Poker Wheelies

Traveled to the South Court Hotel in Limerick for the sixth leg ( my third ) of the Irish Championship tour on Saturday. The numbers were a little disappointing at 48. My starting table seemed to have a decent bit of value on it but I kinda got dragged into the spewey play and lost a third of my chips before I got this sweet hand. Three limper's and I limp behind on the button with 32s, 4 5 10 flop and a player bets tiny and four player see the turn ace - bingo. Early position makes it 600 gets two callers and I raise to 2600 knowing that I'm getting called which I did in two spots. I get my remaining 3600 in on the river with one caller; so a healty 15k return for my circa 6k which I started the hand with.

Not less then 5 minutes later I'm BB with 4 2 os, flop comes 3 5 X and amazingly the ace hits the turn again. I picked up about 5k in the pot; John Ward from Galway made an excellent river two pair fold here. I was cruising along nicely until I decided to gamble pre flop with 1010 against a shortish stack and his KK held. Very next hand I get KK in a pot against a guy I figured I could heavily value bet against. The hand played out with me having a King high flush on an unpaired board, I get all my chips in as I think top pair will pay me here but unfortunately he has the ace flush. So out early enough in a twice average stack pot.

Hung aroung and played a few sitngoes with Bommer, John Weaffer, Derek Murry, and a couple of the Galway lads which were great craic. Decided to head home on Sunday morning rather then play the €200 event as I just didn't feel like playing.

This weekend I'm off to London for the GUKPT grand final. This is a £3,000 + 150 event and will have a quality field. I dont have any expectations going into the game and as ever I'll be happy to just play well and bring my A-game, allthough it would be very nice if the pokergods choose this one to shine on me.

The following week its the Gala Tour final in Bristol which is a £1500 + 150 buyin. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm opiniated about structures. Having looked at the structure for this one I decided to complain a bit on the hendonmob forum here. Fingers crossed about getting a levelor two added.

Splendid weekends poker

I think all that played at the weekends Brucepokers launch festival will agree with the above sentiments. The Greenisle proved to be a great location and the room set up was excellent. With 170 players for Fridays, 220 Saturday and over 200 playing Sundays events, I personally thought the turnout was very good. I think general expectations about field sizes are a little skewed ATM because of the recent huge fields achieved in Killarney and the IPO but I was very happy with the amount of runners for all events. It was clear from the room set up ( tables and chips) and added money and prizes that Brucepoker.com spared no expense on the event.

Fridays game

Was €120 entry with a €50 rebuy/top-up. Generally in this type of double chance event I'll have a gamble with my first stack and did so in the very first hand when I got all my chips in on the flop with an open ender against the two pair of Paul Coyle and missed. Hand two I flopped at straight and got it in against a flush draw and hand three flop a set and stack top pair. JP was just announcing Nicky is all in again so most people in the room thought I was making an effort to get to the bar but this wasn't the case.

I was up to over 20k in level one and then back down to six when I was two outed on the river when I held AA. I then hit a rush of cards again after the break when the following hand occurred. I put a raiser playing about 25k all in holding JJ; after a blatant slowroll he has Kings but the poker gods hate slowrollers and I had the last laugh as a jack hit the river. I was very amused by ITTPat from boards reaction in seat one- he lept into the air roaring YES with the Tiger Woods fist pump- lol. That was as good as it got after peaking at 100k and the chip lead with 55 players left, I was gone before the last four tables. I lost 30% of my stack when I raised AJ against AA, I lost calling Paul Coyle button shove with QK Vs his A2 and my last 44k when I pushed A6 from the sb into JJ.

Main Event

I don't recall a whole lot of the main event; It started very slowly for me and the first real hand I played was level five or six when I doubled through Brian from GJP racing with AQ Vs JJ. I just maneuvered my way through the field without any real hands and had about 100k when I lost half of it with QQ against a limp callers A6. I was steaming after this hand for about ten minutes but luckily it coincided with a break. Just after the break I got my now customary Brucie bonus hand. A chap had just sat to my left and had proceeded to tell me that he had aces cracked twice in the last twenty minutes. He was only on the table a couple of hands when its folded to me in the SB holding KJ and I shove into his AA. Two kings on the flop almost double me up and I add another 40k by the end of play to finish on 130k with 33 players returning for day two and 22 paid.

