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.

Winter Festival Blues

I was looking forward to this one. The IWF boasts the second largest prize pool of the calendar year and with good runs at the title the previous two years, I was confident entering the tournament.

My plan was to arrive late to the Burlington on Friday night and get a good night kip. I checked in at ten and was in the bar at 10.05. Wally told me he'd been playing cash all night and asked could he use the spare bed in my room for a kip the following morning. I got to bed about five, Wally woke me about 7.30 carrying a bag that suggested he intended to stay longer than the original nap time requested.

I started the game a little hung-over and a lot jaded, after my two and a half hours kip. My starting table had Derek Murray, Pauric (Digiman on IPB) and a decent American player who recently won the UKIPT Scotland.

The first two levels were just feeling out the table. In level three I lost a few chips to Pauric, trapping into his turned flush. There was a decent enough Latvian player on the table whom I got a very lucky double from playing about 12k.

He had call numerous three-bets showing up with hands like Q8, so I wasn't that worried when he called mine while I was holding Queens. I got very worried when we got it in on the Jack high two-club flop, with him holding top set. I picked up a flushdraw on the turn and rivered a Queen.

The rest of the day went very well. I gradually grew my stack all day without playing any big pot or ever being in danger of going out, eventually finishing with 78,000. This was a top twenty stack with 110 left, so I was in a very healthy position.

It had been a very long twelve-hour day's poker, so I decided to skip a post play drink and retired to my room for that over due good night sleep but I hadn't factored in Wally. I was awoken from a coma state about six, as he had decided to watch the Malaysian Grand Prix at full volume.

Back to the tables and not as refreshed as I hoped, the first two hours were spent protecting my stack, as I wasn't finding any hands. When I eventually found AK I got it in with a shorter stacks . The Queen on the river was unfortunate. It meant the difference of having 50 or 25 big blinds nearing the period, where people are thinking of making the cash.

I did chip back my losses in the hand fast enough, by upping my aggression but was out soon. While playing something between 70-80k, I raised the small blind and Funkymonk from IPB over shoved from the big. I more or less snapped with and lost to his Tens.

I'm sure my hand played well against his pushing range and if I had known his hand, I think I would have taken the race anyway. The implied advantage of getting my hands on 150k in chips, twenty-five from the money in a tournament with a huge amount of satellite winners is fairly massive.

Ultimately, it was another disappointing tournament, continuing the run of getting my hands on chips but exiting with around 20% of the field remaining. I wouldn't be human if I wasn't finding this run frustrating. However, I'm playing well and getting my hands on chips, so I'm actually feeling very good and positive about my game.

I was unlucky not to get a draw out of the tournament in the end, as I had backed eventual third, Tom "The Bomb" Finnernan at 50/1. Tom's a top player but couldn't catch a break on the final table, having entered it 4/1 favourite to take it down. It was still a great and well deserved result for Tom.

The weekend wasn't a total washout, as I was lucky enough to back Jonathan Byrd in the PGA event in Las Vegas at 60/1. It was some buzz seeing him get a hole in one to wrap it up on the fourth play off hole.

I'll spare everyone the story of Wally waking me up at six that morning.

IPO Weekend

Firstly, a big well done to Lisa, Ciaran, Jerry, everyone else at Boylepoker and Poker Ireland for yet again producing the biggest poker tournament of the year outside of Las Vegas.

I can only imagine the amount of work that goes into pulling off the IPO, but pull it off they did and what a great weekend it was again!

I played golf with the usual suspects (Paul, Marty and Julian) in the K Club on the Wednesday and Thursday before the event. Honours were split but if you saw the trashing Marty and myself got on day one, you wouldn't have backed us at 10/1 to recoup our losses on day two.

We headed to the Regency on Thursday evening and were settled in at the bar for the Montpelier rugby game. Marty said he was going in heavy on them to cover the handicap earlier in the day. I had a grand on and while I shouldn't say Marty's bet, it was 10x mine anyway.

Five minutes into the match, Marty came out with this gem of a question. Are Montpelier in the blue or grey? Something he probably should know, with a five-figure wager involved you'd think.

Montpelier, in the blue, won handily and the rest of the night was spent enjoying a relaxing few drinks.

I really enjoyed the whole tournament. I had a very pleasant starting table and the whole room seemed to be enjoying the game. I never really got going and just before dinner I ran Queens into Aces, which left me with five blinds. I needed to get these in before the blinds hit me and unfortunately I ran my J4os into Kings.

I did, however, last long enough to get a few quid from Mr Smyth in a last longer

Over the rest of the weekend I did three stints of commentating for the live stream, got two rounds of golf in and many more rounds of drinks.

It really was a hugely enjoyable weekend. Mickey May summed it up late in the bar on the Sunday night when she said, "The atmosphere at the IPO is something special, it's the people's tournament".

More Killarney

It was back to Killarney last weekend for the 250k guaranteed €500 game. There were rumours of large wagers between Connie and Fintan Gavin on whether this one would get a bigger field then the UKIPT Dublin.

When I was a child, one of the earliest doctrines my father taught me was never to bet with a cute Kerrymen and sure enough Connie scooped that bet with 633 turning out. This number is slightly down on previous years but still a great achievement to produce that size of field.

A golf day was arranged on Killeen for Thursday and yours truly scooped the first prize of €200 into my Ladbrokes account with 35pts. I love that course, it really is something else.

The danger of going to these festivals a day early is inevitably you end up on the lash. You can have the best intentions in the world but meeting up with everyone generally leads to a few beers.

The result of Thursday night meant I entered the tournament a little hung-over. This isn't the worst anti-spew mechanism in the world, as I'll usually start a little tighter in that condition.

I was plodding along grand and had added 66% to my 15k starting when in the final hand before dinner, I got dealt the Kings. The big blind was dealt Aces and after the usual raising procedure we got it in and I was lucky enough to bink a straight on the river, thus adding his 16k stack to mine.

The rest of day one was uneventful enough and I finished the day on a healthy enough 44k with the average around 30.

I got off to a great start on day two when I flopped gin-holding 33 on a 773 board and managed to get the full double through from an over-pair. This table broke soon enough and I ran pretty well on my new table.

I won a massive pot with verses a few hours into the day. I had 4-bet my opponent recently enough and he must have felt I was bullying him when he shoved the over me when I did it again. Understandable enough, but I had Aces the first time I did it.

I was playing about 180k now with average around the 50 mark, so a massive stack. Unfortunately that was as good as it got. On a new table not much went right for me and eventually I ran Queens into Aces about a dozen off the money for my last 90k with the blinds at 2/4k.

That's three of the last four major events I've played in Ireland where I've amassed a super stack midway though day two and haven't converted to even a min cash.

It's all very depressing really but you get plenty of time to mull over things on the drive home from Kerry and my conclusion is I didn't do a single thing wrong, it just went against me. At least I'm getting my hands on chips and if I keep doing that a conversion isn't far off.

Big well done to Marty Smyth and John O'Shea on their great performances in London for the EPT, it was getting very exciting following the updates and great to see both hit the money.