Yay Me!!!!

OK, let's get the downbeat stuff out of the way first.

Since my last update I have lost every cash session and got raped in the process. How many 2 outers must a man endure in big pots? Also, I had the chip lead in the Fitz 125 FO but donked it away stupidly to finish 7th. This is the type of thing I have been trying to get rid of from my game. Losing chips on a bluff is one thing, but bad play that causes me to lose chips is another. I still managed another final table though although only 24 runners. Good tourney though.

On to the good news which I'm sure most of my few visitors are already aware of - I have won my ticket to the Irish Open in Citywest on Easter weekend. I went to the Sporting Emporium (and had the usual frustration trying to park remotely close to it, grrrr) where they had a €150+15 with 1 rebuy or topup for €150. I expected a good few runners to turn up, but in the end 130 had paid in to this with 112 of them either rebuying or topping up, to generate 8 tickets. A lot of work to get through it seemed.

The night started badly for me. I only recognised a few of my starting table, not that it mattered, with the chief to my right. I yoyoed a lot with my first lot of chips when I shoved for 2975 after a limper at 100/200 and a raise to 600. The limper instashipped for just less than I had, and the raiser called after a think. I had AKo, raiser has JJ, limp/shover had 5c3c. Genius. 3 on the flop, and 3 on the river sealed that deal. Made no difference to me as i was behind to JJ anyhow, but JJ man was not happy. Standard in general with one or 2 exceptions was terrible. Rebuy just before the break it is then!

After the break I got a nice donation when I raised with KQ suited, got called by one of the blinds. Flop K85r, check I bet 1k, call. Turn is a T, check, I go all in for my last 2k, he calls and tables J5o. WTF? No help for him and I double up. Then I get 55 UTG, make a bit of a mess of the hand I think, but I do one thing right when I make a call of an allin on the turn on a 7664 board with 55 which is good against KTo who had raised preflop and bet flop and turn. I am not particularly happy with my play in the hand, but I made the right call in the end anyhow. I lose a few chips before this happens........

Table breaks and I am moved to a table with a hyper aggressive guy and a few randomers and Vera. I got a near double up from hyper aggressive guy when I call one of his frequent preflop overraises, and check flop and turn hoping he will commit himself as I have enough of it to be confident I am well ahead a lot against him and know he won't resist a double check. He bets 4k on turn into a 7k pot, I go all in for 8k and he folds quickly. Not much drama for a while before the SB to my BB loses a few chips and has been quite active at the table. There is one limper for 1200 and SB shoves into my BB for just over 12k. The original limper has about 16k or so and is a poor player, and I have about 32k at this stage. I look down at ATo and think the SB's range here is big enough to justify getting involved. I call and the limper folds after a think (said he had J9). SB tables AK and it is an oops for me, but a T99xx board sees me get lucky. I still think it was a standard enough call really, but he did get unlucky.

I was not getting much cards to play with so any time I entered a pot and met with resistance or a reraise I generally lost chips on. I was dwindling from my comfortable position however and blinds were starting to bite. I'm not sure an awful lot of drama outside the standard happened me for quite a while, and real cards were a rarity. I was getting a lot of A rag hands, but almost always UTG or after a raise, so hard to play and I decided to bide my time. After a while it looked like my time had come when I got AsJs and shoved for 35k (3k/6k) but the BB looked at his cards and uttered 'Ah sure I guess I might as well' this made me fell that I was well ahead when he pushed for about 20k total, but was a bit puzzled and annoyed (by the fact that I was dominated) when he tabled AKo. Not to worry, a nice J on the turn came to the rescue, and I was beginning to see how easy this dogging thing actually was, no wonder so many other poeple are at it constantly!!!! Hard luck sir.

At this point we were down to about 12 or so and it was very nervy with 1 big stack on each table and the rest floating between medium and tiny. I was towards the smaller end of that scale sadly until the following happened when we were 5 handed (4k/8k). Pat Storan pushed for 60k, and I looked down at KK. As soon as I saw them I immediately thought, this is it, I am going to go out on a real hand, a bad beat story for my blog. Woe is me. After I had finished scorching the felt and waiting for Eshan to decide if he would put some of his multitude of chips into the pot blind, then deciding not to, I turned my KK over, to be greeted by AK. Every card kept appearing to be an A on the flop, turn and river, but thankfully, none of them were and I had doubled up to over 100k. Phew. I felt sorry for Pat to run into a cooler like that at such a critical time 2 away from the tickets, but delighted for myself for doubling up. Pat never got going again and went out a couple of hands later so we formed a final table of 9 with 1 unlucky soul going away with nothing and 8 happy punters.

It only lasted a couple of hands, and at 5.40am we were finally done and I had got my ticket at the 3rd time of asking

1st time - Spent €210, returns €180
2nd time - Spent €210, returns €500
3rd time - Spent €315, returns ticket

So if you include the €150 tip I left (I had to borrow cash for that even), I got my ticket for €205. Not too shabby. I won't be playing another one of those this year despite the fact that I have a good record in them, especially in the Emporium where I have qualified for 3 major tourneys from 4 (maybe 5) attempts.

I told Alex to submit me for day 1B as I probably would not be able to get the Thursday off work due to ongoing crap that bores me, so I am certainly not going to enlighten anyone else that doesn't need to know about it. I am looking forward to this now, and hoping for a few breaks along the way as I know that if a few things go my way I am capable of going deep in this. I am not really the 4 bet bluff soul reading type player that garners a lot of attention, but I have enough to my game, despite several shortcomings (including not being able to pull of the 4 bet bluff soul reading moves), to look forward to this with hope.

Now to win the Fitz end of month, CHL's end of month and the SE start of month in the next few days. Now that would be a story, and I'd love for you to be reading about it, but holding ones breath might involve a very long wait. I'm not greedy, winning one will do me :)

For now, adios.

Tourneys.........

Since my last post I have played 7 tournies. Nothing unusual there you might say, I am a poker player after all, but I will provide a brief synopsis for you on them. All of these were played in the Fitz

Tourney 1: €125 Freeze out.
Only 16 runners for this, the first running of this event. However I get an early double up when I raise KQs, and take a free turn card which hits my middle pin for the straight against a flopped set. From there on I was consistent but by the time I got to heads up I was outchipped by 5-1. However, there was still plenty of play left in this tourney, and 90 minuntes later I emerged victorous after a swinging battle which saw me draw level, then go 10-1 up, then go back to behind again, then finally win it. Very enjoyable.

Tourney 2: IO sat, €110, with 1 rebuy or topup.
29 runners in this, 1 ticket and some cash for next two, but eventually 3rd and 4th got 180 each instead of 360 for 3rd, just to get money back. I had an early rebuy in thhis, but then played a good game to get to a tough final table. The final 5 were myself, Denis Reyes, Ronan Ryan, Paul Cryan and Thomas "Bomber" Nolan. It was a very tough lineup aand I never really got to where I wanted to be with this and finished 4th. Ah well, mney back sort of.

Tourney 3: League final, freeroll.
This is a bit of a crapshoot with the structure in place, but I started with plenty of chips. Never got going really sadly and exited around 4 from the money for the second time in a row in this. Ah well.

Tourney 4: Monday Freezeout, €80.
35 runners or so, and a very enjoyable game. I got lucky once when I called a preflop raise with QJ from the button. It was checked to me on a flop of Kxx and I shoved. I was well goosed when called by KT, or so I though, but a T on the turn and an A on the river saw broadway materialise from nowhere. Then I cruised to the final table where I made a big/marginal/bad play 4 handed when I shoved all in after a raise and a smaller allin with AQ, and the original raiser shoved after a big think. I was up against KK and TT, and lost both pots to be down to 4k utg with blinds of 1500/3k. I doubled up and a bit more 3 times in 10 minutes, taking out another player in the process, so then we were 3 handed, and one of them was the guy I was headsup with in tourney 1 above, and he had a big chip lead, so some sort of deja vu developing. Sadly it didn't work out as I finally made a stand with AT and ran into the CL's JJ. gg, wp.

Tourney 5: Tuesday €55 DC.
65 runners in this and the usual poor standard. I received a few nice donations and was comfortable until I tangled with a very aggerssive Dutch player who was just to my right the entire tournament. He raised for the umpteenth time (to 8k) and I shoved over the top for 34k with AQ. He instacalled with KK, and oops. Maybe I should have played it differently, but I have seen him make big calls with less than premium hands, so maye it wasn't that bad a play. Hindsight is great it seems. I finished 12th in this when another FT seemed inevitable.