I found it very hard to get any spot on Sunday with Keith McFadden on my right. Keith was all in almost every hand and played very well. He was either pushing over players or if he was opening pots he just shoved- he told me later this tactic was because I was acting after him and its a fairly unexploitable strategy when playing < 30 BBs poker. On one occasion I almost called a McFadden 3-bet shove with A10 but I thought the initial raiser was strong; he siad he folded AQ while Keith told me later he folded QK. I can only remember taking two blinds on the Sunday, both times with 109 and never saw a hand. I eventually shoved the cut-off blind with 8 BBs ( button wasn't in his seat ) and was called by ITTPat with A4os. Out in 19th for a small cash but I throughly enjoyed the game and felt it played like a much bigger event and as ever JP had the structure spot on.

Freeroll

I wasn't really up for the freeroll having just gone from the main event and after a chat with Paul and Thomas I decided to just sit in for a bit and donk off my bounty. One chap was unlucky not to get it when I was all in with 10 3os pre flop but a runner runner straight dashed his hopes. I eventually managed to go out pushing loads of chips with K4 into AA; thankfully I didnt bust them this time.

€120 Game

The last game of the festival with 96 runners was my favorite. The bounty paid off big time in this one with people just throwing there stacks at me. I got the chip lead with about 50 players left and held it until the final table where I made a number of mistakes and basically blew up. I was after having a few beers over the tournament so I'm putting my errors down to that and not beating myself up to much about it. It was my second cash of the festival so I was happy with that. I was also delighted to see Johnny, Chris and Dennis involved in the chop here.

Overall I thought the festival ran seamlessly from a players point of view and all involved worked there socks off. Paul and Thomas of Brucepoker.com, JP and both crews deserve a lot of credit for giving us such a wonderful event and I for one am very greatful. Also congratulations to everyone who cashed and to those who took my scalp.

Brucepoker launch festival

Really looking forward to this now, talking to the lads and the main event is filling up nicely. I reckon an €80,000 plus prize pool which is brilliant for a €250 event. There's going to be a bounty on my head in all tournaments which will make for interesting strategy decisions for me. I'll definitely have to think how I'm going to approach these games as the dynamic is certainly going to be different. Last chance to qualify for the festival are this coming weekend. On Saturday night at 8.00 there's a no requirement freeroll. The winner of this freeroll will get a €250 ticket to Saturdays main event and the 2nd will get a €100 ticket to Fridays event. Then on Sunday at 8.00 there a two package guarantee on the $49+5 game. You can register for any of the events directly on the Brucepoker.com home page.

Bruce's have also updated the scheme/layout on the site and I think its a huge improvement. The software is really after growing on me and I even won my first tournament on the site tonight all be it just a small one.

Winter Festival

Day one

By the time Saturday came around I was very excited about playing the Winter Festival. I had played very little in the previous week and the whole week seemed to drag with my focus totally on the weekends game. Decided to go to city west on Saturday morning rather then the Friday for hangover avoidance reasons. It's very hard not to get caught up in the pre festival festivities in these events so I decided Saturday was my best option. Got there about 12.30 quiet relaxed as I left the driving to Pat. The room was set up exactly as it was for the Irish open earlier in the year and with a great turnout of over 420 runners there was a real top level tournament atmosphere in the main hall.

The very first hand of the tournament I lost over 30% of my starting stack when I turned the nut flush but lost to a rivered house when the board paired. I lost another decent size pot shortly afterwards when I called two bets with an over-pair and folded on the river. So I was down to half my stack in level one. Level three saw me rally back above starting stack getting most of the chips back with a call holding AJ on a KKJXX board against an aggressive Swedish player. It looked a good call but the way the hand played out it was obvious he was bluffing a missed draw.

Got up to about 14k playing small pots but then lost 4k when I folded queens on a dry jack high board. I think this was an easy enough fold, the guy flatted pre led the flop and check shoved the turn, I thought he had AA or KK at the time and he confirmed later he had AA. The next hand of any note was against Rooney_dives and he posted in the strategy forum on boards here, I definitely didn't get full value from my hand and I don't like my bet sizing much mainly due to a mistake I made on chip denominations. I also wouldn't have Dan on a small range here as raising under the gun light is fairly fashionable with stars tournament players so I didn't want to lose him if he held lesser holdings then he actually did.

