Full Trett Poker

Travel Map

2012-01-17T16:15:00.010Z

FTP in association with tripadvisor have launched this travel map, this pin points all the cities visited by FTP moderator Dan Trett.

United Kingdom
Newcastle Upon Tyne
Manchester
London
Nottingham
Blackpool
Leeds
Birmingham
Edinburgh (Scotland)

United States
Las Vegas (Nevada)
Los Angelas (California)
New York City (New York)
Philadelphia (Pennsylvania)
Chicago (Illinois)
Newark (New Jersey)
Zion National Park (Utah)

Asia/Pacific
Bangkok (Thailand)
Pattaya (Thailand)
Koh Phangan (Thailand)
Koh Samui (Thailand)
Macau (China)

Europe
Paris (France)
Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Tenerife (Spain)
Ibiza (Spain)
Gran Canaria (Spain)
Majorca (Spain)
Benidorm (Spain)

Interview w/Adam Matues

2012-01-15T16:29:00.005Z

Adam Matues (left) is a young predominantly online poker player, his enthusiasm and involvement in Team JambeWright is ensuring his game is coming along at an electric pace.

Despite Adam constantly crushing online tournaments, he took time out of his schedule and agreed to be FTP's first guest of 2012. This gives an insight into Adam as a player (both poker and girls) as well as his personality and humour, so without further ado here we go in the tank with Adam "JuniorBomber" Matues.

DT “When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc that were instrumental for you?.”

AM “I learnt to play quite young but only ventured into casinos and then online when I was 19. I knew an old football team mate SamJ played poker so I got in touch with him and he was the biggest influence on poker in those early days of grinding 50nl cash games at the G. He was also the one who introduced me to other poker players. I haven’t ever learned much from books or videos but from other poker players I have learnt loads. Alex Jobling was the first poker player that really inspired me. When he won DTD for £26k or whatever it was, I added him on facebook and couldn’t believe he was only 3 days older than me and a fresher at uni. From talking to Alex I realized that if I put in a lot of hard work I could make some good money from poker. Stumpy taught me a lot about online MTTs in the beginning where I literally had no clue on what to do.”

DT “Your screen name over NPF is JuniorBomber, how did this come to fruition? Do you have any other nicknames?.”

AM “It was very early on before I joined the NPF that I was playing cash at the G with my hood up. And someone on the table was calling me UnaBomber as Phil Laak wears his hood up when he plays. Then someone shouted more like JuniorBomber which I guess was in reference to how I look like a 12 year old kid. I have a lot of nicknames at the minute due to my current hairstyle…The Whickham Wig, Bruno Mars, Hairdo 42, Curly Top, 1 direction etc.”

DT “Favourite rubdown?.”

AM “Off Celia Liu. She’s good with her hands and keeps me relaxed when I’m playing.”

DT “I understand you recently went deep in the Sunday Million 10th Anniversary, how were your emotions after narrowly missing out on the life changing sums of cash available on the final table?.”

AM “It took myself and the rest of the stable a while to recover from that. We were all gutted. I still think about what could have been. 23k is very nice but I will win that again in my life where as I will never get a chance like that to win $2million. It wiould have changed mine and my family’s life. Think my Dad would probably have to get told I play if I won that much. brb Dad I’m buying a house byeee”.

DT “Most favourite card room in the world to play & why?”

AM “The Aria in Las Vegas. I was only in Vegas for 4 days but I played all my poker there and I love it. The valets were hot, dealers perfect, players super bad but friendly and after a heavy night out the best thing in the world is when a hot valet brings you over a ice cold watermelon juice and smiles as you give her a $1 tip (cheapskate, I know) and stare at her cute dimples (awwwww,…Obv I was staring at her tits).”

DT “So tell us a bit about Team JambeWright, all you guys seem to be having a tremendous amount of success on the online felt. How was the name ‘JambeWright’ born? How and when did the group come to fruition? Who are the other JambeWright associates? Do you guys have a captain or are you’s all equal amongst the team? Has anybody left/joined since it’s launching or all original members? Is it predominantly an online agreement, or does it cover live tournaments?."

AM “The name is a fusion of our two coaches online alias Jambeyang and thawright to make JambeWright. The stable was born in July but I didn’t really start until mid October. Other stable members include irishandy101, dapperdan098, j10bln, neilharvey22 and avkid86. Both Samj19 and JonBon111 used to play but have both left for various reasons. There is no captain and the coaches really value all of us as horses and always ask for our input on things. There have been applications from people to join the stable but to be honest the coaches have a hard time spending sufficient time with all 6 of us so expanding the stable at this point isn’t a big priority for them. Yeh it is just an online agreement but if we ever do play live events then the coaches are always happy to buy big %’s of action.”

DT “With Team JambeWright where you appear to be doing all your blogging nowadays, where does that leave your affiliation with Walkers Sensations?.”

AM “Walkers Sensations was a big part of my life as through playing for the team I met a lot of people from the Newcastle poker scene and I will always want to wear the black and yellow. However, there is 4 WS on Team JambeWright and the stable is our main priority so that’s why we blog over on that website. We are all looking forward to the next team game in a couple of weeks and will be looking to win.”

DT “A lot of players have a real devil-may-care attitude toward money, do you share this view? What's the most extravagant way you've blown your winnings?”

AM “I spent 5k in America which was all money I had won playing poker. Since coming back from that trip I have grown up a lot and the way I spend my money is totally different now. In the past I would just throw it away on drink etc however, I had £7k debt in October but because of poker I now have paid all of that off. With my first ever four figure live score in the GUKPT I treated myself to some Dr. Dre headphones and after that everyone wanted to be just like me so they all went out and got some. I’ve spent a lot this month on new clothes and sneakers though.”

DT “Do you use an ipod whilst at the felt? what sort of music do you listen?.”

AM “Not usually but will sometimes have music on in the background whilst online grinding. I listen to music depending on the situation. When grinding I could have anything from Adele, to Boys II Men to The Drifters (love Motown music) playing. When I’m working out its rap, when I’m walking the dog it’s Drake and when I’m partying it just has to be House music.”

DT “What's one of the worst things anyone's said/done to you at the table?”

AM “I don’t play live much but I was playing cash in Leeds and I call a woman’s shove on the river and turned over my straight. She stands up and gives a disgusted look on her face, she turns away, and picks up her cards, raises them above her head and slams them down on table and goes BOOM! to show she has back-doored a flush.”

DT “What's one of the worst things you’ve ever said/done to someone at the table?”

AM “So…when this ridiculous woman does that, I just stand up and politely scream in her face “You fucking stupid bitch” and I leave. Disgusting little woman.”

DT “Who would play you in a Hollywood film about your life?.”

AM “Carlton Banks from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I’m a bit of a dork like him but cheeky and I also think I am a good singer and dancer when I’m actually quite an embarrassment. However, don’t know how we would explain a black man playing a white kid.”

DT “Who do you consider the greatest poker player in Newcastle? Including all variants across both tournament and cash.”

AM “In my opinion Jamie Dale is one of the most naturally gifted players I have ever met. I love watching him play as he is fearless and constantly puts people in awkward spots.”

DT “Dale vs. Giles, who is the best poker playing Jamie?.”

AM “This cannot be a serious question.”

DT “Last year you travelled the USA with some close friends, how was that for a life experience? What is your best memory from the trip?

AM “Travelling across America for 3 weeks in the summer was the best thing I have ever done. We travelled from Tennessee (stayed with my friend who plays soccer out there) to Dallas to Vegas to California to San Francisco to Atlanta. My best memory from the trip is without doubt partying with Anthony Kim, one of the top golfers in the world. We partied with him in the VIP booth of the club and he bought all of our drinks, got photos with us and was genuinely interested in what 4 English boys were doing in Dallas. His favourite tune then comes on and he is dancing on the table with his top off and grinding on two of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. We then get a taxi back to his $5million mansion (I asked his manager how much it was) and as soon as I walk in he starts pouring a variety of spirits down my neck. We get a tour of his house including his garden which is a golfing green and he bets my friend $1k he couldn’t make a putt, which he didn’t. Spent rest of night getting completely smashed talking to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, who were well out of my league haha.”

DT “Most favourite American city and/or state?”

AM “Although Vegas was amazing, I think my favourite city actually was Dallas. We were treated like VIPs as I guess they don’t get many tourists in Dallas and everyone was so friendly. We got the numbers of Hooters girls, did a tour of the Cowboys stadium, kissed a black girl called Tay-Tay, got put up in a 5* hotel for about $70, met a former male model, did Karaoke with an American Idol contestant, had dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s rotating restaurant and watched the sunset over the amazing Dallas Skyline (N’awww cute).”

DT “How many girls you bed over USA?.”

AM “A very paltry 1. Although she was 34, Italian and had fake boobs and met her in XS club in Vegas. It is hard in America to bed a girl in one night but the good thing is is that you can literally talk to any girl, regardless of how attractive she is because of your accent. I was approaching girls that if they were from Newcastle, I wouldn’t dare try it on. This one girl from Tennessee was looking across at me from the little booth she was sitting in with her friends. She had her hair tied back and had clearly just came from work as she had a white tight fitted shirt with a good few buttons undone (just 1 more would have been perfect) and black suit like pants. Dressed like this she was a 9/10 and I can only imagine how outrageous she would have been when she was done up. After 20 minutes of exchanging glances back and forth I finally pluck up the courage to go over and 20 minutes later I have fallen in love and have her phone number ready to arrange meeting up the following evening. So I am out with the boys at dinner the next night and I am texting her and she seems keen to meet up, just me and her, we arrange a time and a place and the boys can see how excited I am getting and I order more drinks to calm the nerves. However, the boys can’t do this to me any more and tell me that it has been one of them texting me after they switched the numbers in my phone earlier. Hilariously devastating!! I never did see her again.”

DT “This trip included a brief visit to the bright lights of Las Vegas, what was your thoughts on that place? Any plans to get out there in 2012? if so when and with whom?.”

AM “This was my first trip to Vegas and I fell in love with the place. I have so much more left to do there as I was only there for four nights but I had some great nights out and made a nice healthy profit playing cash. The boys I was with weren’t poker players and were beginning to run out of money so I think the next time I go it will be even better. My best memory of the trip was walking into XS at the Encore Hotel thinking I would be walking into a normal club only to realise it was outside. The view was amazing as there were just girls everywhere, some just in bikinis, DJ playing, people in the pool, Blackjack tables…I felt like I was in an episode of Entourage. I doubt I will make it out in 2012 as I am doing a Masters and don’t finish till September. There is about a 3% chance I could go out for my 23rd birthday in September but if not then definitely summer 2013.”

DT “Dionne Rowe, hot or not?.”

AM “Hmm not for me. I like small (obviously, being 5”7 myself), cute girls.”

DT "What does 2012 hold for Adam Matues? Can we expect to see you frequenting the local Newcastle or UK poker circuit?."

AM “To be honest, I am not much of a live player. I will probably play the Genting Newcastle Championship and maybe try win a seat in UKIPT Newcastle. I will play all the team games for Walkers Sensations. Other than that, in 2012 you can expect me to continue to grind MTTs for Team JambeWright and work hard on completing my Masters.”

Adam finished 2011 with some really strong results, I predict with his current set-up that 2012 will be even more successful for him and the rest of JambeWright. We here at FTP wish you continued success across the felt, which I'm sure will come giving his foundations.

Las Vegas 2012 Trip Report “January”

2012-01-13T08:54:00.012Z

I was back over Las Vegas for my tenth visit, as has become customary I travelled alone but upon arrival I was sharing a room with my friend and NPF associate Chris “lecpet” Leckie over at Tropicana Hotel & Casino. I had a very enjoyable journey from Newcastle > Heathrow > Las Vegas upgrading from economy to business class, this was quite an experience and it featured the world's first fully flat bed. Now here goes with the platform for which creates an only in Las Vegas night, whilst on board I was sat next to this gentleman named Terry Bland. He explained he was only in town 12 hours, whilst connecting to Los Angelas the following morning. We have a few drinks and I invite him to join me on arrival, say I'll look after him and we'll have a good night. The flight arrived at Las Vegas for 18:20 feeling very refreshed and ready for the evening ahead, so after grabbing my suitcase Terry and I picked up a taxi to Tropicana. I check-in whilst Terry waits for me at the bar and catch up with Chris who is chilling in the room, after quickly freshening up (well throwing on some deodorant, no shower smelly pig) we smash a couple of shots each and admire our brilliant view of MGM Grand and NYNY before heading down to meet Terry at the sports bar. We then walk next door to Hooters Casino to catch up with my friend Paul Ridgway and have a few cheap drinks in Pete & Shorty's, here we start smashing tequila slammers and really get things started.

Paul is scheduled to fly home at like 01:00 the following morning, but puts his flight back until Sunday to kick it with me for a few days. The forthcoming 12 hours Chris, Terry, Paul, and I hit Vegas pretty hard with drinks at carnival court, meeting Conny and Sonja (hot Austrian girls) before heading to VooDoo Lounge over at Rio for some VIP bottle service. My memory of the evening is almost non-existent, so take a look at the photo's below which as they say tell a thousand words;

By the final photo we are in the lounge at Bills Gambling Saloon with these two sisters at like 05:00, Chris had already turned in around 02:00 and Terry has to leave for the airport so Paul who is fucked shares a taxi back joined by Conny & Sonja leaving me with the two sisters. Anyway to cut a long story short I get thrown out of Bills Gambling Saloon (yeah again Dave) for being too pissed and chanting “barman's a bell-end” after he refuses to serve me any more alcohol. So I head over Flamingo with these two sisters and we have a few drinks in the Garden Bar, before the one on the left leaves around 08:00 and leaves me with Lucy. We then decided to go back to her room at Polo Towers and do the wild thing (trying to be as cool as Adam Matues), but I'll leave the details to your imagination. I finally leave around 09:30 before walking back towards Tropicana and collapsing in bed, in summary a pretty awesome way to start the trip.

I don't really have any sleep, just toss and turn for a couple of hours before we arrange to meet Paul at Tropicana main entrance around 13:00. We then head towards Aria to try out their lunch buffet which I've had recommended from a few people, I was really impressed with the exception of the cocktail service which was very slow. Following this we go to Tix4Tonight to buy some Criss Angel tickets for the evening, we choose the earlier 19:30 performance. Paul and I then head back to the room to catch a little more sleep, whilst Chris who is a little fresher heads towards Excalibur to play some cash. I still struggle to sleep (I blame the endless amount of vodka redbull drunk the previous night) so just unpack, shower, and iron my clothes before meeting Paul at the sports bar for 19:00. We then collect Chris from the Excalibur before all walking over the Luxor together, taking our seats to watch Criss Angel Believe by Cirque du Soleil.

We all agreed this was a great show, I would really recommend it especially if your fans of magic. From their we decided to catch late registration for the Aria $125 tournament, all agreeing to swap 10% prior to the tournament. Both Chris and I bust relatively early, think I bust around midnight so took a walk back to Tropicana. I slept really well for like 7 hours or something and woke around 08:00 to some good news as Paul had split it heads up for $1,600, so good job man and it recouped my buy-in with a small profit once I collected my $160 for 10%.

Friday 6th morning now so Chris and I head down stairs to have our complimentary buffet breakfast from Tropicana, and without going into too much detail it was shit. I mean we can't complain because it was free, but it was priced at like $18 which is just ridiculous. I then suggest heading to centre strip as I have to buy some gifts for friends away from the felt, this takes a few hours before were back at Tropicana and meet Paul around noon. We then opt to check out the Las Vegas Mob Experience museum at the Tropicana, this is pretty interesting giving you an insight into how Las Vegas was ran by mobsters and houses a host of cool artifacts and memorabilia.

After this we decided to spend the afternoon chilling at the Luxor poker room playing some 200NL, this was a pretty fun session as we all hit the beer and started to get in the mood for the evening. We played from like 13:00-18:00 and I walked away about $40 stuck, which is a result considering at one point I was in a pretty deep hole and had around eight bottles of Budweiser. Then this evening really gets going, we have some drink in our room so decided to chill on the sofa's in the lobby (with a brilliant view of MGM) and start playing card drinking games. This although started off with good intentions, ended up getting really messy with spirits including vodka, jack daniels, jaegermeister, tequila, as well as wine, champagne, and a load of lager. We met two brothers Ryan and Kyle Wiegmann from California and then joined by two other random lads Isaic and another Ryan (didn't get there surnames) , these were all like early twenties and just wanting to hit the drink hard. Anyway take a look at these photo's, it'll go some way to explain why Tropicana security moved us on;

Left to right: Dan Trett, Chris Leckie, Paul Ridgway, Isaic, Ryan Wiegmann, Ryan, and Kyle Wiegmann.

So from here we decided to head onto Monte Carlo to hit minus5 ice bar, where we bump into a penguin so decided to dance with him chanting “were dancing with a penguin” and have a wrestling match with him. Take a look at photos from this part of the evening;

The night continued as we got more drunk, we stumbled towards Aria and headed to gold boutique lounge, having a few drinks and chatting to some hot lasses. Then to our final destination Pure nightclub at Caesars Palace where we met up again with brothers Ryan and Kyle (who had now changed from fancy dress, to flash suit and tie), also meeting Glen and Caitlin who we had briefly met in Bills Gambling Saloon on the first night. Here we order bottle service in the VIP section on the roof, and just get absolute mortal in great company overlooking the best man made view in the world. Check out photo's of the final stages of the night below;

Left to right: Paul Ridgway, Ryan & Kyle Wiegmann, Caitlin Shea, Glen Knowles, and Dan Trett.

Finally jumping in a taxi back to Tropicana around 05:00 after 14+ hours getting on it, another fantastic only in Las Vegas evening. I wake up around 10:00 and get ready to head with Chris, we both want to ride the Manhattan Express over NYNY, so walk over for timing it nicely for it opening at 10:30.

Then meeting Paul who has checked out his hotel and is moving in Tropicana to kick it with us for his final night, after he freshens up we head out for lunch to the Harley Davidson café on Las Vegas boulevard. This was really impressive as we all order the same baby back ribs and half chicken breast, served with french fries and coleslaw. After lunch we head to Fremont street to play the $105 Binions tournament which has a $5,000 guarantee, however this was blown away with 105 runners. Again we agree to split 10% and both Paul and I run relatively well as he busts in 9th and me in 5th for $250 and $630 respectively, so $880 total return not bad after an enjoyable day on the felt. So we left Binions small winners, not quite $1,000,000 but it's nice to dream though guys free photo below courtesy of Binions Gambling Hall.

By now it's just gone midnight and were all pretty drained, so decided to catch a cab back to Tropicana to get some well over due sleep. We sleep until around 06:00 then Paul and I decide to head down to the sports book to watch the last 20 minutes of Man Utd vs. Man City, nice to see Utd shut the noisy neighbours up again. Then head back to the room as Paul packs his suitcase ready for his morning flight, then we all head over to Wicked Spoon buffet for brunch, located inside the brand new Cosmopolitan. I had this recommended from a few friends I have to say I was not disappointed, it's now my favourite buffet on the strip edging out Wynn in 2nd and considerably better than both Aria and Bellagio which in my opinion are 3rd and 4th respectively. I would strongly encourage anybody who visits Las Vegas and enjoys nice food to get over there and try it out, I took a few pictures to try and give you an idea but you really have to try it for yourself guys.

Shortly after this Paul grabbed a taxi from Cosmopolitan valet to the airport via Tropicana to collect his luggage, this left Chris and I to enjoy the rest of the morning picking up a few more gifts. We decide to try out the MGM Grand where we first off take part in a showcase TV promotion, where we watched a preview of a future show not yet been broadcast and gave our feedback. The show was called 'The Rob Schneider Project', it was pretty funny I guess and the Maggie (the wife) is pretty hot but not something I would go out my way to watch. Then move onto the CSI: The Experience this is also at the MGM Grand, it's really fun actually and like a real life cluedo. You assume the role of crime scene investigator and have to attend the scene of a murder, then guided by forensic scientists you have to examine bullets and DNA of potential suspects. I mean of course I owned the experience, even have my diploma to prove it.

After this we head back to the room so Chris can pack for his evening flight home, this doesn't take long so we decide to spent his last few hours kicking it over at Excalibur poker room playing some cash. Stay until around 18:00 and I leave stuck like $90 but Chris signs out with a sizeable profit in comparison to the game, so nice to leave after a winning session. Once Chris leaves for the airport I have 24 hours to myself so after a bit of deliberation on what to do I make a last minute decision to taxi down Bellagio, they have a 14:00 $330 tournament so I make it in for late registration at level eight 600/1,200/100. You have the option to come in for a double entry which I think at this level is kind of necessary, so I buy in for $660 giving me 20,000 which albeit is still less than twenty big blinds but whatever I was hoping to flip well. As hoped I ran really well winning some important all in flips, twice out running QQ whilst holding AK and made it to the final table chip leader. This gave me the foundations to apply some pressure and I never really took my foot off the gas, I was heads up with a 4:1 chip lead and pleased to say I managed to hold off the guy when my KJ outdrew his A7s. I was delighted with the win and the $10,700 prize money, which lead me nicely to around 23:00 so rather than kick it in I decided to chill at the 200NL for a bit making another small profit. Leaving the Bellagio around 04:00, taking a slow walk back to Tropicana enjoying the lights and sights on my final night.

My final morning now and I get up to head down to the Apple store at Caesars Palace forum shops, I promised I'd price up an iPad 2 for my dad. Anyway after speaking to him and giving him prices whilst in the store, he decides against it so I leave and head up back to Tropicana to check out. I leave around 13:30 (2:30 after check out time) after giving the cleaner a nice tip, this bought me a bit of extra time. Then headed next door to Hooters who were running a free steak promotion, this was open to all people who had an out of state ID and an Owl rewards card. So I enjoyed my free steak, although it was nothing special I mean it's for free so whatever. Then decided to spend my last few hours kicking it over at MGM Grand playing 200NL, had a profitable final session so like Chris nice to check out with a win. I left it a little late and left at 19:00 so quickly over the road to collect my luggage from bellman at Tropicana, then in taxi to airport but it's was absolute dead so I checked my bags straight in and through security within like 10 minutes. So now I get possibly the most star struck I've ever been, I go to kick it in the lounge and as I'm sitting sending out a few texts enjoying one final glass of champagne before boarding. Mike Tyson walks in with all his family, I have to give credit to myself for acting as nonchalant as I did because I was doing cartwheels inside. He literally sat in the seat next to me for half an hour, I so wanted to ask him for a photo but figured he's in the lounge for some peace from the general public so I didn't. I actually didn't even speak to him or anything, but yeah sat in the seat next to me so that's kind of cool story.

Another enjoyable relaxing flight home in BA club world, where I took full advantage of the fully flat bed and slept almost the entire flight after they served dinner. In summary another fantastic trip shared with some awesome people, big shout outs to Chris and Paul who extended their trips to hang out with me and I'm sure they had a blast too. Met some awesome new friends, many of which I'm already friends with on facebook including Terry Bland, Sonja Schloffer, Conny Czuba, Lucy, Glen Knowles, Caitlin Shea, Ryan and Kyle Wiegmann, Isaic, and Ryan amongst others whom I don't know the names. All these guys are first class people, who made this trip a little extra special. I'm hoping to join Dom Davidson out there at the beginning of February, who's in town for the UFC Diaz vs. Condit fight and play some poker. I don't have anything booked yet but should sort something soon, I think Paul is going to fly back out as well so should be another fun week.

Take it easy guys

Trett Digest Volume 10

2011-12-19T15:47:00.021Z

Hope your all looking forward to Christmas and new year guys, and excited for a prosperous 2012. I'm having a brilliant festive season thus far with friends and family, I plan on drinking for almost a fortnight without a break. I'm in good spirits looking forward as I'm heading back over to Las Vegas on January 4th for a short break, I'll be in town 6 days if anybody is around be sure to hit me up. I'm travelling alone going from Newcastle > Heathrow > Las Vegas, the total travel time is 14:05 hours leaving Newcastle at 12:15 and arriving in Las Vegas 18:20. Upon arrival I'll be joined by Newcastle local and my good friend Chris Leckie who is extending his visit to the USA, he's flying in from Phoenix, Arizona on the same day I arrive. My friend Paul Ridgeway and his friends are in town for our first couple of nights, so we'll be kicking it with them drinking lots and no doubt hitting a club before they leave. Paul and his mates are staying just off the south strip in a motel, so looking to be close to those guys I booked Chris & I into the Tropicana Hotel & Casino which is south strip and if my calculations are correct only like 5 minutes walk from their motel. I hear the rooms have recently been renovated over at the Tropicana, so excited to try out another Las Vegas resort.

I've been very fortunate to be given the opportunity to fly in British Airways Club World which from what I understand is their equivalent to business class, this is thanks to Chris who is a BA employee and has nominated me to receive all employee discounts/benefits for the next six months. This looks the absolute nuts, designed to make me comfortable from the moment I arrive at Heathrow until reaching Las Vegas. Check out the above link and below YouTube video for more details, they go some way to explaining why it's so expensive.

