The Life of Me!

October . . . Where Do I start?

2011-10-17T18:15:00.000+01:00

So much has happened in October already & it's only half way through!

I played the medal back on the 4th, got married on the 8th, somehow managed to play in the ILGU Silver Medal Final on the 10th & had my clubs stolen a few days later!

As I was walking down the isle, the last of the ladies up at the golf club were teeing off. I can honestly say I wasn't even thinking of this at the time, I had more than enough to be concentrating on.

The wedding was awesome, I never expected to enjoy it half as much as I did & I had a few days off work afterwards so I didn't plan on coming back to planet earth any time soon.

We headed back to Dublin on the Sunday evening. We were both wrecked, I don't remember being so tired ever! One thing that concerned me was how sore under my arms were, they had been since I woke on the Sunday morning, I put it down to exhaustion & went to bed early that night. However, when I got up on the Monday morning I felt just as stiff, the areas under my arms were still sore & the weather was miserable :(

We arrived at Headfort comfortably early. Driving down I was thinking this was madness, I felt like crap but Rob was excited about it & I knew if I got my swing going early on I could play my way out of the stiffness. I got off to a rubbish start with a bad first drive, a very poor second, then nailed a hybrid, stitched a wedge & ended up with a bogey which is on target for my handicap. Even though I'd scored ok on the first hole it was an early indicator of how the next few holes were to go, inconsistently!

I battled on for a few more holes, but the bigger swings were killing me, driver just wouldn't work at all. My driving was fine on the Tuesday so I could only assume the stiffness was hindering me more than I could work past. It was also more & more apparent that the wedding dress, lovely & all that it was, had been rubbing against the areas under my arms leaving them extremely tender. I don't like not finishing a round, but I was absolutely shattered & I wasn't enjoying myself at all. So after struggling for 9 holes I decided there wasn't much point in suffering on any further. The two girls I was playing with were both lovely & one of them in particular had a decent score going so I wished them both luck & escaped the rain by heading home.

Although the Silver Medal Final was a disappointment, it was more than compensated for by hearing I'd won the SC Ladies Golfer of the Year competition. This was like winning the league! If someone had have told me I would have won this at the beginning of the year I would have happily wagered the house that I wouldn't. I refused to believe that not only could I play well enough to win such a thing but play consistently well over pretty much the whole season. My golfing season was at it's peak, things just couldn't be better.

A few days later I jumped out of bed to the sound of Rob shouting. He had opened the front door to the sight of the car open in the driveway. Big mistake by us, we'd gotten complacent & left the golf clubs & trolleys in the boot of the car. What was strange though was they'd taken both trolleys out, left them on the lawn & left Rob's golf bag on the driveway beside the car. Obviously whoever stole my clubs didn't appreciate that ladies clubs were nowhere near as valuable as men's!

This was catastrophic for me as we are due to head to Florida tomorrow for the golf trip of a lifetime. It's so annoying to think I won't have the clubs I know so well to be playing probably the toughest courses I've ever played. They didn't get my driver as it was on the back seat & I've bought the same putter that I had before but everything else is gone. Thankfully McGuirks have been able to get me a full set of ladies Taylormade Burners, irons & woods at short notice. This was decent of them, in fact they've been more than helpful as Rob has been going to them for a few years now & they always look after him. So much so, they hired us the clubs for just under 3 weeks free of charge. I got to play with them once before we fly out, ended up with 27 points off 17 which I know isn't great but it's something to work on.

The Wedding

2011-10-10T22:50:00.000+01:00

So the 'big' day finally arrived, it seemed like something which was initially planned 2 years prior steamed towards us at a ferocious velocity.

The Cake - Tasted just as good as it looks!

The day started early, yes there were girlie things to be done like hair & make-up, it was my wedding day after all. But let's get our priorities straight, Ireland were playing Wales in the rugby! And what's more we had a chance of something huge, huge at international level, only the quarter final of the World Cup. Unfortunately, even though there was so much promise, it was not to be &Wales proved worthy winners in the end. I guess I didn't have too much time to stew over the result as from the point where the match ended, my time was no longer my own to control.