Tourney 6: IO sat, €110 with 1 rebuy or topup.
Same structure as the above one, but 37 runners for this with 1 ticket and 2k in cash spread 2nd - 4th. I played some good stuff in this tournament I thought, and there were some very aggressive players at my table all night so patience and picking spots paid off a few times, and I was comfortable in this all night pretty much with an excellent, almost too good for Thursday night, structure. Got to the final table of this again at 1.30 and there were a couple of good players, a couple of bad aggressive players, a couple of poor players, and one or 2 that I didn't know much about. There was a good bit of cagey play in this as there was still loads of play left. After a while though we were down to 4 again with one good, one bad, and one aggressively bad player left with me. the aggressive player eventually committed hari kari, and we were down to three. I was second in chips at this point, and a couple fo key ahnds happened against the bad shortstack. I get QQ in the small blind, and after the button folds I call only. The BB has only 33k left after an 8k BB. Flop comes JcJd5c, and I check again hoping he will shove, and he duly does. I call quickly and he turns Tc6c for the flush draw. no messing about and both turn and river are clubs, and I have none. Damn. Five minutes later I raise from the button to 22k with Kh6s. SB calls, and BB folds after a big think. Flop comes Ks8h7h. SB checks and I shove for more than he has. He thinks and calls with Jd9d. WTF? The inevitable T for the middle pin only out fell on the river. Next hand I have 1/4 of my stack in on the BB so I get the rest in and lose. FFS. Ticket there for the taking and I get done twice to got out 3rd for €500 at 5.30 am and work in the morning. I was so gutted.

Tourney 7: €60 with 1 rebuy for €50. Scalps.
I decided to get back on the horse and play another tourney straight away as cash games were very up and down for me with no consistency. I used all my patience in this game and once I got a couple of double ups from an aggressive player I was flying. I got to the final table with no real drama, and was about 5thin chips with a big chip leader, Dave Finnegan. I mad one 'leave my blinds alone' play with A4o which I checked , but bet a flop of 833. Button, who had limped, minraised to 6k. I instantly shoved when it got back to me, and he folded after a think. I showed (a rarity) and he quieted down a bit after that it seemed, but considering that everyone else at the table (bar one) fell to Daves monster stack within half an hour, it was hard to tell anything really. I got headsup somehow with 31k vs around 350k, so slightly outchipped. Dave seemed reluctant to double me up so it was cagey for a few minutes but then I did double up. I snapped off a few raises and bet flops a few times, and then got up to around 100k, when I got lucky to double up again with T8 vs K3 on a KT6 flop. a T on the turn sealed that deal. At this point we decided to chop it for a few reasons. It may not have been in my best interests but I was happy enough at that point with 1300 and we played a blind Omaha hand for the end of moneth ticket included in the prize. I of course won that as well, so not a bad night all in all. I only got 2 scalps though including one in the first 5 mins from someone who didn't rebuy, so a strange tourney really.

It has been an unusual run for me with some very consistent results, punctuated by some erratic cash results. I will try another couple of times to qualify for the IO, and I have no other real plans for the near future at this point, I guess I will just see what happens.

A very serious update for you there I know, but listening to commentary of the Liverpool FA cup match, it is hard to be lighthearted.

Realisation!!!!!

I have just realised something I should have known for a long time.

Poker for me is like football for Liverpool.

Pretty bold statement you might say, but I'll explain. It is very frustrating being a Liverpool fan, but I persevere. It is very frustrating playing poker, but I persevere. False hope is another thing in common. Just when I think things are going to turn around, and this could be my year, I have a disastrous sequence of events. This is a familiar scenario to any Liverpool fan as well. I regularly play against opponents I deem to be inferior to myself in the poker department (call it false conceitedness if you will) but I consistently struggle. Liverpool are the epitomy of struggling against so called inferior opponents. I regularly struggle against opponents I deem to be fairly equal or superior to myself, and that compares similarly to Liverpools record against the Utd's, Arsenals and Chelseas of the world.

Sadly though I don't have a good European record to console myself with.

OK, enough of that. Time for a mini review of 2007.

Tournaments - terrible. In the latter part of the year I played less and less of them but overall I had a dismal record for 2007.

Cash - Mixed. I had some good days and some bad days, and had a relatively small profit in these over the year, but not near as much as I would have liked. Still not good enough.

Online - Not worth mentioning. Terrible effort to start playing regularly online and a dismal failure in terms of hands played and effort expended.

Overall I had a loss than was nearly as big as my profit for 2006 so I was very underwhelmed overall with my year pokerwise.

2008

I am not going to make any brash predictions for 2008. If I happen to qualify for any big events then great, but I am probably not going to put a huge amount of effort into qualifying as they will mostly just cost me money that would be better spent elsewhere. I intend to play very few of the regular weekly tournies around Dublin, but will hopefully play one or 2 events a month on average around the 200-300 mark. This is obviously dependent on how my cash games are running, but I hope that overall I can be less reckless than I have been in the past in certain regards. I am going to try to concentrate on playing smarter, not more often. I have also had an encouraging start to the year online, but since I am currently playing mostly 1/2 PLO underrolled, it could go pear shaped soon and pretty much kill my online interest.

The pipedream as regards online would be to keep plugging away for a few months, get to a point where I am bankrolled for 2/4 and be able to play there and withdraw any winnings above a certain level. However, since I am quite severly underrolled for the game the likelyhood of a few bad sessions, which is extremely possible, mean that it could be squashed fairly quickly. There are early encouraging early signs though. Over the first 1000 hands on my new db (yes, I know, very few) I am running at just over 28ptbb/100 at a combination of 1/2 and .50/1 on UltimateBet. If I could keep that up it would be a doddle, but somehow I can't imagine it will be anything like this over even the first 5k hands, never mind anything serious. I am also only playing about 8 or 9 hours a week at this point an 2/3 tables at a time, far from serious and dedicated as you can see, but it is a start.

If this starts to take off or fails dismally or even just peters out, I will say it here. One thing I can guarantee though is that it will be underwhelming.

Back on the horse

OK, I nearly kept my promise. I said on Sat 10th, that I would not play til Sat 17th, and the cash league final. However, Friday 16th was payday, and while I did not need payday to have the money to play (I am not that broke yet!!!), it was a good excuse so off to the Omaha I went.

Several hours later, and including losing a €500 pot with AAJ6ss against KKT9ss all in preflop when it was obvious I had AA when the board came KKJA8 - sick - I still won €475 for the night, so not too bad.

On Saturday then, I went down for the league final at 6pm in the Fitz. The prizepool was €32k +€5k added by the club, so with only 97 qualified players, 67 turning up, and 27 paid, it promised to be a lucrative tournament since I was starting with 21,800 chips for my 218 hours.

However, the promise turned to dismay fairly quickly when the structure became obvious. This was put in place apparantly by a lot of the older crowd saying they hoped it didn't go on too late. In my opinion this is a load of bollocks, and if they didn't like a good structure they should stay at home. I am not saying it should be 45 min clock, repeated levels etc by any means, but a 25 min clock with no levelsw skipped would have sufficed, but 20 mins for the first 5 levels, with 2 levels skipped, reduced the level of play quite severly I think. At the break a few of us had a word with Denise who then changed the clock to 30 mins from then on, as opposed to playing 2 more 20 min levels. It helped a bit, but my cards did not, and losing several races later (or same difference, mid pair with 3 overs on the flop, and being shown top pair when I folded and similar) I was out in 30th, only 3 from the money.

Ah well. The Omaha cash games started off a little later, and I spun my initial €200 into €1800 for a very profitable night, and that helped alleviate the disappointment of earlier somewhat. I have played a couple of times since as well with a breakeven night and a -€300 night. So much for taking it easy!!!!

The Waterford Winter Festival was on last weekend as well and I am a bit disappointed I wasn't there, although it was totally my own decision due to running-and-playing-badedness. By all accounts it was a fantastically structured and run tournament, and I really hope to get down to the next one of these in March, just after the Irish Open.

Also, the SE has their €1k event this coming weekend, but unfortunately I will be away. Otherwise I would definitely have played a Satellite or two for this, but sadly, there is not much point as I won't be around to play it. I haven't been to the SE in a while, as I am playing less tournaments than I have done, but I must not leave it too long before the next time.

That's all the non intrigue I have for you this time. Another update will be along no sooner than a week, and no later than 3 months.

Quick Edit: Those of you with eyes at least mouse sharp will have noticed that I have chnged my template and finally added a few links. I intend to find where that mysterious new burst of energy came from, but given the fact that it soon disappeared, I may have a problem locating the energy to perform this investigation. Not quite a catch 22, but it is at leat a catch 18 difficulty. Hmmm, ah well.

Oh, I also got my DVR station for my new toy, my Archos 605, so I must go an play with that. I also got a 500GB external hard drive delivered to me as well. Yes, I am a bit of a geek really, what of it? You got a problem with that, punk?

Another Moan

Right, I am now officially sick of poker. I am not going to trouble my 5 occasional visitors with bad beat stories or I'll get a new nickname.