I played very little so far this month with my only success finishing 2nd in the Newcastle leg of the Sky Poker Tour for £2,750, I was a little disappointed not to get over the finishing line but when the dust settled I was delighted with the result and my performance. It would have been nice to win but I mean cash comes and goes (I learnt that a long time ago) and trophies gather dust after the novelty wears off, so on reflection I feel the most important thing is the satisfaction from the positive and encouraging words from all my peers and friends over at the NPF. So yeah big shout out to all those guys, who as usual were fantastic on both the live and virtual rail. Congratulations to Harry Metcalfe who played solid they entire final table and was eventually rewarded as he beat me heads up for £4,550, an absolute gentleman and well deserved champion. For those interested you can check out the final table action and a few photo's from the event below;

Looking forward and in 2012 I've already selected a few festivals/events I'm interested in playing, basically whenever the national tours come local (or within a couple of hours drive) I'll be looking to get involved. I'll be playing a heavy (probably full) UKIPT Newcastle schedule in September, this has increased the main event buy in to £700 (+£70) which should generate an impressive prize pool. Genting have also launched a poker series (GPS) beginning in 2012, I'll be supporting the Edinburgh (May) and Sheffield (September) legs. These are both approximately equidistant from Newcastle around a two hour drive, the main events are all £400 (+£30) with £100,000 guarantees so likely some juicy overlays on offer with these.

Away from the felt I've still been watching One Tree Hill from time to time, I bought series one through to seven back in March (as mentioned in TDV03). I finished these with pretty much perfect timing for series eight to be released in November, which I'm currently about a third of the way through. As far as I know series nine will be the finale, which will be a great shame as it really does make for excellent viewing. For those that haven't seen it but like typical high school drama including love, friendship, rivalries and betrayal I would highly recommend it, £150 very well spent if you ask me. Not to mention the array of red hot girls in the programme, check out the talent below which will be a nice way to close off 2011;

Brooke DavisPeyton SawyerHaley James ScottQuinn JamesTaylor JamesMia CatalanoAlex DupreRachel GatinaAnna TaggaroMillie Huxtable

As well as some attractive mothers, commonly known as MILFS;

Karen RoeDeb ScottVictoria Davis

So yeah I'm sure you can all see why I've found it very entertaining. Think I'll wrap things up for the year by wishing you all a merry Christmas and happy new year, thanks as always for reading and I hope you've enjoyed the articles FTP has brought you during 2011.

Take it easy

Trett Digest Volume 09

2011-11-25T05:54:00.005Z

Christmas is around the corner so I thought I'd enter another digest, as always an exciting schedule of poker and partying over the festive season. I mentioned in TDV08 that I was looking to kick it over Amsterdam for Halloween weekend with a few of my boys away from the felt, that got swapped in favour of a visit to Blackpool. Their was 9 of us in total and despite staying at possibly the worst B+B ever (get what you pay for I suppose), we had an absolute brilliant weekend crawling the bars getting ruined. Check out photo's below;

Some moderate success on the felt over November as I split the Circus £6,000 GTD with my good friend Andy Blair for £1,200 and a deep run in the Venetian $350 DSE, busting in 11th was worth $1,782. The deep run in the Venetian DSE was the upshot of a visit I made to Las Vegas with a bunch of friends of mine from Teesside, if you haven't already check out my report for the trip which I'm sure you'll find entertaining;

Las Vegas 2011 Trip Report “Winter”

Since returning to the UK I've took my foot off and gas and been taking things easy, however I have had one pain in the backside which is trying to qualify into the Aspers leg of the SPT (Saturday 10th December). I would really like to play as it's likely to be heavily NPF attended which as a result will give a good atmosphere, but I really can't be arsed with the £24 satellites (I'm in for £96 so far, wish me luck). Like I mentioned when opening this post Christmas is always good fun, with lots to look forward to including numerous parties, nights out and novelty poker tournaments. I'm awaiting the release of Circus' Christmas schedule before I can lock down any tournaments I'm certain to play, but I know from previous years kind of what to expect.

Looking a little further forward and on Saturday 28th January my friend Steve Wills is organizing the 3rd annual CGK cup, this is an event where teams of 10 compete for team and individual prizes. I entered a team last year and so as to show my support for Steve, who really is a great guy who does so much for poker around Newcastle I have again entered TRETT MOTHER FOCKERS. I of course extended my invitations to all who represented me last year, and for those that couldn't make it I found replacements. As things stand I'm absolutely delighted with my team;

1) Dan “Full Tilit” Trett (Captain)
2) Craig "mac5910" McDowell
3) David “Camel Toe” Atkinson
4) Ally "8BallAlly" Mooney
5) Alison “Mrs Fatfish” McAree
6) William "dapperdan08" Poulsen
7) Jonny Bowers
8) Scotty "Scotty" Hocking
9) George "GeoKing" Lawson
10) James "BrickontheRiver" Howard

The first 6 all proudly represented me last year and the final 4 are all new recruits replacing players who either can't play and/or just don't want to, so yeah I think we have a great chance to make some noise but most importantly we'll all be there to have some fun.

During my downtime I took some time to evaluate where I see myself heading, I'm 27 next week and as I begin to mature it seems things become a little more clear despite the bachelor playboy lifestyle I'm enjoying. I see school friends now getting engaged, married, and even becoming fathers which I guess is cool their concise with the direction their life is heading, but for me it's just not something that interests me right now. It's something I'm at peace with after all whatever the future holds, I will for sure look back on my twenties with fond memories of my experiences.

Thanks for reading guys.

Las Vegas 2011 Trip Report “Winter”

2011-11-20T02:37:00.015Z

Making my second visit to Las Vegas of 2011, although travelling alone I was sharing a room with Dom Mahoney over at Treasure Island and their were a bunch of Teesside boys and of course the charming Sarah Lawton (13 in total) in town staying over at Riviera. So some great company to kick it with whilst in town, moving on and I had a safe but long journey Newcastle > Amsterdam > Los Angelas > Las Vegas which got me into McCarran International Airport around 15:00 in the afternoon. I taxi to Treasure Island and after checking in head to my room to find Dom chilling after a day of golf with Colin Pearson, we have a bit of a catch up before freshening up and heading down to the casino floor for a drink. We meet the rest of the Teesside gang in C Bar, Stratosphere at around 18:00 ready for our 19:00 reservation at Top Of The World restaurant also at the Stratosphere. The food, wine, service, and view at TOTW restaurant were all first class if you ask me, and served as a great way to start an impressive night which included lots of poker (cash & tournament), drinks (vodka redbull & jaegerbombs), and gambling (roulette & blackjack). See below some photo's of the evening;

Left to right: Simon Bainbridge, Josh Saint, Mark, Adam Tuffin, Brett Angell, Colin Pearson, Noel Thomas, Ray Tuffin, Dan Trett, Dom Mahoney, and Ian Woods. The Photo unfortunately cuts Andy McGhee off from the right and Sarah Lawton off from the left which completed our party for the evening and duration of the trip.

I struggle to sleep that night as I'm full of energy compliments of the 10+ redbulls, so decided against playing the Venetian $350 DSE as originally planned. But so as to have something to interest me I take 10% of Dom, Brett, & Ian who all play as well as Sarah who played the 14:00 $240 NLH ladies, after eating at Shake N Burger (very disappointing) I head off to bed around 17:00 to catch up on some well overdue sleep. I wake up around 01:00 early Friday 11th morning and head over to sweat Dom who had made the final table of the evening Venetian $175 tournament, I don't remember exactly how things went down but know he bust like 7th for around $700. After this Dom treats me to a Chinese over at Ginseng3, which was OK I guess but by no means impressive we both agree. Dom turns in now (around 04:00) after a long day but I'm on the other hand wide awake, so go to kick it at a favourite of mine and grind the 100NL at Bills Gambling Hall & Saloon for a few hours. The table breaks around 08:00 after I'd been playing this arrogant (I'm god's gift to poker guy) for about an hour, he repeatedly says “I'm much better than you, you know that right?” to which I reply “I guess so, I mean I'm here playing the lowest stakes in Vegas just having fun”. Anyway I win small from him as the table breaks, after picking off one of his river bluffs with KJ high which leads him into another rant of how I'm so bad, he's so good blah blah. I always try my up most to treat every poker player (irrelevant of ability) in the same respectful manner, but I have to admit it felt good to take his money and of course I still said “Nice playing with you” (being a gentleman) as the table broke to which he replied “It wasn't with you, lucky fish” at which point I just laughed and said “I'd rather be lucky than good” as I leave.

I took a slow walk to TI and chilled in the room for a couple of hours whilst I waited for Dom to wake up, then we head to the fashion show mall as Dom is looking to pick up some clothes. This doesn't last long as he can't find anything he likes and we both start to feel hungry, so head over the Wynn buffet where we get a VIP champagne lunch buffet. Then we head back to TI and kick it in the poker room for a couple of hours playing 300NL, before going up to the room to get refreshed for the evening. We grab a cocktail from “Kahunaville Party Bar” before jumping in a taxi to “The Orleans Hotel & Casino” where we meet the rest of the Teesside crew inside at the Alligator Bar, this was around 19:00 giving us plenty time to register for the 20:00 $125 tournament.

I'm already pretty pissed before the tournament even starts as I've been on it since early afternoon, get drawn on same table as Ian Woods and a couple of sound American boys so the table banter is good and manages to keep me out of trouble for a while. I make a reasonable deep run eventually busting around 90/200+ after a kind of unnecessary bluff but whatever, I just head to the bar to cheer myself up. Brett Angell is also bust so after a couple of drinks and sweating the rest of Teesside boys, we decide to hit Haze nightclub over at Aria. Here the night gets really messy, see the photo's below;

After this it's around 04:00 and I suggest we head over Hooters to play some 200NL, unfortunately there is no game running so we go over the road to MGM Grand. We both sit at the 200NL and temporarily are on the same table, before being broke onto separate tables. I get cut off from alcohol as CRM feels I'm too drunk, which I guess I'm kind of cool with because been on it for best part of 15 hours by this point. I eventually leave as the drink begins to wear off and I start to feel slightly ill, completely forgetting I was even with Brett and taxi back alone around 07:00 to retire to bed. After a few hours sleep Dom and I arrange to meet Ian, Sarah, and Abraham for lunch over at Aria, however after seeing the buffet queue we decided against it Abraham suggests we try “In-N-Out Burger” just off the strip on Dean Martin Dr.

This was the first time I'd met Abraham and he was an absolute gentleman, he was a regular at Gala Teesside before business forced him to relocated California. He kindly picked up the bill for our burger and fries, before dropping us off at Riviera where he was checking in for the night. That evening we arrange to play the $125 19:00 tournament over at Aria, but unfortunately it's cancelled so we head to Caesars Palace for their $100 19:00 tournament instead. Dom, Ian, Sarah, Brett, Noel, and I all play and Abraham joins us later after he finishes his business meeting, as far as I know nobody cashed and I headed to bed around midnight as I had an early start meeting Monette (a friend of mine from Las Vegas) for breakfast. After a long overdue sleep I meet Monette outside Macy's (shopping store) opposite TI just a short walk over the bridge at 07:30, before heading to her home to meet up with Ott, Brian, & Connor. I'm a bit surprised as it's like a home from “The Jetsons” first of all using a PIN to open the door then upon leaving have roller shutters to cover the entire first floor of their house, I mean they live in a really nice neighbourhood so unlikely they'll get burgled but you can never be too careful I guess.

We head to “South Point Hotel.Casino.Spa” where we have breakfast at the coronado café, before heading to the arena and equestrian center for a gun show. After looking around here for a couple of hours I pick up an Osama Bin Laden shooting target, which I plan on putting some holes in when we hit the range later in the day. So yeah after a couple of hours we head for “Clark County Shooting Range” around half an hour drive from Las Vegas Blvd, so at first it was a little overwhelming watching all these guys just shooting guns not to mention really noisy. But once I got over the initial shock I was really keen to give it a go, at first I was way off target but towards the end I killed Osama with a few accurate head shots. Ott, Brian, and Mark (another guy we met at the range) were all kind enough to let me try their guns, so I shot handguns, pistols, and even an assault rifle. After this we grab a hot dog, fries, and onion rings for lunch at the diner on the range, before packing up and heading back to the strip around 16:00 in the afternoon where they drop me off at TI. I had planned to meet Dom Davidson for a few drinks this evening but I can't get in touch with him (I later find out he's having trouble with his mobile over the USA), so instead head down-town to Binions, Fremont Street to meet the rest of the Teesside gang who are also with Danny Hernon and his boys from Manchester who were in town for the Pacquiao vs. Marquez fight. I only hang around for about an hour before I read a facebook message on my mobile from Dom, saying they will be around the bars in NYNY so as to stick with my word I taxi on down to NYNY looking for them. After checking Nine Fine Irishmen, Bar at Times Square, and Coyote Ugly I have no luck so give up and by now it's around 20:00, so still wanting to get on it I get in touch with Henry (another friend of mine from Las Vegas) who tells me he's away out with a few of his boys over at Voodoo Lounge so back in a taxi and it's off to the Rio I go. Another stupidly messy night involving Budweiser and sailor jerry’s (I stay off the redbull based drinks, as I want to get a good sleep in order to play the $350 Venetian DSE the following afternoon) ending up at the Rio 200NL game until about 06:30, before being cut off again I mean give me a break guys can't a kid have a quite sociable drink in this town. So on that note I decided to head back to my room to catch up on some sleep, hoping to recharge my batteries ahead of the $350 DSE.

After a few hours sleep I meet Ian for breakfast over the fashion show mall, who is looking to do a spot of shopping to pick up some gifts. I join him in a quick look around the shops before heading over to the Venetian for noon, joining the 300+ runners all looking for a slice of the pie. After 12 hours of running really well in some important all in spots, I make it through to day two with 224,000 and only 19 players remaining. It's like 02:00 the following morning when play finishes for the day, so decide best to head straight to bed and hopefully sleep well ready for day two. The following morning (Tuesday) I meet Monette for lunch, she takes me to one of her favourite restaurants called Thai BBQ.

The food here is really authentic and as it's off the strip (kind of a rough neighbourhood actually, but whatever) it's really reasonable. So yeah that was nice to have a bite to eat and laugh with Monette before heading back to the Venetian for 14:00, unfortunately things didn't quite go my way as I was chip leader (470,000) with 15 left. Before losing 120,000 with JJ vs. AK AIPF then 230,000 with J9h vs. TT (QTx with two hearts flop) before getting my remaining 120,000 in out the SB with QT and BB showed up with A9, to bust me in 11th place for $1,782. I left a little disappointed but I mean nobody deserves anything from the brutal variance of tournament poker, so all I can do is pick myself up and move onto the next tournament. I will say this much though, in the past whilst in Vegas I've been reluctant to play tournaments as I don't like to commit myself to playing over a prolonged amount of time. I've always been of the opinion Vegas has too much to see and do, so have opted to play more cash with the flexibility to choose my hours. However after finishing my ninth visit I've got all most everything I personally want out of Vegas and found making that deep run at the DSE very enjoyable, so yeah I guess what I'm saying is in future visits I intend to make more of an effort to play some big tournaments and aim for the big money.

I bust around 16:00 which leaves me with more than enough time to join a few of the Teesside lads to watch Penn & Tellar over at the Rio, I arrange to meet Adam & Ray Tuffin, Noel Thomas, and Andy McGhee at the Riviera for 18:00. We then take a limousine over to the Rio, joined by Brett Angell just as we head to the 51st floor to have dinner at the “VooDoo Steak & Lounge”, which as with the TOTW was really impressive including service, food, and view. This leads us nicely to our 21:00 showing of Penn & Tellar, I thought it was pretty good but because I had a long day found myself falling asleep a little during the performance. But still impressive and very funny either way, check out photo's below of Andy and I with Penn Jillette;

It's like midnight now and only 4 hours before I'm scheduled to fly out, but not wanting to leave without catching up with Dom Davidson I head over to the Venetian to see him. Shortly after Martin Amer busts the $350 DSE so we go on a casino bar crawl for my last few hours, having a few drinks in the Palazzo, Casino Royale, before spending the last hour or so playing 200NL at MGM Mirage. Although not the messy drunken night we had planned to have, was still nice to see them and have bit banter since were 5,000 miles from home. After quickly packing and freshening myself up, I get to the airport in good time around 04:00 for my 06:05 flight where Monette (who works at the airport) comes by to say hi and wave me off. Another long journey from Las Vegas > Detroit > Amsterdam > Newcastle which was made even more difficult as for the Detroit > Amsterdam leg I was sat next to a two year old, who by all means was nice enough but you try colouring in Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck for eight hours without saying FML FML FML over and over again in your head. In conclusion I had an absolute fantastic week with all the Teesside crew making me feel very welcome, particularly Dom Mahoney who was just a first class room mate and Ian Woods who kept me up to date with all arrangements ahead of the trip. I'm back over again in June staying at the Aria for between 7/10 nights with Mark, so I'm well looking forward to that and also talking to Monette about possibly incorporating a short trip to either Hawaii or California into this visit whilst over the west coast. Then if the Teesside lot are planning a Las Vegas 2012 trip it would be rude not to join them ;-), so minimum of one trip next year and maybe two.

Thanks for reading guys.

Trett Digest Volume 08

2011-09-30T14:43:00.005+01:00

Been a while since I checked in here at FTP, so thought I'd leave a quick post to update you on my shenanigans. Since my last digest I had news that my good friend and NPF moderator Dave Collins recently suffered from a heart attack whilst over in Majorca, I understand he is now fit and well back over the UK. I have gave him my best wishes in a thread over the NPF, but just to repeat that all at FTP wish you a speedy recovery and were delighted with your progress mate. Guess we can rule out another all night Bill's Saloon session on the vodka redbull and jagerbombs ;-).

I've booked up to head back over Las Vegas on November 9th as kind of an early birthday gift to myself, I'm travelling alone but upon arrival sharing a room with my good friend Dominic Mahoney over at Treasure Island. My journey is kind of inconvenient as I fly Newcastle > Amsterdam > Los Angelas > Las Vegas, with a total travel time of 17 hours leaving Newcastle at 05:55 and arriving Las Vegas 15:11. This will be my ninth visit and I'm excited as I was on the build up to my first, there is a bunch of Teesside boys (10 in total) staying over at Riviera notably Ian Woods, Brett Angell, and Rakesh Gupta who I'll hang and kick back with whilst in town. Ian Woods has reserved a table on the night I arrive over at the Top Of The World Restaurant, Stratosphere which I've heard and read good reviews about, so that should be a great way to start the holiday.

There are a few good tournaments in October;

Saturday 1st October: Gala Teesside £100 NLH F/O “Poker Player UK Tour”
Sunday 2nd October: Aspers £100 NLH F/O “£10,000 Guaranteed”
Tuesday 4th October: Circus £50 NLH F/O “£6,000 Guaranteed”
Saturday 8th October: NPF Championships “Circus Casino”
Saturday 15th October: Gala Teesside £250 NLH F/O “Main Event”
Saturday 22nd October: APAT UK Team “Mark representing NPF”

Then the final weekend in October (Friday 28th October) I'm away to Amsterdam with my mates away from the felt, taking the DFDS ferry from North Shields. So lots to look forward to in the foreseeable future, with hopefully some run good along the way.

Take it easy

Las Vegas 2009 Trip Report “January”

2011-09-09T16:56:00.017+01:00

As promised I'm slowly managing to get all my Las Vegas trip reports live, this documents my shenanigans during my January 2009 trip. I will finally close of all my backdated trip reports when I make my Las Vegas 2009 Trip Report “September” live, this will cover my second visit of 2009 in September. Back to January for now though and this was a family trip including Mark, George, Paul, Kevin, Kieron (Mark's best friend) and Myself, it was to celebrate Mark's 30th and Kevin's 42nd birthdays, which fell on the 3rd and 17th of January respectively. The trip began on 11th January when we met at the Killingworth Arms around midday for a Sunday roast and a couple of pints, before hitting the A1 south bound for Manchester. We were spending the night at the Crowne Plaza, Manchester before our early morning flight. Below are a few photo's of our journey down to Manchester and of our night out;

So yeah we flew around 10:00am on Monday 12th January with US Airways; Manchester > Philadelphia > Las Vegas arriving early evening, before getting a Ford Chevy Dodge to the MGM Mirage where we were staying for the week. After quickly freshening up we all met downstairs at Kokomo's lounge, below I have cliff notes of the evening;

Drinks at Kokomo's, Mirage
Dinner at Denny's
Drinks at Carnival Court, Harrahs
300NL at Wynn

With Mark and I finally leaving the Wynn around 13:00 the following afternoon (Tuesday 13th) after a very profitable $1,000+ session, meeting some great guys including Matt “Denver” Manes, Diego “Professional Wanker” Salem, Asaf “Israel” Shneiderman, Katharine Salas, and a dude called Ryan whom I can't remember his surname. These are all top guys who both Mark and I keep in touch with through facebook, see below photo's of the aforementioned evening;

Left to right: Matt Manes, Asaf Schneiderman, Mark & Dan Trett, Katharine Salas, and Ryan.

So after a long night of poker, drinks, and some fantastic banter we check out and head back over Mirage, here we head to Cravings for their lunch buffet joined by Kevin & Kieron. Eventually retiring to bed around 15:00, we sleep until around 21:00 before the phone goes and it's the rest of our party who are gathered downstairs in Revolution. After freshening up we head down around 22:00, see below cliff notes and photo's of the evening;

Drinks at Revolution, Mirage
Drinks at Eyecandy Lounge, Mandalay Bay
Drinks at Coyote Ugly & Bar at Times Square, NYNY
200NL at MGM Grand

This took us until around 4:00am Wednesday (14th) morning leaving only Mark, Kevin, and I, we decided to head back to Mirage and head for our beds. We slept until around 10:30am and then the whole party decided on an early morning poker tournament, hitting the Mirage 11:00am $60 tournament. I bust the bubble leaving Paul the only member of FTP left in the field, eventually finishing second for approximately $400. Paul and I then headed to Carnegie Delicatessen (New York deli in Mirage), where I enjoyed a huge American beef sandwich and french fries. After spending a couple of hours minimum betting at the blackjack table with Paul, we head up to our room to get changed and ready for the evening. See below cliff notes and photos of the evening;

Drinks at Revolution, Mirage (This became kind of a meeting point)
Dinner at Studio Cafe, MGM Grand
Champagne at Hollywood Theatre, MGM Grand (David Copperfield)
$80 22:00 MTT at Caesars Palace (Mark & I split three ways)

Mark, George, and I all late registered into Caesars Palace tournament just after midnight, all making the final table but unfortunately George bust around seventh. As aforementioned Mark and I ended up splitting three ways to round off a nice evening, taking a slow walk back to Mirage around 5:00am. After sleeping for around five hours we were up and off downstairs to join the rest of the party, again we all entered the 11:00 $60 Mirage tournament. No success for me as I bust first from all members of FTP and head over to play some roulette, doing $10 spins and covering 1/3 of the board so not really winning or losing any significant. Around an hour later Paul and George head over as they have bust, so we decide to take a walk to Caesars Palace forum shops to eat at Planet Hollywood (the restaurant not the casino resort). Then back to the Mirage to freshening up for the evening, see below cliff notes and photo's;

Drinks at Revolution, Mirage
Dinner at Vic & Anthony's, Golden Nugget
Drinks at Rush Lounge, Golden Nugget
Drinks whilst enjoying Fremont Street Experience
Drinks & Blackjack at Binions

We left Fremont street around 2:00am, heading back to Mirage. I sat with Paul playing some 200NL until he turned in around 5:00am, I was stuck so stayed and eventually recouped my losses with a small profit by the time the table broke around 9:00am. I was pretty tired by now, so headed straight for my room to catch up on some sleep. Woke up around 5:00pm when I got a phone call saying we were meeting 6:00pm at Revolution. Cliff notes of the evening below, unfortunately no photo's as I was mortal and forgot to take any D'OH;

Drinks at Revolution, Mirage
$50 19:00 MTT at Stratosphere (Kevin won and I finished 3rd)
Drinks at Carnival Court, Harrahs
Drinks & Blackjack at Harrahs

I ended up in bed pretty early this night after getting absolute mortal with Kevin in Carnival Court, Harrahs whilst the rest of the party played the $150 20:00 tournament in Harrahs poker room. Kevin and I missed late registration to this as a result of our deep runs over at Stratosphere, which explains why we ended up in Carnival Court. I must have drank like 10+ vodka redbulls and then hit Harrahs blackjack table, for more drinks whilst I got nailed to the wall by the dealer (fortunately I was only minimum betting). I was back in Mirage around 1:00am then ordered some room service and hit the mini bar before dropping off to sleep an hour or so later, waking up the following morning with one trainer missing, a banging headache, and sick all over my t-shirt. Anyhow I pulled myself together after the boys tell me where heading over to Rio, we taxi over and all but me decided to play the $40 12:00 tournament. I decided against as I had planned to play the $1,000 14:00 Bellagio tournament, so I just chill in the sports book betting small on a few random horse races and later joined by Paul who does the same only bets bigger. Cliff notes and photo's below;

$1,000 14:00 MTT at Bellagio
Lunch at Snacks, Bellagio
Drinks at Revolution, Mirage
Drinks at Hard Rock Café, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Check out sights of Las Vegas boulevard

I had no success over at Bellagio, getting all in holding JJ vs. KQd on a 6TJdd flop for a sizeable chip lead with 15 remaining. So after a relatively quite Saturday night, I was in bed around 2:00am. The following day (Sunday 19th) in cliff notes;

$60 11:00 MTT at Mirage
Lunch at Wynn Buffet
$150 19:00 MTT at Mirage
200NL at Mirage

It was our final night so Mark and I did the graveyard shift in the Mirage poker room, the photo's above show it was a long night. Our final morning and after packing we get a limousine to the airport via the “Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada” sign, photo's below;

Following a safe flight home and the three hour drive north to Newcastle, we finally made it home on Tuesday (20th) afternoon. In good time for the evening tournament over at Circus, although if I remember correctly I'm only one from the trip who played.

