Happy Birthday!!!!

It's been one year (and a few days, but who is counting) since this blog was born and probably serves as a microcosm of my life to date.

Early years: Willing to learn and enthusiastic.

Middle years: Some exciting developments make me optimistic for the future.

Later years: Laziness bites and I settle into a not very good rut.

Since my last post a fair bit has happened me pokerwise, but also very little movement paradoxically. I am generally playing less tournaments that I have been, and they are still not turning into a profitable venture for me. I did however manage to jambag my way into the Irish Open at pretty much the last hurdle in the SE. There were 125 runners and 10 tickets as it turned out. I started off pretty slowly but a few good hands after the break, including one (and only) pivotal dogging of someone when I pot committed myself to a raise with AT, and I pretty much cruised to a ticket in the end. I was really looking forward to this.

My Irish Open day started when I got up around 1pm on Good Friday (early for me on a day off), scraped the dirt off, consumed some nutrition, and drove into town. I got to the Burlington at around 3 o'clock, about an hour before scheduled start. When my seat assignment came up on screen I scanned it for any familiar faces or well known names. Blank on both counts, although I did recognise a couple of names vaguely.

I take my seat anyhow (seat 2) and the table isn't exactly the hardest table I have ever been at to be honest, with a coupld of loose raisers, a couple of absolute calling stations, a couple of donkeys and a couple of good players. All in all not too shabby. However, the 2 calling stations are proving to be problematic as I can't ever get them to move off the hand, and one had a tendency to call flop and turn bets and then hugely overbet the river. Sadly I couldn't catch anything to exploit the situation and the chips went elsewhere. I won a few hands at this table but was between 6k and 11k the whole time I was there. I was briefly moved to another table before that too was broken and not much changed for me there.

On my 3rd table things were a bit more interesting with several faces I knew and a couple I recognised. At this table I got up to my day 1 high of around 13.5k before falling back to an 8k stack overnight. Great. There were only 9 stacks lower than me remaining after day 1, and there were only 2 stacks in total at our table that were above average, so the situation was a bit desperate really.

On day 2 I briefly came back, and in the course of 25 mins I was all in 5 times.

33 vs K8o - 2nd hand of the day, my 33 was too strong for Vincent Melinns K8o.
AA vs 55 - My AA no match for a flopped set all in preflop. Win this I was up to 30k.
A8o vs A4s - Same muppet that had the 55 limp called my allin (next hand after AA) for 2/3rds of his stack. Split pot.
66 vs 44 vs J8s - Win this I am up to 30k also. J8 hits a flush, I win side pot.
J9s vs QQ - First hand I have gone in behind and I stay there. BB was not meant to have a hand that strong. Ah well, at least I went out with a bang.

I also played the Omaha rebuy event (€300) and rebought after the first hand. Action like this.

I am BB (25/50) with 89TT (diamonds). A couple of limpers, MP makes it 325. A couple of callers and I call also as do a couple more. 6 to the flop.

AdTh7d - middle set, open ender, diamonds. Preflop raiser checks, and next to act bets the pot (~2k). I am loving this flop so I move in and he quickly calls with AAxx. I miss and it is rebuy time. Oh well. I don't win a single hand and don't rebuy again, so I am out before the break. Great.

Cash games have been going somewhat better for me recently, with several wins in the region of €700 profit, but I just can't get a breakthrough in a tournament. Even when I am motoring along nicely I lose vital races, or get done in crucial pots. It is very frustrating to be honest.

Last night as well I played online for the first time in a few weeks, and it was all going well until I got stacked on 2 tables simultaneously. AK vs 88 on an AK6 flop when all the money went in. 8 on the turn. KKxx on a KQxr board on a 3 way all in on the flop when one gimp made a runner runner flush to go with his top 2 pair. This is the closest I have been to being on tilt in a long while but I managed to calm myself down a bit. I think I broke even, so with some bonus cleared and rakeback I made a marginal profit. Great. After that session I realised why I don't play NLHE cash games either live or online - I get bored or just play badly sometimes and generally lose. I haven't adapted to them as opposed to tournies.

I don't really have any poker plans for the immediate future to be honest. I would like to play in the GJP main event, but I can't be arsed to deposit money in another site to be honest, especially one with a decent deposit bonus that I know I am not going to clear. Maybe at some point in the future I will be in a better position, or more likely to clear it, but that time is not now. I may play one of the sats in the Jackpot, or maybe the SE or Fitz might have some for it as well.

I should really do what I have been promising myself as well and at least try to qualify for the WSOP in the summer since I am going to be there in 11 weeks. I hope I have enough dosh to be able to enjoy myself properly over there, as there are a few unexpected non poker related things happening now.

Bye for now, hopefully it won't be 2 months before my next update.