Celtic Poker Tour Final 2012

The Celtic Tour Final is one of my favourite games of the year. With 80% of the field having won entry over the year at regional games and an average age demographic twenty years older then the norm for similar buy ins. Playing this tournament is a little like stepping back in time to 2005.

I did spot a few heroes in the room. You’d have to consider yourself a tad unlucky if your starting table at a CPT game included Internet phenomena’s Jude ‘j.thaddeus’ Ainsworth or Nelius ‘danceofddead’ Foley.  

Thankfully I avoided both and had a lovely table, only one good player and I don’t think my bigblind was raised more then twice in the first four levels. I had almost doubled my starting stack by the first break and commented to Derek Murray, “I couldn’t see how I was going to lose any chips on this table”. This was such a silly thing to say as I managed to lose 100 blinds in the first two hands after that break.

I managed to get these chips back when I flopped the nut flush in an unraised multiway pot, but then made the fatal fancy play error. I made a big check raise bluff when a flush hit the turn in a hand I shouldn’t have been in and then pumped the river when a forth club fell. JJ called me with the jack of clubs.

Cathal Shine a top player who had joined the table said I had played the hand perfectly and he couldn’t understand how my opponent found the call. This made me feel a little better, although I really shouldn’t of been running big bluffs on this table, big value bet yes. Again I was back to the 20k starting stack and with the blinds rising and table toughening I had severely restricted myself.

My exit came in the ninth level in a standard enough spot. Blinds 400-800 and playing 25k I find the Kings with a raise and 3-bet before me to act, I’m up against AK and the Ace flops. I must admit to being a bit gutted on the drive home. With a hold and 50k entering the last two levels of play of the day I’d of fancied my chances of accumulating a stack.             

       

I Drive

Living at the bottom of the country means a recurring conflict when traveling to  poker events. Do you go alone, thus allowing a quick exit upon busting, or do you travel with a friend. This offers company on the often long drives, but brings it with the risk of either of you having to wait around if one bust early and the other goes deep.     

From experience I've become to favor the drive alone option. Too often I've found myself in the position of railing a travel companion. When these friends are in showdown situations, I'm ashamed to say I'm usually hoping they bust.

I had arranged to go check out JP McCann's new card room in Tallaght Village with Pat Storen for a €120 buy in €10,000 guaranteed tournament. I rang Pat early on Saturday to say I'd drive up separately rather then accompany him just in case one of us bust early and the other goes deep. Pat's reply was " sure thats not going to happen, I'll collect you in twenty minutes".

The tournament started at two and sure enough I got knocked out after 90 minutes and Pat went on to cash in the 100 runner field. I had a few beers and a few trips to the bookies but eventually I had to succumb to partaking in a pastime I despise, live cash.

I used to play a lot of live cash back in 2005 and 2006 before I got a real turn against it. I formed the opinion that the whole premise of it was rather predatory. Most of the money won is either from drunks or vulnerable people with very little chance of winning.

I spent about six hours playing cash Saturday and my thoughts on the pastime haven't changed. I'm not preaching to anyone here just saying it's not for me.

The only saving grace was the venue. The Village Green card club is a smashing spot for a game  of poker. It's a bright and spacious card room, tastefully decorated with a very nice bar area and enough space too easily hold major tournaments.

About ten hours after my exit I herd "all in and call", I look across to where the tournament was running and Pat was involved. I'm ashamed to say my feelings didn't involve disappointment when he grabbed his coat.                 

Southern Open

The third leg of the Irish Tour, The Southern Open took place at the Macau in Cork over the weekend. The organisers have adjusted the structure slightly from the previous legs to allow the tournaments to run over two days.

The guys who run the tour were pretty sure that they would 'not' reach the €30,000 guarantee in the run up to the €300 buy in event. A number of other games were on the weekend and the host venue didn't have much time to fill satellites with this event coming right on the tail of the Irish Classic.

In fairness to the Irish Tour they could easily of pulled the guarantee or even the tournament, but they decided they would take the hit and run with it. This looked like a very costly decision early on as only 25 players were seated at the start of the tournament, which would of meant a €24,000 overlay.

At this stage the powers of social media kicked into full swing. Twitter and Facebook became awash with the news of a massive overlay. By the time the 6 levels of late registration closed the field had increased to a respectable 93 players and the overlay was reduced to €5,000.