Thanks for reading guys.

Interview w/Ian Bertram

2011-08-24T10:41:00.011+01:00

Today I have an exclusive interview with Newcastle local and very good friend of mine Ian Bertram (left), commonly known as Nemesis for our NPF readers.

During this interview we discussed various different subjects given Ian an opportunity to share his views on his journey into poker and where his future lies, as well as a number of awkward difficult brainteasers which I'm sure he spent countless hours tanking over.

DT "When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc. that were instrumental for you?."

IB "I believe it was in 2008. Although I had played pretty much every other card game, I had never played nor had I any interest in poker until one night I was flicking through the channels and found nothing to watch so started reading. I had stopped on a channel showing coverage of the GUKPT and became engrossed in it, which lead me to sign up to a blue square account. Managed to luckbox my way to winning a tournament and it’s been downhill ever since! I then ran a pub for a year and set up a weekly game and then progressed to playing in the casino. As for inspirational poker players….no, not as such. I don’t follow the celebrity pro’s, I don’t know them and so they mean nothing to me, I wouldn’t even know if I was sitting at the same table as most of them. I am more inspired by some very good local players and try and learn something from each of them."

DT "Your NPF screen name is Nemesis, how did this come to fruition?. Do you have any other nicknames?."

IB "I suppose because it’s what I would like to become, everyone’s nemesis at the poker table. In my pool/snooker playing day’s I used to be known as the Ginger Wizard."

DT "If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?."

IB "I haven’t quite twigged that one yet!"

DT "What's your profession away from the green felt?."

IB "I tend to get bored quite quickly so not surprisingly I have tried various things from motorsport to retail management. I did manage to stick at being a self-employed bathroom fitter for a few years but took a break as a pub landlord for a year 2008/2009 where I managed to injure my neck and never went back into fitting. I have always been interested in property development so if and when the opportunity arises I will most likely have a go at that."

DT "How many hours a week do you spend at the table?."

IB "Usually about an hour or so on a Sunday! Oh you mean poker…..well if you ask the wife she will say “way too much” and if you include the “tanking” time then she is probably right! It varies I suppose depending on how deep I go in a tournament. At the moment I usually just play twice a week so in a good week about 16hrs and on a not so good week about 30mins…."

DT "Are eyebrows considered facial hair?."

IB "Well it’s hair and it’s on your face so I guess it is! Although the way mine are going I might have to call in the forestry commission who will no doubt declare them a forest!"

DT "What's your biggest spending spree after a win?."

IB "You do know I’m married right?"

DT "Why does glue not stick to the bottle?."

IB "I think it sticks to the bottle pretty well, it’s always in there when I go to use it!"

DT "In January 2011 you launched a thread over the NPF aiming to take online poker serious, starting with a $600 deposit. How did that work out?."

IB "Well as you know I got off to what can only be described as a disastrous start but after that it went pretty well. Although I didn’t commit to the hours I had initially intended, I was getting very comfortable with the levels at which I was playing. Sadly it was on Full Tilt and we all know what happened there……I have a few things taking up a lot of my time at the moment but I hope to set myself another challenge some day when I can have a real go at it."

DT "Is it rude for a deaf person to talk (sign) with their mouth full of food?"

IB "Only if they have their hands full!"

DT "September 2010 you organised an NPF paintball day, how did that work out? Is this something you will look to arrange annually? I for one would love the opportunity to take part."

IB "Well there was initially quite a bit of interest but as is often the case, when the day came there were only 7 of us but it actually turned out to be a fantastic day. If we could get another one organised next year then I think I have just about recovered to take part! Running about in a T-shirt trying to be Rambo isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you wake the next morning, but well worth it!!!"

DT "What do you consider your best and worst qualities?"

IB "Tough one….i would have to say that my best quality is probably also my worst. I tend to just say it as I see it and that sometimes gets me into a spot of bother. I do try to be bit more diplomatic these days but I would prefer it if everyone just said what they mean."

DT "When two people marry, they say "you may kiss the bride". What do they say if two men get married?. Also do they go to the same stag-do?."

IB "Is this some thinly veiled proposal? They should probably change it to “you may kiss the broom” and have a “sten-do”."

DT "Your well known for taking a long time to make your decisions, almost like your auditioning for a Hollywood movie. Are you aware there are no cameras?."

IB "It’s a dress rehearsal for when I hit the big time! It just seems like I’m taking my time but that’s because everyone else is going way too fast. Besides I play such a wide range that I almost always have a decision to make and even when I don’t, I have to make it look like I do!"

DT "Favourite rubdown?."

IB "Can’t remember the name but there’s a great little place near the spar in Belmont."

DT "What does the close of 2011 and opening of 2012 hold for Ian Bertram? Can we expect to see you frequenting the local Newcastle poker circuit? Plans to follow any UK tours (UKIPT, GUKPT, etc)."

IB "I used to enjoy playing the GUKPT but these days the UKIPT seems to be taking over as the premier tour and next year I would like to play as many as I can. I hope to have a real go at online next year too but not to the extent where I can’t get out and play locally, because to me the only likeable side of poker is the live social side. Getting out and seeing some friends and hopefully getting a good table draw usually makes the trip worthwhile, winning is a bonus."

I hope you all enjoyed this insight and being in the tank, with Newcastle's biggest tanker Ian “Nemesis” Bertram. All here at FTP would like to wish you success in the future mate.

Trett Digest Volume 07

2011-08-15T11:27:00.008+01:00

As mentioned in TDV06 I was off to Ibiza for a week to get hit up and enjoy a week of sun, drink, and partying. I had a brilliant week with an absolute ace bunch of lads, although I personally would have preferred a fortnight some of the other lads had commitments preventing this so never mind. Spotted a few minor celebrities whilst over in the white isle, including Dane Bowers, Matthew Pritchard (Dirty Sanchez, seen him every year I've been), Joey Essex (for those thinking who the fuck is he, I didn't know either), and if you can call this guy even a minor celebrity Peter Andre's brother. I'll not be reporting the trip, but below was our clubbing/partying schedule and a few photo's for those of you who are interested;

Friday 5th August: Radio 1, Ushuaia
Saturday 6th August: The Zoo Project
Sunday 7th August: Flower Power, Ushuaia
Monday 8th August: Bars, West End
Tuesday 9th August: Clubland, Eden
Wednesday 10th August: Example, Ibiza Rocks
Thursday 11th August: Cream, Amnesia

So yeah Ibiza is over for another year, few of the lads mentioned dropping Ibiza in 2012 in a favour of hitting it up over Miami, Florida which I for one think would be unbelievable. In the early stages and as things stands it's only being discussed, but if it gets booked I'll be sure to let you guys know.

As far as the Newcastle poker scene goes there is lots going on with my good friend James Howard leaving Aspers in a favour of a more senior role over at Circus, as far as I know he's assistant CRM. So on behalf of all at FTP, I would like to wish him the very best of luck in his new post. Meanwhile Gary Ramsay has resigned from his CRM position at Aspers, I understand this is the upshot of a suspension. All at FTP have a mountain of respect for Gary, I know for sure this is a huge loss to Aspers and Gary will be successful in the future whether he stays in the casino trade or heads on a new adventure. Good luck in the future mate, where ever it lies. Their are a few decent tournaments scheduled over the next couple of months;

Tuesday 23rd August: Circus £100 NLH F/O “£10,000 Guaranteed”
Friday 2nd September: Circus £100 Link Game “£50,000 Guaranteed”
Tuesday 6th September: Circus £50 NLH F/O “£1,000 Added”
Tuesday 20th September: Circus £100 NLH F/O “£10,000 Guaranteed”
Saturday 1st October: Gala Teesside £100 NLH F/O “Poker Player UK Tour”

Then I suspect the NPF championship will be held some time in October to align with previous years, but as yet nothing has been mentioned so I'll report back on this as and when I find out more information. On a different note FTP affiliate Mark Trett has joined twitter where he'll be looking to regularly update his tournament progress, you can follow him @mark_trett.

Speak soon guys

Interview w/Peter Newton

2011-08-13T08:24:00.006+01:00

Peter Newton (left) is a regular around the Newcastle poker scene, often visiting with his beautiful wife Karen and on occasions his young son Craig. I'm absolutely delighted to introduce Peter as my twelfth guest here at FTP, in the tank by popular demand as a number of regular FTP readers and NPF affiliates have suggested Peter takes the hot seat.

This guy is an absolute gentleman who despite all his success, is so humble in his take on poker and win or lose always leaves the table in the same casual gracious manner.

DT "When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc. that were instrumental for you?."

PN “I watched late night poker on ch4 when I rolled in from the pub I was hooked straight away.Then I heard Dave"cameltoe" Atkinson talking about it at work so he showed me how to download ultimatebet and I played the playmoney for a couple of months until I deposited $25 and played a sngo finished 2nd ran that upto $250 then blew the lot.Then I read supersystems, deposited another $25 and never looked back.I read every poker book going at the time, Super System and Harrington on holdem,scot fischmans and Helmuths 1st book were helpful at the time, but these books are so outdated now and the best way to learn is online training sites or hiring a coach.Thedevilfish was the star of late night poker also enjoyed watching Ram Vaswani and Liam Flood.Locally I learnt alot watching and playing against Steven Lui a brilliant player who crushed the live and online game but always had fun when he played, he rarely talked poker with me but once in a while he would give me a tip about my game which was always spot on and helped me alot.”

DT "Your NPF screen name is stumpy, how did this come to fruition?. Do you have any other nicknames?.”

PN “When I first played Sunday morning football I was 17 and one of the lads said I had legs like tree stumps and he started calling me Stumpy and it just stuck, and its been passed onto my son Craig who gets Stumpy (bigstumpy) on the NPF.”

DT “If you had only six months left to live, what would you do with the time?.”

PN “Spend as much time as possible with my family and friends and enjoy myself as much as possible or if possible ask if the 6 months could be in 2060?.”

DT “You've been in the game a long time, what are the biggest changes you've seen in poker? Do you consider these to be changes for better or for worse?.”

PN “The game didnt change much until the last 3 years since then the internet phenoms have changed the game out of all reconigtion,The main change is the importance of hole cards in the past they were very important now the hole cards are secondary and the betting is the key.For me this is for the better as ive enjoyed learning and changing my game over the last 3 years.Locally the game has changed loads when i first started playing, every night was a rebuy the pots were huge everynight which was great if you were winning but the longterm losers were going broke and the games started to die its gradually recovering but tbh i dont think we will ever see the pots we had over those few years every night.The biggest thing to happen to me was joining the npf giving me the chance to play poker in a fun enviroment so not playing for as much money as in the past but having alot more fun while playing.The npf has allowed me to meet some great people and make loads of new friends and also helped improve my game.”

DT “If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional. with whom would it be?.”

PN “It would have to be with a top sportsman so I could play in the open golf or the FA Cup final or maybe swap with middy for the duration of the WSOP.”

DT “Where do you think the game is going long-term? Locally and globally?.”

PN “Locally it will carry on as it has in the past going thro highs and lows,globally I think the game will continue to grow over the next 5 years after that im not too sure what the future will be.”

DT “How do you like to spend your downtime away from the poker table?.”

PN “Well I used to play rugby on a Saturday and football on a Sunday and a few games of golf untill I hurt my knee hopefully I can still play golf, I managed 9 holes since the op and hopefully play alot more this year.I walk my dog Tilley a black lab at least once a day thro the woods around prudhoe which I really enjoy.I enjoy going out for a nice meal and a bottle of wine with Kaz.I also watch any sport on tele and enjoy gambling on the horses.”

DT “What kind of mix have you been playing - online vs. live and tourney vs. cash?.”

PN “When im on my workdays I play sngos or sometimes I can fit live mtts in, on my days off im playing online mtts aswell as live mtts,nowadays I only play cash if i get knocked out and im waiting for Karen.,Online I have banned myself from playing cash as I havent studied it but I usually get tempted a few times a year and end off blowing some cash its happened twice so far this year hopefully wont do it again.”

DT “You've been married to the beautiful Karen Newton for a number of years now, tell us a bit about this relationship? How did you guys meet? When did you get married? Etc.”

PN “We first met when she used to come and watch the football on a sunday morning when I played for Mickley where Kaz lived,I was in the club and Kaz was babysitting for 1 of the players ,and his wife said she fancied me so I was pissed and walked down and knocked on the door and said hi Kaz have you got a boyfriend? she says no and I said well you have now, yuk I was such a charmer,That was in Feb 1983, when I was 18 and Karen 15, we got engaged on Christmas day in 1984 and married in April 1987 and weve been together ever since, and its are 25th wedding anniversary next year which we will be celebrating with a trip to Vegas.I was so lucky to meet and marry Karen as we get on so well and she is my best freind and soulmate.”

DT “What advice would you give to new players?.”

PN “Have a seperate poker bankroll to your life bankroll,be a bankroll nit,pick a game you want to play, i chose sngos when i started, and hammer these untill you are crushing them moving up the levels as you go hopefully this will give you a good bankroll to play and learn other games in my case mtts.join an online training site i use cardrunners.Always look for ways to improve your game.”

DT “You drive trains for GNER for a living, how did your career end up taking this route? Would you recommend a career driving trains to today's youth?.”

PN “I was working in prudhoe mental hospital as a nursing assistant when my dad came home from work, he worked for British Rail as a public relation officer and he said do you want to be a train driver I said yeah what do I need to do, I filled a few forms in got an interview and got the job worked as a drivers assistant until I got on the drivers course which was very intensive and passed my exams and started driving in 1989 its a fantastic job apart from the shifts I hate getting up in the mornings but luckily I can normally swap for late turns which fits in nicely with the poker.Deffo recommend the job as a train driver 40k a year 35 hour week.”

DT “Your affiliated with Teamdobbs, but I understand their was some controversy surrounding your appointment in the early days. I'm not familiar with the full details, but weren't you first a founding member of Northern Lights?. Tell us a little about that situation, and how it all unfolded?.”

PN “I met Teamdobb on Carribean poker cruise so when I got back I got involved in the NPF and was asked to play for the Northern Lights in the teamgame didnt think this was a longterm thing but really enjoyed the event a while later Dave asked me to join teamdobbs I snapped his hand off, I didnt realise until Dawn said she wasnt very happy with Dave about poaching players and me for jumping ship, but for me been such a great friend of Dave I always hoped to join Teamdobbs.Was really happy to win the cardguard cup with a combined NorthernLlights and Dobber team, now that was a great night.”

DT “Anton Isozen, fashion king or fashion disaster?”

PN “Fashion king, pulls off the couldnt give a shit look with perfect style.”

DT "I understand along with Dave Collins your quite a regular and successful might I add backer, what’s your thoughts on staking in poker? Do you only invest if you see it as highly likely you’ll get an ROI or are you more motivated to give individuals a chance to play an event they otherwise wouldn’t have been bankrolled to play?."

PN “I started out by helping Spoona then Samj started tagging along,Spoona said he couldnt win online so I said i would show him how to win at sngos they started coming to my house and turned them into winning sngo players then I backed them to play mtts then there was always staking threads on the forum if its a small stake we will invest in nearly anyone, well apart from simmy3k as tbh nearly anyone can win a tournament but when it comes to full mtt schedule we will only back players who are proven winners and good value in the games.So the answer to your question is a bit of both I like and try to help all the young players when asked but we have been very lucky, we have had some great returns and very lucky when we have staked.”

DT “I know you headed out to Las Vegas for your first visit last year (2010), what was that experience like? I know the company you kept was ace which goes along way?. Future plans to visit Las Vegas, can I expect to see you for a few drinks in 2012?.”

PN “Went to vegas last year with the cgk,stevie sensation and gaz walker and loads more npfers i had a great time it was my 1st time ive been to vegas and the place is awesome cant wait to get back next year and have another shot at a wsop event.Going with karen next year for our 25 year anniversary and im sure every year after that as i know mrs stumpy will love it.”

DT “What does the close of 2011 and opening of 2012 hold for Peter Newton? Can we expect to see you frequenting the local Newcastle poker circuit? Plans to follow any UK tours (UKIPT, GUKPT, etc).

PN “yup much of the same playing locally and trying to play a few bigger games when my job lets me, i still love the game and enjoy the mix of playing live and online.one day i would love to play the wsop main event so if anyone wants to stake me for $5k for 50% let me know.”

I hope all you guys enjoyed this brilliant insight into one of Newcastle pokers nice guys, his success both live and online should be applauded. Many young and up and coming players can learn so much from this guy, everything from a winning strategy to conducting yourself at the table. All here at FTP would like to wish you continued success in the future mate, both on and off the green felt.

Trett Digest Volume 06

2011-07-30T06:35:00.020+01:00

I started off my summer over at Las Vegas with Mark, I won't go into any detail of the trip during this digest. For those that haven't read it already, check out the link below which takes you to my trip report and has a detailed analysis coupled with some ace photos.

Las Vegas 2011 Trip Report

A few FTP followers that have had the pleasure of reading the report, have approached me asking if Mark and I were disappointed with the lack of results across both tournaments and cash?. My answer to the aforementioned question was simply no, but I'll take some time out to go into more detail behind my answer. Yeah I guess we both underachieved on the felt during our ten day stay over in Las Vegas, but I mean whatever we don't look to bemoan our luck or seek sympathy. We both felt extremely fortunate to be in a position where we could fly out there, further more grateful to have the opportunity to stay at the beautiful Bellagio. I regularly read back over some of my blog entries since launching FTP in November 2009, and smile reminiscing about all the great opportunities poker has given me and not forgetting all the good times before FTP. I've been playing poker for almost a decade now, and if anything I've learned to accept the variance involved. Our schedule out in Las Vegas was really intense, collectively we played 25+ tournaments and 70+ hours of cash. Our total tournament outlay was somewhere close to $10,000 and we only cashed for $4,250, whilst running way below expected value on the cash tables. Combined a considerable net loss but this in reality is a very small sample size, of almost zero significance. So yeah I can take the lack of results with a pinch of salt, the disappointing aspect for me was my performances out in Las Vegas. I'm likely playing some of my worst poker since I began all those years ago, I feel it's predominantly down to a lack of patience and playing way too loose which although I understand this I'm having a really tough time taking my foot off the gas and slowing down. I mean of course poker is evolving and I guess I've maybe just made the wrong adjustments, I'm confident I will over come this hurdle and in time go back to playing an optimal strategy. Finally back to the question and no I wasn't disappointed with the lack of results, I feel very humbled to have the option to head out to Las Vegas as and when I please and it's perennially awesome to spend time out there with family and friends irrelevant of results on the felt. Upon returning to the UK I came down with an illness, I don't know for sure what I was suffering from but the symptoms included being exhausted, waking up in hot sweats (quite common after I holiday), no appetite, vomiting, shaking, and a temperature. I mentioned the first time in my adult life I took ill was in Macau 2009, well I wouldn't consider this on the same level but definitively the second time I remember being bad.

This kept me bed bound for almost a week, but slowly I made a full recovery and returned to my normal routine of weekly casino visits and nights out. Saturday 23rd July I hit it up over at Newcastle (Gosforth) racecourse for beeswing ladies day with my friends away from the felt, we spared no expensive with the £180 all inclusive hospitality package. The talent on show looked phenomenal and the banter was electric, just a fantastic day. We moved onto Jesmond and ended up in city centre until the early hours of Sunday morning, my only complaint is every horse I backed failed but M'EH whatever.

As far as poker goes I've been playing a three day week schedule all of which are over at Circus and include their £1,200GTD (Sunday), £2,000GTD (Tuesday), and £4,000GTD (Friday) with around a break even ROI since returning from Las Vegas. Whilst loitering around the card room I had the opportunity to catch up with Jimmy Brown, who gave me a little heads up on what's going on over the next couple of months. September 2nd they will host a £70,000GTD link game including nine casinos and their online site, with players advancing to day two heading to Liverpool on Sunday 4th September. They are also exploring the possibility of a £250 (+£25) buy in two day event with a £20,000GTD, to be held in the back-end of the year with the dates subject to research on other similar buy in events around the UK. So yeah some exciting tournaments ahead at Circus, lets get over there and give them the support they deserve guys.

I've been quite active with FTP recently so I hope you've all enjoyed reading my articles, also hoping to continue the traffic as I look to publish another Las Vegas trip report and have a very exciting guest lined up who I'm sure you'll all find entertaining. I mentioned in my TDV3 (Trett Digest Volume 3) that I had recently bought One Tree Hill series one through to seven, I've been spending some of my downtime away from the felt enjoying these episodes. I've just finished season three which had a captivating series finally, so looking forward to several more hours of entertaining TV over the next few seasons. Moving forward and next Friday (August 5th) I'm off to Ibiza with the lads for a week of hard drinking and partying, the undisputed party capital of the world. The worlds best clubs hosting the worlds best nights performed by the worlds best DJ's, as you can tell I'm well excited. Needless to say I'll not be around the casino's that week, below are a few photo's from previous visits In 2007, 2008, and 2009 just so all FTP readers can be at peace that I'm fine and having lots of fun out on the white isle.

2007

2008

2009

I'll be playing the Circus £4,000GTD on the day I return (Friday 12th August), so no doubt I'll catch a few of you there.

Thanks for reading everybody.

Las Vegas 2008 Trip Report

2011-07-16T10:49:00.016+01:00

After doing my most recent 2011 trip report, it gave me inspiration to complete my backlog and get all my other trips up on FTP. Today I'm taking you guys on a trip down memory lane now, for my fourth trip to Las Vegas in 2008. I flew out on Thursday 4th September from Manchester > Newark > Las Vegas through Continental. This was an extended journey after I hit the bar in EWR airport, missing my connecting 18:00 flight to Las Vegas and having to travel on their 21:00 flight for a small surcharge. I finally arrived and taxied down-town to Fremont street where I was staying at Plaza Hotel & Casino with my good friend Simon Robinson, who had travelled with US Airways via Philadelphia earlier that day.

I quickly checked in and without even changing/showering I began to look for Simon, I knew he wouldn't have been able to check in as the booking was under my name. Fortunately staying on Fremont street it's a lot easier to find somebody, the first place I checked was Golden Nugget card room and sure enough he was their grinding the 22:00 $105 tournament. I registered late and joined the field despite being pretty exhausted from the travelling, I managed to run pretty well and navigate the 40+ runners. I was a dominant chip leader with four remaining when they begin to discuss a deal, I want it heavily in my favour as I have like 300,000 compared to the other three who have on average 130,000 each. I don't remember the figures exactly but think I took like $1,400 whilst they took $700 each, so after I gave Simon 50% equity I had like $700 and a nice $600 profit from my first night. It was around 3:00am now and I explained to Simon I was turning in, he decided to stay up and play 200NL (first time in Las Vegas you can't blame the kid). The following morning (Friday 5th) I wake up to some bad news from Simon, he's been robbed and they have taken all his spending money.