This year has been by far my most difficult in poker. The last 12 months has been a constant downswing with only a couple of bright spots in between. Everything I think I know about poker seems to fly in the face of what I constantly see at tables nowadays and to be honest it is really breaking my spirit. I enjoy the banter, competition and thinking that is involved in the game but it is years like this that make me realise what a hard way it is to make a few bucks. I have been playing well in patches, but overall I would rate my play as worse in tourneys especially than last year, although that may be results based thinking.

For the next couple of weeks at least I will be taking it easy pokerwise. I have a few external expenses as well so that doesn't help. Until I have a result of sorts though I will try to be strict enough about how much of my salary I 'invest' in poker. I will still be playing now and then, I am far too ill not to, but apart from the Fitz league final on Nov 17th, where I will start with around a 22k stack (in the top 15 I must admit), I have no plans to play, although I might cave in and play the 100 FO in CHL's on Friday (payday coincidentally).

I even turned down an offer to be sponsored into the 300 Omaha event in the Fitz on Monday, but as I said "I couldn't do that you you". I am generally an amiable, happy enough person who enjoys a good moan (somewhat paradoxically), but this is stretching me in a poker sense. I think a while playing less might do me good. On the upside, I might bother to play a bit more online which I have been neglecting even more than usual despite good intentions.

Ah well. As the chief would say, "That's poker".

More random things

Since my last update there hasn't been a lot of action of note. I was in Vegas the last time I updated so I might as well update the rest of that.

As far as poker went, I played a $500+40 game at the Wynn on the Friday before I left, and it was a very good structure at the start, but once they decided to skip a couple of levels in the mid portion, it became quite crapshooty and despite a triple up at one stage, circumstances conspired to leave me trying to create a stack aggressively rather than being able to play a more patient game. Obviously this didn't work a treat and I finished 21st from 69 runners. I played a few more cash sessions before I left as well in Bally's and finished with a few winning sessions. The last one there was truly remarkable for the presence of one Romanian guy who dropped about $2500 in about 90 mins, and this in a capped game where he bought in for either $200 or $300 each time. I managed to get his stack one of those times, but I wasn't really prepared for his maniacal style so probably didn't get as much value as I should have out of him.

I went shopping as well the last day before I came home and it was really cheap. I am not one for shopping as those of you that know me might have guessed, but I managed to get loads of good stuff for feck all, including a new bag to carry the overflow in.

Back on the wet sod again and hopes were raised with a €1k profit in my first cash session back in the Fitz. Happy days. Overall since then things have been going better, although there were the few inevitable setbacks in there. The last few days though have provided the first time this year I have had 4 winning sessions in a row, and one of them from a hole so that was more satisfying almost. I was even playing the Holdem cash game in the Fitz last night as there was no €50 Omaha game. I know that I knew the standard was horrific in there, but last night was a real eye opener for me. An example of a hand like this is where someone limps for 2 and then calls a second raise to €55 preflop of an all in, and shoves all in for 120 or so on a flop of KJ5 (2 clubs). Turn and river were both Q's including the Q clubs. The all in preflop guy turns over AQ, and the other guy who went all in on the flop? 42c naturally to take it down, down to Chinatown. I admit I caught a few decent hands, but I did get dogged as well as few times. I made €500 profit for about 4 hours play, and this was playing pretty much rock like. I don't know if there is enough there to convince me to play more HE cash games, but you never know. One of the main things stopping me from doing this is the presence of a few particularly annoying people at the tables.

One option to get around this might be to play more in the new casino about to open in the premises of the former Merrion Casino. This is to be called 'Cool Hand Lukes' and the poker side is to be run by Luke Ivory, formerly of the Fitz. It is opening this Friday and looks to have a good tournie schedule, but with a couple of issues that I won't go into here. I will head along on Friday to the opening anyhow, and there should be a big crowd there with plenty of familiar faces from among the staff and customers with at least 9 of the dealers from the Fitz leaving to work in there, and that's only the ones that I know of. I will definitely still frequent the Fitz as well though, and I suppose the balance of custom will ultimately decide where I play the majority of my cash games. The Fitz have a cash league running now since the start of August until the end of September. If you get more than 30 hours accumulated you qualify for the tourney in October sometime with a guaranteed prizepool of €25k. I think I have about 26 hours accumulated already, so at this rate I will have a good starting stack, but sure we'll see.

On another note I have recently been watching Heroes a few episodes at a time and I am at episode 16 now I think, so I'll be finished in a few days. It is a good, compulsive viewing type series. It is obviosuly a bit fantastical, but there are a few good subtle humour moments in it as well, such as the time Goerge Takei (Sulu from the original Star Trek) appears in one episode and drives off in a car with a licence plate of NCC 1701. Yes, I am a nerd, so what. You wanna fight?

I am also trying to decide when I will take a few sickies from work. It will have to be well timed I reckon, as I have no days off to play with before the end of the year. My current thinking is 10-12 Sep, but the last time I planned to take a sickie I got sick, so maybe justice was served. Also, I am a notorious bottler when it comes to taking sickies, and just get up defeated by life and grumble my way through work.

Aaaanyways, back to poker. There are a few things coming up in the next few months, but I am not sure how many of them I will play. I am a bit hacked off by tournament poker lately. There is a mini festival coming up in the SE in a few weeks time, and the main event is a €500 game. I would like to play in this, but I am not forking out €500 quid for it the way I am playing in tournies at the minute. I will play some sats for it though, and might even start tomorrow night when there is a €50 with 1 rebuy game on for it. We'll see. Also in the pipeline is Big Slicks Winter festival. The main event in this is a €500 game with a tasty structure, but again it is one I am unlikely to play in, although of the events slated for the rest of the year in that price bracket, it seems to have the best structure.

The Fitz have also released details on their website of their 17 day festival in November. The timings and some of the events in total don't make sense to me. For example, the main event in this is a €1500 event. However, some genius decided this should take place on a Monday-Wednesday with start times of 6pm, 6pm and 4pm. This is not exactly conducive to local players who want to take part in this. Also, there is a seniors event, a ladies event, and a media event. WTF? I don't know who did up this schedule, but it is a tad ambitious I think, as well as poorly planned, and not just because of the main event issue above. Hopefully there will be change before then. As part of this as well, the World Faceup Holdem Championship takes place. It is an interesting concept I think, but will probably result in lots of coinflips and allins preflop. It will be a bit of fun but at €100 with 1 rebuy it is not something to have no regard for.

Good luck for now.

Vegas Part 1

OK, Ive been in Vegas for around 9-10 days now so time for an update. I have been playing mostly 1/2 in Bally's where I am staying but have ventured to Ceasers for the 1/3 and played a couple of the 550 supersats for the main event.

After a dodgy first days play that culminated in getting it all in on a J high flop with AA vs a flopped set of 4's things improved. I had 3 winning sessions in a row for a total of around 1100, including flopping a straight flush, and straddling for 4 another time, raising to 24 with AA when there were 6 limpers, 4 of whom called my raise. I bet 100 on a T33 board and got raised by the big tank at the table which I called to ses JJ and I hold up. So far so good.

I played 2 500+50 megasats as well, and they were crapshooty as hell. I last under 3 levels in the first one and TJ Cloutier was at my table for a time in this. In the second one I go deeper and with about 70 players left, 16 tickets the following happens. I am BB with 14k (about avg at the 500/1000/100 level) and with blinds about to go up to 800/1600/200. UTG+1 raises to 3k and it is folded back to me. This guy has just lost the hand before and seemed a bit upset about it. Irrespective of that I think it is fairly standard for me to push here with my TT and he instacalls with AQ. The final board of AA3A8 wasn't really what I was hoping for and that was my main event ambitions gone.

Since then I can't do anything right. Here is what has happened in the 3 sessions since.

1. Ballys
a. I flop a straight with A2 from the blinds. My bet was raised on the flop, and all the money goes in on the J on the turn. Of course the river is also a J and his 55 wins.
b. I raise a straddler with AQd, he calls and board comes JdJxTd. Check check. Turn 6d. He checks, I bet he raises, I call. River is another 6 and he value bets. Horrible card. I fold, he shows J.
c. I complete from SB with 44 with a few limpers and check raise a flop of A54 (2 diamonds). I get reraised by UTG and I set him in. He has limped UTG with 23 and I get no help on turn or river.

2. Ceasers - Game is playing maniacally but with a few shorties.
a. I run KK into AA. 100 gone.
b. I run set into set. 100 gone.
c. I raise call short idiots all in. He has KTo, I have 88 which doesn't hold up.
d. In a raised 3 handed pot I flop top 2 pair on an AdTd9x board. Idiot bets 15, I raise to 45, he calls. Turn is a Qx. He checks, I bet 70, he shoves for 120 whcih I call. River Qx is no help to me as he filled his gutshot on the turn. Nice hand sir. Both main maniacs have left at this point so I leave too.

