Circles

No, I'm not plugging Google +, rather circles casino Clonmel where I played a €275 summer game last Sunday.

51 players turned out for the one-day event and I got the most in a 4-way chip equity chop at 5 am. I took home €3,300 which was 26% of the total prize pool, so not a bad day's work.

I was treading water early on in this event, but got lucky three tables out when I squeezed KQ into a limpers AK. I never really looked back after this and although I was short enough going to the final table, things fell my way.

One sweet hand that I'll remember from the tournament occurred six handed. I raised 10 7os in the cut-off and hit the old 89J flop. I got it in on the flop against the BB's top pair. This gave me the chip lead and I was happy to chop shortly after, when we lost another player.

It was an enjoyable, well-structured game and the staff at Circles were top class, I'll be back for their Winter Festival in early December.

My next poker outing is the Irish Classic in the Macau Cork next week. You have the option here to play Day 1A and if it doesn't work out, you can buy back in on the second day one. I'm not sure how I feel about these tournaments that you can buy back into, but I don't think I'll be availing of the option. I just don't like the idea of being in for a grand in a monkey game, where realistically a maximum of 10% of the field will only have re-entered.

On the golf front, it's the last major of the year this weekend. I had a nice touch out of Kaymer in this one last year but I haven't really gotten involved pre tee this time - I'll see how the first two days go and have a punt Saturday. TBH my confidence in doing anything-right punting wise isn't great. I'm in a trough for about ten weeks on the golf and not attacking this major with my usual vigour.

Not up to much this weekend, the highlight will be a trip to Killarney Friday to play Killeen. Just looking at the forecast now and it's not great but I'll put up with some rain to play this smashing course.

EMOP Dublin

Clontarf Castle Hotel was the venue for the inaugural visit of the European Masters of Poker tour to these shores. It proved to be a fantastic venue with a top room for a poker tournament. Having played a few of the tours events overseas I knew what to expect- 200 or so Scandinavian online qualifiers most of mediocre ability and hopefully boosted by a good turnout form the home team.

Connie O'Sullivan's, Cue Club events team were running the show and as you could expect with these guys, all targets were met. 300+ players sat down over the two starting days to fight it out for the title. I opted for day one B and my starting table seemed tough enough initially but I warmed to it as the levels progressed.

At the first break I commented to a friend that I expected an Asian kid on my left to start playing back at me soon. First hand back he did, I can’t see how I could of folded my jacks after just making this prediction and his aces held in a 28k pot. Thankfully I doubled immediately after with kings to get back to starting stack of 20k.

Over the next few hours I hit a brilliant run of starting hands, unfortunately they kept getting smashed. I had to give up on Aces three times over the next four levels, costing me plenty on each occasion.

Seven levels into the ten level day I got a table move, I had only about 15k at this stage but was stagnating and hoping the move could ignite me into the tournament. My new table covered the spectrum of Irish poker. On my left was tall Michael Graydon, Mick is having a sick year online and is topping the pocket5s Irish table for 2011. On my right, legend of Irish poker, former WSOP main event finalist George McKeever, so quiet the contrast.

Funnily enough I had never played with George before. I must of impressed him somewhat as after two hours of playing on the table he asked me if I'd like to swap 5% in the event.

I was going along OK and had doubled my stack when I ran AK into A9 just before the last level of the night. I'm well used to losing 30-70's, so it wouldn't bother me generally. However, the fact the dealer burst out laughing when my opponent hit a flush on the river had me steaming I must admit.

Just into the final level with ten big blinds left I got a lucky double shoving A5 into A10. But it was to no avail as thirty minutes later I lost a race for 60k, which was average stack, AK v JJ.

It was a difficult days poker for me as every time I looked like getting something going the deck swung against me. I feel had I won the late race I could well of have had a run at this one, but wasn't to be. I'm never too disappointed once I've played decent poker and I was very happy with my game over the day.

I'll be writing on the event for my columns in the star and bluff and will have a more macro-based sum up of the tournament in those. But big well done to all the Irish that cashed, especially The two Micks and Doke who nearly held off the invaders.

Other Stuff

This isn't a blog that's going up on Boyles. I seem to be getting caught up a lot in writing over the last year - the bluff column and more recently for the poker supplement in the star and while I enjoy it - I need to be a bit more reader focused then having a good old waffle like I used to here. I always liked blogging but never envisaged my bull being published in magazines and newspapers. The only real conclusion I can come up with on those happenings is the community is severely starved of literary talent.

