Brain Pain

I travelled to Cork on Friday for the three day Christmas festival. Having got through day one with an average stack, I was having a good day amassing a healthy stack through day two.

When we took a fifteen minute break at nine I had about 10% of the total chips in play, with 24 players remaining. For the first twenty minutes after the break I hit a brutal run of reversals, losing four all-in pre flop showdowns in the space of about eight hands - v , v , v and v .

Throw in losing with KK and JJ in between the showdowns and I went from chip leader to short stack. A fairly brutal turn of events and I never recovered, eventually going out with a badly timed shove in 13th position.

You'll never hear me moaning about how I run. Variance is a huge part of tournament poker and I generally take the bad with the good and just get on with it, but I must admit to feeling a little sorry for myself on the drive home after that run.

The Macau Winter Festival was the first tournament I ever won on a national stage back in 2005. That year there were 67 starters at a buy-in of €1,100. The tournament was televised on one of those magazine type poker shows Sky used to do. I'd say the make-up of the field in 2005 was about 33% locals, with the remaining field consisting of sponsored pro's.

This year there were 75 starters at €550, with probably 90% locals. The tournament is a good example of how the landscape of tournament poker has changed. In 2005 there was a handful of national level tournaments, these days there seems to be one every other week and no doubt the prestige that the Macau Christmas tournament once held, has now been vastly diluted.

There has been a plethora of new successful events that have sprung up over the last few years. These events have generally been smaller a buy-in, with larger fields then the traditional "big" tournaments that existed.

Seeing the success of the new tournaments, it seems that the organisers of the existing events have decided the best way forward is to reduce the buy-in of their events to mirror the new successful games. This has been seen over the last two years, with The Irish Championship, The Irish Classic, European Deepstack, JP Masters, Macau Winter Festival all reducing their entry fees.

I totally understand why the promoters of these events have reacted in the manner they have. Poker festivals make money on cash game rake not the tournaments, so it's understandable that the promoters have all adopted the pile them high, sell them cheap logic.

However, I think they have in general made a mistake. They should have embraced the uniqueness of the events instead of just falling back into the pack. Events with legacy have lost their potential for real continuity. In most cases, instead of promoting the unique selling points of these events, the easy option has been chosen.

What we now have is a calendar packed with more and more none-descript monkey buy-in events. Instead of six or seven must-play unique tournaments that attracted overseas visitors we now have two, the Winter Festival and the Irish Open.

This has left a gap in the market for bigger buy-in games and it seems that slack is going to be taken up by the overseas tours. This coming year there's an EMOP coming to Ireland late in July. There are also solid rumours of a leg of the Unibet tour and WPT hitting these shores.

I have no idea how these new events will run in the current recessionary climate. What I do know is I would much rather win a 400 field €1,500 buy-in, Irish Classic or European Deep-stack, then EMOP or Unibet leg.

RIP IPC

Following on from my unplanned visit the previous week, it was back to Galway on Thursday for the UKIPT-IPC.

The weather had become a lot worse in Waterford but I was sure once I got about 20 miles west, the rest of the trip would be ok. As I suspected it was, and it took me the standard three hours to get there.

I found it quite amusing when Neil Kelly told me that he had decided his best option was to get to Galway by motorway, so he went Waterford-Dublin-Galway, taking a wonderful eight and a half hours, WP!

When the event finally kicked off after a day's delay, my starting table looked horrific with Rory Rees Brennan, Dermot Blaine, the eventual winner and benefactor of my chips was Nick Risk, who I'd played at the IWF and Nick Silver who won the UKIPT Dublin last year, basically ten pros.

The first real hand I played, I spewed about 4k of my starting twenty in a bad spot. The second hand I played, I went out in an odd one.

Nick one raised and was called by Nick two. I decided to just call from the small blind with , disguising the strength of my hand. Rory also came along from the BB. The JXX dry flop was checked to Risk who bet 650, I called and the other two got out of the way.

The turn was an innocuous three and I checked again. This is where the hand got a bit strange. Risk bet 6100, which stunned me a little and took me a few seconds to assimilate.

He'd either mistaken a 5k chip for a 500 one, was making a rather strange bet or was pulling an angle for me to believe he'd mistaken his chips. I was leaning towards the first and this was confirmed, when Silver pointed to his bet size and his face dropped.

I decided to just push, as I felt he wasn't putting another chip in the pot if he was bluffing and I was getting called by many worse hands because of the odd dynamic. He vocally made a crying call which made me think I was good, but was in fact drawing to two outs against a turned set of threes.

It was disappointing; I'd probably have lost a third of my chips in the hand anyway but would never have burst. When I found out that there was a table re-draw for the tournament after the second level, this tilted me a lot more as the starting table should never have been.

It was a simple error, whereby the shuffle button on the software on the list of entries was never pressed. This meant that the players were seated in the order as they were received. Basically all Stars' qualifiers were seated together, same for live qualifiers, direct buy-ins etc.