3. Ballys.
a. I reraise from SB to 45 with QQ. BB shoves for 85 which I have to call and she hits an unnecessary A on the river to trip up.
b. I flop top 2 pair on a JT4 board and money goes in etc etc. He fills up his house on the turn when a 4 hits, so his J4 is good.

I am so pissed off with poker. There are a few hands I haven't played well, probably including a couple of the above, but overall I am playing ok, and considering the monkeys that populate most of the games here I am disgusted that I am down overall even taking out the sats (only about 500, but still).

I haven't played any of the tournies here though apart from the sats, but there is a good one in the Wynn from Tues-Fri which I only found out about last weekend. It is a 300+30 game with an excellent structure so I will play that Friday if I can force myself out of bed for the noon start time. There are also some okish structure ones in Ceasers that I will play before I leave as well, so hopefully I will report on them before too long.

On the non poker side there is not much to report really, and even if there was the juicy bits would be censored. The night of Mike Laceys birthdays was a good one and after a night at the Tilted Kilt, Voodoo and the Hooker Bar in the Rio, part of which was spent blatering to Andy Bloch I managed to get home for around 6.30am, so not that late, even though I did play the 10am sat the morning before so I was well tired. I haven't really ventured out much during the day as it is searingly hot. It reached 120F a couple of days I think so AC is fine with me. I had a couple of other excursions out into the night, but nothing too wild or wonderful. Also, to walk from Ballys down to the MGM, across and into NY,NY, into Bellagio, then Ceasers, down to the Frontier, across to Wynn, up to the Venetian and then back to Ballys takes a surprisingly long time. Three hours to be exact. I know it was 10.30 when I started, but it was still over 100F, so not the brightest idea I have ever had.

Thats the lot for now. One good thing I can report on is that I am getting a good bit of sleep every night, but those damn housekeeping wenches better stop annoying me, and someone stole the do not disturb sign, the bastards, so they do disturb.

Bright Light City

Ok, I am off to Vegas next Monday. I went into the bank today to collect a chunk of $$$, so I have a starting allowance for there anyways and I'll see how that goes.

I am really looking forward to it. I think the change in location if nothing else will do my game the power of good to be honest. I haven't played much since the last entry here, once in the Se in a round of each tournie in which I finished 4th after playing pretty well but it dragged on and the inevitable lack of patience and extra tiredness surfaced around 3.30am. The only other time I have played live was in the Fitz scalps, and I was gone before the break in a dramatic departure from tradition there. I plaed some cash afterwards like a bit of a donkey. I should have stayed in the holdem game but it was boring me somewhat I have to admit. Ah well, never mind.

I have no real plans for what I am going to do in Vegas, I think the best plan is to wing it and see what the guys who have been out there for a while say. Chances are I will paly a supersat for the main event, and assuming failure in that, just stick to cash mostly with a few of the smaller tournies around the place thrown in, all things being equal.

Once this is over, assuming I am still alive and solvent, thoughts will turn to the rest of the year pokerwise. There will be a few festivals later in the year I would like to play, but chances are I will have to restrict myself. I will play in the Poker Ireland event which hopes to get 1000 runners, and hopefully I will be able to play in the Big Slick event in Waterford in November as well. Beyond that I have no real idea what is happening, but I assume there will be some chances to qualify for the Dublin EPT event although the buyin has increased, and I assume GJP will be holding another 1k event. I may have to rob a bank to pay for this I reckon. Then again, I rob a bank every day practically since I get paid by one every month for my daily 'contributions'.

I have played online a wee bit lately as well and have been doing ok on UB Omaha, but I don't really play often enough to see much of a tangible benefit.

On a non poker note, I have been watching the first couple of series of "My Name is Earl" recently, and have to say that I really enjoy it. I only watched the first couple of episodes on a DVD that was there for some reason because I was bored, but I found myself watching 7 or 8 episodes a sitting. I definitely recommend it to anyone who isn't familiar with it. Although my 'cousin' can be slow in getting it to me, it is worth the wait.

Anyhoo, this'll probably be my last update before I post the Disney version of my trip.

Laterzzzz

Where do we go from here????

OK, some issues are distressing me somewhat.

Firstly, there is the matter of Luke Ivory parting company with the Fitz. I have no idea what happened, and I am not going to speculate about it either, beyond saying that it is not normal for someone to 'decide' to leave their job. Obviously something happened to trigger this and I am sad about this as the Fitz has been for a number of years my club of choice to go to, and one where I felt almost at home. Luke was a big part of that, and I don't think anyone can underestimate the impact of having someone as personable, likeable, and knowledgeable as the front man for your poker operations. It is a big loss for the Fitz, and I don't really know what it is going to look like in a few months without him there.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that it is extremely likely that Luke will be in another club in Dublin at some point in the near future, whether this is a new club or an existing one, and due to the nature of a good few of the old school regulars who seem nearly brand loyal, then it appears to me that their brand is Luke. This could have a big effect on the numbers attending the Fitz, and a further dilution of the alreday strained market is not really what I am hoping for.

The poker scene has developed in the last few years in Dublin, and whereas when I started playing in the Fitz, some 42 months ago, a €100 Freezeout was a big deal, and something to be aspired to almost, but not anymore. People have gotten fussier, more demanding, and expect lots from every tournament they play. If there is a new cardroom to develop out of this, then the 'more of the same' approach is not something that will be good for the game I think. Numbers have fallen off in recent times somewhat with the SE and the Jackpot competing with the Fitz as well as the pub games and home games that some people love to play. Luke is a great TD and a great guy, but from a selfish point of view I hope this doesn't make it more difficult to get a good game. Who knows what will happen to the Fitz's poker room, but I suspect that whoever is put in charge will try to keep things as they are. I hope that this does not affect the current staff too much either, as I don't really like change. One way or another I probably won't be in any time soon anyways, for reasons I will get into now.

Anyways, enough about that. I am off to Vegas on July 2nd, and I am looking forward to that, but there are a few things troubling me.

1. I have not won a seat in the main event of the WSOP.
2. I have not tried to win a seat in the main event of the WSOP.
3. I am on a terrible run lately, so my funds are somewhat dwindling.
4. I may not be able to have as much fun over there as I had hoped.

All in all though I am still going to enjoy it as much as I can, and if things are going badly over there at the start I will just have to be cleverer about it and spend my money in a more targeted fashion.

This is not a fact that I am proud of overall, but I have been keeping detailed records of my live play for 23 months. In the first 16 months I had 12 winning, and 4 losing months. In the last 7 months (including this month) they have all been losing months for me. There have still been a few high points, like qualifying for the Irish Open, and some decent cash results, but almost universally my tournament game sucks (to use an Americanism). I won't embarrass myself with any further stats, but I don't know what way to take this? Is this a downswing? Was I experiencing positive variance before and now it is evening itself out? It is a very depressing issue and one that will be keeping me out of the cardrooms for a few weeks (I might visit once, for a €50 tournie or something though). It is helping that for the next 2 weekends I have to go away, so that temptation is removed, but it won't help me overcome my problems.

Is the game changing and I am not keeping up? Is it just a prolonged spell of bad variance combined with the poorer play that goes along with such runs? I know several others on bad runs as well, and from reading blogs I know it is a common thing. Poker does seem to go on streaks to a certain extent. I do not know why this is, as cards have no memory, and there should be no reasons for clustering like this. The one issue though that does lead to this, and it is often the hardest one to spot, is how you are palying. Even a small change in your game subconsciously can affect the outcome of a couple of key hands, and this may lead to a knock in confidence, which in turn leads to more subconscious errors. However, I am really trying hard to eradicate this type of crap from my game, but it does not seem to be working. What I would like to know though, is why it rarely seems to happen to me that my AA get into a situation where I am up against KK. but the other way around seems to happen with far more regularity?

It is a conspiracy I tells ya.

I really must try though to qualify for the WSOP. What I will do I think is try to play in the Stars, and FT supersatellities where they are guaranteeing 150 and 100 seats respectively. It will be a big ask to get one of these seats as there will likely be around 7000 in the stars one, and around 2500 in the FT game, so plenty of luck and concentration will be needed. the problem with this though is that they are on the 17th of June, and earlier that evening I am coming back from a stag party in Slovakia, so I might not be in tip top shape to be honest. Hopefully I can give it a shot though, and not be lazy about it.

Roll on Vegas.

Oh My!!!

Very exciting times recently, what with the drama of the Champions league and all. I have decided that I am going to have the most expensive week of my life in a few weeks.

1. Go to the Heineken cup final on May 20th. Tickets have been booked for a while so why not. I fly home on Monday, getting to Dublin at 16:45.
2. Go to the Champions league final in Athens. I have booked a package deal to go through Abbey Travel. The pain of the cost hurts, but I don't think I could justify to myself not going after not going last time. Pity it is at the far end of the continent again. Spain, France, Germany, Italy or the likes would have been much easier to access. Fly out at 04:00 on Tuesday (9 hours after landing from London), and back in Dublin at 18:00 on Thursday.
3. Playing the GJP main event in Drogheda on Friday. I have this paid for already, but may have to cancel this if things go badly at some point.