I was immediately sceptical when I heard this as I know too well how people can get carried away in Las Vegas and wax all their money on the tables on the first night, you only have to look at Martin Brittain during my 2007 visit for an example of this behaviour. Either way though I was sympathetic towards his situation and treated him to brunch over Binions deli whilst we discussed his next action, which was to get in touch with his parents so they could wire over some money to the Plaza cage. He set the wheels in motion but his parents couldn't get the cash over immediately so I lend him $200 for the evening, where we were to hit Las Vegas boulevard. We didn't have any POA other than to let Simon soak up the sights, drink lots of beers, play some poker, and gamble on the pit games. I hit the Budweiser pretty hard so as usual have a limited memory of the evening, but have a few photo's;

So yeah as you can see we played a SNG over at MGM Mirage and a bit beer pong in O'Sheas casino, before finally turning in at around like 10:00am. I slept for maybe five hours before heading to the pool for a few hours mid afternoon, despite still being a little hungover I hit the $2 Budweiser with a what makes you bad makes you better mentality. I got talking to these two older mature women (commonly known as a MILF) called Nancy and Alice, who were good crack and on a girls weekend away from their husbands and children. Anyway despite my pretty poor craic I locked up a night out that evening with these ladies, I know their not the best looking but hey you have to take what you can get right. We had agreed to meet in the sports bar in the Plaza, however only Nancy showed and explained Alice wasn't feeling well so Simon after a couple of drinks decided to blow it and headed over to Golden Nugget leaving just to the two of us. One thing lead to another and we ended up staying the night in my room, I'll leave the rest to your imagination guys. Here's a few photo's of the day by the pool and one from the evening;

Like I said they weren't the best looking but whatever, had a bit fun so it's cool. I slept pretty well and woke up late afternoon to see Nancy had left, I was pretty pleased about this as couldn't be arsed with the awkward next day banter. Soon later Simon arrives after playing downstairs, I have no idea how this kid manages to gamble day/night he really is an absolute degenerate. We arrange to go for some early dinner over at Plaza 777 buffet (it's appropriately named after it's $7.77 price), before heading to Binions for the evening to play some poker.

From around 18:00 for like 12 hours until 6:00am the following morning I solely played 200NL, staying in the same seat for the entire session. I sat with $500 and cashed out for north of $1,500, so with over a $1,000 locked in profit I was happy to check out. I chilled at Binions $1 blackjack table for a couple of hours with Simon, never raising my bet from the minimum $1 and cashing in on the complimentary drinks. Finally at like 8:00am cashed in for a small loss of $3, which giving that I had drunk like 5+ Budweiser I was actually in profit from the blackjack session. After a good sleep I woke up again late afternoon (Monday 8th) around 16:00, I chilled by the pool for a couple of hours before heading back to the room to get ready for the evening. Simon suggests hitting the strip again which I'm more than happy to do, after we're freshened up we taxi to the strip and first head to Denny's for an early dinner. We then decide to head to Harrahs for their 20:00 $150 tournament, which neither of us have any success and head towards the blackjack after busting around midnight. Here we meet Michael Dillenburg and we go on to have an ace night with him and his boys Nicholas Allen and Olson brothers Aaron and Ryan. As usual my memory is limited due to endless amounts of vodka redbull, I know we visited Sapphire gentlemen’s club and ended up in Treasure Island where these guys were staying. Here is some photo's of a truly memorable only in Las Vegas night, good times and memories.

Easy come easy go and the $1,000 profit from the night before wasn't in my pocket the following morning, I'm told the following day by Simon I spent like $1,000 on strippers and had like 10+ vodka redbulls at $30 a drink. I guess I got a little carried away but M'EH I honestly didn't care, memories like that are priceless and I still keep in touch with all these kids through facebook. We didn't make it back to Plaza until around 14:00 the following afternoon, so after stuffing our faces at McDonalds I collapsed in my bed. I didn't wake up until after 22:00 now Tuesday evening and saw a note from Simon saying he was away to play the $105 tournament over at Golden Nugget. I get myself freshened up and head on down for a little after 23:00, he's still in and so is late registration so I join the field but bust pretty quick as I look to gamble up my short stack. By midnight I'm just chilling at the 200NL, again another profitable session as my heater continues after buying in for $500 the table breaks at like 7:00am whilst I have $2,400 in front of me. This was obviously predominantly down to turning quads vs. top house for a pot worth over $2,000, happy days as if the turn doesn't give me the case eight I go broke holding 88 vs. KK on a K83r board. Below a photo of a rather glum looking Simon, I'm pretty sure he's winning small so he should turn that frown into a crown.

We headed back and retired to bed at approximately 8:00am, after a short sleep I was back up around noon and decided to kick by the pool for a few hours and enjoy the brilliant hot weather. I head back to the room for late afternoon and after a quick chat with Simon, we decide to head back to the strip for our final night. We dine at Denny's again after being impressed with our first visit, before heading to the Stratosphere to hit the tables. It was a fairly uneventful evening as we were both conscious of our early flight home the following morning, we played poker in Stratosphere for like maybe four hours. All though not as profitable as previous nights down-town I left with over $150 profit, which I decided I was going to blow in the pit just having some fun and drinking some beers. After several hours of blackjack, roulette, craps, etc. playing first at Stratosphere before finishing at Sahara I had lost the $150 by like 4:00am but hey that's cool and had blast losing it (those minimum bets can get expensive).

The following morning we shared a taxi to the airport before taking our separate flights home, we flew on Thursday September 11th 2008 exactly seven years to the day after the attacks. I was unfortunately delayed at EWR airport for a few hours which had a knock on effect on Simon who was waiting at Manchester airport for me to give him a lift home, but eventually made it and we hit the road like 12:00 GMT the following day. Thanks for reading this guys, I now only have to report both my trips during 2009 (January and September) before my back log is complete. Below is a link to FTP's Trip Report section, linking you up to all the rest of my trip reports for those interested;

Trip Reports

Hope you all enjoyed reading this summary as much as I enjoyed reminiscing in the memories, hopefully I will get Las Vegas 2009 I Trip Report live soon for your reading pleasure.

Take it easy everybody, see you all around.

Las Vegas 2011 Trip Report "Summer"

2011-07-04T21:45:00.059+01:00

Back over Las Vegas for my eighth trip accompanied by Mark making his second visit, we flew out on Thursday 23rd June going direct; Manchester > Las Vegas with Virgin. Arriving safely with no delays we checked into Bellagio, before heading over to The Pub, Monte Carlo where we were to meet our good friend Dave Collins and his beautiful wife Sandra. I would recap this eventful evening, however Dave has blogged the shenanigans over NPF (link below);

Trettski Day

This was an absolute first class night, cementing why both Mark and I have mountains of love and respect for Dave. Here are a few photos to accompany Dave's rendition;

Moving onto Friday morning and I see a really good friend of mine Tom Middleton (FTP interview guest last year), is on the final table of the WSOP $2,500 #36. Despite originally having planned to play the Caesars Palace $350 “Mega Stack Series” (abbreviated as MSS for future reference) event I drop it and make plans to get on the rail, and sweat Tom in his quest for a bracelet.

Morning: Sunbathing by Bellagio pool
Afternoon: Sweat Tom and have lunch at Rio
Evening (early): $125 Aria tournament and 300NL
Evening (late): Sweat Dave split the evening tournament

Unfortunately Tom bust in 3rd losing TT vs. AK AIPF, receiving $305,015 for his trouble. Later that evening celebrating over at Surrender, Encore which both Mark and I regrettably missed our kind invite from Tom! D'OH.

The following day (Saturday) Mark headed over early to Rio for the WSOP $1,500 #43 whereas I couldn't be arsed with the thought of a twelve hour grind after a late night on Friday, so dropped it and stayed in bed until around noon.

Afternoon (early): Head over Rio to sweat Mark and have lunch
Afternoon (late): 300NL at Rio
Evening (early): 200NL at Hooters
Evening (late): Head to a few bars out of town with Adam Ellis

Eventually stumbling into Aria mortal drunk around 2:00am and playing a bit 500NL with Gaz Walker, losing a $1,000 in a couple of hours before conceding defeat and retiring to bed. I understand Gaz took the game for somewhere north of $3,000, so good job mate.

Now Sunday 26th I decided it was time to push the tournaments, starting with Venetian $350 “Deep Stack Extravaganza” (abbreviated as DSE for future reference). Unfortunately neither of us cashed, I made a deep run busting in like 70th (7 from the bubble) after playing a chip leader (280,000) chip pot as a 90% favourite. I won't bore you with the bad beat story, but yeah I was a little disappointed. By the time I bust it was around 1:00am, so I took a slow walk back to Bellagio and turned in like 1:45am. On a more positive note Teesside local and good friend of both Mark and I Dom Mahoney finished around 22nd for approximately $1,200, good work mate.

Monday 27th we pretty much camped in Caesars Palace, after eating breakfast over at there international lago buffet we headed over to there card room. Registering for their noon $130 MSS, which is unlimited re-entry up to level six. Not good as between us we were in for five bullets (3:Dan/2:Mark), then I dropped a further $500 on the 300NL before playing their evening $100 tournament and busting like level two. I was tilting pretty hard so decided to call it a night around 22:00 before losing any more cash, wise choice I suspect.

Tuesday 28th kind of followed the same trend as Monday in that I both ran and played bad poker, starting with the Venetian $350 DSE where I bust early. After wishing Mark good luck I jump in a taxi to catch the Aria daily afternoon $225 tournament, I lasted a little longer but still no cash as I bust about seven from the bubble. Have a few drinks in Deuce bar before heading back over Venetian to sweat Mark, he makes a deep run but like me on Sunday bust in the penultimate level of the day. Back over Bellagio and in bed for around midnight, dry tournament spell on continues.

Wednesday 29th and we made our first trip down-town to Fremont street to play the Golden Nugget $135 “Grand Poker Series” (abbreviated as GPS for future reference), before taking our seats we had lunch at Magnolias Veranda over at the Four Queens Resort. The food was pretty good but the tournament not so good, as we both bust by level six. It was still relatively early so after heading back to Bellagio, chilling the room for a couple of hours we decide to head to Aria for the evening $125 tournament where we see our good friend Steve Gibson. Have a few drinks and a laugh with Steve, but again no luck for us in the tournament as we both bust and home for approximately 1:00am. Back down-town the following day (Thursday 30th) for the Binions $1,000 “Poker Classic” main event, which mirrors the WSOP main event in that you start with 30,000 chips. I was pretty impressed that I managed to bust first hand, I don't usually discuss hands but whatever here goes;

“UTG+1 comes in for 200, gets called in two spots behind and I have KQs so decide to either pick up the dead money pre or isolate in position vs. UTG+1 from the BTN and third bet it up to 1,600 total (questionable play I guess). Anyway as predicted UTG+1 calls whilst the rest fold and flop comes 9TJdd, UTG+1 check raises my pot sized CBET to 6,500. I over third bet it up to 22,000, which I'm expecting villain now to shove or fold but no just a smooth call. So 44,000 and change in the middle and an off suit king hits the turn, obviously not ideal and as villain slides the remaining of her chips over the line it's kind of obvious it's AQd but I'm just not folding ever so make the call. Sure enough she shows up with AQd and I'm dead to an ace for the split, the river bricks and I leave with my tail between my legs.”

So with the whole day ahead of me I decide to taxi over Rio to sweat Chris Moorman who was heads-up in the WSOP $10,000 #46 NLH 6MAX, it was a short half hour battle as Joe Ebanks beat him and Chris got a very nice $716,282 for his second place finish. So still a whole day ahead I taxi back over Bellagio, chill by the pool and surf the internet before heading back down-town to sweat Mark in Binions. I have dinner with Mark and Dom over at Benny's Bullpen, before wishing them luck and heading over Golden Nugget for the evening $105 tournament. Fortunately my luck changed and after being a card rack for the entire tournament I eventually final table with 200,000 (400,000 in play). After busting one guy people begin to discuss paying eighth place a bubble prize, I object and explain my reasons but suggest I take first place ($1,865) and they split the rest which if I remember correctly was like $350 each for them and more than fourth place. They all agreed and I eventually recouped some of my tournament outlay, after a few drinks in Golden Nugget with Mark we head back for around 3:00am to turn in.

Friday 1st and I was now taking my finger off the value button and had finished with tournament poker for the trip, Mark on the other hand was off to Venetian for the $550 DSE. The reason I dropped the rest of my scheduled tournaments was because I had a good friend of mine, a Las Vegas local named Monette who I wanted to spent the weekend with. Monette was the Delta representative who helped me out last year when I lost my passport, we have since kept in touch through e-mail. She's an absolute brilliant girl who I have all the time in the world for, so needless to say I was delighted to be able to spent some time with her whilst in town.

Morning: Breakfast with Mark at Grand Lux Cafe, Venetian
Afternoon (early): Sunbathing by Bellagio pool
Afternoon (late): Gym and sauna “Spot Jonny Chan”
Evening (early): Dinner at Bachi Burger with Monette and Ott
Evening (late): Visit Hoover Dam with Monette and Ott

Again the following day (Saturday 2nd) I was off on a road trip with Monette and her boyfriend Ott, as we took a two hour drive to Utah visiting Zion National Park. This place was beautiful so tranquil and the sights were unbelievable, we had a small delay as a landslide trapped us for approximately two hours but M'EH whatever it was cool. Below are some photos which go some way to demonstrate how great the place is;

Arriving back in Las Vegas around 18:30, I quickly freshened up and headed over Caesars Palace to sweat Mark in the $130 MSS. Unfortunately he got pretty deep before busting a few spots from the bubble, on a more positive note for Mark he split the evening Aria tournament the night before (Friday 30th) for $2,400 which again is nothing of any significance but a welcome return after not a single tournament cash the entire trip. So I had planned to have dinner with Monette and Ott over at “Cafe Noodle & Chinese Barbeque” which they recommend, the food was delicious and after saying my goodbyes they dropped me off at Caesars Palace to meet back up with Mark.

Then our final night in Las Vegas really gets going as after a small 300NL cash session we meet up with Teesside boys Dom Mahoney, Lataif Aziz, and Rakesh Gupta, after finding out Dave Maudlin is over NYNY with a few others we jump in a limousine and head on down. All though by now it was like 1:00am the night was only just getting started, we arrived at Bar at Times Square, NYNY and it was already crowded with a bunch of our local boys. These included obviously the five of us who had just turned up, then joining Dave Maudlin, Gaz Walker, Steve Gibson, Marc Foggin and his hot lass whom I don't know her name. From here we got in a another limousine from NYNY to Palms, where unfortunately Playboy Club was too busy so we had to settle for Rain which was still ace. I was absolutely mortal so have very little memory of the evening but here's some photo's which go along way to show how unbelievably messy the night was;

Needless to say a total unforgettable only in Las Vegas night, however it didn't end their as Mark, Steve, Gaz, and I continued the night as we headed to the Palms poker room for a graveyard cash session and sat at the 300NL around 4:00am. I don't remember exactly how things went down, but I think we all profited somewhere north of $500 so a nice way to end an already unbelievable night. After sharing a taxi with Steve and Gaz dropping them off at Monte Carlo, we headed onto Bellagio and grabbed some breakfast at Café Bellagio before heading to our room to get packed at like 10:00am. Mark did a few bits of last minute shopping to get presents for his family whilst I chilled in the room, before our limousine to the airport arrived early afternoon. Seen Dave Mount, Alex Joblin, and Milo McKenzie in the departures who's flight to London Gatwick was unfortunately delayed, shame we never actually got to have a night out with these guys whilst in Las Vegas but whatever maybe next time. Also managed to do a bit of celebrity spotting for those of you familiar with UFC fighter Chuck Liddell, he was in departures whilst we were. I mean I wasn't scared as of course I can take him, I'm Dan “MOTHERFUCKING” Trett after all.

So after a safe flight home and drive from Manchester to Newcastle, the adventure is finally over for 2011. Another eventful visit to a fantastic place finished, now just have to look forward to doing it all again next year. Guess we can kind of give Las Vegas a new slogan, giving my FTP trip reports.

What Happens In Vegas...Goes On Full Trett Poker

Trett Digest Volume 05

2011-06-21T06:15:00.006+01:00

Last weekend the UKIPT visited Aspers, Newcastle and FTP had four runners playing day 1A of the main event on Thursday 16th June, with Dan, Mark, Steve, and George all looking for a share of the prize pool. The day started with 235 players and after eight hour long levels, the field was down to 94 including FTP affiliates;

Dan: 62,100
George: 15,900
Mark: 13,600

Steve unfortunately busting 200/400/50 (level 7) with a full house vs. villains straight flush. After merging with the remaining players from day 1B, it meant 252 players came back for day two. This didn't go well for Mark or Dan who bust level nine and eleven respectively, however George managed to make day three and consequently get in the money. To commiserate Mark and I registered for the £300 side event, again no luck as we both bust relatively early in the first day. Back over to the main event, where George joined the final 72 players for day three with a short stack;

George: 22,900

So going back with five big blinds at 2,000/4,000/400 level, I got on the rail and hoped he could flip well. Unfortunately he got it all in with KQ vs. 99 and couldn't hit, however he managed to ladder into 62nd place for £850. That evening both Mark and I entered our third UKIPT event, playing the £100 charity bounty tournament. Mark bust early, I made a relatively deep run before busting on the penultimate table. Now it's Monday and the closing event was a £50 satellite to UKIPT Brighton main event which I would normally have skipped, but it had a free seat added by UKIPT and £1,000 worth of seats added by Aspers so yeah the £1,550 free juice enticed me in. I went into this final event zero for three, so including this tournament collectively we (Mark and I) had a total outlay of £2,075 with our only recoup £85 having 10% of George in the main event. The structure meant it was just a case of who flipped the best with 3,000 stack and a 15 minute clock, things didn't go my way and I bust again on the penultimate table. Despite having no success across the festival I had a fantastic weekend, seeing absolute everybody associated with Newcastle poker at least once over the weekend. To close off the UKIPT I would like to congratulate a few of my friends, who made deep runs including Steve Brennan, Rachel Costa, David Grayson, and Keith Ridley who I understand were all in the top thirty of the main event.

Away from the UKIPT grind on June 9th the NPF reopened, this subsequently (as predicted) meant the NEPF suffered a decrease in traffic and very few new threads/post appearing recently. It will be interesting to see if there is room for NEPF in this town, it looks to me like the immovable object (NPF) is winning the war vs. the unstoppable force (NEPF). This is merely an observation and to clarify I wish the best for both forums, as both are ran by friends of mine.

Looking forward and Mark and I fly out to Las Vegas for our second and eighth visit respectively on Thursday 23rd June staying over at Bellagio for ten nights, this should be an ace trip with a bunch of our friends from the Newcastle poker scene in town. These include Dave Collins, Pete Smithson, Steve Gibson, Graeme Morl, Dave Mount, Dom Mahoney, Dave Maudlin amongst others. I gave Mark full control of preparing our poker schedule for the trip, so below is our initial calendar;

Friday 24th June: Caesars Palace $350 “Mega Stack Series”
Saturday 25th June: Rio $1,500 “WSOP #43”
Sunday 26th June: Venetian $350 “Deep Stack Extravaganza”
Monday 27th June: Caesars Palace $130 “Mega Stack Series”
Tuesday 28th June: Venetian $350 “Deep Stack Extravaganza”
Wednesday 29th June: Golden Nugget $135 “The Grand Poker Series”
Thursday 30th June: Binions $1,000 “Poker Classic Main Event”
Friday 1st July: Venetian $560 “Deep Stack Extravaganza”
Saturday 2nd July: Caesars Palace $130 “Mega Stack Series”

So yeah it's a good mixture including events from the five notable festivals in town, giving us an excellent opportunity to visit and play in a lot of the casinos card rooms. However it's subject to change (particularly mine) as it's really heavy and I haven't got the motivation like Mark to grind out tournaments for 10 days straight, so no doubt I'll take each day as it comes and drop games as and when I can't be arsed to play.

Dan & Mark
Wynn Card Room 2009

So yeah stay tuned next month for our “Las Vegas 2011 Trip Report” which I'm sure will be ace, in the mean time follow our FTP facebook and twitter accounts for regular trip updates.

Viva Las Vegas

Interview w/Sean McGuigan

2011-06-13T18:04:00.016+01:00

Sean McGuigan (left) is a regular visitor to Newcastle casinos, predominantly playing local poker tournaments. The guy has first class banter (especially when drunk) and brings some game to the table.

I invited Sean to be a guest on FTP for the month of June, which despite his busy schedule he was more than happy to join us. Like in previous interviews I've mixed the questions with some light hearted jokes and serious poker related, so I hope you all enjoy going in the tank with Sean "horses heed" McGuigan.

DT "When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc. that were instrumental for you?."

SM "My family are pretty much a bunch of gambling degenerates. Sundays used to be a case of eat yourself stupid then all the adults would play cards and the kids would have their own game for pennies. If you were lucky, and there was a spare seat, you could join the adult game but they didn't let you play for pretend. Your pocket money was on the line so you watched and learned basically! I started playing Poker then but started to play far more often when I discovered that you could play it on-line. This in turn led to me playing in the casino. My first Poker role model was Dan Harrington. Harrington on Hold em was pretty much my game for a year or so. I have no real Poker role models. If I had to watch anyone play it would be players with character. Tony G, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak. Not for the Poker. More for the way they act when playing and wind people up."

DT "I see from your facebook activities that away from the felt you like to go to the gym, only I understood people that trained were in shape so I ruled you out ;-). Does the gym around your way have a good vending machine or something? I guess you must have a reason for visiting."

SM "I only really go to the gym for the chicks! They dig it! The gym chills me out. If I don't go I get ratty and edgy. When I've trained I'm chilled and find it easier to relax. I train pretty much every day illness or injury permitting. It's tough sometimes as I work shifts now. I often find myself in there at 5am before an early shift. If I know I'm playing a long Poker session I always have a long run or workout beforehand as it makes me much more chilled and I tend to make better decisions when I feel like that rather than ones based upon emotion."

DT "Your NPF screen name is sean mcguigan, your creativity with this name is commendable. So what made you go for this screen name?. Over the NEPF it's not so imaginative going for horses heed, how did this come to fruition?."

SM "I just put my name in the wrong box and hit the send button. When I registered I didn't think I would spend much time on there so there appeared to be no need to change it! Doh!. I often considered changing it but it became a bit of a joke in the end so I just kept it. Horses Heed was chosen as I have been known to don a horses head mask from time to time for a laugh during a couple of the NPF events I attended. There are a few pictures kicking about. Just figured it seemed like a good name and the Sean McGuigan thing was getting old."

DT "How many cops does it take to change a light bulb?."

SM "There's nothing wrong with the lightbulb. It's fine. If the light bulb does need to be changed it must have thrown itself down the stairs or tripped over during interview. I never touched it! I'm sure that some of my more liberal colleagues would say that the lightbulb has to want to change before we can help it!."

DT "Your affiliate with NPF team Northern Lights, tell us a bit about that? How did this group come to fruition? How was the name 'Northern Lights' born?."

SM "Well I just got asked to play for them. It's mainly women now but that wasn't the case when the team was formed. Dawn Wills formed the team for a tournament and we just kept going. I really don't recall how the name came about."

DT "Their are strong rumours circulating around Newcastle poker scene that you listen to “Inner Circle – Bad Boys” on constant repeat whilst playing poker for inspiration, see YouTube video below;

Is this true?. On a serious note, what do you listen to whilst at the table?.”

SM "To be honest mate I'd rather shove a cactus up my own 'inner circle' than listen to that. I tend not to listen to music whilst playing as I like a bit of banter. I sometimes put my headphones in but don't put music on. People think I'm listening to music but I'm not. It's the best wind up ever! If I do listen to music it's always Rock or something with real instruments. Can't stand dance or anything similar."

DT "NPF or NEPF?."

SM "NPF. When NPF disappeared I was extremely impressed that Groomi and Gaz (Not Garry) Walker managed to get an alternative up and running so quickly. Hats off to them and I will probably use both. You can never have too much information. However, if I had to choose one only, it would be the NPF. Too many connections and met some amazing people through it."

DT "I understand your doing an charity abseil off the Vermont Hotel on June 25th, what's your thoughts on this? Excited and scared I guess. I think this is a great cause, if any FTP followers would like donate, follow Sean's JustGiving link below;

Sean McGuigan: Vermont Hotel Abseil

SM "I'm looking forward to it. I'm doing it with my son who is 14. I'm looking forward to seeing his reaction. He's never done anything like this before and it'll be a good test of his bottle. I'm curious to see how he handles it. I would like to do more for charity but you can't keep pestering people for donations so I try to limit how much I do. Times are hard and cash is short for everybody. But it's a very good cause so if anybody can spare a few quid it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers for the plug."

DT "Where would you go with a time machine? What would you do? Why?."

SM "I'd probably go back to a week or so before my mother went into labour and tell her that she really should hop on a flight to Australia. I could do with dual nationality! There's always the obvious. go to the future and get the football results and spend the rest of my life on the phone to the bookies. In truth that's probably what I would do! But it's not a very interesting answer. I've always thought it would be good to visit ancient Rome at the height of the Roman empire. I'd probably go to see something happening at the Colliseum, have a few Vino's the harrass a couple of Vestal Virgins! Canny night out that."

DT "Who do you consider the best all round poker player in Newcastle, taking into consideration all poker disciplines and variants?."

