Oh my. Soooooo wish I'd heard about that on Sunday. That and Tighty's McDonald's misadventure would have run for the day!
Brace yerselves for a tl;dr post..................
A great week-end, despite failing to take down the team event. Was sure we had it in the bag, but nevermind. Hope everyone got home safe and sound...well, safe anyway. After the drink consumed by you lot on Sunday, I doubt any of ye were sound on Monday. lol
So Friday I landed in Liverpool. Yes, I know - we were playing in Manchester. But trust me...it made sense. I stayed at Ger theduke's house on Friday and Saturday. As he lives between the two airports, I was in the happy position of booking a flight based on price, instead of location. Good thing, as I'd waited until Wednesday to book and fares had gone through the roof. If I'd flown in to Manchester, my fare was out of this universe!
Friday night Ger, Carl (shogun) and wee Ger carried me off to the local Shell Club tourney. The Lads warned me in advance of the poor playing standard by many of them. Ger has played in my local pub tourneys before and said I'd feel right at home. No problem then. lol You got an 11k starting stack with 15 minute blinds for your £10 buy in. 40 runners and it was true...the play was shocking! Joobs and Sharplea landed at some point during the tourney to rail. They sure were glad they did. lol
After ducking and diving for a few hours, myself and Carl were on the final table. Look up to see Ger with yet another fresh pint. How DOES he do it?! "Ger! How many get paid in this thing? Don't want to bubble fer feck sake." Ger gives me this disgruntled look and roars, "Feck that...don't worry about how many get paid, just win it!" Sigh. Ok then.
The hands are a bit of a blur now as I've too many from the APAT event glued to the memory, but I called an all in and was racing...lost. Pushed the rest a bit later on - going in ahead in the race - and still lost. That's poker. Went out on the bubble. That part pretty much sucked. lol Ger wasn't impressed, "Ya big eejit!" Gutted, I reply, "Sigh. Yeah, I know. Hopefully that's the beats out of the way in time for the team event."
We landed back to Ger's with Joobs, Sharplea and a few more in tow for a drunken £5 freezeout to finish the night off. I haven't been drinking with a goodly while, so it didn't take much this time around. Only a few drinks later and I was looking forward to hitting the sack. Beef jerky - yummy! Pork scratchings - the verdict is still out. Great laughs though and I hit the sack before the rest, around 3:30am.
Saturday we made our way to Manchester. I met most of the blonde team at the Park Inn hotel and we had a quick drink waiting for our taxi to the G. The Lads were told to enjoy it, because they weren't allowed to drink during the tourney. Everyone looked at me like I had 3 heads. Ok, who is this person and what has she done with Laxie?
What an atmosphere at the G! Everyone was in great form and the place was electric with banter and friendly faces. The G staff were a bit shell shocked though. They obviously didn't know what they were in for...on many levels. I took the team's money to the registration desk where the tourney director gathered it up and asked, "What team are you paying for then?" I just looked at her, gobsmacked. Think it was the GM standing behind her who replied, "I'm guessing it's blonde poker if you look at the logo on her shirt." That poor girl continued the week-end as she'd started it. She's in for a hop (and so are the punters) when the UKIPT shows up in a few weeks time.
Day one was up and down for the most part, but generally going great for us. At one point, myself and MickyP were on the same table and down to dust. Blinds were 800/1,600 with a wee ante. He had 7k and I had 3k. Houston, we have a problem. That's when I thought of Tikay. He can play less than 5 BB's like nobody's business and even manages to cash doing it. We're not out here, so just relax and the cards will come. By the time the hour was over, he had 27k and I was up to 30k! lol The entire blonde team were proper hyped up for this. We still had 6 in at 11pm, joint top of the teams, with decent stacks and only a couple of hours left to play. "This is BRILLIANT Lads! We can take this thing you know? Feel it in me bones, so I do."
Famous last words as from 11 - 12 it all went a bit pear shaped. The Lads were getting out drawn all around them and dropping like flies. Each one got it in good or near enough, but they were all horribly unlucky. Ugh. Only Rod and I survived to the points, so we basically had to play for the win (or die trying) as we hadn't enough players to mess about with the lower scores now. Rod can fill you in on his exit hand. He'd made the points, but now we were under pressure.
Towards the end of day 1, the rest of the team were railing me when the infamous 6's hand happened. Chip counts and blinds are all a bit of a blur as it was late, I was tired and the way it went down was just comedy. Basically, long and short of it, I raised UTG with 66 and it came around to the BB who pushed. Pot size said I had to make the call and my belly liked the hand, so I made the call. He flipped over AA to roars from the crowd. I just turned to him and said, "Apologies in advance, but I think I'm gonna bink this hand." As his team shouted "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD" blonde was shouting "SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIX". Chick across the way winks at me (didn't know it at the time, but turns out she'd folded J6 os) and by the turn, no sign of me 6. Closed my eyes for the river card and - BINK! There it was. The case 6. The rail went wild and I was sure this tourney was mine. UL man...GG.
Walked in to day 2, 8th in chips (67k) of the 31 left. Blinds were at 2000/4000 with a 300 ante. It was getting tight for just about everyone at this point. Very first hand I was UTG with AJos. We had a short stack at our table who had mentioned before it started she was going to just push mad for a bit at the start. Didn't want to be racing this early on, so I folded. Sure enough, she pushed and gathered the blinds/antes uncontested. BB hand was rubbish and I had to fold to the shorties second push. Next hand folds around to the button who pushes for his last 16k. I'm down to 60k just folding at this point and look at
in the SB. Oh hi der. Pretty sure he's just making a move on the blinds as he doesn't look comfortable. Can't keep folding the whole time waiting for Aces as it's 9k per round of the table, so I make the call for another 10k. He flips over AKos...marvellous. Sigh. NH Sir. 2 hands later I call an all in by the BB for another 15k with AK and the guy has JJ which holds. FML
Just then, they break our table. I'm delighted. The luck has been unreal bad at this one and I'm down to 34k now. Only - I was moved to the BB at the next table. WTF?! I'm just after paying blinds and have to do it all over again?! FML times 2!!! Deep breaths. Relax Chicka. You can do this. Or not.