I hadn't played since last Thursday until last night. Last Thursday was a game I shouldn't really have played as I was not in the right frame of mind to be honest, but there you go. I exited early with KK vs AA, and palyed a cash game for a while, in which I had to reload, then was up money, and then left breaking exactly even. Could be worse I guess.

I am starting to fret over my finances for Vegas somewhat with the week detailed above coming in at probably over 4k when spending money is factored in, and since my year hasn't been great, so far at least, poker wise it is a bit of a stretch. Ah well, it's only money.

Adieu.

More Stuff

I nearly had a very good weekend last weekend. But I didn't. It wasn't bad either, but I lost one big flip, and palyed another hand wrongly which led to me losing my €450 profit and €300 buyin in one hand in the 50 Omaha, which I really don't want to go into as I know how I played it wrongly and will learn from it. Damn you Laurence and damn me for my bad play that allowed you into the pot.

The flop I lost was in the scalps game in the Fitz on Friday, when I went out in 8th place in a pot for 1/3 of the chips in play. I had raised to 12k (2k/4k) UTG with AKs and Ronan, who covered, came over the top all in. I had 56k total, and the way this tournie was I didn't really consider folding before I called as the blinds were going up next hand to 2500/5k. Two spades on the flop gave me plenty of hope but I missed. Ah well, at least I made the final table. the cash hand from above happened about an hour later too, so double whammy. I was still only down a little over 200 for the night so not too bad.

Sunday I played in the €40 rebuy game. This hasn't been getting many numbers unfortunately, despite it being a decent enough game with plenty of chips in play, relative to other games anyways. A series of hands being cracked led to me going all in blind UTG the last hand before the break with 700 chips (50/100) which I won, and from there on I didn't look back and finished second. It was only for €500, but important for my tournie confidence, despite that game hardly being populated by world beaters.

I have also decided to play the GJP main event for €1k. I shouldn't really play this, but I have secured backers to the tune of 40%, and I also feel my game is a lot more focused and together than it has been recently, and I am looking forward to this game. I played well for the first half of day one the last time this was on, only to shit away 10k on a bluff soon after, and then find myself under a bit of pressure later, and going out on the second day with QQ vs JJ in a pot to get me back to over average. Hopefully this won't happen again. Also, I have played in 3 tournies that have 3 or more days designed for them and I have at least made day two each time, so I am hopeful of another fairly deep run. This game is on May 25th in Drogheda, and I can't wait now.

On a different note, the Fitz are making changes to their tournies for the better, as the Monday, Tuesday and Friday games are getting more chips and extended blind levels. This can only be good for the games and the Dublin scene as a whole, and bring the Fitz game broadly into line with the structures of the Sporting Emporium, which has had improved games for a while now. There are three main reasons why I don't play more in the Sporting Emporium, and these are:

1. Parking is a nightmare.
2. There is no food menu there.
3. There are rarely any Omaha cash games.

If these things change, or even numbers two and three as number one is unlikely to, then I would definitely consider going there more, as now I rarely go outside of their €200 game and their satellites, which I have a good record in too. Until then though I'll mostly stick with the Fitz, and even though I had decided not to, I will probably play the end of month game tonight. I was planning to get up early tomorrow in order to leave Dublin at 4, but I can delay that by a while and not get into work until 10, and that is sounding like a good idea to me at this point.

The Fitz also have 5 great Ladbrokes packages to give away this year for the WSOP, so I will probably play in a couple of those at least. Hopefully the next few months will be an exciting time, and one way or another I am looking forward to going to Vegas in July.

Stuff

I have no idea what this post is going to be about at this point, probably a rant, a bad beat and a few complaints as usual!!!!

These posts are like buses it seems at present, except without the incumbent knackers and the piss of course.

At the moment I am mostly in anticapation of things to come, namely the Champions League semi finals when Liverpool can hopefully recreate what happened a couple of years ago, and also to my Vegas trip at the start of July. I have been playing a good bit more in the way of cash games lately and in general they have been going alright. I haven't had a substantial win but most of my wins have been in the 600-900 profit, so still good, especially since I am not generally the type of player to push it too much after I get into good profit like that.

I nearly had another good night last night in the Fitz €100 game but a 2 outer on a JT2r board when I held TT62, vs JTX2. All the money went in on the flop, so about a €1200 pot went south when one of the remaining two Jacks in the deck hit on fourth street. Ah well, not much can be done about it. And, yes, I know TT62 is a rubbish hand.

This weather is depressing me, not that it takes much to depress me when I am in work. Hot,cold, wet or dry, they all usually make me feel depressed in work. The good thing is that due to me forgetting about this post it is now Friday evening so I get to go in about 30 mins or so.

I will play the Fitz scalps game tonight and probably a cash game after my 14th place finish in that.

Also, I have been thinking about getting an Omaha book and I believe the one by Rolf Sltobloom is the one to read. I might check with my 'cousins' (force of habit) first, might actually resort to buying it!!!!

That's me for now, it helped pass a bit of my day anyways.

Adios.

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.

Brrrrrrrrrr

I've been running cold lately, so cold in fact that I think I may need a few of my appendages amputated due to frostbite. I wouldn't even think of posting how long it's been since I've had a decent result as that would cause extreme embarrassment.

I have as usual succumbed to my online apathy, and briefly roused myself from it yesterday to play an $80 sat to the Stars $650 sat for the WSOP. I decided that if I could make $80 in Omaha in 15 mins I would play it, otherwise I would leave it. Happily I won $81 after hitting a big flop that held up, and played it. However my reverie was short lived and I got nowhere near the ticket. Plenty of time left though to get into this Sundays game, and I might try to get into Saturdays $325 game before then too.

I am caught in 2 minds about the SE 200 game on Saturday. I really want to play it, but the way I have been running and playing, which probably counts for a good bit of the running bad thing, it would just be a waste of money. I really the thought of being dead money but lately that is all I seem to be. It is just as well that I am playing a lot less than I have been, so the financial impact is lesser than it has been in the past on similar bad runs.

What can I do about this? I know that I should try to concentrate on making as few mistakes as possible and things will come around. However, when I am playing lately I seem to be going against my instincts, playing too tight, and to top it off I am not really getting the cards either.

Yes, I know, that old chestnut. However, I have not been dealt AA in the whole of 2007 in hold'em. Fact. This is obviously not a prerequisite for winning hands, but the amount of sets I have hit are tiny. Even the hands I don't play miss. That is how it is. On the upside though, I get to write another whinge post.

I am going to New York in a couple of weeks so I am looking forward to that too, and until I get back poker will be limited, aside from maybe some WSOP sats. I am also looking forward to when the whole of the Tribeca network is transferred to the Playtech network. Although I have never played on their software, it looks far more like the interfaces that I am used to, and hopefully I will not be repulsed at the thought of using the software like I used to with the old Tribeca software.

Hopefully I will have something better to report in the next edition of "Dom - The Complaints And The Crying".

Bye now.

New Year Update

It's been very quiet so far for me this year. I have played live only a few times with no effect either way. It's lose a session win a session poker for me, and I have had no results in tournies so far.

I have been playing online somewhat more lately and have even started playing online MTT's a bit more too. I have played 3 and finished 12th out of 1200 in one for $130 profit (great) when $5.5k was for first, and 2 others where I finished about 250th from 1k runners. There is some awful play in these $10-$30 freezeouts, so getting into a decent position is not too hard, but avoiding the inevitable beats that follow is the thing that can make or break one of these games. I have played a decent amount of online Omaha lately too with some success. My PTBB is running at close to 8 now which is ok I think, but since I don't play a great volume of hands in general it is hard to see a tangible benefit from it at the levels I play at.

Part of my motivation for playing online is due to the fact that I have booked flights to go to Vegas during the WSOP this summer. I could not make it last year due to other financial committments so did not even try, and the year before I did not really try wither, whcih in hindsight is probably a good thing. I think however that now is a good time to bite the bullet on this as it is something that I have wanted to do for the last few years. My finances have settled down and even if I have a bad trip financially within the limits I set myself of course, I don't mind too much. Of course I am not going to go not caring if I lose, but if it happens it will not cause any financial difficulties for me. If I go over there and do very badly at the start in whatever I play in, then I will have to concentrate on the drinking and other aspects of Vegas, and wouldn't that be a terrible thing indeed.

Ideally what I would like to see happen is this.

1. Win a seat to the main event in the WSOP.
2. Make a decent return from online and live games over the next 6 months in order to provide myself with a proper bankroll to play some of the secent non WSOP games if I don't qualify for the main event, as well as cash games over there.

