stared at my reflection in the window.

It was a different age for mobile entertainment and all I had was a little portable radio which allowed me to catch fragments of the Liverpool and Everton FA Cup Final which was playing out as the bus lurched from small town to small town.   Football was a rarity on TV back then and missing this game was just one of several things troubling me.

I remember a particular moment on the journey, catching a glimpse of my father in the seat behind and despite the heat and conditions he seemed happy, as always.  He was wearing a suit and a tie; something he didn’t often do, and I remember thinking he was mad in this heat.  I didn’t want to bother him, so I’d sneak an occasional glance in his direction out of the corner of my eye to make sure he was okay, without feeling the need to say anything.

You see my father had died a week earlier and I hadn't expected to see him again.  

I can’t remember exactly when on the journey I stopped seeing him.  I didn’t look back often fearing a moment he wouldn't be there.  I'm not a religious man and I certainly don't believe in ghosts and the like, but I’ve never forgotten how this strange little emotional trick calmed me in the face of everything I was feeling on that day.  

I never did see my father again.  He died on the 13th May 1989, a week after his 53rd birthday and 6 days after my 21st.  


I walked up the steps and stood on the porch
A woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story and who I'd come for
She said "I'm sorry son but no one by that name lives here anymore"
My Father's House - Bruce Springsteen

[Paulie_D]

A Des Blog.

I love it! More please.

Hang the confidentiality agreements...we want the scoop on the inside workings of Sky Poker! 

[technolog]

 Lovely first post.

[Des]

I guess that's as heavy an opening blog post as the forum has seen! 

Welcome to my blog, which will predominately focus on APAT past, present and future, with the addition of some other personal and work related stories along the way.

For those of you who don't know me, I originated the idea for APAT back in 2005 and am an ex head of poker and head of commercial at Sky and an ex retail buyer at Woolworths and the Argos Retail Group.

I have a son and two daughters who live in London with my ex wife.  My son Michael has just finished Uni and he will start with Deloitte in September, specialising in the technology and media sectors.  Rebecca and Grace are into lots of different activities like acting and dancing.  I live in Wales with my partner Sian and her young son Ieuan.  We're about to have a baby boy ourselves in the next few days and we're very excited and looking forward to our new arrival.  I'm expecting my ex and daughters up once Sian has the baby, so it's likely we're going to resemble something between the Brady Bunch and the Addams family.

I'm a passionate Liverpool and Sprigsteen fan, love F1 and business and am very much looking forward to working with the APAT team and members to deliver a new chapter of APAT in the near future.

Finally, I do say 'soon' occasionally.....it's inevitable at times I'm afraid, but I did resist the urge to call this blog 'coming soon'!   

[mporter123]

Blimey, looking forward to reading this, what a touching first post.

How did you get from working in purchasing into the poker industry?

Thoughts on Ginger people in managerial positions?

[Paulie_D]

Blimey it was back in 2005 wasn't it?

I was with the London Poker Meetup in its glory days at the time and I seem to recall meeting him and asking him a bunch of us around a poker table (possibly at home game, probably in the Bexleyheath area) whether we’d turn up to a deep stacked, dealer dealt tournament in a casino for around £75.

In fact, it must have been sometime after October 2005 because I think I’d just bought the Audi and ran him and a couple of others to the station afterwards.

The best we could manage at the LPM was a £50 deepstack, self-dealt about once every couple of months and that was in the backroom of a working man’s club.

I believe we snapped his hand off at the thought. 

[Mikeyboy9361]

I look forward to reading this Des, that first post was great. I was at that Cup Final!

[fandango]

Fantastic... Looking forward to new enstalments, obv coming "soon".. Just out of interest will the latest edition to the Duffy family be a Welsh or Irish rugby supporter???

[Sef]

A powerful first post. Looking forward to the rest

[SirPercival]

The APAT forum just gets better and better.

Really looking forward to the rest of this.

[Des]

How did you get from working in purchasing into the poker industry?

I made a deliberate move into betting and gaming at Sky just after APAT launched as I knew I would need gambling industry contacts and knowledge to build APAT as a product.  It's a decision I've never regretted.

Thoughts on Ginger people in managerial positions?

Absolutely no problems as long as you don't piss them off too badly.  We can be very hot headed despite our calm exterior! 

[Des]

Blimey it was back in 2005 wasn't it?

I was with the London Poker Meetup in its glory days at the time and I seem to recall meeting him and asking him him asking a bunch of us around a poker table (possibly at home game, probably in the Bexleyheath area) whether we’d turn up to a deep stacked, dealer dealt tournament in a casino for around £75.

In fact, it must have been sometime after October 2005 because I think I’d just bought the Audi and ran him and a couple of others to the station afterwards.

The best we could manage at the LPM was a £50 deepstack, self-dealt about once every couple of months and that was in the backroom of a working man’s club.

I believe we snapped his hand off at the thought.  

That was in late 2005 and it was helpful to use the LPM as a sounding board, but if I remember correctly, I was as secretive then as now and very few knew what was coming until we launched in August 2006.  

I will tell the APAT story in some form of chronological order, as it involved bringing in key people like Rich and Tikay, before doing deals with PokerStars and Grosvenor, which were ground breaking at the time.  Stories around the launch alone could take days to tell and the drama and reaction to it all was very intense at the time.  But more of that later when I get a proper period of time to write.

ps - FYP  

[Des]

Fantastic... Looking forward to new enstalments, obv coming "soon".. Just out of interest will the latest edition to the Duffy family be a Welsh or Irish rugby supporter???

This has quite possibly been my toughest negotiation to date.  I've had to think far more fairly than I normally would.  I can't find my way to answer the question though.   

[bear21]

 Only one answer to that born in Wales
Support the welsh  -sorted lol

[Des]

I've just sent an email to the Gaming Director at Caesars Palace to discuss repeating the APAT North American Amateur Poker Championship again, later in season six - probably January or February.  

I don't necessarily expect a UK contingent to go this time, but with the US market on the verge of opening up it would seem to make sense for APAT to maintain our presence there to build on what we did in October.  

Plus having had the experience of running an event there, I'm sure there is a lot we could do to really create some local hype around any potential event this season.