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How did you discover Poker?

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ThinkerJE:
So 2 questions for APAT members in order to find out a bit more about ourselves.

a) How did you discover the beautiful game of Poker?

b) How did you find out about APAT?

I"ll start off. 

I got the Poker bug when I happened to stumble in late one night and switched on the tv which happened to be on channel four.  This laid back, extremely confident guy in shades was playing cards with this little old lady.  Immediately I was hooked.  The words chosen to describe the action added to the intrigue and excitment.  Late Night Poker, Jesse May & Dave "The Devilfish" Ulliot introduced me to Poker, and they managed to do it whilst I had know idea why a flush beat a straight.  I could not wait till the next week and set up a game between friends in the meantime.  None of us knew how to play, none of us cared.  Poker was the game to play.  I have been playing it ever since.

With respect to APAT.  I was flicking through Pokerplayer magazine when Tikay"s mugshot jumped out of the page at me.  Naturally I had to see how he had managed to get himself into print.  The article explained the launch of an association & tour for amateur players.  I thought I play Poker, I am an amateur, this could be for me.  

RioRodent:
I had a similar introduction to poker, although on the few occaisions I "flicked" past Late Night Poker I found it really boring... it was the WPT that caught my attention and held my interest.

I had been part of horse race betting syndicate (we had had an unbelievable run of good information!!) and I had money dotted around in several bookis sites... I eventually took the plunge and had a dabble on Sporting Odds. The rest is history.

APAT actually contacted me as I had a website for a poker "club" that I used to run.

FlyingPig73:
My introduction to poker came as a young boy in Wales.. We had a caravan and we used to go there every summer. As you all know, when you are on a caravan site, in a caravan, and its raining there is not much to do apart from play cards. In the caravan we played nap, cribbage and poker . I was first introduced to 5 card draw and stud, 7 card stud, and 3 card brag. I played these all the time with my brother and couisins for coppers. Coppers soon added up to real money, and as an 8 year old boy there was no turning back.

I started playing Holdem about 2 years ago. I seen it first on the TV and I think it was the WPT, this caught and captured my attention. From then on in, it has been texas holdem all the way. This is now my game of choice.

My mate seen an advert for the apat in a magazine, and the live comps looked really good, compared to what was getting offered else where. He told me about it, and that was that..

kinboshi:
Guess I"m a late-comer in terms of playing poker.  Only started playing about two and a half years ago.

I used to be a decent chess-player when I was very young, and was playing a bit on the Internet a few years back when I realised that there might be something else I could play where I could actually win some money at the same time.

I"d seen the Poker Million on Sky a few months earlier, and the game intrigued me, although I"d never played.  I knew the basic rules, but that was about it.  So I went on the web and read about the basic rules and strategy and thought I"d give it a spin.

I had a look at a few sites, and it was VCPoker.com that had the nicest interface (IMHO) and so I set up an account and started on the play-money tables.  Half-an-hour later I realised that even though it looked like poker - it certainly wasn"t!  So I deposited £20, and started playing on the lowest tables they had at the time - which were 5c/10c.  Managed to spin that up a little, then decided that I needed to read a few books.  Not knowing what to buy - a bought a few, including the beginners one by Tom McEvoy & Brad Daugherty, and the first Harrington book.  This is depsite the fact that I was playing cash games...but nevermind they didn"t do me any harm, as I managed to build a bankroll and moved up to the dizzy heights of the 10c/20c tables.

Then I bought every book I could. I read as much as I could on the web, and most of all - I played a lot.  Still almost exclusively cash, and with the exception of a couple of live games with friends, all online.

I"d played a few MTTs, cashed in a few, but didn"t really know what I was doing (nothing"s changed there really).  A friend from a car owners club that I"m a member of told me about this deepstack tournament in Birmingham aimed at amateurs with a £75 buy-in.  It sounded like great fun, and was my chance to play in a tournament that resembled the WSOP main event (just on a smaller scale).

I played a few more tournaments online to practice, bought the second Harrington book (and a few others), and went to play poker in a casino for the first time - two £10 rebuys in Bristol that were....interesting.  The Brum tournament was done via the ballot, and I was 69th on the reserve list - so I"d pretty much given up any hope of getting in.  My friend who"d told me about it didn"t even get on the reserve list.  Anyway, you know the rest, and now I still play mostly online, predominately cash (now at 50c/$1 and sometimes $1/$2 tables) but interspersed with regular MTTs. 

The APAT events are the ones I look forward to, especially the live events. 

Paulie_D:
How did I discover Poker.

Probably the same way most of the recent crop (of which I am one) of UK Poker players did...on the TV.

After that, I dabbled on 888.com and thence to online poker.

I was (and still am) a regular visitor to Vegas where I, in the past, I stuck primarily to Blackjack. So, on a previous trip a couple of years ago, I took the plunge and dipped a toe in the live poker experience. Limit Poker, that was the name of the game for a first try..didn"t get hurt to bad and got the bug.

After that, it was off to Google to try and find some live poker in London. This is where I found my new home http://www.londonpokermeetup.co.uk/. A great bunch of people (primarily in South London but from all over London and the Home Counties...we"re over 900 members and still growing) who REALLY enjoy poker in all it"s forms. A trip to Clapham for (Spursman) Jim Lynott"s Friday £10 F/O Lodge Game and I was hooked.

Moved on from HE to PLO/PLO8/Razz/Stud and some varieties that are pretty much exclusive to the LPM (RRP anyone?) and loving every minute.

15+ LPM"ers (inc. yours truly) head off to Vegas for a week on 14th July. It"ll be a riot. If anyone else is out there then, look for us, we won"t be hard to miss even in Vegas.

APAT.

Well, a few of the LPM are friends with Des and when the APAT was launched we all jumped in with both feet.

Newcastle & Cardiff are the only two (except for Dublin this weekend) that I managed to get seats for but thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Can"t wait for Season 2!

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