My sister Donna is a hair dresser, an award winning hairdresser at that, so naturally she took control of that side of things. As she was also a bridesmaid she arranged for the bridal party of get their hair sorted at her shop so there would be ample space/equipment to facilitate the lot of us. Make up was also done at the shop, it was like a proper little conveyor belt. Everyone seemed fairly manic, room never went quiet, all I was thinking was perhaps staying up to 3am the night before wasn't the best of ideas with hindsight. Everything actually went very smoothly bar the fact my mum gave the florist the band's money. For the record I did label them clearly, she just forgot to read what it said on the front & handed her the first one she came across. All was good though as our florist, in addition to being an awesome florist, is a very honest lady & corrected the mistake with Rob at the hotel when she arrived there.

My sisters: Paula, Patricia & Donna

We arrived at the venue (La Mon Hotel & Country Club) a bit early & that was after waiting down the lane for about 10 minutes to let time catch us up a bit. As we paused at the gates of the hotel I saw the photographer usher the other half of the bridal party indoors as she spotted our car. Yes it would appear that as the bride is usually late, it would assumed that I would be. So much for the groom having to wait about huh. I can honestly say I wasn't nervous or anxious, just hopeful that everything would go off without a hitch. Well that was the plan until I entered the back of the ceremony room & I was faced with what seemed like a zillion heads turn to look at me. Cue the panic attack, eek. I could feel my eyes filling up & I couldn't stop it. I never was one who liked to be the centre of attention but this was ridiculous. One of the most embarrassing moments ever & for about 2 hours after that any time I saw anyone look at me I'd well up again. My family being the supportive bunch that they are just laughed at me. Thankfully the ceremony was perfect, my best friend Fiona said a reading & everything was official within about 20 minutes.

My brother Tony & his girlfriend Jenny

As my dad is no longer with us it fell to my (one & only) brother to give me away. It's funny, most girls have dreamed of their wedding day since childhood, well I'm no typical girl & true to form this is one childhood dream I didn't have. However, I never imagined that should I ever get married, my dad wouldn't be around. In a way I found this incredibly sad, I was always a daddy's girl growing up & here I was on the biggest day of my life to date & him not here to see it all unfold. That said if ever I was sure of anything it would be that my brother (& childhood best friend) would do him proud. Well Tony went over & above all hopes & expectations, he played an absolute blinder, fair play bro. In all honesty he couldn't have done anything any better. In particular, his speech had the whole room in ruptures. He had asked me before we left the house if I wanted to read his speech, to 'check' it & I said no. I said no because I trusted him, but mentioned that it didn't need to be funny thinking trying to make a speech funny is the biggest pressure on the speech giver. He answered, "Daddy's would have been funny, so mine will be funny, simple as that". Enough said.

My best friends: Sinéad, Andrea, Michelle & Fiona

All the speeches went down very well. Neither of us wanted them dragging on too long so we opted for them to have them before dinner & kept a time limit on them. In my opinion, there's nothing worse at a wedding than really long boring speeches. Thankfully our speeches did not disappoint & it wasn't long before we were tucking into the feast of a dinner. After dinner we cut the cake which Rob's mum made. It tasted delicious & looked stunning. The evening's entertainment began with the band 'The Professionals' who then also did a DJ set afterwards. So many people were impressed with how good they were, perfect mix of songs for a wedding party & their musical talents were second to none, they went down really really well.

My golf buddies: Helen, Pauline, Sheelagh, Barbara & Mary

The hotel & their staff couldn't have been any more efficient, friendly or helpful. Food was amazing, especially as it was mass cooked for so many people. The Florist, Country Bumpkins did a fantastic job of everything. From the bouquets to the spreads of flowers, everything looked perfect. We had gotten a company called Wedding Belle to decorate the room, tables & favours etc. Needless to say the rooms looked spectacular & the Candy Cart they provided proved a massive hit with the guests. We also did extremely well with our choice of photographer. There's a reason why MC Studios have won so many awards in the last couple of years, their work is absolutely stunning & Maria did a great job on the day. I was great to have all our friends & family there too. A lot of people had to travel a bit to attend our wedding, especially those coming from Dublin & Donegal. They're efforts were much appreciated.

To be honest the day wouldn't have gone so well had it not been for my mum, granny & 3 sisters, Donna, Paula & Patricia. I know I drove them nuts being so laid back ab out the arrangements so they had to work extra hard to keep me on my toes & to make sure all details were covered. Before when asked what about the day I was looking forward to the most, my answer was "Having it over & done with". Now looking back I can honestly say I enjoyed the whole day thoroughly, much more than expected. Still not sure I would want to repeat it though. Obviously thanks to Rob also for turning up & going through with it, ha!