SM "Wow, that's a toughie. So many criteria. So many types of game. I think it's a bit like asking who is the best runner in england considering all races. My answer will surprise a lot of people. But if I had to give my own cash to one person locally, and trust that person to base all of his decisions based on the correct logic and thought processes, I would hand it to Phil McNally. I would completely revise this decision if he is within a 100 yards of a bottle of Budweiser."

DT "If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?."

SM "You've confirmed that you're a cock would seem the obvious answer. I mean, if you're such a loser that your objective is to fail then you deserve to reach your objective. However, the question seems to be something of a paradox as, in succeeding, you've actually not failed. So I'll sit on the fence and say you've broke even!"

DT "Who’s the best person you’ve ever shared a table with? Not necessarily best poker player but best because of their personality, their fame, etc?."

SM "I played cash Poker against Steven Hendry at a casino in Edinburgh once. He wasn't particularly memorable or chatty. Probably because I was at my drunkest and talking to me may have seemed a terrible idea! Other than that there are no famous people or big stories. So in answer I'd probably just have to mention the player I have had the most laughs with at a Poker table. There are many to choose from. I am a social player. I do it for the craic so I like a bit of a laugh. I guess you know this as well as most. You have seen me in some states and we have ourselves had some great laughs at the table and away from it. Sometimes I've laughed so hard that a bit of wee has come out! However I would have to say some of my most fun games have been with somebody I met through playing Poker and who is now a good mate Gary (Shouts at OAP's) Robinson. He's an absolute clown and always a laugh. He always tries to bad beat me cos he loves winding me up. When we're at the table we play harder against each other than anybody for the craic. He'd be on my ideal banter table anytime."

DT "February this year you suggested a poker endurance tournament over the NPF, with the proceeds going to charity. Did you make any progress with this? Whats the status on it at the minute?."

SM "No, it never got off the ground. I got loads of positive feedback from local players. A number of whom said that they would participate. But, to be honest, with other things that were happening at the time, I didn't follow it up. I still think it's a good idea and I would probably play it myself if somebody organised it but at the minbute it remains nothing more than an idea."

DT "Most favourite holiday destination?."

SM "Don't have one. Holidays for me are made by the people you're with and not the place. Some of my best all time holidays have been in total shitholes. Some of the dullest I've had have been 5 star luxury. I've still never been to Vegas. I would obviously love to go there. No plans yet though."

DT "I've made several light hearted jokes already about your profession, so yeah away from the felt you work as an officer for Northumbria police. Was this always your desired career path? How did you end up following this direction? Would you recommend a career in the police to today's youth?."

SM "The Police was definitely not my intended career path. It didn't appeal to me at all. I joined the Royal Marines from school and after that I obviously sold kitchens for a living! A natural progression really! After a few years of doing this I was so bored I decided to have a total change and the Police just seemed to be a good idea. It took me three attempts to get in but I got there eventually. I don't regret joining but I definitely 'would not' recommend it to anybody as a career path. The job has changed so much. You are so bogged down with red tape and bureaucracy all of the time. The pay (contrary to popular opinion) is awful and you have so many restrictions placed upon your private life. I have done everything I can to deter my own son from following it as a career which probably says it all!"

DT "What does the rest 2011 hold for Sean McGuigan? Can we expect to see you frequenting the local Newcastle poker circuit?."

SM "I haven't played much poker lately. Maybe one game a fortnight live. This is because of my change of job and the shifts I have to work. As such I can't see an increase in games played live but I do intend to try to qualify for or buy into a couple of bigger games at some point. I couldn't play the UKIPT as I couldn't get the time off work. That was frustrating."

All here at FTP would like to thank you for your time Sean, I for one have had a great time doing this interview and hope that all readers have enjoyed it (which I'm sure they have). Best of luck for the future Sean, see you at the tables mate.

Interview w/Dave Mount

2011-05-19T05:28:00.013+01:00

Dave Mount (left) is a poker dealer at my local casino Circus and if not dealing poker is also a keen player, but more importantly he's an ace kid who I have an absolute mountain of time and respect for.

Dave was more than happy to be my guest over here at FTP, giving us an opportunity to share his thoughts on what has been a strange couple of months for poker in Newcastle. I can honestly say for people that don't know this guy he's a perfect gentleman mixing his light hearted humour with his heart of gold, he is simply one of the most well liked people in Newcastle poker. Welcome on board FTP mate, I hope you enjoy yourself and all FTP followers look forward to going in the tank with Dave “FarmerDave” Mount.

DT "When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc that were instrumental for you?."

DM "I started playing in 2004 at home games with mates in Gloucester. We used to have a book next to the table that showed the best hand order, cant remember how many times it was checked to see if two pair beat 3 of a kind. I used to love Tony G. His table persona is awesome in my opinion. Sometimes he goes a little over the top, but that air of unpredictability is what makes him such a good watch."

DT "What was the best thing before sliced bread?."

DM "Unsliced bread, I love my bread."

DT "Your screen name over NEPF is FarmerDave, how did this come to fruition? Do you have any other nicknames?."

DM "FarmerDave was assigned to me by Scouse Alex who used to work in the G, he was a good lad and he started calling me FarmerDave due to my accent. To be honest this was the first time people started talking to me at the G as I now had a nickname. You wouldnt think it now but before the NPF I was quite shy on the poker circuit and only spoke to a few people. At uni I had the nickname deluxe because there where two Dave’s and I had a t-shirt on which said deluxe, was an ok nickname although I thought it sounded like a brand of jonnys."

DT "Since I've mentioned the NEPF, what's your thoughts on the recent situation involving the NPF and NEPF?."

DM "Shock, Sadness, bewilderment all spring to mind. The NPF was huge for me poker wise and socially. As I am not from around these parts, the NPF was instrumental in me finding mates some who I seriously consider to be some of my best mates. The rise of the NPF created more great games in Newcastle and I would like to thank Scott and Davey for what they have done for me. The closing is a shame, but they must have their reasons for it. I imagine that a particular issue became to much to handle and that they had come to their wits end over it so made this decision. In my honest opinion I think the decision was rash but I am sure a lot has gone on that we don't know about otherwise the forum would still be open. I wish Gaz and Groomi all the best in their new venture. I hope they have success. Only time will tell on this matter, the start has been very promising so we will have to see. I dont think there is room for 2 forums of this type in Newcastle and if the NPF decides to reopen then there would be an interesting situation."

DT "On the subject of change, some congratulations are in order. Good job on captaining the Walkers Sensations mate, I honestly think you'll do a fabulous job with such a fine group of young individuals and talented players. How did this position become available? What's your plans for taking Walkers Sensations forward?."

DM "Cheers Mate. Its a position I am privileged to hold and I will seriously do all I can to make this team known. We have an absolutely quality squad of guys, not just poker wise but as people. The 15 man squad are all friends, they are all awesome people and epic players who have had massive successes. We have had a great past as a team and I am driven to create a glorious future for us. On the weekend of the last team game something wasn’t right. We walked into the G with no belief no real drive and whatever and there where a few factors that made this the case. I offered to replace Gaz and he agreed that he believed that it was best for the team and there we go. Gaz deserves so much credit for creating this team and getting a great group together, cheers papa. I plan to take the Sensations national. I will try and get us into team games across the country and develop the teams profile. Our team blog is very important and critical to us being noticed nationally so this will be updated a lot more frequently."

DT "What's your best quality as a person?."

DM "My humour I would say. I like to thing that I have decent banter and hopefully people have enjoyed my company on the poker table."

DT "And your worst?."

DM "Is fattness a quality? I guess it isn’t as it would have been that. I think I take things to personal at times, so maybe not taking things to heart."

DT "So you've moved in with two fellow Walkers Sensations and great poker players Neil Harvey and Milo McKenzie, how are you finding that? I guess it's online poker and partying seven nights a week?."

DM "Well the Jew is either always praying or sleeping, Buzz is good banter and has some awesome one liners springing about. Also we have recently added Aryan to the house, we felt we need to be ethnically diverse so invited him in. I am having a great time living with these boys. They are all great people and awesome players that I hope to learn a lot off. There has been some poker and parties and I am sure there will be lots more of both."

DT “Why I'm I asking you these questions?.”

DM "Because I single handily got you to the £20-£20 Final Table last night. I’ll fling the cards and you do the moves lad."

DT “So not long till your hitting it up in Las Vegas, I for one can't wait to see you over there for a few drinks. What's your thoughts running up to Vegas? Lots of poker, gambling, and drinking I suspect.”

DM "All of the above buddy. You are a hand full in Newcastle on a night out so christ knows what I've let myself into going on a few nights out with you over in LV. I am playing a WSOP sidey and looking to play some of the deep stack tourneys over there. This will be the best time over there yet, only 5 weeks away and I cant wait. One of my uni mates is coming over from New York for a few days so looking forward to that too. Going to do all the stuff I didnt do but wanted to the last 2 times I've been."

DT "What do you think smells the nicest, a foot long Subway meatball marinara or Steve Brennan?."

DM "Brennan. I love my embraces with Brennan, this would be less of a joy if he stank so I’ll have to punt for him."

DT "2010 and 2011 saw you play host to an annual NPF football tournament, which I along with many others found to be an ace day. With the NPF being indefinitely closed do you have any plans to host the event in 2012? it would be a great shame to lose."

DM "Its a long way till the 3rd one if it happens. It was a way of getting a kick about sorted and who knows what position the NPF or NEPF will be in future. I will look to have something like it again, with no forum I imagine a lot less players would attend but we will have to see, like I said, the next one would have been along way away."

DT "Melanie Stoker, hot or not?."

DM "Hot bot so could I say not? If a could fit her with a gag ball then yes WOUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDD"

DT "You've recently joined the Circus staff, I would imagine that's a great place to work with lots of friends around both working and playing. How are you finding it? Hours suit you?."

DM "Well I used to work at Aspers and I cant begin to describe the difference between the two. Circus is a great place to work because the staff are awesome. In Jim you couldnt meet a better boss, he has done a lot for North East poker and is a great motivator and guy. Spoona is a legend and its been a joy to work with him everyday. Its great seeing mates everyday and the hours have been a lot easier to manage since I've moved out from home and dont have to look after a puppy when im off, saying that Milo is nearly as bad to look after, however we have sorted out the ‘toilet’ issues!"

DT "How would you describe yourself in three words?."

DM "Funny; Accent/Looking/Humour"

DT "What does the rest 2011 hold for Dave Mount? Can we expect to see you frequenting the local Newcastle poker circuit?."

DM "Maybe not frequently but I will be playing my fair share. I want to focus a lot on poker and the team after Vegas and hopefully 2011 will end up being a successful year."

All here at FTP would like to thank you for your time Dave, I hope you enjoyed answering the questions as much as I enjoyed asking them. Good luck in the future mate with everything you have going on, all though I know you'll make your own luck.

Trett Digest Volume 04

2011-05-18T12:27:00.010+01:00

I'm back in the UK after an awesome month of sun, drink, girls, and nice restaurants over in Thailand, it's actually pretty scary exactly how much I must have drank over the month and very detrimental towards my liver. So I'm kind of happy to be back home to give my liver a bit of a detox, it's nice to feel fresh again although a little jet lagged. The majority of Thailand stories simply aren't appropriate for FTP, so for that reason I won't be looking to do a trip report. I would however like to share a cocktail/punch whatever you want to call it, equal measures (we used one litre each) of jagermeister, after shock, sambuca, tequila, and vodka all mixed together creates JASSTV (using the first letter of each spirit). I decided to give it the big shot and drink seven double JASSTV's mixed with red bull before leaving my hotel room, I have absolutely no memory of the night but I woke up in a bar opposite my hotel 11:00am the following morning.

Played the £2,000 guaranteed over Circus yesterday and was great to catch up with my family and a few of the guys, including Gaz Walker, Dave Stephenson, Andy Blair, Dave Mount, Neil Harvey, and of course the always beautiful Celia Liu amongst many others. Lots to look forward to this month with Circus launching a brand new weekly £5,000 guaranteed scheduled to begin this Friday, and of course the monthly £10,000 guarantee on Tuesday May 24th. All thanks to Jimmy/Spoona and all the guys over at Circus, keep up the good work everybody. Then of course the UKIPT arrives at Aspers on Thursday 16th June, which I'm like every other player in Newcastle really excited about. My schedule will likely include;

Thursday June 16th - £100 F/O
Friday June 17th - £500 Main Event Day 1B
Saturday June 18th - £300 F/O (If I fail to make day two of main event)

By Sunday June 19th if I failed to make either day three of the main event or day two of the £300 I will likely concede defeat and abandoned the £100 charity bounty, then again depends how much of a sicko I'm feeling but as things stand it's not scheduled in my calendar. The conclusion of the UKIPT will lead me nicely to my eighth visit to Las Vegas flying out on 23rd June with Mark staying ten nights at Bellagio, however a bunch of NPF/NEPF (complicated story which I'll come to) members will be their so it should be awesome.

Yeah a lot can happen in a month (or a few hours I guess), whilst I was away I understand their was a disagreement between the NPF moderators (Dave/Scott) and several NPF members (Gaz/Stephen predominantly) all four of which I consider good friends. Anyway the upshot to my distress was the NPF to be closed indefinitely, this was closely followed (I'm told within hours) by the launch of the NEPF which some members have migrated over to. As mentioned I consider all four mentioned above (and everybody else involved) to be my good friends, so if any of you guys are reading;

Dave/Scott – I fully understand and respect your decision to close the NPF, but if you are reconsidering (which is just the impression I'm getting reading the NPF facebook account) I would strongly encourage you to reopen the forum and friendly community.

Gaz/Stephen – Congratulations on the NEPF, it looks great and I will look to contribute as and when I feel my advice would help. Keep up the good work guys and I hope everything works out well.

Guess I'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, I want the best for all my friends however I personally don't think two forums can coexist in the North East which brings the old adage an unstoppable force (NEPF) vs. an immovable object (NPF). Anyway it's not actually any of my business, but it's my blog so I'm sharing my thoughts on the whole situation.

Take care people

Trett Digest Volume 03

2011-04-16T07:26:00.010+01:00

I now have my foot on gas and my life is back to it's standard routine of several weekly casino visits and nights out with my mates, this follows a quite couple of months where I was seeing a girl who kept me on the straight and narrow. My last digest I mentioned the funeral of my good friend the late Joe Peel was imminent on Tuesday 22nd March, the service went well with approximately six hundred people showing their respects including a large presence from his friends at the tables. Myself and Mark, Steve Brennan, Craig and Dawn Foggo, Syed Zaidi, Martin Enright, Chris Brown, George Harle, Richard Pavlou, Fred Mulvay, Russ Taylor, John Stamatelpoulos, Gary Collins, Dave Knight, Tom Dunwoodie, amongst half a dozen others who I recognize by face but either can't spell/don't know their name.

Then yeah like I say since I'm single again (not that I ever had an official girlfriend to be fair) I've found myself attending almost every added value tournament in Newcastle, with for a change a degree of success. Across both tournaments and cash I'm in profit around £1,500 for tail-end of March and beginning of April, so a nice hit just before I head off to Thailand. Away from the felt I recently bought series one through to seven of One Tree Hill, I've always fancied watching it but not one for watching random individual episodes etc. I like to get to know the characters and live vigorously through their adventure, I've seen the first four episodes which were all ace so I have several hours of television ahead of me for those lonely nights.

Last weekend (Saturday 9th April) I double booked myself after pre-registering into the NPF anniversary cup whilst also renting out a cottage for the weekend with my boys away from the felt, only I didn't realize until Sunday 10th when I received a voice-mail from Alison McAree. I was disappointed to miss this event as it's one of three annual NPF events, alongside the Championship and UK Team Challenge. On this subject I would like to extend my congratulations to champion David “Camel Toe” Atkinson who took the event down whilst also celebrating his birthday, good job man keep it up.

I will unfortunately miss their NPF UK Team Challenge 2011 at the end of this month as a result of my month long sabbatical, so with that in mind I will be making every effort to attend the NPF Championships 2011 later this year so as not to miss out on all the NPF engagements this year. Looking forward and I'm really excited to be flying to Asia tomorrow (Sunday 17th April) to escape the dull British weather, also whilst out there I will be flying out to Macau for my second visit to hit the tables for a long weekend meeting up with Newcastle local Sam Lam and maybe Steven Liu (dates dependent with Steven). Guess I'll sign out for a month and leave you with the below photo, which will go some way to explaining why I'll be a little to occupied to be blogging whilst gallivanting around Thailand.

I return back to the UK on Tuesday 17th May, so I'll be sure to catch up with all you guys and share my x-rated Thailand exploits (for those interested in hearing them).

Take it easy all

Interview w/Steve Brennan

2011-03-25T18:35:00.008Z

Steve Brennan (left) is a regular around Newcastle card rooms, as well a frequent NPF poster who is very well liked across the local poker scene.

Steve kindly agreed to be FTP’s first guest of 2011, giving us all a great insight into his thoughts and diamond funny personality. So welcome aboard mate I’m delighted to have you and hope all my readers enjoy going in the tank with Steve “fatfish” Brennan.

DT “When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc. that were instrumental for you?.”

SB “I started getting interested in poker when I caught an edition of late night poker on channel 4, I think it was probably about 12 years ago. I watched it not having a clue what was going on but loved it amongst all the confusion. Looked up the rules so I understood what was going on then ended up buying loads of poker books, I think I read Doyles book first. Played online for a bit then went to Circus where I was on Steven Liu's table and he was on the episode of late night poker I watched. I remember I bricked it so much I was shaking when I put me big blind in. Still won the bastard like.”

DT “Your NPF screen name is fatfish, how did this come to fruition? Do you have any other nicknames?.”

SB “For some reason Steven Liu thought I was overweight and shit, hence the fatfish. It just stuck from there. He still calls me it now, just as a good read not because he knows its my nickname or out. Other nicknames now appear to be Brenda, which is awesome because who doesn't love being called a woman's name all day long. I also get called an arse hole a lot but I'm not sure what people mean by that.”

DT “Who would play you in a Hollywood film about your life?.”

SB “Oliver Reed would have been a good one but he's not chiselled enough so I'll go with Clint.”

DT “I understand your affiliate with TEAMDOBBS, tell us a bit about that? Are you finding it’s helping with your development as a player?.”

SB “Just before last years forum game I think the Dobbas were short for some reason so DC invited me and Andy Blair in and I loved it, was my first team game and it was great crack. Very chuffed to be a Dobba as we are definitely the No.1 team up here despite the Sensations miraculous one off luck box win. Having said that, I'm definitely a much worse player now as I seem to have turned into a hideous nit and I don't think I've won a tourney since I joined. So in short, delighted to be a Dobba despite it completely and utterly ruining my game.”

DT “If I looked inside your refrigerator what would I find?.”

SB “Alison's on holiday so a quick check revealed some ham that I couldn't get through with a knife, some cheese, 3 ice pops and a car radio.”

DT “Ifrikher Ali, genius or moron?.”

SB “Any man that can turn a brand new kalooki deck into a deck so rigged you would need an explosives team to diffuse them in a space of 5 minutes while still in full view of everyone is a genius. I'm pretty sure he has sandpapered his thumb to make the skin rough so he can insta-mark the jokers. He also has superpowers of being able to look directly at you, yet somehow his line of vision travels round your head and sees your cards and at the same time hiding the aces in his pants with his toes. Just a remarkable man. If I get a phone call from him during the week just for a friendly chat, I instantly lock the doors and avoid circus like the plague because I know some hi-tech scam is in operation to do me out of 20 quid. A very talented individual.”

DT “June 2010 you were involved in a prop bet which prevented you from shaving, cutting your hair, and changing your clothes for a month. How did this turn out? Who bet against you? How much action did you sell?.”

SB “Ah yes, this turned out well. Ian Robson the dealer from circus made this bet with me for £100 quid which I snapped off, well aware of the fact it wasn't going to affect my hygiene cycle too greatly. A pair of trainers, jeans, a wrecked t shirt and the hairy hat, with no washing or shaving. Unfortunately I had forgotten all about the wedding and 2 court cases I had to attend during the time period. The 2nd court case in particular was a débâcle as I attempted to represent myself in court over a speeding fine while looking like Uncle Albert from Only Fools And Horses. After a display in court than the judge described as "questionable" he doubled my points and multiplied my fine x8. He know he was wrong though. Safe in the knowledge I could pay some of the £600 fine with the £100 from Robson he then told me he wasn't going to pay me because he didn't particularly fancy it. Ended up getting £50 quid.”

DT “Without the incentive of a prop bet, do you shower weekly or monthly normally?.”

SB “I like the way there wasn't an option for more than once a week here, weekly then.”

DT “Favourite rubdown?.”

SB “Pipe get blurted out a lot. So, pipe then. I know a lot of pipes.”

DT “Are you in a relationship with Alison because she has big tits?.”

SB “Yes.”

DT “What’s your biggest achievement in poker?.”

SB “Much like my life in general I haven’t really achieved a great deal. Playing the WSOP main events was an awesome experience. Much like everything though I was burdened with hideous luck. First year my table had Eric Lindgren, David Williams, that full tilt guy with a tash who's name I cant remember but he looks a bit like that bloke off Last Of The Summer Wine who was always knobbing Marina, and Mike Caro who proceeded to tell me I was the target as soon as I sat down, which was nice. The second year I turned up only to be told I was playing the day before and had blinded out. After an incredible debate involving the card room manager, me, a megaphone and eventually security. I was bought in again as the final alternate but by that time I was so annoyed I'd got mashed at the bar and cant really remember anything. Probably the thing I'll remember the most from poker was a tourney I was playing in Estonia. Busted early but the pints were 19p so I was perfectly fine with that. My flight back home was at 6am in the morning so I thought well I'll never get up in time for that if I go to bed so I'll just stop at the bar until its time to go. Got a taxi at 5am and boarded the plane fine, always good when a plan comes together. Went to sleep immediately and woke up just as the plane was landing, just absolutely perfect timing. Hopped off and went to get me bags, which didn't turn up. Looked up at the signs to make sure I was at the right carousel only to find everything was written in hieroglyphics. I turned to the guy next to me and asked him just where the dickens I was. He looked at me like I was retarded and declared I was in Sweden. Following a very very confusing debate with some of the airport staff I was whisked into a back-room and interrogated over being a terrorist, complete with me pants off and the ever present feeling they were going to peek up me back door for a bomb. Just an all round lump of awesome and something I'm very proud of.”

DT “Favourite movie?.”

SB “Usual suspects. Also, anything involving time travel. I'm heavily into time travel at the minute.”

DT “If you only had six months to live, what would you do with the time?.”

SB “Travel around, there’s so many places I would like to see. Would stop in in Vegas as well, just a fantastic place. Mind I say all this but if it actually happened I probably couldn’t be arsed and would just end up in the G complaining about the Bulmers.”

DT “You've been receiving late night phone calls lately, all of which are about someone claiming to have done things with your girlfriend which are illegal in some parts of the world. Do you think this is connected to anyone in the poker community?.”

SB “Unfortunately, there are people in all walks of life who are unable to behave in a civilized manner and like in most things, I believe alcohol plays a large part in the culprits behaviour. I believe the culprit may indeed be from the poker community, I'm looking for someone who goes nuts on the drink and has few morals. The net is closing in.”

DT “Have you lied at any point in this interview?.”

SB “Probably loads. I'm never 100% certain if I'm actually telling the truth or not.”

DT “What does 2011 hold for Steve Brennan? Can we expect to see you frequenting the local tournaments whilst also travelling further a field for some UK festivals.

SB “Probably just the same, playing local once a week or so then playing any bigger games I fancy. I have a particular fondness for DTD, I think its a great place to play poker in.”

Amusing anecdote
Steve and I have shared several drunken ace nights out, I could actually list about five or six profane anecdote's involving us two off the top of my head. One afternoon we were over at the Grosvenor for the CGK cup, both well served after hitting up the bars early morning before getting to the Grosvenor. Steve decides he need's to take a shit, under any normal circumstances he would have went to the guys room and came back with his load lightened. On this occasion though, I thought it would be appropriate to follow him and burst through the door whilst he is busy and continue to watch until he was done. It was quite a special viewing actually, just missing some popcorn ;-).

Steve “fatfish” Brennan ladies and gentleman, not just an ace poker player but absolute first class hilarious lad who I'm delighted to know. Can't wait for the next night on the tile's mate, but maybe we should look to behave ourselves at least a little (in fact M'EH that would be no fun). Thanks for the time and effort Steve, I'm sure all FTP followers will find it a great read.

Trett Digest Volume 02

2011-03-19T08:27:00.013Z

My life lately has been reasonably uneventful, lacking regular casino visits and nights on town which I have become accustomed to over recent years. I mean I still managed a couple of nights out with the poker lads and a handful of sessions with my boys away from the tables, just cooled off a bit which in all honesty was a welcome break for my liver which I guess is twenty six going on seventy. This was the upshot of spending some quality time with a new girl in my life (as mentioned in my previous digest), however for one reason or another things didn't work out and that relationship has come to the end of it's short road.

