I've had three nice results in side events this year. The Simon charity, JP PLO and Killarney a couple of weeks ago. A number of people have commented to me over the last couple of months that I'm a side event specialist and that tag must of spread because to my surprise Neil Channing commented the same thing to me the other day at the table. His comment got me thinking and if I'm honest Irked me because the tag does annoy me. Why ? because since I started playing the major festivals in Ireland 4 years ago I haven't played that many side events. Mainly because I've bloody well still been in the main events.
For me over the Irish poker calendar there are four major festivals; IPC, IO, Irish Classic and the winter festival. Since I started playing four years ago, I've played, four opens, four ipc, four classics and two Winters. A total of 14. Of those I've cashed in seven; final tabling the open, two last three tables in the IPC, a chop and 12th in the Classic and a 13th and 22nd in the winter. I'm a little pissed off writing this having busted today in 22nd in the winter festival as I lost a hand for a healthy chip lead with 24 players remaining, but those results look to me like a main event specialist rather then the few scores I've had in side events. It's not easy to make the final three tables of these events as anyone who plays them regularly will tell you, so to have made at least that stage 50% of the time, I must be doing something right. Now I just need to figure out how to start winning the fucking things.
I'll stick up a report from the last two weekends tournaments during the week.