ILGU SIlver Medal

2011-10-07T06:05:00.000+01:00

So it's the day before the wedding, my mum's house is manic. I'm trying to escape the lot of them burying my head in the laptop, so far it's working & they're leaving me alone :)

I just got a phone call there a short while ago from the Lady Vice Captain Sheelagh to tell me I'd won the ILGU Silver Medal. My first reaction to this is "What's the ILGU Silver Medal?". She explained to me how there are two medals awarded to each club every year, a silver & a bronze, silver being for handicaps under 20 & the bronze for handicaps over 20. As my medal results between April & September (the specified qualifying period) were the best in the club for handicaps under 20, I'd won the Silver Medal for 2011.

I was obviously delighted, even though I'd not heard of it before it was clearly a good thing to win. I was then informed that all the Silver Medal winners were invited to play in a final of sorts in Headfort Golf Club on Monday 10th October. Also, the only tee time available was 9.15am. Oops, this is very close, especially as we had arranged to stay in the hotel the night after the wedding as well. This would make for an extremely early start on the Monday morning.

She did say there was no pressure & that obviously with the wedding on Saturday it would be understandable if I couldn't make it. I thought about it when on the phone to her & decided it would be silly to commit to something that fell so close to the wedding. Sheelagh being the lovely lady that she is told me she would let the ILGU know & not to worry about it. However, whilst on the phone to Rob shortly after, it became clear that if I was physically able to make it I should.

Therefore based on Rob's judgement, I phoned Sheelagh back & agreed to play the tournament. I also contacted the hotel & cancelled the reservation for the Sunday night. If I needed to be in Headfort so early on the Monday morning, it was clear I'd need to make my way back to Dublin from Belfast at some point on the Sunday evening.

The Last Medal

2011-10-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

I guess you could say October was to be a busy month. However just before the wedding there was one final thing to wrap up, 'Golfer of the Year'.

The last medal of the year, the October Medal was scheduled for the actual day of our wedding, 8th October. This meant Rob had to miss it even though he was in contention for the men's GOY. Luckily enough though, the ladies club are also able to play their medal on the Tuesday before the medal weekend. With the wedding on the Saturday, I headed out early that Tuesday after working all night to try & revisit some form I'd been showing signs off a couple of days beforehand when I managed 35 points in the weekend competition.

You may have noticed that I haven't really been mentioning GOY up to this point in the blog. There's a reason for that. As I won the first medal of the year back in April & continued plenty of success in the majors since then, I've always been there or thereabouts in the GOY standings. I guess part of me kept thinking I would blow it so I deliberately shut it out, tried to focus on the competition at hand instead of getting carried away with notions of winning something as big as 'Golfer of the Year'. Well I'd been leading the table for a lot of weeks now but due to my dip in form these last few majors I was now only barely hanging on at the top. This could be embarrassing. Due to my first half of the season, GOY wasn't mine to win, it was mine to lose.

I asked Mary & Pauline to play with me which they did & they also facilitated my request to play early. The Tuesday time sheet is usually set up for 3 balls as opposed to 4 balls & we were first out. I desperately wanted to play well for a few reasons; GOY as already covered, this could be my last round of the year at South County before the weather turns so I wanted to enjoy it & also we were heading to Florida later in the month for an unconventional honeymoon/golf trip. Rob had always wanted a golf trip for our honeymoon, however it was only recently that I thought I could cope with tough unknown courses & now that my handicap was as low as it was I was confident that I would enjoy the challenge of a few fancy tough courses. Obviously a return to form could only ensure I get the most out of such a trip.

The round started out fairly steady. I wasn't hitting many particularly good shots but I wasn't getting into any trouble either. Bar a bit of trouble at the 12th hole the round was fairly event free & I managed a healthy 74 net. Needless to say I was delighted. My aim for the day was to not let myself down & enjoy myself. Well the company was superb & the craic was mighty. I was completely relaxed & enjoyed it thoroughly, I'm sure we all did. We all played fairly well & the weather even held up it's end of the bargain.

