Thermos, French Truck Drivers, oh and a Poker Tourney

The weekend marked the new season of the APAT poker tour; a two day £75 freezeout in Walsall. I'd had the obligitory bash at qualifying online but failed as per usual so it made it a £100 or so comp for me! Packed up the usual bag of things I think I need but never actually use (lappy, ipod, 3 pairs of shoes etc) and headed off on Saturday morning for the trip to the Midlands. Mrs S had given me a thermos just in case of severe weather despite the bright sunshine, but I stuffed it in my bag nevertheless.

Made it to the hotel in plenty of time and was met by a couple of familiar faces. I like these events because I get to see people that I don't see that often and having little poker friends around where I live, it makes a nice and welcomed change. After a brief check in, we headed off to the casino. Couple of pints and a lot of hellos later and the game was under way. I have very little to report about the comp except from about the second hand where I was dealt KK. I'm paranoid about kings in the first half hour or so. Someone always always gets knocked out AA v KK and this comp was no exception,it took all of...the first hand for it to happen. As a result I tend to play KK safely for a short period. Anyway, there's a raise to 250 (5x) from EP, a min raise from the guy to my right to 500 (remember, this is 2nd or 3rd hand). I'm chatting to someone so casually call the 500 despite shaking like a leaf underneath with the view of it's ace high, I can get away and I can play it fairly passive on the flop otherwise. Q 4 Q flop (two diamonds) Check to me and I toss in 1000. The early checker raises to 2.5k and the other guy passes. Now, this is where I'm convinced that it's aces but I'm reluctant to give up yet so flat the raise. The river brings another diamond and again it's checked to me so I take the safe option and check back. River brings another diamond and thankfully I have the K but it's far from safe as there's a 25% chance of AA having the diamond too so I flat call the bet of 1k to be shown AQ no diamonds and I scoop a nice pot. Not sure how I played this to be honest, not the best. Had the C/R have been more, I'd have let go and had they lead on the turn, I'd have let go, so whilst I probably didn't play the hand that well, I think the other person played it worse.

Other than that, there was a guy who later on lost KK v AA and then the very next hand got KK again and lost to AA again! Two hands in a row, that's some cooler.

I made the second day in reasonable shape with just under average but the blinds were high and I was totally card dead and ended up busting in 25th for £75 back (5 alternates entered)

I didn't stay too long before heading home as the weather had taken a turn for the worse and it was snowing quite hard. Just as I left, I heard a traffic report that the M42 south was closed due to a car fire so headed down the M6 to the M1. Things were ok at this point, it was when I saw a sign from the M1 to get to the M40 that it went wrong. There's about 17 miles of dual carraige way between the two motorways and it seemed to take forever. Visability was down to a minimum due to the amount of snow that was falling. I was moving along at about 30 mph and after a bit, the traffic became quite conjested. At one point, I went to go around a roundabout but despite moving about walking speed, the car failed to turn and I was sliding towards a lamp post. Natural instinct told me to brake, even though I knew it wouldn't work, and the crunching abs noise did little to calm my nerves. There was a small deep thud but the light was still on so I wasn't getting out to check and I carried on.

The next roundabout was a different problem. The road continued up a slight hill, nothing massive, but it had caused cars on the other side to spin around and there was plenty of problems with cars trying to get up this part. After about 20 mins of waiting for 'my go' I'm sat on the start of the incline, the car infront took off and then a French lorry came out the outside lane (thanks for waiting eh!) Just after he passed me, he jack knifed the truck and I had to watch in hope as it slid across the dual carraigeway slowly. There was nothing else I could do except hope that it didn't hit me and thankfully it didn't, but now I had the problem of an artic 5 yards in front of me and I now have to overtake it and get up the hill. The car behind wasn't waiting for me either so I had to wait for him to piss about as he'd already pulled out and was level with me. Managed to get out but was actually shouting "COME ON" to the car as it spun on the ice and was almost pleading with it when I started to slide towards the artic sat there, but somehow the car gripped and I pulled in in front and managed to continue at a steady pace. There was a while where I was regretting not filling the thermos up in case I was out all night! Thankfully there was only a few miles to go and I decided to take things ultra safe and just joined in the procession towards the M40. After a short while, Mr Frenchy steamed passed in the other lane going about twice as fast as everyone else, and low and behold, jack knifed again but thankfully rather than kill me or anyone else, he crashed in to the central reservation. I obviously gave the obligitory hand signal and called him a wanker, but it was dark and we both had our windows up so it was pointless other than making me feel better. I'm not sure what skills lorry drivers have that make it safer for them to go at high speeds during bad conditions like this but it makes it damn scarey when a 40 tonne lorry is sliding towards you in slow motion. It's no wonder you see accidents in the news in these situations, some people drive like total tossers with no consideration for others. I've been in snow like this before in other countries, but they're geared up for it, we're not, and it's damn scary stuff being out there. Thankfully from then on, it was a slow but safe drive to the M40, then it just rained all the way home. I made a quick drop in at Oxford services to check my car and thankfully that was ok, I guess it was the tyre against the curb or something, but no damange done. Moral of the story, if it's really bad, don't leave a motorway for a short cut home! It saved me about 50 miles, but it took over an hour to do the 17 miles or so and I could live without the worry of if I'm going to die or not, so next time, stay on the motorway!

So that was that, good weekend and came home to see Sky HD had been installed!