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Keeping Warm in Winter

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AAroddersAA:
Looks like it"s tomorrow already.

Good morning - Right just making a coffee before grabbing a shower and getting ready to head off to to Costa Brava. The start of the tournament has been delayed until 6pm tomorrow, so have no idea what we are going to do all day *lol*. Breakfast at Bristol Airport FTW like.

APATer"s I will see you all in Baraclona/Lloret. Trip report will follow on Monday assuming I survive the trip.

AAroddersAA:
Survived Spain just about (I actually considered dying on Saturday morning and it seemed like the best plan for a while).

Will do a proper report soon but I just have to say the crowd at these events and a magnifcent bunch of people. Not going to name them all as I would be scared I would miss somebody but this season I am honestly thankful to them for making me so welcome and making me feel like one of the crowd from the very first event I went too at the end of last season. I have never failed to have a good time with these guy"s and girls whether I was playing poker, drinking Guniness or just sat there watching the sport after a tournament. APAT is as much about the people involved as about the poker. Whoever you are and however I have met you this season, you are all superstars.

See you all in Bolton and in season five.

PS - as far as the tournament goes, no I didn"t win :-)

Fatcatstu:
Good to really meet you properly for the first time mate, had a cracking trip, will be doing my own write up tomorrow!

AAroddersAA:
OK, lets start off with the trip report on Spain.

I arrived in Lloret on Friday and at the airport were myself, Darren Shallis, Ian Thompson, Phil TC, Matt Ward, Glen Lamings. There were others I had not met before and I am bad with names but the bus had about 12 on us on it. It takes about an hour to get to Lloret where we find the advance party of Stu Ward, Brendan Byrne, Craig&Beth and Alan Lake sat in the sun with tour leader Paulie "Paulie_D" Davies.

A quick change and shower and we had all joined them. Stu introduced the barman, Max, who was a great bloke himself. A taxi then arrives and out get Leigh Wiltshire, Jack "Technolog" Prime, Ger Smyth Jnr and to the cheers of the crowd gathered Ger Smyth Snr. In about 3 seconds they all have a beer and we are all have a great time. The night quickly becomes very hazy and Lloret is soon spinning. I obviously forgot to get anything to eat due to having much more important things to do. We had to a bar called Gerrys and play pool, which is quite hard when you can"t see straight, although Shallis seemed to adjust to it quite well and takes down both games (Pineapple Luckbox). Richard (Carlarge) arrived at some point as well but I must be honest and say I don"t know exactly where. However I have made a fishy mistake here and forgotten that beer without food is always a bad play and fail to make it much passed 11pm. I tried to eat but as soon as I tried I found it really didn"t work after drinking. I have noted this leak in my game and will not make the mistake again.

After I recover on Saturday morning I quickly get some food and have a few waters and get back to feeling normal. We then get a beer (well I get a beer some people get a few more than that). Before heading down to the casino to play poker. As always the tournamernt is organised well and we discuss before it begins and we all kind of have an issue with staying focused here. This comes true as most of the regs bust out quickly (poker post to follow) and I sit in the bar chatting to Chen and Ian for a while. Leigh provides us with vouchers for free drinks which is good. I manage to progress from soft drinks onto beer again and finally do come back to life. Myself, Darren and some others use up the tokens we have and then go back to Gerrys where we have a few more pints (much more sensible than the night before though) and sit down and have a chat, this is another great part of the weekend. It closes at 3am so we head off to Yates bar down the street. Petch convinces five very attractive women to take us there and after they show us where it is Petch seemed odds on to go on with them to where ever they were going until he explains what poker (pok er) means anyway. We end up going back at around 4am leaving Jack and Petch still happily drinking away. Good day.

On Sunday we get outside the hotel by midday (it"s colder today) after having a coffee and waking up we head off for breakfast. I can"t honestly remember who was there but Ian took a picture so hopefully he will be posting that. The pub we had breakfast in was great and we then headed off to the sports bar to watch the football. A few of us want to go and see Barcalona play, others want to go and play poker at the casino. I decided to go to the game and we head off in a taxi for the Camp Nou, there was Me, Petch, Rod "paradise" Copeland, Stu Ward, Matt Ward and Ger Jnr. We see a great game, Barca must be the best team in the world and the control they had was unreal at times. After returning from the game we go for a final drink before heading back.

Overall another great APAT weekend, respect to the work Rich Prew and Leigh Wiltshire do to keep this running and make the weekends happen, whilst we are all enjoying ourselves and having fun they are always working hard to make the tournament run and keep the updates going.

Stu, it was good to meet you properly as well, sure I will be seeing you again in Season five.

For those of you who are in Bolton I will see you in two weeks - for those who are not, see you in season five.

AAroddersAA:
Right back to poker then

So having got back from Spain it"s back to the online game. A bad start to the year had seen me down over £200.  Despite this poor start, I have great confidence in my cash game. I had been playing badly and can"t make excuses so have to say I pretty much deserve to be having a losing year at the moment, it is though, very early days. Do I think I can turn it around? Yes, I am pretty confident I can.

Of course I played my first live tournament in Spain. I played OK for a while. I hit a set against top two pair to win a nice pot and made a couple of decent folds, including folding JJ preflop when the other guy had KK. I ran my stack up to about 35K before I lost some chips with AA. I played the hand OK and believe I lost the minimum on that one (about 8K). Then I played a hand all wrong.

I then got dealt 99 OTB. There is a raise ahead in front of me to 1800 (blinds are 300/600) I three bet to 4200 and there is a call. The flop comes down K-Q-3 and the caller checks to me. I check, turn card is a 10 and he checks. The pot has about 9K in it and I have a hand with showdown value and an inside straight draw. I should check and try to get to the river. Instead I bet out 7K, he says raise and makes it 14K, I honestly don"t think he has much but I don"t have anything and there is too much in the pot to push him  off second or third pair. I fold and lose 11200 on that hand leaving me with about 13K.

My exit hand sees me with about 12,000 chips, blinda are 300/600 and there is an EP raise to 1700. thats about 3K in the pot with the blinds and antes. I look down and find pocket tens and reshove. I don"t think this play is THAT bad to be honest but he has AA and I am out. More about the way I handled Spain and recent live tournaments to come along with future plans.

I got back from Spain on Monday and thought I would play the Blonde Omaha tournament on Sky Poker for something to do. It was only a £5 buyin so cheap and cheerful. I actually didn"t play too bad and came third for £38. I was pretty happy with this although I felt I could have played the final table better but I got the eventual winner all in as a coin flip on I think three occasions only to lose them, twice I rebuilt my stack but could not do it a third time. Still OK though.

Over the last two days I returned to the cash tables. I dropped down the limits as I said I would to the £20 level and I am pleased to say that my play was much better and am up just over 5 buyins. winning just under £105. I don"t think I made many major mistakes although I did play QQ very badly on one occasion. I have been playing a very simple game of just value betting when I have it and pretty much never bluffing other than the normal c-bet you have to make as you lose too much money by not doing so. The thing I have to remember is when I was running not as good early in the month I should have dropped about £50. If I had done so I would now be looking very good over the year but I still have to claw back nearly £100 to get level at online cash. This is apart of my game I need to work on. Playing at the wrong times and playing too much.

My overall bottom line now looks like this

Online MTT = +$30.10
Online cash = -£98
Live MTT = -£75
Live Cash = none played

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