My starting table was packed with good players. Chris Dowling, Tim Farrelly, Ken Ralph, Tony Collins, Jamie 'brutal' Flynn. You get the idea, no easy chips. I slugged away all day and every time I looked like getting a stack to play with I'd hit a reversal.

I don't think I'm one to complain about how I'm running but one instant well into the day brought home to me where my mindset is currently at. I had needlessly slow played aces as I got all my chips in on the turn against kings. As the dealer counted out the pot, Chris Dowling asked me do you have the aces because the look on you face says you have the kings.

I'm sitting there 95% favorite to win the showdown and instead of fist pumping in my head, I'm fully expecting to be sent packing, This really is not a good place to be as a poker player.

Into level 12, I lost half my stack to Kieran 'the croc' Walsh in a QQ v 1010 cooler. Then another few chips when I decided not to call off with a flush draw while having odds to do so if the draw was live. A few people said I should of called here but I'm happy enough my decision not to. 

My exit came shortly after with three tables remaining in the tournament. Gary Clarke raised UTG the SB made it 10k, I shoved from the BB with QQ for 38k. Gary folded and the SB called with Jacks and hit one on the flop. Pity as it was an above average pot and I'd have fancied a deep run if I could of held.


I felt very rusty in the Irish Classic two weeks ago. I wasn't making glaring mistakes but just wasn't plugged in and on the drive home a couple of hand stuck in my head where I definitely gave up too easily and missed spots. I guess you can't just expect to turn up once every four weeks and be on your A-game. Time to get the finger out and put in a bit of volume for the rest of the year.

Irish Classic

The Irish Classic in Cork was the target last weekend. I always look forward to playing in the Macau sporting club, generally you can be assured of some banter on the tables and historically I do well there. The banter was great last weekend, unfortunately the poker didn't go so well.

My starting table included Paul Carr, Fintan Gavin and the WBO International Middleweight Champion Gary 'Spike' O'Sullivan. It's unusual to see a total novice in a €500 buy in but Gary had never played poker before so I guess that could be considered a good table draw. Fintan ever the gentleman took Spike under his wing and gave him loads of advice. Well maybe not loads but he showed him a hand ranking chart on his phone and told him to fold every time Fintan raised him.

It was a pretty good table and I doubled my 20k starting stack over the first six levels without playing a sizable or memorable pot. The last two levels of the night went bad for me and I returned day two with 28k which was 28 bigblinds.

My starting table on day two was tough including Chris Dowling directly on my left and good young Cork players, Tadhg Ryan and Colin Hammond. I found Kings, Aces and AK early but had to fold the kings on a ace high 3 spade flop after my continuation bet was raised and just took a few bigs with the other two premiums.

My exit came at the hands of Dowling in the second level of the day with 36 of the 103 starters remaining. I shoved 19 bigs over a button open with AJ and Chris woke up with AQ in the big blind. A jack on the turn game me a glimmer of hope but the Queen to follow on the river meant that hope didn't last long.

I was chatting to fellow Waterford native Dave 'Kakak' McCarty before start of play on Saturday. Dave is a real enthusiast of the game but wasn't overly confidant of his prospects in the conversation we had so it was a nice surprise to see he finished second for €10,000. 

The Irish Classic used to be the major Irish poker event of the summer months. Unfortunately recent years have seen a sizable drop in buy in, numbers and consequently prize pool. The extent of this could be gleaned from the fact that cashing for 5th place in 2008 was equal to 1st place money this year.          

It's a harsh environment for tournament operators in Ireland at present. With a glut of events and patrons disposable income almost non existent, putting bums on seats has never been more difficult.
It's probably nostalgia  on my behalf but I do feel bad about the decline of the event in recent years.   

Compulsive Viewing

Congrats to John O’Shea on his great run in the WSOP Main Event. I must admit to being very impressed with the fact that John needed to finish around 12^th in the main event to get out on the trip. Such a pity he couldn’t catch a few breaks inside the last 200.Would of made for some ending to the documentary Setanta are shooting about John. 

I played the Munster Masters in Tramore last weekend. The €250 buy in tournament only got 50 runners and I finished 6^th for a little over double the buy in. While the numbers were small, it was an enjoyable game with a good structure.

I lost a big pot with about 15 players left and never really recovered. Being in shove mode for so long it was inevitable that I’d get called at some stage and in reality I was a bit fortunate to even make the money.
I’ll be on lock-down mode this weekend watching the Open Championship. This is my favourite weeks golf of the year and I’ll be glued to the TV savoring every minute of the forty or so hours coverage.

