UKIPT Cork & Senior Moments

I was regged for day one A of the UKIPT Cork, which would mean a free day Friday if I managed to make day two. I decided commuting was my best option as stars had monopolised the hotel and a free day spent in Cork means a hangover for day two anyway.

I should of known it wasn't going to be my weekend when on the Thursday morning I put two Weetabix in an ashtray for breakfast; my first senior moment of the weekend.

I felt this was always going to be a sell out and a capacity 602 souls ponied up the buy in for the inaugural Cork leg of the tour, 320 played day one A.

I had a nice steady starting table and was still on my starting stack into level five when things got a bit busy. I was on the wrong side of a set over set incident early in the level and dropped to 6k; before the level finished I was playing forty.

My upward spiral continued for the next five levels and over a few table breaks until level ten when I came unstuck.

Playing a little over 70 bigs I called a 3-bet out of position with AsQs. When I checked raised the Js10c8c flop pot sized c-bet, I was committed. The two red kings my opponent held left me with 37% equity which was ok by me, I was dreading AcKc which would of been much worse.

I was left with 6 bigs after the hand and hung in for about an hour eventually losing a 25 big race in the last level of the day to eventual forth, young Limerick player, Jamie Flynn. I had played with Jamie before at a Macau festival and he has an impressive game and is one to watch out for in the future.

I still had a lot of interest in the event as I had taken percentages of about ten players ranging from 10% to 50%. Thankfully this didn't go unrewarded, I managed to recoup €70 as one of my 10% had a min cash.

I stayed at home- played golf Friday- and returned Saturday for the €330 side event. I was toying with playing the high roller event but Nick Newport told me not to as there wasn't enough money for winning it.

This turned out to be good advice as I played like a numpty in the 300 game. I went out having my second senior moment of the weekend. My 5 bet shove might not seem terrible on the face of it, as it was small blind verses button. In reality it was horrid, the chance my opponent was betting light was about the same as bumping into Elvis in Tesco’s.

My other moment over the weekend involved golf punting. The last time they ran the Volvo Matchplay was 2009 and it was by far my worst losing week on golf ever. After that event I have steered clear of matchplay events,

With this in mind I proceeded to have my biggest pre tournament outright bet of the year on Lee Westwood. Westy was on fire and finished his two group matches in 27 holes total. In fact he was -19 for 45 holes in the tournament after his match with Poulter Saturday morning.

I'm sure this was of great solace to him on the flight home that afternoon; it wasn't much consolation for me. Fuelled by a deep hatred for Poulter I was going to get him for Lee. I proceeded to martingale against him for the rest of the event. There was only ever going to be one outcome- I'm not backing matchplay anymore.

The JP Masters

While the Irish Open is a wonderful event and I wouldn't swap it for all the EPTea's in China; but it does bleed the Irish poker economy.

With Easter falling so late this year, we poker players had just eight days to dust off our Open hangovers and head to the Ballsbridge Inn for the fourth instalment of the JP Masters. Unfortunately many never made it!

It was a very disappointing. 175 players turned out for the main event with all the side events suffering too.

I guess with a congested calendar something had to give, it's such a pity it was the turnout for this fantastic event.

Quite simply JP McCann runs the best show in the country and his tournaments need and deserve to be supported better then this.

The tournament itself was a classic with many of the country's top players fighting out the latter stages.

I cruised through Day 1 with a lovely stack but came a cropper early in Day 2, losing a massive pot to eventual winner, Tony 'The Pirate' Rafter.

Mark McDonell had amassed a huge stack and looked to be unstoppable until the poker Gods decided he was, well, stoppable.

A series of beats saw Mark eventually finish just short of the final table but it really is just a matter of time for this guy.

The class of the final eight was testament to the fantastic structure and Tony can take great satisfaction for seeing off that lot.