It's cool though guys I'm fine and at peace with how things ended, were still kind of friends all though we don't see each other if that makes sense. Looking forward and I have an exciting start to the Spring season;

- Friends birthdays towards the tail-end of March and start of April
- Friday 1st April: Rachael Costa charity pole dancing “TigerTiger”
- Saturday 9th April: NPF Anniversary Cup “Circus”

Then the weekend following the NPF anniversary cup I fly to Thailand, Asia (Sunday 17th) for my annual month long sabbatical, this is long over due and I'm well looking forward to leaving behind the UK weather for sunnier climates.

Finally before I go I would like to give my close friend Joe Peel a mention who sadly passed last weekend on Sunday 13th March. I will miss him as a player around the tables but more as a valued friend who served as an inspiration to me over the years, he was a great man who I feel very privileged to have met.

RIP JOE PEEL
29th April 1950 - 13th March 2011

Mark and I will be attending the funeral service along with Steve Brennan, this for all family and friends is at All Saints Church, Gosforth at 13:45 on Tuesday 22nd March.

Trett Digest Volume 01

2011-02-13T10:12:00.018Z

SUP Guys. Hope you all had a fantastic new year and are over the January blue’s now February has hit, which if you ask me is an exciting month for Newcastle poker and particularly NPF associates. Regular readers have probably gathered from the title change in this thread I’m no longer committing myself to doing monthly recap’s, all though a review once a month doesn’t sound like hard work I just can’t be bothered. I’m kind of losing motivation (guess it happens to all bloggers from time to time) but anyway whatever, I’ve replaced it with these digest volume’s which will still give you a scope of my recent exploits and planned shenanigans just not on a monthly basis.

I published my December recap on 30th which meant it missed out my NYE profanities, I couldn’t even remember it the following morning never mind a month on so I can’t recite anything. However I can link you to my good friend Gaz Walker’s blog, who has an account of the evening;

NYE 2010

The week following NYE (January 7th) I was Tenerife bound to hit up some winter sun with my family and fellow FTP associates George, Steven, Paul, Kevin, and family friend Robert Flett. Below I’ve coupled cliff notes with photos to go someway towards a trip report;

- Staying at Vista Hermosa Villa, Los Cristianos
- Drinking (every night)
- Playa de las Americas (bars, clubs, strip joints)
- Poker (daily €10 private SNG)
- Restaurants (King of India, Overseas, Al Negra, etc.)
- 26C (clear skies)
- Quads (off road biking)
- Casino Playa de las Americas (500NL)
- Mini golf at “Treasure Island Adventure Golf”
- Go-Karting
- Booze cruise (Peter Pan boat)

I had a fantastic trip and has wet my appetite for more family holidays, so far with my family (as an adult) I’ve been to Las Vegas, Amsterdam, Majorca, and Tenerife. Next year there is talk of a January visit to Cancun, Mexico (which I think would be ace) but as things stand it’s only talk, if anything gets booked I’ll be sure to let you know. Finally one more thing before closing Tenerife, I spotted a couple of celebrities seeing Ricky Hatton in Dubliner bar and Paddy McGuinness in airport lounge.

Since getting back to the UK I haven’t been spending a great amount of time on the felt, in fact I could almost count on one hand how many tournaments I played throughout January. This is because I’ve been distracted by a young lady, if I can cast you back to my December recap and particularly boxing day where Andy “KQ4EVA” Blair elaborated over the NPF;

2 Idiots Abroad

Anyway I mentioned I met a girl on the Jet2 desk called Lydia and after giving her my number I lost my mobile the same day, FML. However when I was off to Tenerife I noticed she was again working the desk, so I explained I had lost that mobile and passed on my current mobile number. The upshot of that is since getting back from Tenerife I’ve been out on a few dates (which isn’t really what I’m accustomed to being Dan Trett) but whatever I’m having fun so just going with the flow. I actually have an interesting story which I figure you’ll all find funny;

Lydia is from Devon and only been in Newcastle like 10 months, so her best friend is a work colleague who is gay. On Sunday 6th February I bust out of the Aspers £50 F/O and decided to go for a few drinks with Lydia, I rang her and she was out with Dan (her gay best friend) at Switch down the gay scene of Newcastle. So I head down and when standing outside having a drink with Lydia, Dan, and Ryan (Dan’s boyfriend), Dave “Jimmy Chipmunk” Stephenson pulls up in his taxi and gives me a caught you type glance. I haven’t since cleared things up with Dave, but yeah if your reading mate it was just a misunderstanding, but very funny I do admit. ;-)

Just to put thing’s straight though to all you readers that I’m no loved up pussy, that Sunday evening after Lydia headed home resulted in me hitting up in town with Circus dealers SpoonDAWG, Trottski, and Sean (a school friend of mine and Mark’s girlfriends brother). Cliff notes from meeting the lads onwards;

- Pitcher & Piano “Double vodka redbulls” (21:00)
- Revolution “Double vodka redbulls” (23:00)
- Madame Koos “Double vodka redbulls and double Sambuca’s” (00:00)
- Blu Bambu “Double vodka redbulls” (03:00)
- Grosvenor “Double vodka redbulls and 50NL” (05:00)

Leaving the Grosvenor when the game broke at around 08:00, so yeah I’m still Dan “Fucking” Trett (as is my common nickname now over NPF). I’ve just realized I haven’t discussed any poker, guess I’ll quickly recap some of my recent tournaments;

- I open 90% of pots
- I’ve got the check/fold play boxed
- I’m a calling station particularly when dead vs. river value bets
- I love getting my chips in way behind
- My favourite position is OOP
- I berated people because they’re better than me
- I angle shoot everybody
- My friends deal self-dealt cash games to rig the deck in my favour
- I check back ace’s full on the river, villain might be C/R with quads
- I defend my BB and SB with ATC
- I’m the best in Newcastle at being felted first
- I Check AA out the BB vs. 9 limpers to trap
- I'm a master of the PF limp/call but prefer the limp/fold
- I'm a specialist at the Grosvenors new £1 satellites
- I once posted an ante
- I love hearing about everybody’s bad beats
- I heard a rumour about a level five, but yet to experience it

So yeah guess I’m saying I can’t be arsed to discuss poker, but from time to time (not very often mind) I will drop a little bit poker theory and strategy into my posts. Looking forward and as I mentioned at the start of this post there is plenty for people to look forward to in the near future;

Saturday 19th February: CGK Team Game “Grosvenor”
Saturday 26th February: NPF Football “North Shields”
Tuesday 15th March: Circus £100 NLH F/O “£10,000 Guaranteed”

I’m actually a captain in both the February event’s, see links to my teams;

TRETT MOTHER FOCKERS “CGK Team Game”
Where’s Wor Leader “NPF Football”

So yeah I have two great bunch of lads and I’m excited to do battle both across the felt and on the courts, of course in the usual NPF friendly but competitive style.

Thanks for reading guys, until next time.

December 2010 Recap

2010-12-30T01:31:00.029Z

Yo Guys. I've launched this two day's early because I'll likely be too busy at the start of January 2011 and flying to Tenerife on 7th, so not wanting FTP fans to miss out on our festive recap. This mean's shenanigans from New Year's Eve won't make it onto this recap, not to worry though as I'll touch on it at the beginning of my January 2011 recap. So before delving into this month’s exploits, I’ll quickly brush over where I left my November recap. Mark was deep in the newly launched Aspers Sunday (28th) afternoon tournament, he ended up finishing seventh for £305 after running AQ into John Kirsopp’s QQ. Then another final table on the closing day of the month (Tuesday 30th) over at Circus for their £2,000 guaranteed, however on the wrong end again as he bust in eighth for £80. Moving onto this month and Circus launched their new Friday night tournament with £500 added on the opening weekend of the month, both Mark and I played this unsuccessfully and bust relatively early. Then Sunday (5th) we played both the Aspers freezeout and Circus double chance (£194 total outlay) with no return, so a slow start to the festive month. Tuesday we headed back to Circus for their flagship monthly tournament, this time joined by George and no return on investment between us.

On Thursday 9th I got new Teamdobbs signing Andy ‘KQ4EVA’ Blair in the tank, when I launched this interview it proved to be the most popular FTP post to date. The feedback I got through FTP, NPF, facebook, and in person was nothing short of phenomenal, I guess it goes someway to showing how nice a guy Andy is but also how popular the FTP Interview series is with our followers. Check this out over;

Interview w/Andy Blair

The following Friday (10th) I abandoned the Circus weekly tournament to hit it up with the Walkers Sensation’s for their Christmas night out, these are all ace guy’s who as well as top players are all my good friends. Cliff notes;

- Lunch and pints at Brockwell Seam, Cramlington (12:00)
- Drinking games all day with Saturday Crew (12:00-20:00)
- Taxi to Osborne’s, Jesmond (20:00)
- Double vodka redbulls with Walkers Sensations (20:00)
- Taxi to Beyond, The Gate (22:00)
- Bar crawl with Walkers Sensations (no idea which bars) (23:00)
- 50NL at Aspers, The Gate (00:00)
- FYEO for some dances (alone, weirdo) (02:00)

Left to right: Neil Harvey, Adam Matues, Dave Mount

The theme was Christmas jumpers, which will go someway to explaining why their all wearing those trendy knitted tops. Check out an ace review of the evening over NPF by Walkers Sensations affiliate Dave ‘FarmerDave’ Mount;

Sensations Xmas Night out Review (just to help Buzzzz remember)

It was the first of many of drunken Christmas nights out, all of which I’ll mention at some point in this recap. Back to our usual weekly schedule on Sunday (12th), Tuesday (14th), and Friday (17th) where we played all the added value and guarantee tournaments across Circus and Aspers, again nothing in return despite a couple of deep runs.

Note: FTP affiliate Dan Trett (as far as I know) is the only person to have played both the Aspers (£50 freezeout) and Circus (£20 +1 Rebuy) on Sundays for the three week’s they’ve both been running concurrently. A record closely followed by Mark Trett and Andy Blair, who with several other’s have played in both events two out of three time’s. Not really anything to be proud of but M’EH, show’s I’ve got going bust in the opening level’s boxed. Anyway this is a run that came to an end as of Sunday 19th, as you will go on to read it was FTP’s Christmas party which stopped me playing my regular Sunday schedule.

On a side note the Grosvenor launched their new schedule (effective as of 17th January 2011) on Monday 13th December, this got mixed reactions and was heavily debated over the NPF. I’m personally excited about all the added value tournament’s for next year (£2,500 per a week over Grosvenor alone), but also pessimistic about the longevity of the current tournament situation in Newcastle. With so many added value tournaments across all three Newcastle casino’s we like the rest of the Newcastle poker community will have to be selective over our weekly choices, it’s fine for those guys who are new to the game and are keen to play seven nights a week but the majority simply can’t be arsed. Our loyalty is with Circus so this will always be our first choice and when no tournaments there we’ll look to Aspers and Grosvenor, also in the foreseeable future with so much added value in Newcastle our trips to Teesside will be few and far between. It just doesn’t make sense to travel fifty miles down the road for a £1,000 added tournament, when their is a local one on our doorstep. Check out the new Grosvenor schedule posted over the NPF by CRM Phil ‘The Big Cheese’ Chambers;

17th January 2011 New Schedule Launch

Saturday 18th was the third Saturday of the month which meant Teesside were hosting their monthly £100 freezeout, this was part of our monthly schedule but as of late we haven’t been getting down for one reason or another. Again we didn’t go and I went out with friends whilst Mark was at his work’s Christmas party, like I said earlier in this recap it’s unlikely we’ll be travelling down Teesside as much with all the added value tournaments on our doorstep. Then Sunday (19th) it was my Grandma’s eightieth birthday and we (by we I mean, Mark, Steve, Mum, Uncle John, Auntie Alison, Cousin Andrew, & Myself) had all agreed to head up to Alnwick Gardens for a meal at the Treehouse restaurant, however it was like an episode of Fawlty Towers as honestly everything that could go wrong did. Cliff notes;

- On the road: Cramlington > Alnwick (12:30)
- Driving conditions worsen further North
- Arrive Treehouse, Alnwick Gardens (14:00)
- Power cut across most of Northumberland (14:30)
- Restaurant closes, all we get is some complementary drinks (15:00)
- On the road: Alnwick > Cramlington (15:15)
- Driving conditions horrific, police say avoid driving at all costs
- Jack-knifed lorry on A1, delays for several hours (16:00)
- Take country roads, barely visible due to cloud of snow (16:30)
- Arrive Snowy Owl, Cramlington (17:00)
- Three course meal, my Grandma got to see us all together (17:30)

All’s well that ends well I guess and least we finally got together to celebrate with my Grandma, this however did have a knock on effect to my evening plans. It was FTP’s Christmas poker party over at the Killingworth Arms, which was scheduled for 18:30 beginning with a Christmas dinner. I rang Paul to explain we were running late and we’d skip the Christmas dinner as we’d just ate, moving on to cliff notes for the evening;

- On the road: Snowy Owl > Killingworth Arms (19:15)
- £72 NLH freezeout: Cards in the air (19:30)
- Tournament break: Cheeseboard & Play Your Cards Right (22:00)
- Split the tournament four ways for £450 each (23:30)

It was an awesome evening with a bunch of cool additions including a bounty on every player’s head, these were envelopes containing various stuff like cash, bottles of booze, Killingworth Arms vouchers etc. Finally I closed the evening (early morning) by grinding the 100NL for a couple of hours before Paul closed up around 01:00, so yeah although a frustrating start to the day it all worked out well in the end. Then the week before Christmas I might as well camped in Circus as they had their annual tag team tournament (Monday), weekly £2,000 guaranteed (Tuesday), and the Christmas league final (Thursday) which all unfortunately ended in zero return on investment for me but M’EH whatever.

Next up was Christmas eve and it’s tradition for me to hit it up in Cramlington village, so here goes with the cliff notes;

- Lunch and pints at Brockwell Seam, Cramlington (12:00)
- Drinking games all day with Saturday Crew (12:00-20:00)
- Taxi to Blagdon, Village (20:00)
- Here I met Dan Trotter, a dealer from Circus and an ace lad
- Blagdon: Double vodka redbulls and shots with Dan (20:00)
- Village Club: Double vodka redbulls and shots with Dan (22:00)
- San Lorenzo: Double vodka redbulls and shots with Dan (00:00)
- I was absolute wasted and lost Dan but found Michael Douglass
- Michael Douglass (AKA Dougy) is one of my best friends from school
- Phoenix: Double vodka redbulls and shots with Dougy (02:00)
- By now my bed is calling and I turn in (03:00)

Daniel Trotter

So I’m sure you can all imagine I was hugely hung-over for Christmas day, but M’EH what’s new;

- Morning with my Mum and Steven (11:00)
- Visited my Grandma, Uncle, Auntie, and Cousin (12:00)
- Visited my Dad and Carol (14:00)
- Visit from Mark, Diane, Lauryn, and Zach (15:00)
- Christmas lunch with Mum and Steven (16:00)
- Evening watching Christmas TV with Mum (17:00-01:00)

So yeah Christmas day itself was fine I guess, not how Dan Trett usually spends Saturday’s but whatever. It was nice to see all the family and just relax, even if I was feeling a little under the weather. That brings us onto Boxing day which is always an ace day and this year was no different, as it’s a day I set aside for drinking and I was out with my Uncle Paul. Unfortunately due to other commitments their was only the two of us from the family this year, but nonetheless a smashing day. Cliff notes;

- Lunch and pints at Killingworth Arms (12:00)
- £50 NLH freezeout at Aspers: Cards in the air (16:00)
- Busto, so play some roulette/blackjack (17:30)
- Bar crawl round town, joined by Scotty Hocking (19:00)
- Binge drinking (double vodka red bull) & prop bets (odd man out) ensued
- Paul turns in, left with Scotty & I (23:00)
- Circus, decided we’ll go to Gibraltar to see Marc Mulhern (00:00)
- Taxied by Andy Blair AKA BlairDAWG at least on that night (01:00)
- Passport run: Circus > Scotty’s > Mine > Newcastle airport (03:00)
- DISASTER: No flights to Gibraltar (lack of planning I suspect)
- Deliberated about going somewhere else, but stay in UK (05:00)

Scotty Hocking

I guess everything didn’t go to plan but whatever still a smashing day/night, also on a final note regarding that night I would like to extend my thanks to Andy Blair who is simply a top man for putting up with our drunken profanities. Andy has actually posted a thread over the NPF, which details the shenanigans and is really funny. You can check it out here;

2 Idiots Abroad

For those of you not familiar with Odd Man Out (as briefly mentioned in the cliff notes), it was shown to me by Paul circa 2001 and it’s been very popular on family nights out ever since. I’ll explain below;

Odd Man Out
The game is played either heads up or three handed, all it requires is all players have a few notes of the same value. The rules of the game are simple, you randomly scrunch the note up in your hand and then communally open up the note revealing it’ serial number.
Heads Up
The winner is the player with the first odd number at the end of the note’s serial number, in the event of a tie with both players having an odd/even then the note is thrown into the pot and both players need to get another note (now the pot is doubled with the original stake and the rebuy). This process is continued until eventually there is an odd vs. even scenario, the player who holds an odd scoops pot.
Three Handed
The winner is the player who is the odd man out (so a little different in that it doesn’t have to be an odd number at the end of the note’s serial number to win). Again in the event of a tie, for example all three players have odd/even numbers then all the notes are thrown into the pot and all three players need to reload with another note. This process is continued until eventually there is an odd man out scenario, this can be one odd vs. two evens’ or vice versa.
Surrender
If a player either can’t or doesn’t want to rebuy, then they surrender all notes currently invested. If this happened during a heads up game, then the opponent would scoop the pot, however if this happened during a three handed game then they would revert to heads up rules until a winner was crowned.

I know FTP has enough degenerate drinking/gambling followers to make that explanation worthwhile, so to all enjoy and try not to play with fifty pound notes as it can have ridiculous swings (I know from experience, unfortunately).

So after the chaos of the festive season thing’s quietened down and I rested all Monday before taking back to the felt on Tuesday (28th) for Circus’ weekly £2,000 guaranteed. George, Kevin, and I were all in the field, and after running pretty well throughout the tournament I managed to split evenly for £360 each with my good friends Robert Richardson, Dave Stephenson, and Jack Allen.

This brings us to the present (Thursday 30th) and I'm currently just chilling out for a couple of day's away from the felt and the bar, kind of preparing for New Year's Eve tomorrow. I have no plans set in stone to see off 2010 but it's looking like I'll either hit it up at Daniel Trotter & Ian Robson's house party or head to Seahouses where a few of my boys have a cottage booked for the weekend. I was at the cottage last new year and it was fine I guess, but I'm in no hurry to rush back so the house party looking the more appealing offer for the minute. Whatever I get up to be sure to check out my January 2011 Recap, where I will for sure detail the evening with hopefully some photo's to accompany the description.

Looking forward to the opening month of 2011 and January look’s relatively busy, not including the weekly/monthly added value tournaments here is what’s happening;

Saturday 1st January: Circus £40 Double Chance “£500 Added”
Monday 3rd January: Mark Trett’s Birthday “32nd”
Friday 7th January: Tenerife Vacation “Dan, Steve, George, Paul, Kevin, Rob”
Saturday 8th January: SPT £100 Second Leg “Aspers”
Monday 17th January: Kevin Trett’s Birthday “44th”
Monday 17th January: Grosvenor Launch New Schedule “£2,500 Added”
Saturday 29th January: APAT UK Team Championship “Mark in Team NPF”

I’m really looking forward to hitting up some winter sun in the Canary Islands, we’ll be staying at Paul’s villa in Los Cristianos just a five minute walk from the vibrant nightlife of Playa de las Americas. I’ll look to mix the trip up with;

- Poker
- Sunbathing
- Drinking
- Girls (Optimistic)
- Restaurants
- Bars & Clubs
- Casino de Tenerife

Guess I’ll sign off for now by wishing all my friends and readers;

All the best for 2011

Interview w/Andy Blair

2010-12-09T20:16:00.014Z

Andy Blair (left) is a frequent NPF poster and a regular loitering around Newcastle casinos when not grinding online, as well as a genuine nice guy whom I personally always enjoy sitting with at the table.

I caught up with Andy and asked a number of interesting questions, some serious poker related and others comical. Welcome to FTP mate, I hope you enjoy your visit and all FTP readers enjoy going in the tank with December’s guest Andy “KQ4EVA” Blair.

DT “When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc that were instrumental for you?.”

AB “I actually played live bf online, which is unusual. I wandered into Aspers a bit pissed after work night out, sat at the £1/£2 cash with the minimum £50 sit-down. The table sharks were licking their lips no doubt, but I proceeded to smash every flop and I left about 3 hrs later about £450 to the good. EZ game or so I thought. Of course this was actually the start of my losers apprenticeship (thankfully now served) as I began playing more and more regularly. I diversified into tourneys, also began playing online and so on.

Inspirational players really at that time when I began playing there was no where near the amount of coverage and info on poker as their is now, So its not big name pros. Probably biggest influence was James Browning, Basically the guy was always a pleasure to sit with (still is), tourney or cash, but always took time to be pleasant, ask how things were, what u playing how u doing etc, and just snippets here and there, suggestion of something I should read and so forth. Effectively he alerted me (bit of self realisation too) to the fact I knew so little about the game. (I know at same time he was discussing things with me he was equally trying and very successfully at that to take my money). I also watched the guy interview Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari on the poker channel on sky, I never missed this show -Kara Scott a big draw too to be fair.

I have read a load of books and like all the standard tourney stuff from Harrington, Sklansky etc, but my favourite author is John Vorhaus, cos he really gets u thinking about the application of knowledge, not just passive reading. Equally love Treat your poker like a business by Dusty Smidt (not that I have one ounce of that mans determination to succeed).”

DT “Your screen name over NPF is KQ4EVA and your online alias is SNGKID, how did these come to fruition? Do you have any other nicknames?.”

AB “I dint really put much thought into screen names (wish I had, some ppls are really clever, mines a bit poor tbh) The KQ one on forum, just came out of a hand I like to play, I didn’t want the obv AA stuff and as mentioned above I used to listen to James browning who effectively said KQ rules in un-raised pots. Usually its a monster when it hits top pair cos AK and AQ hands have usually raised up. It also has more str8 potential and its the nut str8 whenever u make it.

I have been playing on SNGKID and KIDSNG for best part of this year and those names were pretty much cos I wanted a young image hence the kid, and i was playing mainly sngs at around time I set these up, I also have a young girl avatar over at tilt. Cos even though I know the ladies of the game are to be respected, I think in the male ego driven world of poker If even just the odd player thinks I am some inexperienced meek girly who can be outplayed then that’s gotta work to my favour. I cant be three betting them with air can I really?.”

DT “Which super power would you like to have and why?.”

AB “In a poker sense its not even a super power it would be the conviction to fold when I know I am beat. If you want a superpower then it would be the power to make even the most miserable bastard see the funny side of things, cos we gotta get some pleasure from life. I mean I tired to crack some funnies with Davey Knight the other week - brushwood, bad karma etc. Here I would have evoked my power, Davey and I giggling our tits off about me cracking his monster with 92, ah lets have a drink Andy, f**k you played that bad and still got me chips, ha ha , pls loosen my corset Andy my sides are splitting.”

DT “Poker, skill or luck?.”

AB “Wow poker is so much more than either or both of these combined. Many skilful players wont win in long run due to other defects in their makeup, but then you all know that. I think its a golf quote, but the harder I practice the luckier I get is worth applying to your poker. I quite enjoy hearing how Mark the shark or Ifriker Ali or whomever are so lucky yet ppl fail to see that these guys have plenty talent too. Give me skill, discipline and dedication (I don’t have them ,but please give me them) - luck is just what we like to use as a scapegoat for our failings most of the time. People just don’t get probability, If Something has a greater than 0% chance of happening then somewhere at some time it will happen - accepting its easier to write these words than it is to handle losing when we feel we should have won.”

DT “Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with, Stevie Sensation or Machine? Why?.”

AB “Don’t I get to choose to throw myself head first down the stairs rather than take the lift ? Sensh is a keyboard warrior who likes to be controversial and machine is just way too ready to post the first thing that pops into his head and then get defensive when he gets flamed. Stuck in the lift with pair of them machine 20 schemes a minute to get us rescued, Sensh calling him a tard, oh and me doing a Simmy in my head - " Fuck my life, fuck my life, fuck my life" If I had to choose then it would be Sensh, let machine get on with enjoying his family life and his dreams, Sensh has nothing to give up and I might even have him eating with a knife and fork by the time we are freed.”

DT “Favourite and worst Hold’em hands?.”

