APAT live event at the broadway, thanks from a newbie.

This is was the first live event I had ever played and was extremely nervous about how I would perform; the entry was a gift from my wife for my birthday later this week which made it extra special. I have been playing online for about three years now with some deal of success after initial failure. Probably familiar story to most of you started watching late night poker and then WPT and got into the online game. Initially played horribly but learned from forums and website about ways to improve my game worked on it and eventually the results improved to acceptable although sadly not to a spectacular level.

I started to converse with Bain on the poker player magazine forum and we agreed to meet at the event, if I could locate the guy with a beard to make ZZ TOP weep with shame. Needless to say it wasn’t too hard and also got to meet the lovely Helen and the rest of the blonde crew. What a great bunch they where and made me and my wife Karen feel immediately at ease in what are quite unfamiliar circumstances for us ‘fish’. It was a pleasure to meet John, Glenn, Brendan and Ironside. And the race to get to the hotel and check in against the ranged forces of broken parking equipment and the legendary Hagley road traffic helped take my mind of the upcoming tournament.

I was seated on the same table as Glenn and seeing a familiar face helped me relax a great deal, I was fortunate enough to be dealt absolute rubbish for the first 20 or so hands which helped me settle in as I routinely passed hand after hand. Glenn was not so lucky, in a game of decisions there are some unavoidably difficult choices to be made and although his decisions did not work out I can’t fault his play at any point. I was just grateful I was not confronted with those same decisions (I’d have bust with the tens, no doubt chap).

I had decided to play mega tight as all I was really looking for out of the tournament was some experience and to enjoy the occasion. Although this meant folding pocket three’s from EP which would have tripped on the flop and made quads on the turn with plenty of action (Apologies to Dave Woods, the poker player editor was confronted with some gibbering loony he had never meet before on the first break muttering something about quads) I managed to stay out of trouble. My table was extremely aggressive and limping was met with big SB and BB raises. The first hand I played was AK from early position standard raise three callers King on the flop but all diamonds, I bet out got but was re-raised by a solid player. I was fairly sure I had the ace of diamonds but did not want to check and give the game up. I re-raised and he passed and showed me tens. I peeked after he folded it was the ace of diamonds; first lesson learned remember the suits when making raises with big cards (so much easier on the net!). Ended level 2 12K in chips.

Next big hand I played was KK to a committed small stack raiser, He turned over A 10 and the king’s held for a 10K pot. I finished level 3 on 17K chips, my raises where getting respect and I felt comfortable with the table dynamic. I was surprised how quickly I picked up the live actions and this was greatly helped by the superb dealers at the magnificent Broadway casino. Then my table broke and I had to adapt to a new table which was quite difficult, I did not have a strong and solid table image to help me and was dealt nothing for two hours. I managed to steal a few blinds near the end of the evening with late positions pushes and learned just how much more difficult it is to steal with trash in the live game compared to online. I was one of the small stacks going into day two and was praying for a pair first up as I was on the BB, I got my wish pocket fives but to an all in a call and A re-raise decided that this was a pass, They turned over pockets 4’s 7’s and 8’s respectively so an easy pass was confirmed. I got ‘shirted’ (all players where given a poker stars shirt on exit) a few hands later when extremely short stacked I pushed with K 10 in an un-raised pot only to be called in LP by pocket jack's, another jack on the flop the flop negated the king that also fell and a king on the river was just mocking! Can’t complain I had to move and he had to call, that’s poker.

My first live event was fantastic and for this I would like to thank the APAT team, Des, Tony and Mel (sorry I never got to meet the big guy) and the staff and dealers of the Broadway casino. You all did a marvelous job and I implore anyone who would like to try live play to try an APAT event. All the players where friendly and every exit was greeted by a round of applause from the whole field.