The whole weekend didn’t exactly get off to the best of the starts, firstly with me realising on Wednesday night that I had actually booked myself on a flight on Friday morning as opposed to Thursday. Fortunately, I managed to get myself booked onto the same flight as the other members of Team Northern Ireland and, thankfully, it wasn’t too expensive to get changed so no harm done.
I headed off to the airport first thing the next morning for the flight and was a bit concerned when I couldn’t see any of my team mates in the departures lounge but assumed they’d just got a different flight. As I was checking into the hotel, which is conveniently a two minutes walk from Luton’s G Casino, I received a phone call from Colin [O’Prey], our captain, who informed me that I was going to be a one man team for the first round of matches as they’d all missed the flight and couldn’t get another until nearly 5pm. Oh joy!
The structure of the team event involved each player playing two heads-up matches and four six-handed STTs split across two days. As Austria pulled out at the last minute some of the STTs would be five-handed, including my first one where I was greeted by John Miller, who has numerous GUKPT cashes, James Eccles, who cashed in the 2008 WSOP Main Event, and the captain of the Poland team who I had played against previously in the Main Event of APAT WCOAP in August. I ended up finishing in fourth place after making a questionable call with A-Q on an A-K-6-4 board. Ironically, my three team mates, who were still in Belfast, managed to outlast me by about five minutes.
The rest of Team Northern Ireland arrived just in time for the second round of matches in which I faired a little better, eventually finishing in the second place after being beaten heads-up by a very tricky and aggressive member of the Hungarian team. The final round of Day One was the first heads-up match, I was paired against an Italian who turned out to be one of the tightest players I have ever faced and who was folding approximately 75 percent of his buttons! At the end of the day we were some way off the pace but fairly confident that a good performance on Day Two could catapult us towards the medal positions.
Day Two started as Day One ended as we played our second heads-up match. This time I was up against a Scottish opponent and it was a much closer contest although I do feel that I probably just about shaded it. Unfortunately, by the time the blinds got to 150/300 (starting stack was 2,500), there wasn’t a huge amount of play and we ended up all in preflop about five times in quick succession. Alas, the first time the short stack lost was when I shoved for around 2,300 with 5-7 off-suit and found a caller from the big blind with A-6. With both of us pairing our kickers, it was game over.
Probably the highlight of the entire weekend was the heads-up match on Day Two between my team mate Raymond [Crowe], and the captain of the Republic of Ireland team, Brendan Byrne. Brendan took an early lead but Raymond managed to find an extra gear to come back and snatch victory whilst the atmosphere on the rail typified the APAT spirit.
Both of my STTs on Day Two were a total disaster as I busted sixth and fifth, firstly losing a race with K-Q versus J-J after getting short and then, in the second, running my A-K into A-A in a small versus big blind confrontation. We finished in the seventh spot overall, despite only being seven points behind England who picked up third place.
Saturday was the first day of the individual event and I was already on tilt before kick-off due to Liverpool’s inability to win matches! At first my table draw looked pretty difficult as I had the loose-aggressive Hungarian that I had previously played heads-up against seated on my direct left with another tough opponent, and captain of the Scottish team on his left. Fortunately, the other seven players at the table provided plenty of dead money and I managed to get myself up to 19,250 by the first break, partly helped by a hand were I raised preflop with 5d-7h and continuation bet on a Q-J-3 (all diamond) board, only to catch running fives to scoop a decent sized pot.
Shortly after the break I found myself down to 12,000 again when my table broke and I was moved to a new table where I didn’t recognise anybody, although it did look fairly nitty so I decided it was time to get a bit more aggressive, especially with the antes kicking in. After a short while I got up to about 27,000 without showing more than a couple of cards - the entire table was on tilt (and not hiding their frustration) from my constant raising. Unfortunately, it then all started to go wrong again as I lost a couple of decent sized pots in quick succession and found myself hovering around the 10 big blind mark. I had shoved a few times already without finding a caller (firstly 7-7 and then A-A), but then it folded around to me on the button and, naturally, I shoved my remaining 11,000 in blind, but suffered a minor heart attack when the small blind, who had only recently been moved to the table and wouldn’t even have known about my laggy image, instashipped over the top for about 18,000 total. Amazingly, he had A-9 and my 4-2 was looking in good shape on a Q-8-4-8 board… until the brutal 9 landed on the river to send me packing with around 70 left from the 200 that started.
I spent the rest of Saturday playing cash and eventually managed to turn around some early losses after one of the locals called my shove on the turn for £120 more with air just so that he could see what I was playing. (Thank you for your kind donation if you’re reading!)
I played a couple of tournaments on Sunday and bust early in both, starting with the £25 Pot Limit Omaha, and following it up with a £110 freezeout in which I managed to lose a 20,000 pot at the 25/50 level with 8 high! After that I headed back to the cash tables where a local decided to call a £220 shove (approximately £500 in the middle including my all-in) with K-J on a 9-x-T-x- board and managed to hit his king on the river which was good enough to scoop the pot. I spent the next six hours grinding to try to recover from the early setback and was getting close to even when I three-bet preflop with K-K, found one caller and a K-Q-J flop. All the money went in on a blank turn where, obviously, I found myself up against A-T and, after another blank on the river, all my hard work was undone in one sick hand. Shortly after that I decided to call it a night and head back up to the hotel for a few hours sleep before heading back home in the morning.
Obviously it was disappointing to be returning empty-handed, but as with all APAT events, the atmosphere still made the trip more than worthwhile. Bring on Next Year!
Jen Mason's report...
This event was ultimately won by Team Poland.