No London

Was toying with the idea of going to London for a couple of the EPT side events but decided against it. I do not enjoy playing in England and when I weighted it up I just decided I didn't want to go. Inertia probably best describes my view on poker the last few weeks as I've had no real enthusiasm about playing. I wasn't even going to go to Killarney next week but its to much value to miss and I'll be there.

October is a good month in Ireland with the Killarney festival the IPO and the Winter Festival. Its been to long since I've hit a final table of a decent game so hopefully I can right that in October. I only played one other WCOOP event after the $1k NLH; a $200 NL O8 tourney and cashed for double my buy in. With the long nights and bad weather setting in I really should start some kind of grind online. There was a time I really enjoyed grinding online but seems these days I'd rather open betfair then a poker site.

In another two months I'll have been playing full time four years. I suppose when you've been at something as intense as poker full time, there has to come periods where you just don't want to play and thats where I'm at at the moment. However, I know I'll get the juices flowing again soon enough and be playing with the vigour that I always have.

Moving On

My Sponsorship deal with Brucepoker finished a couple of weeks ago. I had a great year with them and feel I added value for the monies I received. I would like to thank them for the sponsorship and wish Bruces and especially 'head of poker' my good mate, Paul Smallwood, every success in the future.

Haven't been playing much the last couple of weeks. I did play event 28 of the WCOOP on stars. This was a $1050 entry two day game with a 3 million guarantee. I felt I played very well on day one without getting much ammunition in the way of starting hands and managed to reach day two with a near average stack. 176 Players of the 3268 entrants started back tonight; unfortunately I couldn't catch a break eventually going out when my A6 was out raced by QK in a 40 BB pot.

Sick sick structure but you would really expect to be deeper then 87th after playing for 14 hours in an online tournament. I swapped a few % with three people, two of whom, ( Dara and Derek ) went deep in the money also but like me had no luck when it mattered. I satted in for $82 so guess I should be happy with the$4900 but the half million for first would definitely of come in handy.

Whose the Monkey on the Box

Played the late night pokerstars which is going out on RTE late September. Didn't exactly cover myself in glory. My heat was changed from the original line up with Fintan and John Higggins swapping with Padraig and Ken Doherty to an earlier heat. I've seen the results posted so I guess I can blog my unspectacular performance. It's 100k starting with blinds 1/2 going up every 18 hands.

I raise a good few pots early with total rubbish and showed so when i picked up Ak I raised to 7k ( blinds 1k 2k ) as I felt there was a decent chance I'd get three bet so wanted to inflate the pot a little so I could four bet shove. Bernard Dunne called from the button. He had spewed about 40% of his stack in the first few hands and I had him pegged as particularly clueless. I miss the two club flop and C-bet 11k which he calls. When the flush completes on the turn, I shove, which in reality is a pot sized second barrel bluff because of his stack. Unfortunately he holds Ac3c for the nuts.

He gets more of my chips when he limps in early as do two others and I complete with KJ, blinds 2k4k. Flop Jxx and I check. Bernard bets 4k, 1 BB, I call. I check/call 8k on brick turn and the same river to be shown QQ. This leaves me with 5bb. I double against Fintan AQ v 89 but go out shortly after pushing 10 BBs with K10 into Bernard's A10. Definitely not my greatest 40 minutes poker and gonna look a bit of a monkey on TV but should have good metagame benefits anyway :-)

Team Event in City West

I'm not the greatest fan of team events in general. From experience they generally mean playing in above average fields for very little reward. Having said that I was happy enough to play for the CueClub team when Connie asked me last week as I had decided to travel up for the side events anyway.

Our team got off to a decent start and were one of two teams to enter Saturday with a full quota of players. Saturday started really bad losing three players almost immediately, through no fault of there own. The most unlikely of Kerrymen, Willie Clynes being the most unfortunate. The rest of the day went pretty well for us and the remaining three of fought our way back into the mix. As I said these events usually have well above average fields for the buyin and my table saturday was one of the best I played on in Ireland all year. O' Shea, BigGPimpMick, Tilty Taylor, Mouthy Masters, The Pirate, TD Donal ect ect; right craic but no easy chips.

By the time the FT was reached Sunday I was last Kerry Man standing, needing to win to secure second for the team. I was probably 2nd in chips when I raised Ah9h from the SB into the chip leader from Leeds and called his shove. Unfortunately he held AQ. Having seen the gent play the previous day I'm happy enough with my call; its not as marginal as it looks against this opponent. Chatting with Dara after he maintained its a mistake not to call here and although I had some doubt on my drive home, having digested the hand its a call alright.

I'm thinking I'll take the weekend off and I'm back to the City West next for the filming of late night pokerstars which goes out on RTE this Autumn. Here's my heat, should be good craic;

HEAT 3 19:00-22:30hrs
Celeb Ken Doherty Confirmed
Celeb Bernard Dunne Confirmed
Poker Player Nicky Power Confirmed
Poker Player Padraig Parkinson Confirmed
OnLine Qualifier Elizabeth Mullally
OnLine Qualifier Martin McDDonagh

Chin Up

Headed down for the Macau festival on the Tuesday for a round of golf before the PLO tournament that night; neither went well. Sideshow and Gavin Stevens taking out myself and Flipper. I made the FT of the Omaha but exited in eight before the money, nice showing from Bops who finished second.

