Monday, December 1, 2008

GUKPT Grand Final

I was fearful going into this that with all the deep runs I've been getting lately something had to give. No matter how good you are at tournament poker you can only cash in a certain percentage of the tournaments you play. Something that has been on my mind for a while now is how huge a role luck plays in relation to the different buy in levels that I play. We hope that variance in the cards will even out in the long run but I wonder if variance coupled with a wide range of buy ins ever will.

For example; the Macau in cork is probably my favorite place to play cards. Every month this year I have traveled to that casino for the €250 monthly game and not cashed in it once. I did however manage to cash for over €40k in the only €1500 buy in tournament I played there this year. This in my mind is a huge slice of luck. I was unfortunately on the wrong side of this buy in differential variance in London the weekend in what was one of my biggest buy ins of the year.


With 180 starters there wasn't going to be a huge amount of value in the field. My starting table had my old sparing partner Marty Smyth and the only others I knew were Fran Egan from Drogheda and Micky Wennick. The table is introduced in this Video from the Nutz TV from 2.10 in and pictured above. I'd say it was one of the easier tables in the event but that didn't do me much good.

I really haven't much to write about the event itself. I started the tournament with 15,000 and lost them in small increments until I eventually got knocked out very short in level seven. There was no real hands of consequence and the tournament as a whole for me was disappointing but that's just the way it goes sometimes. I didn't make any mistakes, didn't take any beats or didn't get any starting hands. Even though the tournament was a non event in itself I will have gained experience from it and I'm totally confidant that although it was a very difficult field I still had a decent edge. The Victoria casino is a smashing job and I enjoyed a few beers with the other Irish lads there over the rest of the weekend as no side events were scheduled; I'm sure I'll be back there with a better result in the future.

On a lighter note, at the bar in the Vic the other night. The gukpt tournament director comes to the bar and says "Marty I nominated you for two awards, player of the year and performance of the year". Marty replies " oh right thanks, for the boards awards is it". TD " no, the European poker awards in Paris next month ".