I don't remember any interesting spots for the rest of day one. Dave Masters was moved to my immediate left and while I don't mind playing against Dave I was happy to see him go as he is a player you certainly don't want having direct position on you. He was however replaced by big Mick who is another excellent player so I had to be selective enough with my raising for the rest of the day.

Day two

I came back with 25500 which while well down the field was very playable at 400/800 blinds. Day two was to be one of the most memorable days of poker I ever played because I got my chips in bad so many times and ended up winning pots it was unbelievable. I was to record four major suck outs over the day. Now to put this in context over the last three years of playing these big events in Ireland I honestly only remember two hands where I won important pots from behind. The first was against Derek Murry at the final table of the Macau winter festival in Dec 05 when I four flushed him after getting it in bad on the flop and the second was last years Irish Open with QK v AK all in pre flop.

The day started quiet for the first two levels and I was playing a new table when I had my first all in of the day. A hijack raise and cutoff call of the 3100, I pick up 1010 in the bigblind and raise all in for about 22,000 and hold against the initial raisers AK. About an hour later after a table move I raise AJ on the button a Danish player re pops it from the small blind. I decided the AJ in a short corner against a scandi is good enough and push about another 35k in and win a pot for over 100k when I spike a jack on the flop against his AK. A10 no match for my A8

Table breaks shortly after this hand and I'm liking my new table; loaded with chips and minimal aggression. I'm playing about an hour on the table and on about 120k when I pick up KK in the BB and get a walk which was rather disappointing. When I picked them up again three hands later it was even more so as I got 100k of my chips in pre-flop verses aces. This hand leaves me with 20k, blinds are 1500/3000 and we are 11 places off the 40 to be paid. I'm looking to get my chips in fast and find that opportunity soon enough when I shove over the most aggro player at the tables mid-position raise with Ad8d. He tables A10 and I hit an 8 on the flop and nuts flush by the river. Shortly after this I push 40k 99 under the gun and the same player finds aces, I'm ready to leave the room four off the money when a beautiful nine hits the river.

I bust the bubble in embarrassing fashion


Soon after this were hand for hand and I raise from the cutoff into a short stacks bigbling to 12k and he pushes for his 30k. Now its 18k to call to win 67k and I've got 50k behind if i lose so I call and the following sickness occurs. My opponent has AA and I call for an aces on the flop which the dealer delivers with a 3 and 5; when the turn 4 arrives I go a bit blank and think I'm drawing to a 2 for a chopped pot. The river 6 leaves me unmoved until the room erupts and I realise I've put the sickest of beats on the poor guy to bubble him.

Looking around the room with 45 players left there was some real quality name players left; by the time we reached three tables we had lost most of them and I wasn't that disappointed seeing Mick Muldoon, Rob Sherwood, Karl Mahrenholz, James Akenhead and Andy Black leaving the building.

I was loving my table and had my chips up to 170k when I got moved just into the last level of the day. My new table was much more aggro and I didn't see a hand until the last ten minutes of of the days play when I picked up QQ. The excellent Warren Woodall whom I have played with on two tables raised UTG to 25k I raise to 75k and the small blind whom hasn't played a hand sinced I've arrived tanks. After about five minutes he goes all in for about 90k and I hold up against pocket nines. Warren tells me he folded AK and was calling if the small blind folds. I guess I got very lucky again here as there was a king on the flop. This was the last action I saw on my luckiest days poker ever.

Day 3

22 runners returning with the blinds at 5k/10k an average of 19 big blinds. I'm sitting on 264k 7th in chips and 15/2 to win the tournament with the sponsors betting in running market. I'm fairly experienced at reaching this stage of a tournament but looking at the structure going into the final day I felt it was down to running good as quiet simply even though I was above average there was no room for the smallest error. It was my view that the tournament was fine up until the 3k/6k level but after that I felt the play was gone.

I have been critical about the structures at the Irish Open the past couple of years and lobbied a bit on boards for new levels that have been added (three new levels have been added the last two years). Last week when the structure was posted for this event, I implored the organisers to include a 1200/2400 level and they showed there willingness to improve these games by introducing it. These events are not solely run by paddypower and there are people/forces whom are less receptive to chance that need to be convinced that giving more play will improve the quality of the event. I thought the clock should of been brought back a level going into Sunday or for future events a 2500/5000 level introduced.

