The Baglady and I had a very pleasant outing to Birmingham this last weekend for the PokerPlayersPlace Invitational Team Championship.

Also known as “Not The APAT Team Championship” because it was set up by the PokerPlayerPlace people when they couldn’t get into the APAT team event.

Anyway, this weekend was a competition between 10 teams of 9 players at the Star City (Circus) casino. As a 2-day event with a £40 buy-in and a 45 minute clock, this is fantastic entertainment value.

Slightly unusual features of the event were that even though the casino provided dealers there was no fee paid for by the players, all the money went into team and individual prizes.

I was in the UK Sharks team, captained by the famous John Miller, while the Baglady came along to rail and perform any necessary bar biatch duties. But even though the poker was fiercely competitive, the focus was really on a fun social weekend, which was achieved admirably. Good job really because the UK Sharks team didn’t win…

My own performance was to finish Day 1 slightly above average, then hang around on Day 2 to make the final table as a shortstack, then go out in 9th place for £50 having had no luck when I started throwing the chips around.

The Baglady did much better than me - on Day 2 the casino put together a 30-player, £10+1 event that she went ahead and won, the £120 prize paid for the hotel and petrol. Go the Bag!!

Hope this happens again next year and if it does I hope I can persuade them to pick me.

Here’s the team photo, taken at the start when we were still sober standing behind the trophy we didn’t win:

Front (L to R): RedWineLady, Stu, RiverAsUsual (capt)

Back (L to R): Chewy/Dwarn/Rampton, Crispy, Crumble, BtretAvit, ZeroTime, MrWhizz and Whipit.

The Baglady was too shy to stand in, ahhh.

Well done team, I don’t think any of the others enjoyed it any more than we did!