Most of the women played their medal yesterday but the competition doesn't close off until Saturday, so the GOY results will only be known after then when all the cards are in. So yeah, I guess Saturday is an important day for a few reasons ☺

In Search of my Swing

2011-10-02T19:54:00.000+01:00

Taking time off golf, even for 3 weeks proved to be a disaster. I was playing better than I could ever have hoped for but golf is time consuming & with regular trips to Belfast required to finalize the arrangements, something had to give. I'd also been on a severe diet which didn't help matters as my body had changed shape which inevitably meant so did my swing.

I tried to play my way out of it, tried fairly hard to be fair, but it just didn't feel right & the lack of consistency was starting to drive me insane. If I could just get back what I had a few weeks ago, surely it can't be that hard? I made a decent effort to get up to the course with Mary a few mornings over a 2 week period. It's great playing with Mary as she's very honest in her assessment. She was always able to give me feedback on what about my swing didn't look quite right to her. Between us we got some improvement in my game, but I soon hit a brick wall & the consistency just wasn't what it was. I decided a lesson was in order.

This would be my third lesson from Raymie Burns & I was hoping it would be as effective as the first 2. We started off with my short irons as we have done during the previous lessons. I think he fixed what was wrong in 3 swings. He of course identified what I was doing wrong after the first swing & by the third swing I was nailing it. A different challenge was my new driver. I recently got a new driver but unfortunately the adjustment of my swing trying to make my old driver work had bedded in a few bad habbits. He proposed a few changes which I'm going to have to work on over the next couple of weeks before we head to Florida, although I played straight after the lesson & the early indicators looked positive.

A while back I found a decent article online about Raymie, certainly worth a read:
http://www.independent.ie/sport/golf/the-gentle-genius-of-raymond-burns-509250.html

$hitty September

2011-09-27T14:13:00.000+01:00

I'm now starting to see the consequences to not playing regular golf, my swing sucks. It's been fairly frustrating not being able to make it happen too. South County is relatively exposed to the wind when it gets going & I guess this month has been one of the worst for gale force winds but I can't even use that as an excuse, I'm playing really bad golf & I don't even have the time to fix it. My abysmal results above speak for themselves.

As I type this the wedding is only a mere 10 days away, well didn't it sneak up cunningly!

People keep asking if I'm excited about 'the big day'. The honest answer is no, I'm not. I'm looking forward to being married, I love Rob & marrying him is exactly what I want, I just don't like being the centre of attention & people looking at me. People keep saying I'll love all the attention on the day when it comes, however I'm not so sure about that.

Annoyingly Little Golf in August

2011-08-26T20:10:00.000+01:00

August was busy month for non-golf things. With the wedding creeping up on us we had no choice but to make a few trips to Belfast & arrange men suits, rings, invitations etc.

We didn't have great weather for golf this month, & certainly not great weather for August. As other things took priority over golf I didn't get playing too much, however I did well in the August medal & a net 74 was enough to see me get 4th.

I guess I'm going to have to get used to having less time for golf until the wedding. Sigh!

Hen Weekend

2011-08-14T16:33:00.001+01:00

With the wedding a mere 8 weeks away I headed north for the obligatory hen party.

Personally I could have easily given this hen party a miss, the truth is I had no desire for any gimmicks or embarrassing dressing up whilst crawling through all/any pubs we could find. Thankfully my sisters know me better than that & arranged for a somewhat unconventional day & night out.

Unfortunately none of my friends/family play golf, however they were insistent on doing something that I would enjoy doing. So we ended up heading to Citygolf in Belfast city centre early afternoon, for virtual golf as well as wii light-hearted entertainment. As expected, managing to hit the ball proved extremely difficult for these first-timers, although they did stick with it & give it a proper go.

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to start the drinking & get ready for the night's entertainment. The agenda for the evening was a night at the dogs at Drumbo Greyhound Park. Your entrance fee gets you a 3 course meal, your programme & table service for the night for drinks & tote bets. I wasn't convinced about this when it was first suggested as when I was younger we raced greyhounds, therefore I wasn't sure I was up for yet another night at the dogs, however this was the first time I'd been to it in this way & was pleasantly surprised.A few hours & many drinks later we headed back to the hotel for a wind down in the residents bar.