The fact that the field went from 22 players to a final nine in a little over 90 minutes is proof that the structure just wasnt good enough. As for the 70 minutes I lasted on Sunday, well it was a total non event for me. I received a walk on my first bigblind which was nice. I raised twice with k8os and Q10s and folded to a three bet each time. I was down to 134k without seeing anything resembling a hand and with each round of the table costing 25k I shoved my 12 blinds with 77 and lost a race verses AQos.

Afterthoughts

It was the least dissapointed I have ever been getting knocked out on day three of an event. Probably because of all the luck I had on Sunday I felt that I didn't really deserve this one. Also on Monday there was absolutely nothing I could of done with the muck I was dealt. The tournament itself was run excellently and had the highest standard of dealing and running of a floor of any event I've played.

It's another deep run In the Brucepoker shirt. The following is bragging so turn off now but its my blog and I'll brag if I want :-) I probably deserve two years bad luck for this. Looking back at my results since April 07 there have been 11 major tournaments in the country. I consider a major event to be €500 with greater then 200 runners and €1000 greater then 100 runners excluding side events. Of these 11 I didn't play the EPT Dublin last year or the GJP this year- of the remaining nine I've reached the last two tables in six of them. To find this level of consistency is extremely pleasing as I feel the edge in tournament poker is about putting yourself in position to win more often then others.

I'd like to thank my sponsors Brucepoker.com and I will be sporting my now lucky Brucepoker shirt at three events before the year is out. The last week in Nov and the first week in Dec I'm playing the grand finals of the GUKPT and the Gala tour in England. But first and more importantly theres the Brucepoker launch festival at the Greenisle hotel 14th-16th of November, this will be an excellent weekends poker and if you haven't already registered do so now as its gonna sell out. To finish I wanna give a shout out to Knuckles who took a bit of a detour on his drive home to Cork to drop me home on Tuesday, much app.

Sweetspew

I decided against traveling to Dublin for the IPO. I Played this event last year and didn't enjoy it and the thought of traveling to a tournament where my hotel costs exceed then event buy in just didn't make sense to me. I'm not trying to take from that event, its a fabulous spectacle and a huge achievement for the organisers to set the largest field in Europe for the second year running. From following the event it seems to have run extremely well this year so kudos to PokerIreland and Boyles on a great and unique tournament.

Instead I went to Cork for the 4th leg of the IPC tour and I shouldn't of bothered because I played horrendously. The numbers were down but that was to be expected with the IPO running. I played like a bad Italian in the main event and spewed my chips over two levels in about four pots . My play was without rhyme nor reason and I honestly cant remember playing so bad.

I was pretty annoyed with myself on the drive home and decided to go back for the €200+20 side event on Saturday. This went a bit better but just after the dinner break I lost my chips all in pre in a decent pot to Namir ( who had won the main event earlier in the day ) with QQ Vs Ak; a king on the turn put paid to my plans for redemption for the previous days performance. A speeding ticket on the drive home topped off the weekend nicely :-(

Next week sees the Winter Festival at the City West. I expect a field of 350 to 400 runners for the €1500+150 event. The buy in is way down from last years €8000 because the ETP have ditched this event from the tour. I'm not sure of my feelings on this; I think Ireland should have an EPT but I also think €8000 was a bit ridiculous. I won entry into last years event but was given the 8k in cash after the live satellite which I decided to add to my bankroll rather then stump up that amount of cash for one event.

I'm a bit of a cynic at heart and I feel that someone at the EPT through choice of setting and upping the buy in over the last two years contrived to have the event fail and move the Irish leg to a more exotic location. John Duthie stating the reason we lost the EPT was that Ireland just didn't have a venue to hold such an event is total bullshit as anyone who has played in the City West or more recently Killarney will agree.

Anyhow back off my soapbox; I'm hopeful for a good tournament next week. I haven't cashed in a tournament at City West since the 2006 Irish Championship so a cash in my forth outing in the Brucepoker.com colours would be very welcome, but as ever I'll be happy if I bring my A-game and play to the best of my ability. I know I wont play as bad as I did in Cork this weekend thats for sure.