AB “Obv I love to look down at the bullets, but as you know I like KQ too, and I love small connectors of course. I kinda hate the hard to play hands. I really don’t like all the off-suit Ace rag hands for the obv reasons of not knowing if your good when u hit.”

DT “Where would you go if you had a time machine? Why?.”

AB “I much prefer live in the moment, but that’s not to say I might not go back in time and put right a few of my own life mistakes or those made by historical figures. No I have decided I don’t have the right to play god, so its in the moment. shit this is like quantum leap u can go and do so much good or be so selfish too. Maybe I could just go back a handful of years, when I was a rather dashing younger than now Dermot O’Leary look alike, put myself into a spot to meet the then Cheryl Tweedy and boom Mrs Blair, cos she nahs I am worth it.”

DT “Most favourite poker tournament you’ve ever played in? Why?.”

AB “Would have to say all the NPF events are pure brilliant to play in and be part of bf, during and of course the banter after the event too on the forum. I don’t have any super major scores to speak of, but have won considerably more money in online tourneys than any live event - but the live stuff is just different gravy for the whole poker experience. This years NPF champs as much for all the great comments, backing and plaudits I got, as well as the fact I think I played a pretty good tourney too.”

DT “What’s your funniest memory from high school/college life?.”

AB “Had to be a trick I played on my brother when we were younger - school age, but this wasn’t at school. We were probably 14 and 13 respectively at time and it was a hot summer day and me him and a bunch of our mates were out messing around on our bikes. We lived near a boating lake and as i said it was a scorcher and loads of ppl having picnics, lazing about etc. He wanted me to buy him a King cone from the iccy and I said i would if he did a dare, which was to ride full speed off the jetty into the lake in front of everyone shouting “jerronimo”. he took a bit of persuading and the usual - u sure u not gonna welsh (grim) me. nah mint choc chip if u do it. it was like a cross between jackass and you’ve been framed - as he does the full speed stunt screaming jerronimo to a disbelieving crowd with devastatingly funny full head over heels flip as he hits the raised edge of the jetty. Hilarious, and to top it all the iccy drives off just as he is dragging himself and bike from the lake. LOL don’t think they make king cones anymore, still owe him that to this day.”

DT “I know you’re a profitable small stakes player online across a number of poker variants, do you feel your edge is bigger in say an online $10 razz tournament compared to a live £50 NLH tournament?.”

AB “Not sure I have an edge in live £50 NLH live tourneys, so would have to say Razz online, where my results presently over a reasonable sample suggest I do have an edge. I don’t think I am dead money locally but at same time it wouldn’t take me very long to list a load of players who I rate certainly more highly than me. fatfish, Ifrikher Ali, mrmagoogle, buzz, Samj19, JGEEK, GazWalker, the whole Stumpy clan, the Trett Taliban, the Costa killers - and the list goes on. If you aren’t in the above your probably on page two of players who own my sole.”

DT “You found a genie in a lamp, three wishes?.”

AB “Here goes;
1) Bad beat stories and threads would be no more.
2) A room for Sensh and machine would appear and they would sort their shit, maybe even TD, Scott and Pads make friends.
3) A happy life for my kids and other family and friends, well actually lets just do world peace and happiness and I think that takes care of 1 and 2 also (gay post fully expected by Phlmc).”

DT “Most favourite variant of poker and why?.”

AB “I haven’t found a format I don’t liked and I keep trying. I enjoy horse, 7 game, 10 game mix a lot. I think it keeps u from getting bored and if your decent at a handful of the games and as long as your not terrible at the others then u have a head start. I will list the games I play in roughly the order I enjoy them (that’s not by profit btw) It can be a mood thing though and one thing I will say is I find huge field tourneys very frustrating I have to really be in mood for them or I am just making up numbers. So here’s my rough order of preference.

1) Stud H/L
2) Razz
3) NLHE
4) Stud High
5) 2-7 Triple Draw
6) Badugi
7) 5 card draw
8) Omaha H/L
9) PLO
10) 2-7 single draw
11) FLHE”

DT “Favourite movie?.”

AB “I loved The Shawshank Redemption, basically a classic. Rounder’s good for a poker enthusiast, and I also like Reservoir Dogs and that kind of stuff.”

DT “I understand your currently going through some training/tuition to improve your game, tell us a bit about that?. How do you think it‘s helped to date?.”

AB “I have done less than I would like with this but its a long term thing and the more time I find for this the more I will gain. Basically for a whole host of reasons I wanted to find a staking agreement which included coaching or alternatively pay to be coached. I ran a few small stakes on PTP all turning a profit plus stake returned to the backers, and actually making a 1k score for 1 backer from a $2.20 stake. I had to run some micros just to get someone to give me a shot. So basically got a little bit of a rep going and started to apply for not just individual tourney stakes, but full backing for mtt/sng etc to see what interest I could generate. I got a few messages and a few potential deals were taking shape. For those who don’t know u have someone offer a stake and set out the criteria they want you to meet, and u then apply, they review your application, check you out on sharkscope, OPR etc and come back to the ppl they want to give the stake to. Well I was partially interested in one offering, but the amount of coaching seemed limited and then another party from the site who had fantastic stats and a great rep on their came to me via pm and asked if we could start a skype convo and after playing and discussing my play for a while he offered me coaching and roll to play with for a 55/45 split his favour. Various other conditions and commitments from both sides.

Its going well in so much as I have shipped several lots of profit back to them (its a coaching group rather than an individual once I entered the setup), retaining my cut, and the full starting stake is intact and therefore I am not in any makeup. I have done some sweats and ghosts of their play and some HH review sessions, but less of this than I would like, lots of reasons. A shorter answer would be its early days, but positive from both sides so far.”

DT “What would you do with a billion pounds cash?.”

AB “All on black - one time.

Oh shit I have a birrion already, no need for all that roulette spin up, in which case of course I would go and sample some big live tourney action around the globe. Take care of all the family, friends. Buy and close down Sunderland AFC. Reinstate Hughton, ship him some dosh and make us the jigger.”

DT “You’re a degenerate high stakes blackjack player, what’s your thoughts on continually playing high stakes on a minus expected value house game?.”

AB “Erm -shhss - I have sounded so sensible up to now don’t u think. I reckon I am 80% normal guy and 20% degen (maybe I am kidding myself), but I don’t play expecting to win and not with money I cant afford to lose - aw how daft do I sound now. Lets just say I am working on playing less often. Its not something I recommend, in fact I am happy to discourage others in my periods of clarity on this matter. Its for fools.”

DT “What’s your affiliation with Teamdobbs? I know you have represented them on a couple of occasions in local team games, however your not recognised over their blog as an associate?.”

AB “I just made it to official status. Actually hope TD doesn’t mind me saying ALL this. But my affiliation as such started when I was looking to get involved in the team side of NPF and as a relatively light poster I didn’t have much of a rep. CGK put in a kind word, but TD didn’t really know me. So we agreed to meet at a local game soon and talk over the possibility of me playing for dobbas as a standin in the team game. We met at G when they first tried to kick off their £30,£20,£10 game. TD and I had a sit down chat bf the game and he told me a bit about the history of the team, the name, what it meant to him etc. I think for my part I blabbed about how I had been running, what I was winning etc. The game was about to begin and we broke off, he said well I don’t have a guaranteed place for u, so keep looking and GL. At time I kinda thought why ask me to have a chat about playing for the team, then tell me u don’t have a place, maybe felt a bit disheartened. Well I kept posting on forum various topics, played some NPF online games, had a few pm convos with TD, and he offers me a place to play the team game. To cut to the chase I realise now that whilst I was trying to tell him what a good poker player I was he was trying to suss out if I was actually a good person. Now u don’t tell someone your a good person u just have to demonstrate that by being yourself. Lesson for us all here in many ways. Official dobba and proud to say so. Thanks TD.”

DT “What would you most like for Christmas;

Mark “spoona999” Brewis’ Circus waistcoat?
Daniel “Full Tilit” Trett’s flip flops?
Dave “Jimmy Chipmunk” Stephenson’s Blueline taxi jacket?
Joe Peel’s Bentley motor?”

AB “Aint seen those flip flops since the snow, Is there no chance of a Mark Trett back to front cap like or the silver shades?.”

DT “What does Andy Blair like to do when not either gambling or working hard, do you have any interests, hobbies, activities you use to help you relax and chill out?.”

AB “I like a game of golf but don’t play well, I like to watch footy of course. I love to spend time with my kids, we go swimming, walking, camping, sledging more recently. Stuff like that. A pint or two with my dad or friends but not a big drinker these days.”

DT “How would you react if your transformed into Khadir “I call” Khoshawy?.”

AB “Wow that much improvement in one fell swoop. Pokers about characters, and he is certainly that.”

DT “What’s your dream NPF final table? Based on craic, ability, etc.”

AB “My dream would be to be at a final table without all the best players in Newcastle being their too, but I will have a go;

1) mrmagoogle: He simply crushes and always like some banter with him too.
2) fatfish: Doesn’t know an M from his arse, but Bulmer’s fuelled and he is unreadable and unstoppable.
3) SamJ19: I re-read a book by Tom McEvoy the other day and it was talking about the 4 bet invariably being aces - I nearly died laughing thinking specifically about Sam - A 4 bet might not even mean he has looked yet.
4) Nemesis: I have to have someone I can own, well at least in the speech play part of things, u can have the chips If I get the best of the verbal’s.
5) BOB THE GOD (GOB): Never a dull moment, great 1 liners, and tilts everyone into paying me off.
6) stumpy: Just pure class.
7) CGK: Doesn’t play often enough locally, top player and bloke.
8) knerrad: Solid player, good banter and someone needs to be drunker than fatfish
9) Dan or Mark Trett: Close match on playing ability and crack - maybe a tag team - u both cant make it one of u has to have had a CL blow up somewhere along the way
10) KQ4EVA: Self of course, well I can make up the numbers at least.”

DT “What does the close of 2010 and opening of 2011 hold for Andy Blair? Can we expect to see you frequenting the local Newcastle poker circuit?.”

AB “Some good local value popping up all over the place - so you’ll see me two/three times a week for the foreseeable. I want to bump up my online volume too. I qualified for Sky and might try and qualify for UKIPT in Newcastle too. I promised myself an away day too soon, so may well give DTD a whirl - not that i am good value for anything higher than a $6 sit n go. GL Me, and to you all.”

We here at FTP appreciate your time Andy, I’ve personally found doing this interview great and hope our followers find it equally enjoying. All at FTP would like to wish you continued success both on and off the felt, ladies and gentleman Andy Blair.

November 2010 Recap

2010-11-27T09:28:00.021Z

SUP Guys. Again a little premature but M'EH we had no success in the opening day of the month as Mark, Steve, and I all played the £50 freezeout over Aspers (Monday 1st), then we were all joined by George for the Circus £50 freezeout (Tuesday 2nd) who managed 12th place for £100.

Note: Gary (Aspers CRM) has discontinued the £500 added tournament on the 1st Monday of every month with immediate effect, this was met with mixed reactions around the tables and over the NPF. Personally I thought it was an astute move, I supported the tournament but never agreed with the reason’s (or at least the widely recognized reason’s, true or not) it was launched or it’s timing. To me it looks like Aspers and Circus are building a healthy relationship to benefit poker in Newcastle, looking to coexist spreading the value tournaments evenly across the month over both venues rather than competing for the same custom on the same dates (or within close proximity). Gary in association with Aspers has since launched a weekly £50 (+£5) freezeout with £1,000 added every Sunday afternoon (commencing 28th November), meanwhile Circus team have launched a weekly £30 (+£3) freezeout on Friday evenings this has been added to our FTP calendar.

Then the following weekend (Saturday 6th) was the most anticipated event in the Newcastle poker calendar, the most prestigious tournament of the year for all NPF affiliates I am of course talking about the 2010 NPF Championships. I was nursing a hangover after partying with friends the evening before, but M’EH nothing too serious and I was well excited. I was drawn a tough starting table (as I guess they all were) with NPFers xenocode, FarmerDave, BGR, omahaha, and GiMac amongst others all looking to take my chips. Cliff notes for the weekend;

Saturday 6th November
- Cards in the air (15:00)
- All you can eat dinner buffet in Circus restaurant (19:00)
- Dan & Mark bust level eight (22:00)

On Sunday I was in attendance alone, whilst Mark took his lovely wife Diana out to Morpeth for a meal to celebrate their sixth year wedding anniversary.

Sunday 7th November
- Bounty side event (15:30)
- Bust level three (16:30)
- Chicken baguette & fries (17:00)
- Railing main event (17:30)
- Circus weekly £2,000 guarantee (18:00)
- Main event trophy presentation (22:00)
- Split the £2,000 guarantee with Karen Newton for £580 each (03:00)

ROB ‘BSQ’ CHARLTON 2010 NPF CHAMPION

The following day (Monday 8th) Mark was on the road down Blackpool defending is Coral sponsorship at AWOP HQ, he had qualified by being the CBMPT top money earner.

Left to right: Lam Trinh, Mark English, Dominic Mahoney, Mark O’Donnell, Mark Trett, Chris Findlay, Dave Harris, Jonny Denton, Mark McCluskey, Ross Johnson, Mark Tibbo

Unfortunately Mark bust in third on the bubble after losing A5 vs. Mark English’s AJ, however it was an injustice as the board ran out Q78K8 for a split pot which went unnoticed by everybody present. Although Mark openly admits it’s his duty as a player to recognize his hand value, it was still welcomed and nice to get a public apology over AWOP from tournament director Alistair ‘The Fox’ Findlay and table dealer Chris ‘The Cub’ Findlay whom after viewing footage confirmed it was a split pot and also failed to notice. Below we have Mark’s exit hand and interview with Phil ‘The Tower’ Heald which clearly shows the board running out a split;

I think we all agree it’s an unfortunate way to bring an end to his sponsorship defence, moving on both Mark and I would like to wish Mark English (winner) and Lam Trinh (runner up) every success in 2011 (and beyond) whilst representing Coral.

Back to the felt again the following day as Mark, Steve, and I all entered the Circus weekly Tuesday (9th) tournament, which is currently going through a refurbishment so we were unfortunately out on the casino floor rather than in the card room. This was an inconvenience and in all honesty an absolute terrible environment to play cards, however I guess as Circus regulars we just have to ride the wave and look forward to the fruits at the end of the rainbow. Anyway back to the tournament and no success to report, we all bust relatively early and headed home.

No sooner had Mark left Blackpool before he dusted himself off and was back on the road down there for the eighth leg of the GUKPT, playing the £1,000 (+£70) main event on Friday 12th. I was in two minds on whether or not to join Mark, but for a number of reason’s I opted not to and instead invest in Mark taking 50% equity. Frustrating event for Mark as he missed every draw and ran his big hands into bigger ones, before eventually busting level six.

Mark’s early exit meant he was back up north the following day (Saturday 13th) in time to join my good self in the Circus monthly £50 freezeout, again no luck as Mark bust’s level four and I follow suit to the rail by level seven. Not to be deterred we were back on Sunday evening for the weekly £2,000 guaranteed, also joined in field by Steve. Neither Mark or Steven made any noise and I unfortunately bust on the bubble in eleventh after objecting to a bubble prize approximately an orbit earlier, which I’m completely at peace with and feel local prize pools are already spread too thin. We were back over again on Tuesday and I was sat to Mark’s left on a very entertaining table including Andy Blair, Karen Newton, and David Atkinson amongst a couple of Circus regulars. Mark again bust early, this time deciding to head over to Grosvenor for some 100NL action (profitable to the tune of £200 if I remember correctly). Ironically I suffered the same fate as Sunday when chip leader John Kirsopp bust me on the bubble, again what ever and you can’t win them all.

Thursday 18th I was back in Circus grinding the Christmas league they have running (although I’m falling a bit behind with that, but M’EH), anyway I bust early but caught up with Ifriker Ali and Mark Brewis before leaving. In brief Ifriker won a seat to the Genting Poker Players Championship (GPPC in future reference) but couldn’t make it due to work commitments, so he gave the seat to me (value £150) for 70/30 equity in my favour and Mark got in touch with the online guys (Gary Oakes predominantly) to ensure everything went through fine. On reflection I think I was a little generous giving way 30% considering I had to grind Genting Poker online to rake £5 in order to qualify for an additional 2,000 tournament chips, couple that with travel and accommodation but M’EH whatever.

The event was to be held on Saturday 20th November at StarCity Casino, Birmingham hosted by Mad Marty Wilson (this subsequently meant I was missing the monthly Gala, Teesside £100 freezeout for the third month in a row). I had asked Mark if he was joining me but initially didn’t seem interested, then had a last minute change of heart and decided to play late Friday evening. Although I hate travelling I was quite looking forward to this trip as I have a couple of friends there I haven’t seen in a while;

Seah Shurahi: One of my best friends from school, moved to Birmingham circa 2005 and I haven’t seen or spoke with him since.

Imtiaz Dungarwalla: Newcastle based poker player a couple of years ago, moved back to Birmingham circa 2008 to be closer to family.

As I was freerolling the tournament buy-in and Mark was supplementing the travel/accommodation with me, this in theory would be a relatively cheap visit. But then again I am Dan Trett, needless to say it got rather expensive. Cliff notes;

Saturday 20th November
- Cards in the air (14:00)
- Mark bust level one (14:30)
- Mark drives to DTD for super £50 (+£8) (15:00)
- Dan bust level four (18:00)
- Few pints with Saboo in StarCity bar (18:30)
- All you can eat dinner buffet in StarCity restaurant (20:00)
- Rang Mark to explain I was staying over & to head home (20:30)
- Bar crawl with Saboo (21:00)

Left to right: Jamie Wilkinson, Rick Gilby, Alan Barnacle, Dave Garden, Dan Trett

Note: All Sunday’s early morning activities are a result of the bar crawl with Saboo, so all events detailed he was right by my side.

Sunday 21st November
- Air nightclub for double vodka redbulls (01:00)
- Legs eleven gentleman’s club for some dances (03:30)
- Back to StarCity for some £2 blackjack (05:00)
- Checked into the Hampton Hilton, Birmingham (07:00)
- All you can eat breakfast buffet in hotel restaurant (11:00)
- Watched the Blackburn vs. Aston Villa match (13:30) Saboo Villa fan
- Said goodbyes to Saboo (16:00)
- Train: New St. Birmingham > Newcastle Central Station (16:30)
- Arrive Newcastle (19:30)
- Circus £2,000 guaranteed, two hours late (20:00)
- Bust on penultimate table (01:00)

So yeah I spent somewhere north of £1,000 all in, but M’EH I had an absolute ace memorable night with one of my best friends. It reminds me of the advert;

Night out in Birmingham: £150
Dances of strippers: £200
Night in Hampton, Hilton: £170
Train home: £80
Catching up with an old friend after five years: PRICELESS

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see Imtiaz as he had friends visiting that weekend, so if your reading buddy sorry I missed you and we will for sure hit it up next time. Both Mark and I played the weekly Tuesday (23rd) tournament over at Circus, again with no success to report. Then the closing Saturday (28th) of the month I was out celebrating my birthday, my birthday isn’t until Wednesday (December 1st) but obviously chose to go out the weekend before.

I was also looking to qualify for the Sky Poker Tour second leg which was to be held at Aspers on January 8th, so I decided to take my Apple iPad out to grind the nightly online satellite (It was the only way to qualify, or I would have just bought in direct). This would seem very strange (I agree 100%) but their was some method to my madness, I was acutely aware the 135 capacity was drawing near (approximately 116 gone at that point) and with near enough 5 seats a night going every night I had my hand forced to play if I wanted a give myself a good chance of winning a seat. Anyway I played whilst unbelievably mortal, downing treble vodka redbulls in Perdu and somehow managed to run well enough to take down a seat. Cliff notes for the night;

- Lunch and pints at Brockwell Seam, Cramlington (15:00)
- Met all Saturday Crew, about 15 in total (16:00)
- Happy hour at Three Mile Inn, Gosforth (17:00)
- Bar crawl round town (Perdu, Revolution, Floritas, etc) (19:00)
- £30 (+£3) Freezeout, Aspers (21:00)
- Won SPT seat (23:30)
- Headed home (02:00)

Finally making it home after waiting somewhere north of an hour for a taxi (loads of taxis had gone off the road due to the treacherous snow conditions), I finally got speaking to a lad from my way who had his daughter coming to pick him up (again because he couldn’t get a taxi). He very kindly offered me a lift which I snap accepted and of course gave him a few quid to thank him for the very kind gesture, anyway small world as when I was talking to him it turns out he worked with my good friends and regular FTP readers Peter Newton & David Atkinson. I didn’t get the guy’s full name, but his nickname was Pricey and he was a top bloke.

So the following morning (Sunday 29th) I was editing my FTP calendar to show both Mark and I playing the SPT Aspers leg on January 8th, when I realise I’m not even in the country as I fly to Tenerife for a week at my uncles villa on Friday 7th January. Anybody with some common sense would have checked they were available before grinding the online satellites, but because I’m a dork I didn’t and now have a seat I can’t even play but M’EH never mind. Anyway moving on and both Mark and I headed over to Aspers later that afternoon to support their new weekly £50 freezeout with £1,000 added, this promises to be a brilliant addition to our calendar although on this occasion the snow effect numbers a little bit but nothing to worry about. It still generated north of 100 entrants, unfortunately I bust in second level and headed over to Circus for their Sunday evening tournament. No luck again and I was home by 22:00 for an early night, however as far as I know Mark is still in the Aspers tournament (I’m finishing this at like 22:00 on Sunday evening) so hopefully his luck can hold up as he charges for the win.

Moving on to December which although I’m kind of a Christmas grinch, it promises to be an exciting month both on and off the felt. Not including the weekly added value tournaments over Circus and Aspers (which we will of course be supporting), here is our December schedule;

Saturday 4th December: DTD £300 (+£36) “Deepstack”
Tuesday 7th December: Circus £50 (+£5) “£500 Added”
Saturday 11th December: Circus £50 (+£5) “£500 Added”
Saturday 18th December: Gala, Teesside £100 (+£10) “£1,000 Added”
Monday 20th December: Circus Tag Team Tournament
Sunday 26th December: Circus £50 (+£5) “£1,000 Added”

Note: The Boxing day tournament over at Circus was part of their Christmas schedule, however after seeing it directly clashes with the weekly Aspers Sunday tournament I’m under the impression it is subject to change. However it was still in their schedule when I launched this post, and assuming it stays put both Mark and I will be supporting this over it’s Aspers counterpart.

So with all these added value tournaments (and a cheeky tag team in the mix for novelty) coupled with some ace nights out with friends and family, it look’s like December could be a lot of fun. That’s me signing off for 2010 guys, I’ll be making a post early January to review December 2010 but for now I’d just like to close by wishing all our friends, followers, fans, and readers a…

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

FTP 1st Birthday

2010-11-07T03:33:00.009Z

Hey Guys. It’s been over a year since I launched FTP on November 2nd 2009, so this is kind of a belated birthday post where I’ll take time to reflect on how far we’ve come in our opening year. Shortly after we launched FTP we followed it up with an official FTP facebook page, this was greatly received as our members list just grew and grew. We currently have north of 1,500 fans over facebook, if you have an active personal facebook account please support our group. Follow the widget below for our group;

On a sour note and I guess coins the philosophy ‘for every good there is an equal bad’ we have an almost dormant FTP twitter account which is a stark contrast to our popular ever updated FTP facebook group. The twitter account was launched to provide live in-running updates of our tournament schedule, however after tweeting our first tournament I found it very tedious and didn’t give it a second chance. This is disappointing as I have launched a ‘Live Tournament Updates’ section on FTP to work in association with our twitter account, so FTP fans without a twitter account can still closely follow our tournament progress via FTP. I don’t expect to run live updates for our usual light schedule, however I will make every effort to run updates via twitter for the more prestigious tournaments we enter during FTP’s second year.

The increase in traffic to FTP has meant when searching for ‘Full Trett Poker’ via Google we have an impressive 2,500+ hits, I hope we can continue to build on our popularity and hits in our second year.

Although Google offers us worldwide publicity we are acutely aware our regular loyal readers are locally based in Newcastle, for this reason FTP has it’s own thread over the NPF dedicated to our blog which I understand is one of the most popular threads within the NPF blogs section. See link below to the FTP unique NPF thread;

Full Trett Poker Blog

This boasts almost 250 replies and astonishingly nearly 10,000 views, it gives us great satisfaction knowing that our friends around the local Newcastle casinos are still enjoying FTP as much now as they did a year ago the day it was launched. In recognition of this support we share links with a host of very popular Newcastle bloggers including;

Teamdobbs (Team captained by Dave Collins)
Marc Mulhern
Ross Johnson

Amongst several others. Other notable achievements are our blog comments which if I remember correctly is somewhere near 250, albeit a lot of those are replies from both myself and Mark to fans comments but whatever still impressive. Although predominantly a poker related blog, anybody that knows me will know I find endless discussions about hands and theory to be boring. I don’t mind it in moderation but I took FTP in a more easy reading direction, involving our poker exploits and experiences both on and off the felt. This if you ask me proved pretty popular amongst our readers with;

Interviews (In The Tank With…)
Trip Reports (Travelling Misdemeanours)
Calendar

Three of our most popular sections, the first two neither talk in any detail about poker levels and the calendar is useful for both affiliates and fans to know which casino/card room we can be found loitering around. Recently I signed FTP up to http://www.pokerwonks.com/ in September 2010, this is a site for blogs containing poker content. It provides updated content from 100+ poker blogs globally, signing up gives FTP the perfect platform to expand our audience and build on our already impressive following.