I travel on the 2nd July and return on the 17th (day of the final table, so I will probably have to change my plans to play in it.......). After looking at all the various travel options and nearly deciding to go with Virgin Atlantic which would have involved a nightly stay at Gatwick, I have decided togo with Aer Lingus to La, with a transfer a few hours later to LV, and I should arrive in LV around 7.30pm in time for a quick snooze, shower and time for a wander around the srtip. I had submitted my booking for Harrahs for 15 nights, but got an email a few hours later saying "There has been a problem with your booking. Please return to the website and resubmit it". I sent them back an email (no response so far, might have to ring) asking what the problem was, as I think it was probably due to the fact that my card is not US issued, and if so then resubmitting my application is hardly likely to fix that. It didn't seem to be an automated, no response mail, but I think the main thing I want to be sure of is that my credit card did not get charged regardless, although it said it didn't. I do not want to have the cost of 30 nights stay on my card, 15 is more than enough.

Edit: An update to say that I have booked into Bally's for 15 nights. It is a few quid dearer per night than Harrah's, but fuck it, I might as well push the boat out somewhat. I want to stay in as central a location as possible and you don't get much more central than that. It is connected to Paris via a walkway too and I hear there is a great buffet there too. I am so looking forward to this.

Assuming that I do not get that booking sent out I am still inclined to stay at Harrahs, but the Excalibur seems to be a bit cheaper, if a bit further up the strip, and seems to be more of a resort theme hotel, which I am not sure is a good thing or a bad thing. One way or another though, I am really looking forward to this, and hopefully once the big sites start the multi seat qualifiers for the ME I can start getting in amongst them. The big annoyance though is that I'll have to qualify into them too. I know Stars run a lot of double shoot outs, but I have not had much success in the (very) few shootout format tournies I have played. I may try my hand at them though.

So far this year my travel schedule looks something like this.

1. Jan 27th - Austria skiing for a week. Not a lot of snow yet though :(
2. Mar 13th - New York for 8 days.
3. May 19th - London for the weekend to go to the Heineken Cup Final.
4. Jun 22nd - Bratislave for a stag weekend.
5. Jul 2nd - Vegas for 15 days.

It's a hard life. I will probably be near broke come the end of July, but at least I will hopefully enjoy it.

Poker plans for the year include taking it as it comes, and that is pretty much about it. I have no real plans to play in any online qualifiers for the Irish Open as it would involve playing on Tribeca which is anathema (spelling corrected, I should have checked) to me. I may play some live qualifiers if there is likely to be a decent amount of seats up for grabs.

Anyways, that is me for now.

Happy flopping,

Dom

Yearly Review of Sorts

Hardly a comprehensive review of my year, but sure here is a bit of an attempt anyhow.

Results

Live Cash Games: Definitely could do better. I mush prefer playing Omaha to Holdem cash games but I am barely better than breakeven in my stats which is disappointing really. From 100+ live sessions I am only about €2k in profit for the year (incl 1k loss in last 2 weeks).

Live Tournaments: I have played 150+ live tourneys this year, cashing in 44 of these, and 18 top 3 finishes. I have had a couple of good results, but overall I am disappointed with my year. I am €10k in profit for the year in tournaments.

Online Cash Games: I play mostly cash games when I play online, and mostly Omaha, although I am playing a little more NLHE lately. I don't take this seriously enough, and generally play at .50/1 which is the same as this time last year. Not good enough. I have got a rakeback deal though, but not crazy about the site for the reason that HH's are extremely hard to save for PT purposes.

Online Tournaments: I play very, very few of these and have had no real results in the few I have played.

Overall Grade: C

I have improved this year, especially in tournament play, I have no doubt about that, and I think in the main my tournament game is pretty good. I would give myself a B for tournaments, but only a D for cash games.

Next Year Ambitions

Well the obvious one is to do better!!! I think I will play less times live anyhow, as I have been palying a bit less the last few months. Also one thing I have been doing this year is playing in some of the smaller tournaments such as the rebuy ones in the Fitz, but not taking it seriously which is a serious leak in money over the course of a year, so next year I will either not play them or else play them properly. These games can be very profitable over the course of a year if taken seriously as they tend to be played by some pretty poor players.

My cash game play needs some looking at. I will try to identify where I need to be more aggressive, and when to let a hand go, but this is easier said than done I'm afraid. I will also try to start playing more online. I am never going to be one of the guys who 4 tables for 25 hours a week online, I enjoy live play too much for that to happen, and I also get bored somewhat easily online. I hope by the end of 2007 to be playing 2/4 within my online bankroll in both Holdem and Omaha, but I doubt I will achieve this aim unless I win an online tourney for a decent amount. Oh, and I must start playing some more online tourneys too.....

I think some realistic objectives are:

1. Attempt to make 10k profit in live tourneys.
2. Attempt to make 6k profit from live cash games.
3. Attempt to qualify for some big live tourneys, including WSOP and hopefully qualify for at least one.
4. Play more online and try to take it seriously.
5. Make a discernable profit online.

I doubt anything notable will happen between now and the end of the year but if it does I will update.

Happy stuff and Merry everything to any reading this by the way and I look forward to facing you next year again.

Schwinggggg

No it's not an Austin Power reference, it is a reference to my fortunes over the last few days. Swingy to say the least.

Firstly though, Drogheda. I really enjoyed the tourney there and I lasted a couple of hours into the second day when I got it all in preflop with QQ vs JJ only for a J to spike on the flop. Ah well. I can't be arsed to write a full report, but I did post somewhat of a report in the thread on boards.ie that was set up for reports. I played a cash game afterwards on Saturday and ended up almost 400, so not too bad.

The last few days though from Thursday-Sunday involved 4 tournaments and at least 7 cash tables. Thursday was the Fitz end of month, and a much improved structure with 6500 chips, no antes and 3x20 min, 5x30 min and the rest at 45 min levels meant there was far more play in it, but I think this only worked due to there bwing only 76 runners. I managed to finish 5th in this when my QQ (again) was beaten by Snowys 86, when I refused to lay them down on a 566 board. Ah well still 900 profit so not too bad.

Friday involved me coming in my usual range of positions (10-15) in the scalps game. I seem to do fine in this until it gets to crapshoot mode, so that maybe says something about it or me, I'm not sure. Cash game afterwards yielded a negative profit.

Saturday was the SE 200 game and this was a wierd experience as I got some great cards but didn't get paid on my big ones apart from a double up with QQ vs JJ (which held up this time). I had to lay down 88 on a 773 board and AQ on a QJ8x board which hurt my stack and then took a stand against Wes who had raised or pushed about 5 out the last 6 hands with TT. He called with AJs and hit a J on the river to knock me out. I had a disastrous time on the SE cash tables then to lose another 800, usually on the river, with one hand in particular when I flopped the nuts in Omaha and this was a perfect candidate of a hand where it is quite probably correct to lay down the current nuts. I got stuck in the hand though, and as a consequence got just plain stuck. Off to the Fitz with me then as any good sick player does, made all my losses back through some terrible Holdem players and some big Omaha hands, and then lost a bit of it back through plain gambling. Finished a bit down for the day but nowhere the 4 figure sum I was when I went to the Fitz. Phew.

Sunday I played a bit, but it wasn't very interesting, and I won a few quid, so I came out the right side of swingy by a total of a few hundred. Meh, not too bad.

We are getting near the end of the year and it is nearly time for reviews etc, and so far my records show 8 profitable months and 3 unprofitable ones from live play. Online I have no real idea, but there isn't much in it one way or another, that much I know. At the year end I might post some stats, but not sure if I want to. One thing I will say - November put a nice gloss on my year.

Between now and the year end there is the PPP Xmas Cracker and the Fitz 500, which I am not sure if I will play. Chances are I will play in one of them anyways, and there is much better value in the SE one with the added money and no reg fee.

If anyone has any money making ideas (other than win loads palying poker, not working out really) let me know, and I am not talking about the spam type comments that get posted on my blog. Some ideas I currently have are:

Write a book on my poker life:
A look at the life of an Irish poker messer. Follow him as he ignores bankroll rules, plays like an idiot, but still makes a small profit over time. Meet all the interesting characters that he interacts with over the poker tables, and watch him as he gets bored playing online. This will come about when a publisher reads this blog and discovers my hidden genius.

Realistic Likelyhood: .000001% chance. I wouldn't want to or couldn't be arsed to write it, and who in their right mind would read it? I can still dream that it would work though.

Appear on a reality TV show:
Well I have to be at least as entertaining as the idiots they actually put on it, don't I?

Realistic Likelyhood: Zero. Can you imagine? *shudder*

Win the lotto:
This is the easiest option effort wise.

Realistic Likelyhood: Unfortunately this is also the most unlikely at roughly 1 in 20 million or some such for every line I do, and about 4 times higher on the EuroMillions. It'd be great though.

Get a Rich Lady to take care of me:
Hmmm, this is very appealing, but since I struggle to get poor or normal income women, getting a very rich one to pamper me is very unlikely.

