D4 DeepStack

The 6th instalment of European Deepstack Poker Championship took place in Dublin at the weekend. I’ve played the tournament every year bar the 1^st but have to admit I have no love for the event. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great event run to the highest standards and brings a huge amount of value to these shores. I’ve just always felt the structure for this one a bit gimmicky, you get a mass of big blinds on day one to mess around with, but the subsequent days play out like any other tournament. However, you can’t argue with the turnouts over the years of which amazingly 80% travel from overseas.

The majority of overseas visitors to the event were French, with a healthy sprinkling of Danish, Belgian and Germans. I really don’t understand the bad press French players get, I always enjoy playing with them as they’re generally funny, cordial and make for a very active table dynamic.

I guess my main problem with the event is a personal one. Give me 500 big blinds at the start of a tournament and I just can’t stop spewing. I sat down to my table on day one and it became obvious early that it was a great table. A couple of capable players and the rest were average at best. Within an hour I had lost half my stack spewing and was by far the worst player at the table.

I knew I was playing terribly but just couldn’t seem to stop. I left the table for an hour to clear the head before I blew the lot. Upon return the rest of the table must have been confused as I played some super stuff trebling my stack within an hour and not putting a chip wrong.

I returned for day two with 90k and had increased this to 110k when I lost the lot in flopped set verses flopped straight debacle in the second level of the day. I wasn’t that disappointed, over half the field was still in at that stage so we were still a long way from the money. Also, for some reason getting it in bad makes for easier emotions upon exit these days for me.

Three Irish players made the final nine. The always-impressive Marc MacDonnell was first out of the final table. Marc had yet again held the chip lead after play on day one, something he seems to achieve with abnormal consistency. I can honestly say Marc is the most impressive person I’ve ever seen to gather chips and when he starts to put his end game together live the rest of us might as well not turn up. He’s that good he’ll probably win everything.

 Pat Smyth finished in 8^th position. I played with Pat on a final table in Tramore last year in a small tournament he won and he is a sound chap with a lot of game. I guess that’s to be expected as the pedigree is there with him being an uncle of Jason Tompkins.

This left the home hopes on the capable shoulders of Declan Connelly. Declan final tabled the Irish Open in 2010 where he finished 7^th after losing a massive race to Paul Carr so wasn’t going to be phased by the task at hand. After a gruelling battle he would come out on top taking the €50,000 1^st prize and title of 2013 European Deep stack Poker Champion.