I think someone should have copped what happened earlier when the four Pokerstars pros were seated in a line on the same table.

For the rest of the weekend I played two side events, lasting until the last three tables in the first and murdering my chips in the second.

I said before the event that I wasn't a fan of reducing the buy-in, as I felt it reduced the prestige of the Irish Championship. The event was hugely changed from previous years and for me just hadn't the same buzz.

It's a pie in the sky dream but I'd love to see two top tournaments in Galway, a UKIPT leg and bring back the old IPC.

I did hear a funny story from the cash tables late on the Saturday night. One of the players wasn't happy with a ruling given by the floor staff. The irate punter somehow thought the matter merited the attention of the guards, who duly arrived and arrested him!

Quick Trip

I made an unexpected trip to Galway on Saturday. I was chilling at home around two, losing money on the afternoon's racing when the phone rang. My buddy Danny Guiney, who had qualified for the final of the BOSP 2010, was sounding very disappointed as his flight had been cancelled.

I told him to get a cab straight to my gaff from the airport and I'd get him there. My thinking was, I'd save money by missing the rest of the racing and be guaranteed a good night out in Galway, as is always the case.

The roads up were grand once we hit Carrick, but for the first 15 miles they were fairly bad and Danny was crying like a little girl that he wanted to go home as I was doing my best ice-trucker impersonation.

The tournament was running about 90 minutes when we got to the Eglinton and Danny had eight BBs. I left him to get on with it and rounded up a crew, (Derek Murray, Knuckles and Eoin Dixon), for the session. When we checked the live stream from the hotel bar, Dan was heads up for the $10,000 sponsorship package, but unfortunately he just fell short to Richard Campbell.

So it was commiserations to Danny, I know it was gutting for him. However, congratulations to Richard and welcome to the team.

The night didn't disappoint anyway, it was quite nuts. Big fair play to Fintan, who went out of the way to show us the top Galwegian nightspots.

Unfortunately for Danny, his run bad for the weekend didn't end just yet. The following morning Danny asked me would I mind if he got the plane home. This suited, as I'd rather face a three-hour drive dying with a hangover alone. As I was halfway home I got a call from him telling me his flight was cancelled, hopefully he's gotten home since!

It's back cross-country tomorrow for the IPC. I'm not sure how the numbers will turn out with the current prolonged bout of weather, hopefully it gets 300 as the tournament deserves a good sized field. I'm really looking forward to the event anyway.

I probably should be feeling down about the game with the year I've had. Conversely, I don't think I've ever felt as positive as to where my game is at. It's possible I'm totally deluded, but either way I can't wait to get going the coming weekend.

More Malta

Well, a semi-promising start to the trip here has ended like most of my year, cashless.

I played the IPT €1,100 side event last Saturday. I had a lovely starting table and was going along nicely, until I hit a major reversal. on a QXX flop versus , Aces on the turn and the river left me with about 3k.

I hung around for four more levels grinding this back to about 10k, but a badly timed cold four-bet put paid to me when I ran into the Kings.

I couldn't really face the other side event but did play online on Sunday. My room had the best connection in the hotel that we were in, so the lads set up camp there for the big Sunday. Myself, Jude, Tom the Bomb, Derek Murray and Chris Dowling all played in a small enough place.

Having these lads at your disposal to bounce hands off can only improve your game.

The second major tournament of the trip was the EMOP at a €1,650 buy-in. The structure for the EMOP events are fairly fast, with the first four levels at 45 minutes and a couple of levels missing from the standard (75/150 and the 150/300 repeat). I wouldn't advocate this fast a structure for all events, but I did enjoy it here. You basically know you have to get in there from the start.

My starting table had Reesy and Chubs on it, luckily enough they were both to my right. The first hand of any real consequence I played was against Andrew, who had lost half his stack at this stage. It was a button on blind situation, where we got them in racing and my Tens held.

I played well over the next few levels chipping up to around 50k, but it all came unstuck when I ran AK into AA for an 80k pot, with the blinds 400/800. The rest of my chips went, when I ran into the Aces again.

Well done to John, who put in another super performance and never looked anything but the winner until coolered three-handed.

I enjoyed the two weeks in Malta, it's a lovely spot and my mate Alex made sure I didn't get caught up in the usual hotel casino loop that goes with poker trips, so big thanks to him.

I did however leave the island with a fairly sour taste in my mouth, after doing my stones in sports betting. I had been on a very good run since Vegas in that department, but it turned on me two weeks before I hit Malta.

Golf is where I do most of my punting and I always seem to do serious twine when the tournaments go to the Far East. Every year I tell myself to reduce my stakes when they move over there, but I always seem to end up chasing and punting higher. Throw in a few boredom days playing roulette on the nags and it turned into a disaster of a trip for the bankroll. Hopefully I can win the IPC next week to clear October's loses!