Start a Radio Station:
A mix of music, poker, news and random shite. This will be a big hit with the 20-34 year olds of a certain mental disposition.

Realistic Likelyhood: Actually this is very likely as I have been approached to do this. Oh, wait, no I haven't. Sorry.

Well that's all the random shit I have to say for now. Adios etc.

All kinds of Everything

A good bit has happened since my last proper post. One of those things that has happened since is that I had a long post wrote on the satellite to the EPM but of course blogspot decided to crash and become unavailable when I tried to publish it. Always keep a backup, people.

As mentioned, I won a ticket to play in the European Poker Masters and I was looking forward to this. The day arrived and I had taken Friday off to ensure I had a good sleep in before it. When I got to the SE to register at around 2pm I seen Eric Seidel at a table reading a book, Howard Lederer standing at the bar talking, and Mike Matusow doing an interview on camera. I was getting excited at this point. Reading the media waivers and T's & C's amused me somewhat, especially the part that said some thing like 'The Poker Channel has all rights to this broadcast throughout the Universe on all current and yet to be devised forms of media'. I can just imagine the interplanetery lawsuit that might erupt is the denizens of Persius 5 broadcast this over Christmas.

Anyways, on to the tourney. There were 75 runners I think and the following were some of the names in this.

Mike Matusow
Eric Seidel
Howard Lederer
Allen Cunningham
Chris Ferguson
Clonie Gowan
Gavin Smith
Dave Colclough
Andy Black
Liam Flood
John McGill
Peter Roche
A few other notables that I can't think of the names of, as well as a good few other pros of the lesser well known variety.

My first table though consisted of entirely Irish palyers, most of which I had played with before, so it was a strange start. I didn't get too involved in the first level and then our table broke and I got moved into the seat Peter Roche had been occupying at a table that included Howard Lederer, Eric Seidel and Alan Smurfit (of the K Club clan). I think during my first hour at the table I didn't play a hand. In the following 2 before the dinner break I think I played about 5 hands, all of which I won and took me to a stack of about 15k at the first break. We started with 10k and 60 minute levels.

The second hand back after the break was when I got involved in my first big pot. Blinds are 100/200 and I am in the BB. Two EP limpers, SB calls and I check my option with K9 spades. The flop comes a beautiful As8s5s which is checked around. The turn comes 3s and I bet 400 which is raised to 2k by the SB (he check raised me!!). I think and flat call it. River is 6s, so there are 2 unlikely straight flush draws out there (2s4s or 4s7s), but I was not unduly worried about this. SB bets 4k into me, I raise it to 10k (which I thought put him all in but as it turned out he had me covered. I had only about 12k in total behind) and he shoves all in which I call. He shows the QsJd and says 'oh you have the king'. Nice donation.

That put me in good shape and the other key hand of the day for me came when I was in the BB (600) also with about 30k. It was folded to the SB (300 - he covers me), and before I looked I told him there was no shame in folding. He calls anyhow and I look at 66. With the blinds and antes (75) there is 1500 in the pot, so I make it 1800 more to play which is called. Flop comes a lovely 568r. He checks, I lead for 2500, he calls. Turn is another 8. He leads for 3k, I make it 8k. I meant to raise to about 10k, but jsut took an arbitrary amount of chips. He calls. River is a 10. He leads for 5k into about a 27k pot which is very strange I think. I have only about 17k behind at this point and did contemplate pushing, but quickly decided a call was the sensible course of action. He showed 84 soooted and my sixes full take down a nice put. I was in cruise control after that, winning small pots, getting to a high of about 50k. I finish the day though on 45k which put me second in chips overnight, albeit in a very bunched field.

The most embarrassing incident of the day happened only a short time before play ended. I raised from the CO with AKs and it got round to the BB. I was seating in seat 8 (8 handed, so beside the dealer) and started talking to the BB about a hand earlier when he thought he dogged me when I had fuck all in fact. He folded anyhow and I said to him "OK, I'll show you just this once", and proceeded to show my AK. What I only realised when the others at the table started looking and acting shocked is that Howard Lederer had called from the small blind. Oops. A ruling was given that I was not allowed to bet at any point in the hand, only call. Flop comes T high with 3 hearts. Howard bets he turn which is a J and I of course can't call. It was an embarrassing incident, but these things happen occasionally. It just goes to prove that you should always be alert. The most comical aspect of it is that this incident, at 12.30am, on the 7th level of the day, is the first hand I have shown all day when not required to.........

I was in good shape starting day 2, but I got a horrendous run of cards and got blinded down somewhat, and losing a 30k with ATs vs shorties KJo all in preflop didn't help either. When it got down to about 18 players or so I was in trouble and hanging in. Some how though I managed to survive without ever being all in and knocked Andy Black (shortstack) out along the way. I only surpassed my initial chip total for the day in the last 15 mins of play, so that shows what a struggle it was.

I had made the final table!!!!!!

The final table took place not in the SE, where the rest of the event took place, but in the Royal Colelge of Physicians. It was a mad experience, what with filling out a questionairre, doing a pre tournament interview, 2 post tournament interviews, and wearing a heart monitor and a microphone during play. Everything was different. The cards were bigger, the chips were much bigger, there was a glass sheet to put your cards on so the camera could see. There was a dude with a microphone announcing when someone raised (Mel Judah or else Barry who had done the first 2 days), and we were sitting at one of those semi circular tables. We had to do a walk on for the cameras one by one to audience applause.

I actually thought it would be more nerve wracking than it was, but to be honest it was little different when we got down to it. There were a few teething difficulties along the wy, such as starting an hour late, stopping for 10 mins after 3 hands and having to get the cameras looked at a couple of other times, but after the initial hiccups it went smoothly enough.

The final table lineup and approx chip counts were as follows.

1: Dave Colclough 222k
2: Thomas Trings 22.5k
3: Me 58k
4: Tony Baitson 108k
5: Adrian Walshe 120k
6: Alan Smurfit 51k
7: Vera Duffy 6.5k
8: Thomas Wahlroos 169k

The blinds were reset to 1k/2k/200 for the first 30 mins, instead of the 2k/4k/500 we ended at the night before. I made my usual folding start, and it was about a round of the table in when I won my first hand, stealing the blinds. I did this a few times, getting called prefop twice, both times winning with a flop bet, once with an overpair, once with a missed K high on an A high board. The highest I got in the entire tournament was about 70k I believe.

Th crucial hand came for me when I raised with AQd on the button to 10k (1500/3k/300) and Tony on the SB goes all in straight away. Tony had just lost a big pot a few hands ago so I knew a few things.

1. He had a fairly wide range. Any pair, and decent A, possible even decent suited connectors.
2. He knew I wouldn't call unless I had a genuine hand.
3. I was in good shape against his range.
4. He might have thought it was just a button raise.

It was an easy enough call getting nearly 2/1 on the rest of my chips based on the above and he flipped 44 over. I missed and am on life support at this point with only 10k left. We go on a break at this point which I wasn't overjoyed about, as I knew I only had 3 hands at most left so I wanted to get it over with one way or another. When we came back, on the 2nd hand I pick up TT which is loads good enough, so I ship my small stack in. Thomas W reraises to keep Dave Colclough out, and after a think Dave does fold.

Thomas shows KQo and we are in another race. The fop comes all low - lovely - but with 3 hearts and he has the K of hearts, so nasty. The turn is another low red cards, but a diamond and the river is the killer A hearts to give him the nuts, and I am out. Ah well.

In a way I was happy enough because I didn't do anything wrong, I just didn't win a race. Mostly I was gutted though. Very gutted. With 85.5k for first it was disappointing to come away with 6,750. I know that is a nice sum of money and a nice profit on 315 etc etc, but I am sure that most of the readers of this know where I am coming from, as opposed to a load of other people who interpret me saying I was gutted as the same thing as saying "I don't want 6750 at all".

I am on a good run lately, and am feeling confident in my game. I also promised myself that if I cashed in the EPM I would play in the GJP festival main event which is a hefty €1000+75 entry, so I am going to play in that. By way of preparation I play my first Fitz tournie in 2 weeks last night, the €150 freezeout, and for good measure split it 3 ways with Ray and Dennis for 1100 each, so that is Drogheda taken care of :)

I'll report on my Drogheda game at some point too.

Bye now.

Quick Update

This is just a quick note to say that I have qualified for the Full Tilt European Poker Masters event in the Sporting Emporium starting on Nov 17th. I won my ticket last night in a 150 with 1 rebuy event, and boy am I looking forward to it. Loads of the big Full Tilt branded players such as Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Carlos Mortenson, Mike Matusow, Howard Lederer, Jennifer Harmon, Ram Vaswani and the rest of the mob are slated to be playing in this.