The next three days saw more golf twice on the smashing Castlemartyr course with Marty, Paul Spillane and Paul's mate Tristan, who had won the Tuesday nights PLO. Got raped twice playing skins but got most back on Friday in a two man scramble playing with Paul. Had a nice meal and drinks Wednesday night which ended about 6 am in Flippers new Balla pad so decided to go for starting day 2, Friday

My main event starting table was great and I got to 40k in chips with two levels of the day remaining. I did spew a bit after that dropping to 25k before rallying to 33k at the end of play. Day two was going very well and I reached level nine of the game with 80k but that was as good as it got. Most of this came in a double where I raised the cut-off with KJos, SB called and the raise meant the BB was all in. Flop 7 8 10 with two diamonds giving me a double gutter; check/check. Queen on the turn gives me the nuts and I get it in with the SB who to my surprise is drawing to a jack for a chop holding KK.

I had a real momentum stopper in level three when I call a raise on the button with 44, the SB comes along and we see a JJ2, two diamond flop. The initial raiser bet 3.5k, I decided to float. The SB called also. When both checked the 10h turn I bet 66% of the pot. I was sure the initial raiser didn't hold a Jack and having played with the SB before was confidant enough that this bet would take the pot; the sb called leaving about 12k behind ( yuk) and the initial raiser folds. I'm not a happy camper when we check the 6x river to be shown 9d6d.

I get no real hands over the next four levels with a lot of raises snapped off and have about 50k when I play a hand with williamhill sponsored player, James Browning. Blinds 1/2k 200 ante, he limps as does one other and I make it 10k with 88 from the BB. He tanks gives some waffle and ships his 40k, The guy had limped called a ship by me in the gukpt Newcastle earlier in the year with 66 and he had shipped over about three openings earlier where i folded. I was sure he hadn't limped with a premium and think he thought I had him pegged for a total rock and thus will fold most hands to him. Anyway having made up my mind while he tanked, I snapped and was disappointed to be shown 1010.

This saw me drop to 10k; 5 BBs. I managed to get it back to 40k by the end of the 1200/2400 level but blew most of that again with a spewy call when the six of diamonds merchant pushed over my button Q9s raise. I exited in a 65k pot shortly afterwards with QQ v AJ, A on the turn. Think I went out eight off the money in 24th position. Although I didn't play particularly well I enjoyed the tournament and the week in Cork.

The pattern all year for me seems to be to get decent chips over the first 8 levels and then basically go completely card dead and scrape into the money or just miss it. Very frustrating but I'm not reading to much into it as in general I feel I'm playing close to optimally all year.

Cork next week weeeeeeeeeee

The Irish Classic and the Macau festivals in general are one of, if not the highlight of the year for me. This is probably result based as I can usually dig out a result there but I really love playing the festivals in the Macau. I'm fairly sure if the hendon mob did a ranking on festivals there like they do for British casinos I'd be top of the list, fingers crossed I can continue to do the business there next week. I heading down Tuesday for the PLO ( really for golf Wednesday ) and will probably play day one of the main event Thursday.

Barcelona didn't go to well but had a good weekend with Connie who had no joy either. I exited the main event with A10 on a 1055 flop for 50BBs verses 95 in a raised pot in level four. I felt very good about my starting table as it was mostly filled with value. Without going into to much detail I'm happy enough with how my exit played out although it may seem marginal at best at face value. The tournament had 370 starters, the structure was a bit fast at the start for a €1000+150 game ( 1st 4 levels 45 mins , 10k chips) , there seemed plenty play later on and I'll have a few stabs at qualifying for the series final in Malta early September.

With Vegas and that I haven't had much time for online recently but I'm looking forward to getting stuck back into it after Cork. The little I've played on Brucepokers new platform since the changeover has been very encouraging and I really like the new site. I'm intending putting in decent hour over the coming months, probably playing STTs and MTTs and some low stakes PLO, trying to improve in that.

This weekend I'll play the Joan Vickers Charity event in the new Voodoo club in Dublin, a very worthy cause and give me a chance to check of the new club at the same time. Sunday the Brucepoker live show hits Carlow in Atlantis casino, another great spot for a game.

Waterford Masters

I'm generally good with remembering hands from tournaments but last weekends have gone missing in my mind. I ended day one on 37k which was in good shape. Had a great first level in day two getting close to 60k, after that I stagnated and the rest of the day was a grind. I was eventually out in a race with Tom Kitt, A10 v 77 for about a 90k pot, with about 40 players left. I did have 15% ( 10 of it won playing golf :-) of Marty's action which was worth €2,100 to me; WP Marty. In fairness he put up a stunning performance to finish 2nd as he was ultra short coming back on Sunday.

My job of putting the structure together ( the quality of the final table tells me I did a good job ) for the main event and annoying a few people to come down was pretty easy compared to the work all the others put in over the weekend. Well done to all the dealers they played a blinder and floor staff ( Wayne, Robert, Gary, Keith, Kevin and Seamus ), they did a brilliant Job, Fox was pretty good in his ambassadorial role; also the Brucepoker team who did a fantastic job setting up the room. Biggest thanks goes to the players especially all those that traveled from outside the deise, the 197 starters for the main event was a super turnout.

This was everyone involved first major festival and overall I feel it can be considered a great success. There was a bit of a mix up with the food and one or two other minor area's that wont happen again but as I said for a first go I think it was a top tournament from a players point of view. I don't think we ever pretended the Grand Hotel was the ritz but in many ways, the rustic nature of the place gave the tournament a certain ambiance and uniqueness. Again, big thanks to all that attended and congrats to all who cashed esp Jay and Marty, two exceptional players who are a credit to the game.

I'm off to Barcelona tomorrow to play the Spanish leg of the European Masters of Poker Tour. Total spur of the moment stuff stemming from a phone call at about seven tonight from Connie. Structure isn't anything to right home about but hopefully I can hit a few cards.