I’m not going to try tipping a winner as I’m a bit perplexed and don’t really have a strong fancy. I had a few small speculative bets on the outright markets, but will mainly play that in running.

A couple of bets I’ll be having on other markets include; Mark Leishman at 10/1 for a top twenty finish with Boylesports. Leishman is a recent winner on the PGA tour and a player goes a bit under the radar. He’s generally over priced as is the case this week and is in the form of his life.

I’ll also be having a decent punt on Ben Curtis for his opening day three ball against two players woefully out of form in Trevor Immelman and Paul Casey. 18-hole three ball markets aren’t usually a place that I often get involved in, but this one looks too good to pass up.

Musical Chairs

There were two games on last Saturday. A €120 game in the City West and a €350 two day game which was part of a ‘Summer Festival’ in the Fitz. I opted for the latter, which unfortunately only attracted 26 players, the game in the City West got a massive 500 players.   

The Fitz game started with two tables and when a few more entered, I was moved to the third table. After 20 minutes on my new table I ran a King high flush into the nut flush of James 'Hawkeye' McManus. Meanwhile I looked across to my old seat, which was filled by Fintan Gavin, and he had quadrupled his starting stack in that time. I kind of felt it wasn’t going to be my day.

Nothing went right after and I exited in 16th after roughly 3 hours play, at least I lasted long enough for the legendry Fitz feed. I had travelled up with Ian ‘Bops’ Ronan and although we had swapped percentages, I’m ashamed to say I was more hoping he got knocked out quickly rather then win the thing. Bops is never one to hang around short-stacked, luckily he finished 14th.

I had dropped into the City West on my way to Dublin and the numbers for that game were astounding. Celtic poker tours with their regional partners, JP and Nick O’Hara in this instance, have been putting on these €120 buy in $25,000 guarantees for over a year now.

These games have become hugely popular attracting more and more recreational players to them, rather then playing the expense laden multi-day festival event. Professionally run; low buy in, softer fields, with a chance of a decent score at the end. What’s not to like? With the economy in the state it is Celtic Poker Tour have clearly produced the product that fits the current market well, and these event will be where much of the poker playing community will be getting their fix for the foreseeable future.         

Well done to Jason Tompkins on his WSOP final table in event #54 last night, a great performance getting through 3,200 players to finish 6th. BigMickG aka Mick Graydon is currently 12/22 in event #56 so hopefully another late nights railing lays ahead tonight.                    

Quilted

I was in Galway (briefly) last weekend for the Eglington’s Casino, rather grandly named Chieftain of the Tribes tournament. It was a €350 game with 110 runners and a very good structure.

I only lasted into the fourth level, bluffing off my stack shoving on the river, when I didn’t think I’d get called; I did. I felt it was a good spot the way the hand played out but I picked the wrong client who had rivered top pair when in the hand on a flush draw.

I had gotten of to a good start adding 25% to my starting stack in level one, but a few reversals had me playing my exit hand with 75 big blinds. Typing it here now it’s becoming clear that it was probably an unnecessary risk I was taking in the hand.

Not having booked anywhere accommodation wise I didn’t hang around. Galway was booked out the weekend, I had checked a few online sites and the likes of travel lodge were priced at €500 a night. Upon further investigation I found out the scarcity of rooms was because of a huge influx of people for the International Quilting Festival.

Not being familiar with the term Quilting, but assuming it had some sexual connotation, I checked the ‘Urban Dictionary’. This defines quilting as  “The act of removing one's clothes as a professional stripper”. Could it be every hotel in Galway was filled with stripper for the weekend? Nope I’m afraid not, it was filled with people who made or had interests in fabric quilts.

Big shout out to tournament director extraordinaire JP McCann or as I rather refer to him “the Irish Elky”. JP became a player for the weekend and put in a splendid effort to finish 4^th, in the poker tournament that was, not the quilting.

I played the WSOP mega satt on Boylepoker Sunday night. Got off to a flyer in this and was 2^nd in chips a few hours into the tournament. Hopes were high of binking one of the 20 x $13,500 packages, but I lost a big flip AK v JJ just inside 80 players, exiting shortly after.

Finally it’s the US open this week and at the risk of being unoriginal I’m backing Kaymer EW and 18/1 top European. As much as Augusta doesn’t suit Herr Kaymers swing; this place is made for it, with fading the ball off the tee a must.