This weekend sees the start of Season 3 of the APAT National series, with the UK Amateur Poker Championships taking place at the Grosvenor Casino in Walsall.

I'll be playing in this, and hopefully I can have a decent run.  Obviously Season 1 started out well for me, and I did OK in a few of the other events - but without a cash.  Then in Season 2, I managed a few Day 2s including a 10th place finish in the Irish National in Dublin (one off the final table unfortunately). In most of these events, I think I've played pretty good poker.  But that's not always enough (in fact, it rarely ever is).  You need to get the luck at the right time to help you through.

Of course, I always want to do well when I play poker - but the APAT events are more than just poker tournaments. I've made quite a few good friends through APAT, and as social occasions they are great fun.  They often end with a silly 'sit-n-go' game orchestrated by Rich 'TightEnd' Prew (the CEO of blondepoker and one of the management team at APAT).  There are rules to these games, but no one is sure what they are…

This weekend is going to be full of poker.  There are a few of us going over to DTD on Friday evening, and then onto Walsall on the Saturday.  Should be a good weekend - and a nice cash would be the icing on the cake.

It's still gambling though isn't it…

On a different, but related subject, I often find myself trying to explain to non-poker players why poker is different to the house games such as roulette or blackjack.  Also it's difficult to explain the effects of variance and that you can play 'perfect' poker and still end up down after a session due to a bad run of luck.  Anyway, James Atkin (a young professional poker player from Lincoln) has written a very succinct and accurate post on his blog entitled Taking the Gamble Out of Poker, that sums up a lot of what I find myself repeating.

It's worth a read.