It's been a good week for me, hope next week is better :)

SE 200 game

I had been somewhat looking forward to playing in the Sporting Emporium 200+20 deepstack game since the last one, which I could not play in, so I arrive early and I am actually the first person registered for the tournament proper, although there are 3 satellites going on altogether for this when I go in. I don't bother playing one as I was going to pay in anyhow, so don't really like overpaying for a tournament of this size.

I had feared there would be a low turnout as it seemed it was going to be that was at the appointed start time, but when the numbers eventually settled down there were 61 runners, which was a decent turnout considering this is the second time only that this ran.

I sat down to my table and wasn't too impressed with this table as there were too many good players, such as Laim Flood, Eoin Olin, Dave Masters and Sikes (from boards, don't know his real name) as well some other guys I didn't know. I was assigned to seat 2 and proceeded to play like a donkey for the first 5x30 minute levels. It didn't help that I was card dead, and the few hands that I chose to play I played terribly.

At one point just before the break my first key hand hapopens. I have 3600 in total, with blinds at 150-300, and with 1 limper I make it 1300 to play with 22 from one off the cutoff. Part of the reason I make this play is because I have been palying so tight and think it unlikely I will get a caller unless there is a monster out there, and part of it is because I have to do something to accumulate chips at this point. It is folded to the BB who thinks and pushes all in. I am well covered and when it is folded back to me I think for a minute and decide that I am pot committed, so I make the call, and he flips over AK for a race situation. The board pairs on the flop to give him extra outs, but I survive and double up. A couple of blind takes in the next couple of hansd take me to just over starting stack at the first break. Things can only really get better.

After the break I had resolved to try to make better decisions and not play in the weak tight manner I had been playing in to that point. Easier said than done, but a few small pot wins soon after the break gave me a bit more confidence and I was gradually building some chips. Just when I was feeling comfortable with my table I was moved, and found myself at a table where I was fairly familiar with a lot of the players sucha s Ehsan (Gholimoli) to my right, Tony (Flushdraw) to my left, and Willow and Eamonn Connolly at the table also. I think I raised the first hand I played at this table, and continued to raise and take blinds far more often than I would have normally. I was feeling myself playing confidently, and getting reasonable, but still not premium hands. However, the button on my BB kept raising every time, and I came close to playing back a couple of times, but it seemed that he was just being a card rack as he showed hand after hand of premium pairs. through some decent play including the following against Tony, I got to a reasonable stack.

I have 88 (not sure of position, probably MP) and make a relatively standard open raise to approx 2100 with blinds at 300/600 with an ante of 50. Tony calls to my left. Flop comes TT4 (or similiar), and I check. Tony Bets 5k, and I go into the tank for a few minutes. I have around 18k back and Tony covers by maybe 7/8k. I cannot see Tony flat calling here and betting with a hand that beats me so I push and he folds after a dwell up and says he had 55, so good fold Tony. Another key hand here is where I flat call a raise preflop with AQ against a serial raiser and intend to bet out at any flop, which I do and he duly folds.

I knock out a shortstack (Deadparrot from boards) and I am motoring and around average stack (40k), but a big stack on the table. We are down to 2 tables at this stage and playing 6 handed.

Then I get moved to the other table and this is where most of the chips are residing, so opportunity and danger lurk in equal measure here. I get a raise reraised in short order and let it go, then I call a raise from UTG when I am BB with ATo. I flat call the raise, intending to bet out at any flop again. I do so with a 6k bet (about 7.5k in the pot) on a K97r board, which after a dwell up and a request for a count of my chips gets slightly worryingly called. A blank rag hits the turn and this changes nothing in my head, and even though I am well covered I have enough left to not get called by anything other than a strong holding. I push for 25k approx, and after a dwell up it is folded to me. I found out later he had J9 for second pair, but this was a holding he found it hard to call a push thankfully for half his chips.

When we break for the final table I still have around 40k with the average at around 54k, but with the blinds at the start of the 1k/2k level I am not under immediate pressure. the final table consists of a few faces I am somewhat familiar with and a few I am not. Eamonn Connolly, Ollie Boyce, Sikes, Mickste, Phil (the Hammers fan), Eoin, an American guy from Full Tilt and 1 other guy whose name I don't know make up the final table along with myself.

Ollie is the first causualty in one of the first few hands, and not too long after I take out the Full Tilt guy when my AKs hit to take out his 88. Flops and post flop play is at a premium which reduces what I firmly believe to be an edge I have over a lot of the remaining players. Most hands are of the fold, fold, fold, big raise, everyone fold type. I plug away and when Eamonn gets knocked out in 5th place we are near the end of the days play. The SE closes at 6am, which is most inconvenient as I want to get this played to a finish, but it is not going to happen. When John announces last hand of the night I am in the BB (4k), and when Eoin completes I decide to chekc with KT hoping to either lose a small pot if I miss or win a big one since my hand strength is farily disguised, and I know Eoin is an aggressive player who has a tendency on occasion to overplay hands and overbet them.

The flop come K87 (with 2 clubs) and is perfect for my purposes. Eoin comes out betting 12k and I flat call. Turn comes an offsuit 9 giving me an openended straight draw as well as top pair. To my surpriseEoin announces all in for around 65k, and it takes me a few seconds only to call. Eoin tables T4 and is drawing dead to a split pot, and a 2 on the river is no help to him and he is the 4th place finisher, pushing me into the slightest of chipleads. we talk deal but none happens so we are to come back on Sunday at 8pm to finish this off.

When we restart the chipcounts are as follows:

Me 201k
Mick 199k
Phil 89k

The first hand I am small blind, complete and fold to a flop bet. The second hand, I fold, Phil completes, Mick raises and Phil immediately pushes all in. Mick thinks for a minute or two and makes the correct call with 66 to see Phil tabling K2, but Phil hits 2 pair to double himself up, and put Mick under pressure. A few hands later I open raise (3k/6k/500) to 21k with AJo, and after Phil folds, Mick announces all in for around 105k. Mick has been the most aggressive palyer I have encountered over the course of the tournament, so this helped me reach a relatively quick decision and I called to see Mick table KTo. The flop brought a T and no more help for me to see him double up. This wasn't going to plan for me. Another lost pot and a few blinds later meant that I was down to under 50 and in serious danger. A couple of uncalled pushes plus some reraises when I was fairly sure Mick was weak, including the following hand helped me up to a stack of around 180k again.

Mick completes SB and I check BB holding J6. Flop comes QJT, and I am fairly sure I am ahead here and call a flop bet of around 15k. Turn is a T and goes check, check. River is another T and it is a funky dangerous board but even aftrer Mick bets 40k I don't believe him and push for my total of 80k which he folds to fairly quickly.

I am still stacking this when the next hand is dealt and I am SB with 56. Mick calls from the button, I complete, and Phil checks for a flop which comes a gorgeous 554. I pause from my chip stacking to check, Phil bets 17k, and Mick folds after a think. I flat call. Turn is a magnificant 6 which I check. Phil bets 30k, and knowing that I can't flat call this without totally giving away my hand I move in, which surprisingly is called instantly. Phil has the misfortune to be holding Q5 and misses the river, so he exits in 3rd place, giving me around 360k of the chips in play.

A couple of hands into heads up play I raise with A4o to 25k (4k/8k) and Mick moves in instantly. I call quite quickly given his known aggression in this situation, and am delighted when he tables Q4o to leave himself very much dominated. The dreaded Q hits the flop though to give him a slight chip lead. Another crucial hand happens with I check to see a flop when he complees the SB from the button. I have Q8 and am fairly happy with the TJQ flop. We had been discussing a deal at this pint, but it was decided to play on, at which point I bet 20k on that flop. Mick called and the 9 on the turn gave me a straight which was checked by both parties. The river was another T and I bet out 30k which Mick raised to 75k. I didn't like it too much but I called andways to see him table K9 for the flopped straight, and I was in dire straights now.

His aggression level increased again and I couldn't do anything about it as I did not want to play for all my chips with 62,52,72 etc which I got about 4 or 5 hands in a row. I eventually make a stand for about 85k with QJ and get called by K9. An 894 flop gave me 10 outs twice but neither happened so I had to be content with 2nd place.

I feel happy with my play after the first break, and the fact that I didn't dog anyone the whole tournament and was always either ahead or at worst in a race situation whne the money went in (including the unfortunate hand for Phil when 3 handed - I had made my house when the money went in, even though it would have went in regardless) made me feel good. The fact that I wsan't dogged until the last 3 either at any point was positive variance working in my favour, but I feel I played as well as I could and enjoyed the tourney as a whole. Well done to Mick too, his aggressive game played off in the end, and although I presonally feel I had the edge in experience and skill, his aggression sufficiently dulled that (if it even existed, but I have to believe it did).

I anyone reading this hasn't played in this before and enjoys a good structure tourney then this is one for you. It will be on the first Saturday of every month I believe in the SE and is excellent value for money given the structure.

See you at the tables.