I never made Vegas this year which I dont really regret, there was a number of factors why I didn't go but the main one was I hit a bad run punting and didn't have a spare 25k lying around. I could of went down the road of selling action but just didn't fancy it, the enthusiasm just wasn't there and I have no regrets of not making a better effort to get over.

The few games I did play over the last month were more piss ups then serious games. Not very professional I know but the buyins were small and killarney and tramore - well its hard not to hit the beer in those spots. I'm a bit involved in putting on the tramore tournament so I'm not 100% comfortable playing it for that reason and might not play it next year.

There's a couple of really good games on the horizon and you wont see me touching a drop at these starting with the EMOP this week.

There's a real change in the landscape of Irish poker this year and while I'm happy to see tours like the emop and unibet hitting these shores. Along with the ukipt They're definitely squeezing the traditional events that existed but if it gives players shots at bigger prizepools then I suppose that's what we want.

The other side of the coin though is I hate seeing tournaments like the winter festival and the Irish Classic dropping buy in to try compete. The classic had a near 300k prizepool in 2008- it looks like it will do well to have 100k one this year. I guess its survival of the fittest and if you dont have a way of mass producing qualifiers your going to suffer in the current macro-eco climate.

On the punting front I lost the plot completely on the golf for a while- punting in grands pre tournament on outright market is just too high variance for my liquidity and that's well reined in. TBH if I spent the time I spent watching and punting golf on my poker game over the last 18 months.......you get the picture.

I'm not sure if anyone still drops in here anymore but I'll try post here the odd time with stuff that I feel falls outside my role with Boyles just to keep the old blog going.

Open Time

On the poker front I played twice the weekend- the monthly game in the poker lounge Waterford where I came third and the summer game in the Cue Club Killarney where I lasted about a third of the time it took me to get there. Still Killarney's always great craic to go out in this time of year so wasn't a wasted trip.

A couple of great event coming up - we have the Boylepoker Waterford Masters next week; the Masters is always a top class little tournament with a great atmosphere. Then the following week the EMOP visits Ireland for the first time. This takes place in Clontraf Castle and a good purse is guaranteed.

This weekend will be spent watching the Open Championship. I'm punting Kaymer; he's been going through a swing change and watching him play in France two weeks ago he looked nearly right to me. He's on record as saying he doesn't love links golf but in reality has a superb links record, he's also one of the best ball strikers in windy conditions which we can expect over the four days. All in all 25/1 looks a very decent price and well worth a bet. I should add however that this tip comes with a public warning, I'm very much out of form punting wise the past two months.

Celtic Poker Tour Grand Final

The Celtic Poker tour has been running since 2004 and every year has a grand final.

Initially you had to win one of the many tour games to get into this, but they opened it up to all comers since 2008. Every year more regulars of the wider Irish scene find their way to Carlow for the finals and one inevitably wins- this year was no different.

The CPT is predominantly a rural tour and the demographic of the tour regulars would be mainly over forty. The events are a social night out for them and an enjoyable atmosphere to play poker is always in place. However over the three day excellently structured Grand Final the regular's style of play just isn't up to it.

The Final table was littered with recognisable 'names'. Colette Murphy and Mick McCloskey both had good runs but fell short on the final table. Alan McIntyre followed up his 5th place finish at the JP Masters by filling the same spot here.

With four remaining, Tom Kitt took total command in a massive pot with AQ v KK, the ace on the river added to Tom's already impressive stack and sending Noel 'twang' O'Brien to the rail in cruel fashion.

After a few hours sparring and the stacks levelling up measurably the three remaining players, Kitt, Tommy Walsh and Dimitri Pembroke decided to deal with Tom taking 19k and the trophy, Tommy and Dimitri getting a healthy 15k each.

I managed to increase my side event specialist reputation (which I hate) over the weekend taking down the €220 game for 4k and was very close to getting the best deal of my career in the process.

Three-handed, with me holding a huge chip advantage, the two lads discussed chopping second and third place money and giving me first. A ticket for a future event included in the second prize eventually killed the deal but it would have been fun to get full first place money in a deal with three players remaining.

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.