IPT Main Event

I was well up for this, feeling great about my game and full of confidence when the tournament started. Four hours later I was thinking of the side events, but that's generally the way of tournament poker.

My starting table had some Italian team pro and an Irish one (Jude). It was an OK table with two definite soft spots.

There really wasn't much to report over the first three levels, I'd lost about 25% of my starting stack. Most of this went on a river bluff with air on a straight-flushing board and getting called by a pair.

My exit hand was interesting enough I think. There's an early position raise and one of the the soft-spots calls the button, I call from the big blind with , the blinds are 100-200. I like the flop. The initial raiser bets 1100 and button calls, as do I.

The turn is a black nine and the initial raiser bets 3k and is called by the button after my initial check. I'm confident the initial raiser had a big Ace here and I'm almost certain I'm ahead of the button whom I'm putting on big connecting hearts.

It look like the perfect spot to me as I'm picking up 11k in the middle for my 14k if I can fold them out, and while I think it's possible the button can call with his draw I'm happy enough to take that given my equity.

When I shove the initial raiser folds quickly enough, the button looked like he was in pain and seemed to be trying to fold on a number of occasions. However he eventually called and I wasn't pleased with what he showed up with, 9h. I had read it almost perfectly but hadn't accounted for him pairing his nine on the turn.

It was still a pretty big call on the turn by him for about 60% of his stack. I think the deciding factor in his call was being taken off a hand, not long before by the Italian stars guy. All in all I think I played the hand well and it was just a bit unfortunate he binked the turn. I hadn't seen semblance of a hand all day and it was time to try and force it a bit so can't complain.

There's an €1,100 side event today at five so I'm hoping for a better run at that.

Stones and Bones

I couldn't make JP's main event but I did head to Tallaght for the €250 side event on Saturday and the €150 Shoot-out on Sunday.

Saturday's game was good craic with some enjoyable hands but I never really got going, exiting level seven. I spent the rest of the night boozing heavy; culminating in a few old style JP Sit & Go's which were fun.

I bubbled Sunday's shoot-out. Cruised through my first table and all the other second tables were finished when I made a bit of a gambly call with on the bubble of mine. I had a couple of 70-30 reversals during the table and with the blinds rising had to get them in I think. As it turned out, I wasn't in a great spot as the big blind woke up with aces.

By this stage of the weekend there's fairly bad weather and I'm bricking it about the following morning's flight to Malta. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a great flyer at the best of times so you can imagine my state with a severe weather warning in place. Luckily it was wrong and the morning flight took off in very calm conditions.

I'm staying with my friend Alex Collier who moved here 18 months ago so I called around to his work place so he could drop me to his apartment on arrival. Alex used to build rally car engines in Ireland, so it was amusing to see him suited and booted in his new role (flogging up-scale time shares).

We went to the casino on Monday night and I managed to pick up entry to this week's IPT €2,200 game in a small 30ish field tournament. I ran pretty well here, betting all streets in two hands on the final table and backing into the nuts to the indignation of a few of the locals and Italian players. Nice start to the trip anyway.

Alex brought me around the whole island yesterday showing me all the sights. This basically involved seeing a number of very old stone structures. These included the oldest man made stone thing in the world and the third largest free standing dome, all very impressive.

We did go to catacombs which were interesting. We kind of got a bit away from the official tour and I had to stop Alex taking a piece of a skeleton which he wanted as a card protector. After some time noising around the lights went out, the tour was finished and it was the tour guide trying to give us a bit of a fright, it worked.

I'll move into a hotel tomorrow closer to the casino and Derek, Jude and a good few more of the lads are getting over Thurs/Fri so hopefully one of us can get a touch in the wonderfully sounding Italian Poker Tour.

Cork still loves me anyway

I played the Macau monthly tournament on Friday night in Cork. This is a €275 entry, €10k guaranteed one night tournament that I try to make every month.

I almost turned back about a third of the way through the drive to Cork, traffic was at a standstill due to an oil spill before Dungarvan. By the end of the night I was glad I stuck with it, as I managed to take the lion's share of the purse and even got to suck out on big Al.

The tournament has a good structure but inevitably gets a bit fast as the night progresses. By about 4.30am a deal was suggested whereby the remaining six players get €1,500 each, leaving €1,000 for first and €700 for second to play for.

As the payment for 6th was a measly €400 and I was the shortest stack, I was only too happy to agree to the deal, I've never been one to turn down free money. I then proceeded to run like god and secure the extra grand for first.

On the drive home I couldn't help thinking that if I had run that good at the previous week's IWF, I could have probably wrapped up the three-day event in two.

Next up is JP's mini World Series festival. I'm heading straight to Malta after JP's game for two weeks, taking in the IPT and EMOP final. I'm also looking forward to catching up with my good buddy Alex Collier who moved there eighteen months ago.