One piece of advice I will pass onto fellow bloggers, not that I’m in a position to be lecturing after a year of blogging I’m still very much a novice but whatever. In order to maximise the longevity of your blog and to keep your enthusiasm it’s imperative your blog evolves with you, for example see a few changes I made over time to help keep my motivation;

Hands, Theory, & Levels: I started FTP hoping to discuss in detail some difficult spots but quickly realized this wasn’t the direction I wanted to take FTP, this evolved and I can say for sure if I tried to polarize FTP to strategy discussions I would have walked away from it a long time ago.

Acronyms & Abbreviations: I originally started FTP using a number of short handed a acronyms and abbreviations to help me type quicker, this wasn’t welcomed very well by my readers and I got several requests to cut them out. I was reluctant to do this but gave power to the people and began writing excluding all acronyms and abbreviations, pretty quickly I was surprised that it actually wasn’t much slower and now much prefer FTP without (or at least very few) abbreviated text.

Labels & Sections: I’m always looking to add innovate exciting new sections to the blog, some in the past have proved popular and others not so much. For example our Interviews and Trip Reports section are both very well received but our Heads Up section although has potential never got going passed the initial CGK vs. MBK feature. But whether my new sections succeed or fail it’s the challenge that keeps me motivated, and in turn helps the longevity of FTP.

Finally I would like to say a huge thank you from all at FTP to every single one of our loyal fan base, we really do appreciate all your feedback (positive and negative) and continued support.

Here’s to FTP’s second year.

Monthly Recaps

2010-10-31T09:25:00.020Z

Below are links to our monthly recaps/digest posts, beginning in July 2010 and working chronologically towards the present. These detail all FTP affiliates monthly/regular exploits both on and off the felt, giving a brilliant insight into our day to day affairs.

July 2010 "FTP crowned Grosvenor world cup tag team champions"
August 2010 "Dan Trett leaves Cubs after 13 months service"
September 2010 "Gary Ramsay leaves Circus to join Aspers"
October 2010 "Marc Mulhern leaves Newcastle emigrating to Gibraltar"
November 2010 "Rob 'BSQ' Charlton crowned 2010 NPF champion"
December 2010 "Dan Trett's Christmas festivities"

Note: As of 2011 the monthly recaps were replaced with the less regular Trett digest series, see links below.

Trett Digest Volume 01 "Team FTP flew to Tenerife for some winter sun"
Trett Digest Volume 02 "Joe Peel died March 13th 2011"
Trett Digest Volume 03 "David Atkinson wins 2011 NPF anniversary cup"
Trett Digest Volume 04 "NPF closes indefinitely/NEPF opens for business"
Trett Digest Volume 05 "UKIPT Report/Las Vegas Schedule"
Trett Digest Volume 06 "Ibiza 2011 build up"
Trett Digest Volume 07 "James Howard leaves Aspers to join Circus"
Trett Digest Volume 08 "Dave Collins suffers heart attack in Majorca"
Trett Digest Volume 09 "Dan visits Blackpool & Las Vegas for the 2nd time in 2011"
Trett Digest Volume 10 "Dan finishes 2nd in SPT Newcastle for £2,750"

Note: The smaller red italic text is just the highlight (or interesting story) of the month, for full monthly synopsis follow the links.

These are for all FTP followers to read at their leisure, we do hope you’ve had a pleasant visit so far here at FTP and enjoy your chosen monthly recap/digest volume.

October 2010 Recap

2010-10-31T07:38:00.017Z

Hey Guys. Awesome opening weekend of the month so FTP affiliates Mark and Dan head to Chester-le-Street on Saturday 2nd October for our good friend Dawn Wills 40th birthday party, the drink was flowing and the banter was great with exceptional company. Here’s some photo’s courtesy of Alison McAree which are worth 1,000 words;

On the tail of that night our usual busy start to the month ensued with the Circus £2,000 guaranteed (Sunday 3rd), Aspers £500 added (Monday 4th), and finally the Circus £1,000 added (Tuesday 5th). A collective total outlay of £304 between Mark and I, fortunately I split the £2,000 guaranteed with the adorable Rachael Costa for £525 each which gave us a modest individual profit of £110 across the three events. Quick mention to both Jimmy of Circus and Gary of Aspers who did brilliantly to have two fantastic back to back tournaments with Circus generating 167 runners and Aspers 102, like I said over the NPF Gary’s transfer can only be good news for players. To my knowledge 167 entrants over at Circus is the biggest £50 event to have been held in Newcastle;

After a couple of rest days I was back out in Newcastle for a friends birthday on Friday 8th October, another unbelievably messy night but the upshot of this was I had a bouncing head for the £50 freezeout at Circus on Saturday afternoon. Their is normally £500 added to this tournament, however for a one off Jimmy had decided to add a £1,300 package which included;

£1,000 (+£80) The Big Game
£220 Travel & Accommodation

The event is to be held in The Palm Beach Casino down London and is scheduled for Monday 1st November, so in the event I’m successful in winning this seat I’d be travelling directly from my ‘NPF Blackpool Jolly’ to London. Which albeit is not the best preparation, but whatever guess I’ll be ok. Unfortunately I didn’t have this problem as I bust in level four before heading home for a Chinese takeaway and an early night, the following day (Sunday 10th October) I had the same fate as I again bust level four and was home pretty sharp.

I had my usual Tuesday evening visit to Circus for there evening tournament (this is an identical tournament to what they have on a Sunday but without the unrestricted guarantee, in order for Circus to guarantee the Tuesday game at £2,000 they require 50 players). They did manage to gather the 50 players in order to generate the £2,000 guarantee but neither Mark or I were in on the spoils as I bust in the twenties and Mark was the final table bubble in eleventh. I was back out a couple of days later on Thursday 14th for one of the Circus dealers birthday celebrations, I have a vague memory of this due to stupid amounts of vodka red bull so we’ll go with cliff notes;

- Vodka red bulls during happy hour at Osborne’s with Mark Brewis
- Spy bar with Circus dealers and friends
- More drinks in town “I actually have no idea which bar(s)”
- £30 (+£3) Circus Tournament

Then enjoyed some rest days before Saturday 16th which was the date for our friends Steve and Alison’s engagement night out, I headed out to meet Steve & Alison (AKA Mr. & Mrs. Fatfish) as well as Steve & Dawn (AKA Mr. & Mrs. CGK) and other friends at Pitcher and Piano on the Quayside. Another awesome drunken night with little to zero memory, cliff notes;

- Heinekens at Pitcher and Piano
- Tapas at La Tasca
- Vodka red bulls at Pitcher and Piano
- Blackjack and cocktails at Grosvenor

I would have accompanied this engagement recap with some ace photos but unfortunately Alison had her bag stolen in the Grosvenor at the end of the night, which had the camera in with all the photos.

Saturday 16th was also the third Saturday of the month which meant it was FTP’s monthly trip to Teesside for the £100 freezeout, however after I had said I was off out in town Mark decided not to travel alone so unfortunately no member of FTP was in the October field. As things stand neither of us have anything planned for Saturday 20th November, so we’ll both be looking to get back to business as usual and back down there for this fantastic value event.

Things went quite during the backend of the month whilst we reverted to our normal light weekly schedule over at Circus, however on Tuesday 26th I ended up having a random night out to send off Marc Mulhern who flew to Gibraltar on (Thursday 28th) for a career change as mentioned in my September recap. Marc, Scotty (Hocking) and I all played the weekly Circus tournament and as is likely given all our style we were bust before level four, however not looking to waste the evening we hit it up out in town on the treble vodka redbulls. Needless to say this evening turned very messy very quickly, I have vague recollection of the night which holds both sweet and sour memories but M’EH.

BYE BYE MULHUZZ

Anyway this monthly recap appears to be more focused on my nights out, so lets get back on track and discuss some poker (afterall it’s Full Trett Poker) which came in the form of the sixth and final leg of the CBMPT so both Mark and I travelled up to Edinburgh on Friday 29th October. I was actually scheduled to head north to Blackpool for Halloween weekend with a few of the NPF lads, but the trip never came to fruition so I made provisions to join Mark in Edinburgh. The schedule included an opening £200, a £500 main event, and a closing £100 and it was our intention to play both the opening and main together leaving scope for one of us to play the closing if the they other was still grinding day two of the main so as to be in the casino for the sweat and morale support. I was a little behind schedule leaving Newcastle, so I tried to get in touch with Mark in order to buy me into the opening event on Friday but he was having trouble with his phone network signal. I ended up arriving about 19:45 and missing the cut off for late registrations, I wasn’t too bothered though but in order to give me some incentive for the evening I bought 25% of Mark’s action. After having a quick bite to eat over at the buffet I wished Mark good luck and went to hit it up over at the 100NL, this was a rather fascinating table in that I was sat with five Newcastle (Whitley Bay to be exact) based poker players non of which I had ever met. They were all really nice guys and knew Tommy Dunwoodie quite well through their local snooker club, anyway just goes to show exactly how many poker players we actually have here in the North East.

I really enjoyed the craic on this table and it was made even better when I cashed out for £280 profit to sweat Mark win the £200 side event for £5,650, of which I got £1,410 for my 25%. By now it was like 5:00am so we headed back to our hotel looking to get some rest ahead of the main event the following day, staying at Edinburgh Capital Hotel which was about a 10 minute drive from the casino. We slept through until approximately 11:00am on Saturday 30th October, below are our cliff notes for the day;

- All you can eat breakfast buffet in hotel restaurant (11:00)
- Swim and sauna at hotel health and fitness club (11:45)
- Cards in the air (14:00)
- Dan bust level two (15:30)
- All you can eat lunch buffet in casino restaurant (16:00)
- Mark bust level three (16:30)
- On the road home to Newcastle (18:00)

So a relatively short stay but all the same a profitable and enjoyable weekend. That pretty much wraps things up for October (all though both Mark and I are playing the £2,000 guaranteed over Circus this afternoon but M’EH I‘ll cover that if anything exciting happens), and that’s followed by a busy start to November;

Monday 1st November: Aspers £50 (+£5) “£500 Added”
Tuesday 2nd November: Circus £50 (+£5) “£1,000 Added”
Saturday 6th November: £50 (+£5) NPF Championships 2010 “Circus”
Monday 8th November: CBMPT 2011 Sponsorship Play-Off “Mark”
Friday 12th November: £1000 (+£70) GUKPT “Mark back in Blackpool”
Saturday 13th November: Circus £50 (+£5) “£1,300 MTT package added”
Saturday 20th November: Gala, Teesside £100 (+£10) “£1,000 Added”

Note: The CBMPT 2011 Sponsorship Play-Off is assuming Tom Fielding doesn’t cash enough to over take Mark as the tours top money winner going into day two of the Edinburgh main event this afternoon, he has 35,500 so I’m sure Mark will be monitoring AWOP updates with interest today.

So yeah pretty hectic start to the month before a quite period in the backend of the month, especially for Mark who will clock some miles as he makes two trips to Blackpool within five days.

Thanks for visiting guys, good luck at the tables.

Interview w/Dave Collins

2010-10-23T06:48:00.011+01:00

Dave Collins (left) is one of two moderators (the other being his son Scott Collins) for my local forum the Newcastle Poker Forum (abbreviated as NPF in future reference during this interview).

Ahead of the NPF 2010 Championship I decided to catch up with the man behind the scenes and coincidentally the current NPF champion, after taking down the NPF 2009 Championship event. Welcome to FTP mate I’m pleased you agreed to this interview and I know for sure our readers will enjoy being in the tank with Octobers guest Dave Collins.

DT "When and how did you get started playing poker? Did you have any inspirational poker players, books, moments, shows, etc that were instrumental for you?."

DC "I first started playing poker after catching my 15 year old son online and asking what he was doing. Turns out he was actually playing poker. I soon downloaded WillHill and playing free money under the table name 'deeirun'. I soon got bored with this as being a gambler, the lure of winning money was too strong. A few Saturday afternoon freerolls later and initial success convinced me the road to riches had been invented and my first cash deposit was made. It took no time at all to be £200 down and then a £2 multi table tournament win gave me a + bankroll.
At the time, I was involved with a good friend of mine betting on football which we were very successful at losing. I thought I better not let him miss out on this chance and told him about this exciting game called poker I had been introduced to. He was soon online himself playing under the name of 'Monacokev' and within a very short period of time the wins started pouring in for both of us (Monacokev has since changed his name to the well known 'Azimut')."

DT "I understand you’re the leader of Teamdobbs, I have a few questions regarding this Newcastle based team. How was the name ‘Teamdobbs’ born? How and when was the group formed?."

DC "The name Teamdobbs was born so simple. I had branched out when I was brave enough into the world of live poker playing Friday nights mainly at the Grosvneor Casino in Newcastle where I met and became very close friends with a young lad called micky “Gyposdog” Chisholm. Each week at the Grosvenor the winner of the multi tournie was given a card marker which we named as " Dobbers " Banter began with us as to who had the most dobbers and from there we chose players who had the same sense of humour and who in our opinion were good lads cos as we all know the game is full of up their own arse wankers. The Grosvenor then on our request decided to have a " Team " event challenge and from their we selected 8 good lads ( not necessary the best 8 players ) who would form Teamdobbs. The crack this created was unreal as week after week we dominated tables with crack which no others could compete against.The prestige of being selected in Teamdobbs has now stuck with these players and the bond has remained. We now have a group of around 12 players."

DT "As mentioned in your introduction along with Scott you launched and now moderate the NPF, so I’d like to ask a few questions regarding this forum. What was your inspiration to create this community? What motivates you to keep providing exceptional NPF events for members to enjoy?."

DC "I was quite an active member on another poker forum when my son S2C suggested we start our own forum to promote local poker in the North East. I thought this was a great idea as basically the local scene was governed by the 3 Casino venues which seemed intent on cutting each others throats instead of working sensibly together. Players also lacked a lot of free information what was available and so S2C put the technical side of it together and I basically become the gob shite/front man for it and we set about promoting it. What really kick started it off and got it noticed was when we did live coverage of the GUKPT in Newcastle to follow and give the local players attention which paid off massive when local lad Ganesh Rao took down the title and that final table 3rd place finisher was no other than the now famous and WSOP Main Event Final Tabler James Akenhead.
A couple of team games played in Blackpool in AWOP & APAT events then really launched the forum into the poker scene and its simply grew and grew with the backbone of the forum based on people enjoying themselves and having good crack at games. Biggest thing that has came out of the forum is the amount of close friendships that have been formed and no matter what game you attend now in Newcastle you can go in knowing you will meet someone from the NPF and have someone to talk to instead of entering into sometimes intimidating surroundings."

DT "What’s your thoughts on the recent Sam James staking controversy over the NPF? For example how do you think it compares/differs to the Steve Gibson revelation?."

DC "We have laid down guidelines at the NPF regarding staking people but the difference between the NPF and other forums where people seek staking is the vast majority of people know each other and can easily make contact should there be any major disputes arise. All Ill say on the subject is that many many players play beyond their bankroll chasing the "big win" as they think it will solve all their aspirations. I dont believe in that as I know many of the younger players especially at the NPF where it would actually cause them more problems than they really understand. Players should simply play within their means and anyone getting staked and not playing that game should have the decency to immediately refund that money or have very good reasons why if unable to and to keep anyone involved up to date with whats happening."

DT "Following on from this I know along with Peter Newton your quite a regular and successful might I add backer, what’s your thoughts on staking in poker? Do you only invest if you see it as highly likely you’ll get an ROI or are you more motivated to give individuals a chance to play an event they otherwise wouldn’t have been bankrolled to play?."

DC "I look for many things tbh but mainly good value. Im deffo prepared to give local players an opportunity but I also would never stake anyone I didnt like."

DT "The annual NPF championships is imminent (Saturday 6th November) and last year this prestigious event was won by none other than your good self, so I’d like to cast your mind back last year and discuss this achievement. Did you find it difficult to fix so that a Teamdobbs affiliate won it two years running? In who’s favour do you intend on fixing it in this year? J/K. Seriously awesome achievement mate, was their any pivotal pots/spots which were instrumental in your victory? How does winning the NPF championships compare to your other poker achievements?."

DC "Well obvoiusly one of the Dobbas will do the honour of keeping the Champion within the camp and I reckon Stumpy, Jimmy Chipmunk or Cardguard Kid will do it. Obviously going to be very difficult for Cardguard to compere and play but if superstition has it then the Smoggie League winners have ran the same way of the NPF Champions. 1: Xenocode 2: Myself 3; Cardguard.
To win the NPF Championship meant so much to me obviously but I also know how much this game means to so many local players so was delighted I was able to take it down last year. 2 huge turning points were The renowned "Faetzy" hand when raising with Ace 10 to run into AQ & AK behind me but cudnt fold due to my stack size and value of pot even knowing Im miles behind. I get lucky making my straight and was back in the game then. I then win a huge pot late in the day with AA being shipped on by KJdd of Scotty Hockings and although he flops the world I hold and go into day 2 as chip leader which to be honest I never really looked like losing. Nice when it runs like that. I obviously hold that win as one of my best achievements for many reasons people outside of the North east may fail to truely understand."

DT "I understand away from the felt you’re the owner of DC Handrails & Ironworks Parts Ltd . and interested to know how you chose that career path? Have you always aspired to be your own boss?."

DC "lol Im a typical Leo and tbh dont like people telling me what to do but I like it the other way around. Was in steel fabrication work until I took the bull by the horns and branched out on my own in a subsidary type of buisness offering a particular service to companies like I used to work for. I did this very successfully for nearly 15 years but became bored and needed a bigger challenge so once I got the right guy to replace me on that side of the business I was doing I formed what is now known as DC Handrails & Ironwork Parts which supplies all kinds of items to fabrication and Engineering Companies. Got in at the right time tbh and particularly in the North East where we were the only people doing what we did. The business grew rapidly and is still growing with new direction coming from Scott who has joined the company and provides us with all his modern technology skills and is moving the company along alot of new paths."

DT "Activities and interests away from the poker table?."

DC "Its amazing how much time the NPF actually takes up my time but I do like travelling and hope to do alot more now Scott is established within the business. My business and family takes up alot of my time but Im also normally busy doing stuff around the house."

DT "Most favourite holiday destination?."

DC "Done alot of travelling tbh and love the Far East where they really know how to look after you properly. As a family we actually like Dominican Republic for a place to relax and chill out and I did really enjoy St Kitts Closer to home we all love Mallorca and could easily spend all summer there if other stuff allowed me. We looked to buy some property there a few years ago but property prices are far too exaggerated there and remain like that still."

DT "I know you’ve regularly got your ipod on whilst at the felt, what sort of music do you listen to whilst playing? Does it differ from music you listen to when away from the felt?."

DC "Omg I could get crucified for this. I listen to all sorts of stuff tbh ranging from up to date stuff to 70 s & 80s classics. Do like R&B with artistes like Ne Yo and lately Ive been hammering Ellie Goulding & Alicia Keys on the old ipod."

DT "Circus, Grosvenor, Aspers?"

DC "Twat of a question!!! They all have something going for them tbh from a personal point of view. G allways has a soft spot for me as its where I played alot of my poker when starting out playing live and met so so many great people there. Still my fav place for the craic and most relaxing place to play. Circus has grown on me although I only probs play there once a week if Im lucky. Cant but be impressed with how they operate and how theve turned that cardroom around and how much effort they put into the local poker scene. Have alot of time for JimmyB there who is one of the nicest and most genuine guys Ive met in the gambling industry.
Aspers have location and most luxury cardroom in the area and be interesting to see how Gary ( Ex Circus) drives their cardroom. Huge scoop for them getting the UKIPT from Poker Stars next year. Massive massive game that for the local area although Ill probably be gutted by missing it as its the same time as my annual WSOP visit to Las Vegas."

DT "I know you frequent Las Vegas regular mainly for the WSOP Seniors World Championships, in addition I know you have had deep runs in 2009 and 2010 finishing 97th and 168th respectively vs. 2,500+ player fields. Do you find the prestige of playing a WSOP event far outweighs playing a CBMPT or GUKPT for example? And how does it compare to playing NPF affiliate tournaments (Championships, Birthday game, Team challenge) for atmosphere, crack, and all round banter?."

DC "Anyone that plays poker and gets the opportunity should aim to play a WSOP Event. All about life experiences and alot of poker revolves around experience. Can never really compare how NPF do their events in comparrison to the others you gave as they simply have totally different approaches for obvious reasons. Its always nice when we get very positive and thanks for our games especially when players tell you thats the best game theve ever played in. Never under estimate the input there from Cardguard as his contribution is deffo unique to what he gives us. Dont play many of them but find GUKPT deffo tougher games than the CBMPT ones."

DT "Most favourite card room in the world to play and why?."

DC "Caesars Place but only during WSOP time as its always been very quiet outside of series time when Ive been but on last years visit I did love playing the new Aria Cardroom, Quality all around from the service to the tables to the valets.
Best tournament Ive played this year was In Mallorca for the 6th leg of the Spanish Poker Open. Deffo will play it next year and the cardroom and setting at The Mallorca Grand Casino was simply awesome."

DT "What part of poker do you dislike and why?."

DC "I really get frustrated by how so many players make the game over complicated and get all aggressive with others when they lose and in most cases its their own faults and theve played badly or not fully understood the situation and look to blame others.
I also get really annoyed at very arrogant players especially the younger element who seem to think by winning a game of poker makes them a better person. They should learn some life skills 1st and then poker 2nd. Alot of them that try to "live the dream" often end up skint and in alot of debt. They must remember that theres a hell of alot more losing players than winning players, they always seem to forget this."

DT "I understand you’ve been on a Caribbean poker cruise, how does playing on one of these luxury ships compare to playing in a brick and mortar casino? I’ve been really interested in going on a poker cruise for some considerable time but never put any wheels in motion? Do you have any companies to recommend booking any future endeavours through? Any advice appreciated."

DC "Loved the one I went on but had some quality company as well mind!!!! The ships they use are awesome and unreal tbh and I understand Ladbrokes have a very good one sailing in January. Cant be arsed to try and qualify online tbh as it doesnt interest me but theres always some packages get sold off at reasonable prices so Id keep an eye out for those nearer the time."

DT “What does the close of 2010 and opening of 2011 hold for Dave Collins? Plans for NPF? Plans for Teamdobbs?.”

DC "Some big plans & changes at work with the introduction of a new network system and alot of new products to market. Weve also invested alot of money in some new stainless steel products and hope to grow our new brand into the UK marketplace and safeguard position there. Business wise 2010 was very tough and I dont expect anything to change that much in 2011 as Im expecting a very very tough year again when you take everything into consideration regarding the economic climate we all face. Pokerwise I still need to ship one of the majors but need to cut out some bad mistakes Ive made when in a position to do.
I leave alot of the new plans and directions of the NPF to Scott and am there to promote and support him in whatever direction he steers it. Simple thing about the NPF is enjoy it as thats what its there for. Sometimes a few arseholes can try and spoil it for the majority but we will never allow that to happen and its only then that those type realise what they miss. Far too many quality people on the NPF and they will always out weigh the ************."

Thank you so much for your time Dave, I’ve really enjoyed bringing FTP fans in the tank with Dave Collins and hope you all enjoyed his views and opinions of life at and away from the felt.

Interviews

2010-10-16T09:02:00.033+01:00

Below FTP presents links to the interviews with all the guests we've had "In The Tank", these interviews give a unique inside look into poker players thoughts and their mystic.

Eric Baldwin "CardPlayer 2009 POY"
Daniel Trett "FTP Moderator"
Simon Cameron "Simmy3k"
Paul Gardener "Swampy"
Jack Ellwood "jackellwood"
Tom Middleton "hitthehole"
Dave Collins "NPF Moderator"
Andy Blair "KQ4EVA"
Steve Brennan "fatfish"
Dave Mount "Walkers Sensations Captain"
Sean McGuigan "horses heed"
Peter Newton "stumpy"
Ian Bertram "Nemesis"
Adam Matues "JuniorBomber"

Please enjoy these brilliant interviews that detail everything from their introduction into poker and culminating in their plans for the future. Furthermore if you would like to see anybody in particular "In The Tank" then please don't hesitate to contact FTP and we will explore the possibilty.