UTG raises to 14k and I look down at
in the BB. Sigh. Blinds are still 2k/4k and I have maybe 3 rounds of the table left to play before I've no chips left. Do I wait and see if I can pick a better spot or shove the lot here? Can't flat call as it's half my stack. He's probably not going to fold if I push for an extra 16k. Hanging about until I bleed the rest of the chips away won't give us enough points to matter...and won't see a cash for me either, so I make the painful push. He isn't well pleased, but makes the call in the end with AK and it holds. NH Sir. Good luck people. Off to the bar for me in 25th place. FECK!
Was met at the bar by the blonde team and Ger. I was on best behaviour through the entire APAT tourney. Drinks consisted of pints of water with the odd cup of coffee or hot chocolate thrown in now and then. I did have a single JD on ice during 3 of the breaks to settle meself, but that's it. Kept hearing the line "Pics or it didn't happen!" as I'd take another sip of my non-alcoholic drink, followed by flash of a camera from one corner or another...so there IS photo proof! Lots of it. lol
At this point, the Lads were well on their way to 'merry mode' - only now I was used to not drinking and had no mind for a pint...of lager, that is. Instead, I spent the day drinking malibu 3 in 1's. Pint glass with cranberry, pineapple and orange juices and two shots of Malibu. Had become friendly with the bar staff early days Saturday (VERY important to get in good with the bar staff!) so they decided to pull out the (usually never used) umbrellas. Each pint glass was garnished with slices of fruit...and a new umbrella. "Under my umbrella...ella ella ella", was sung by the group each time I'd walk back to the table with a new drink. Will take AGES to get that song out of me head now! lol
Many drinks later, the Lads decided it was a good idea to fork over £100 and send me to the cash table. "But I don't play cash Lads." "That's ok. It's only £20 each so we're not bothered if you lose the lot, but reckon you're most likely to spin it up for us." In hindsight, reckon it was just their way of clearing me off for a bit of peace and quiet. lol My only requirement? I was to take off the blonde t-shirt to reveal the fairly low cut top underneath AND I was to announce "I've never played cash before" as I sat down. Was going great guns for ages and had more than doubled the money within 30 minutes, but later it was all gone in one hand. Will post on the PHA board, but according to the Lads who were railing (and everyone else who came within ear shot of me over the next hour), there was no getting away from it. Pot was well over £500 too. Sigh.
Landed back to the Lads who were now well into pished mode. The £20 9pm tourney was starting soon and we decided to have a £5 last longer between 6 of us so at least one would get their buy in back. Drunken poker FTW!!! 70 some odd started the tourney. Ger tilted all and sunder with his roar of "RAISE" every second hand. I tilted at least 5 people on my table by flipping a coin each time I had a big decision to make - and going with the results of said flip to win the pot. lolololol A few hours later Asa lands over to me with the £30. "I'm out Lax. It's between you and Ger now." Through fits of giggles, "GER...it's down to you and I! Will we chop it?!" "Of course!" Roars of laughter followed as Asa chopped the last longer between Ger and I.
The tourney was full of APAT members and the banter was great. But not everyone was having fun. One guy was particularly tilted by me. An Irish guy. Local to the Man G. Each time I won a pot, regardless of show down or not, he'd start singing "I've got a feeling......" and follow it up humming the rest of the words - "tonight's gonna be a good night." Now, I was drinking, but with all the juice in my pint glass, I was hardly pished and had spotted this early doors. Down to hand for hand and I was one of a couple of short stacks when the Irish guy whispers to the Greek next to him, "The sooner we knock that ***** out of here, the better." Greek guy looks over and spots me looking straight at them. I smile the 'fuck you' smile and reply, "I might be after drink, but I'm not deaf." Followed up with a cheeky wink. Unfortunately for Irish guy, Greek guy had another Greek friend at the table. He was directly to my left and we'd been getting on great with our own bit of side banter. I told him what had just been said and with that I don't know what conversation they had, but the greek words between he and his mate were flying...and Irish guy had just lost a few friends. Finally bubble burst and we were on a break. I was RAGING! It's the first time I seriously wanted to thump someone at a poker table. I'd had no run in with the guy and was just shocked and furious. But nevermind...kharma will come back to him.
Ger and I made the final table...along with the Greeks, the local Irish jerk and a few randoms. Irish was first out in 10th for £30. Buh bye. lol My night was made! In the end, I went out in 7th for £60 and Ger chopped it with my Greek friend for £460 each. Absolutely delighted for Ger as he'd booked 2 hotel rooms Sunday morning so we could stay on in Manchester and have the few drinks, but wouldn't take the money for my room.
We retired to the bar, only to find Asa and the rest of the blondes were on the way out. It was nearly 5am at this point, so I suppose they were right to want sleep at some stage. Won't mention names, but some couple of them were feeling no pain. lol Ger and I hung out for another bit and when it was obvious I was about to pull my 'nap time' routine, he relented and hired a taxi...at 6:15 Monday morning! Woke fresh as a daisy at 11:30 and he had me back to Liverpool airport by 1pm.
All in all, a great trip, lovely people and I want to say thanks to all of you for making it such a nice week-end. xx
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