Killarney Festival

I've been traveling down to Killarney now for a few years to play poker and always have a great time. On one of my first visits there my friend Pat Storen who has been going for 20 years for snooker tournaments told me " give it two to three years and Connie will have the whole country down here playing poker". Well as the picture above shows his predictions certainly came through the past weekend.

I got down to the kingdom on Thursday and on arrival Connie gave me a bit of a tour of the set up. I was mightily impressed. The conference center at the Gleneagles is without doubt the most impressive venue that I have played poker at in Europe. It was a magnificent venue and the lads ran the event with a military precision, It was obvious from the off that a huge amount of planning went into it.

If I had any problem with the weekend it was the standard of dealer. Some were very bad, this could be just a result of variance and is something i have encountered with smaller fields and bigger buy-ins but some of the guys who dealt my tables were atrocious. Having said that I think its logistically impossible to ensure a high standard of dealer at this size of event.

I played the three tournaments over the weekend and never got going in any of them. In the main event I played two 10k pots early in level two, winning one when I made a good call with top pair and losing one with flopped top set against a flopped straight. I never got anything going after this and my chips dwindled away eventually going out in unspectacular fashion.

I lost a 35k three way pot in the €300 event at level 6 with QQ v JJ v AK and feel a possible deep run was on if I could of won the pot as there was a few very big stacks on my table who had no idea what they were doing. Finally in the €170 game on Sunday I went out with flush over flush in the third level. It was a disappointing weekend poker wise but when you play as many tournaments as I do you become pretty pragmatic about them and understand that 75% of the time you wont cash. On weekends like this where you cant get anything going, its like putting in the numbers of non cash events. With a fairly hectic schedule over the coming months I'm confident enough of getting another good result in before Christmas.

Probably more disappointing then my poker results was my losses at pitch & putt. My old sparing partner Sideshowbob was the opponent for foursome matches on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Bob is a cunning one and employed the ginger run good factor teaming up with lucky Jimmy ( winner of the main event ) on Saturday and Marty Smyth ( winner of everything ) on Sunday. Dis-spite playing some stunning stuff myself I couldn't out run these ginger luckboxes and lost a very painful €13.

All in all a brilliant weekend and this festival will run and run. Its like the Irish Open at a working mans buy in. I was thinking of what the whole setup reminded me of and its like a big Irish themed Vegas casino without the gaming floor. Well done to both my bosses at brucepoker.com Thomas and Paul who battled through the largest field for a European ranking event ever to cash. Also, my mates Sideshow and Pat who made the money and especially lucky Jimmy who took down first prize and in the process un-bankrupted the Cork poker scene. A big thank you to Connie/Matt/Bigslick for a great weekend

Big up

To mister Fintan Gavin on his terrific performance in the EPT Barcelona. While Fintan officially finished in second place it is widely known that there was a deal done four handed and Fintan got a magnificent €900,000. This was truly a brilliant performance and he ran the star studded final table ragged up until the time the deal was agreed. I think this performance ranks in the top five performances by an Irish player in tournament poker so big kudos to one of the best known personalities in the game in this country.

The only time I've played live since Bolton was a €200+20 game in the Waterford Poker Club in Olympus casino. Only 25 runners and I busted early on the final table losing most of a decent stack AK v 33 all in pre. Enjoyed the game and the club put on a great night for the punters with every need catered for.

Haven't been playing much online just the odd MTT. Managed to blow a big stack with less then 50 players remaining Sunday night in a $250,000 guarantee in bad fashion. First I miss click min-raised over a big opening bet with Q3 and he had enough behind in his push that I could fold . Then tilted off the rest of my very decent stack with a retarded shove over a raise with A8os. I was disgusted with myself for a bit afterwards to go from 5th in chips to out in 47th over two hands, especially looking at a $55,000 first prize .

My next live outing is the €250,000 guarantee in Killarney with a €500+50 entry. This tournament will without doubt be one of the highlights of the year. To have a poker tournament of this size in Killarney with 650+ runners which it "will" get, is a huge achievement by Connie and Bigslick and knowing all involved I know that everything will be in place to make sure everyone has a memorable time in Connie's kingdom.