The following day we had decided that it would be best to save breakfast until a little close to lunchtime & when we eventually rolled out of bed the following morning we went to Springsteens on the Lisburn Road. Sprinsteens has always been a good choice for food in the past & it certainly didn't disappoint. The food was awesome & the conversation disecting the antics of the day & night before was hilarious. To say I was glad to have had the hen party in the end would have been a massive understatement ☺ Cheers girls, all of you ☺

Joyful July

2011-07-30T19:07:00.000+01:00

June was disappointing, especially as when my swing worked the shot was better than ever, I just felt like I needed to run out the variance of this new swing. I made the effort & I went to the range a lot after the Lady Captain disaster. I'd also taken the time to look over some online videos, just to try memorize some drills before shots. Anything that made my practice swing go right first time was going to help right? I think I actually got more out of the online videos this time than last time. I have a lot of golf theory in my head now & these instructional videos are more relevant than ever from that aspect.

I was confident going into the July medal. My ball striking was better than it had ever been & the sessions at the range helped me gain a lot of confidence. It was time to right a few wrongs. The medal went really well as it happens, my swing was back to consistent again. I know I should be more patient when I make changes, I can't expect everything to work from the off, but it felt good hitting the ball so well. Another pleasing factor was my short game was sharp, no disasters around the greens. I know to keep improving my short game will be the main focus going forward so it seemed like there was potential yet. I knew I was playing well but didn't quite see the 66 coming! Needless to say my handicap was cut to 20! 16 shot drop since the beginning of the year!

The following weekend there was another major, the 'Captain's Prize to Ladies'. This was another first time playing competition for me, in fact I didn't even know such a competition existed until I saw it on the time sheet. After the previous weekend I was confident that I shouldn't disgrace myself but losing 3 shots in a week can be unsettling as I've found out in the past so I needed to remain focused mentally more than anything else & not let the difference in handicap make me chase it on the holes I now only had one shot on.

In the end I actually had another super round of golf, I was really delighted with it. I'd played with Rob that day & he also played great coming second in the 'Lady Captain's Prize to Men' competition.

A few records in this round, the main one being I had 2 actual birdies, the second of them coming on the index 1, par 4, 17th hole☺

July also ended in a manual handicap cut from 18.1 to 16.1! I couldn't believe it, I know I didn't play it down to 16, but me, having a handicap of 16, how bloody awesome! I guess all I have to do now is prove I can play to it ☺

June Summary

2011-06-29T18:50:00.000+01:00

June was a bit of a mixed bag as it turns out. I managed a very decent 2nd in the June Medal, wining my class, only to have a complete nightmare in the Lady Captains. I somehow managed a 10 on the very first hole of the first day after a battle with the green side bunker. Needless to say the bunker won :( My only consolation was that I had a week to try get my act together for the final day.

In between the 2 weekends I arranged another lesson with Raymie. Like before, he was able to identify what I was doing wrong & had me hitting the ball superbly before the lesson was over. Unfortunately I hadn't bedded in the corrections to my swing in time for day 2 & my score was equally just as bad. Once small victory was that I won the 'nearest to the hole' with a good iron shot on the downhill par 3 third. Another downside to the day, in addition to playing like a donkey, my hay fever played up big time & by the end of the round I really looked liked Quasimodo. How embarrassing!

Pauline, SC Lady Captain 2011

Even though my face wasn't quite back to normal by that evening I still made the trip to the clubhouse for the Lady Captains Dinner. This was my first experience of this so I really didn't want to miss it.

Pauline had also been really good to me since I joined the club making sure I was introduced to everyone & inviting me out to play with her so I didn't want to miss her night.

As it turns out we had an absolute ball, great nights craic by all accounts ☺

May . . . Dismay

2011-05-25T18:23:00.000+01:00

The lesson definitely helped, no doubt about it, following that 31 points I had that afternoon, I managed 39 points the following weekend. However that's where the good performances end :(

The weather hasn't been great lately & I'm not sure if that's a factor, but I never did like playing in the wind & rain. It was a bad time to lose form as well given there were 2 majors this month, the May Medal & the Professional Prize. Both of these weekends were really windy, extremely windy in fact, however I really should have done better. I can't quite explain what's different, I know in my head what I need to do & how to do it, but for the last couple of weeks I'm just not able to join up the dots like I was before.

These little summary tables aren't all of the competitions I've played, as sometimes the competition days are combined. That means the number of entrants could be bigger than stated, but it won't be any less. But they're handy for summarizing the highlights & keeping track of handicap changes.

I've been neglecting my time at the range lately, so I suppose it's time I got back to putting in the effort.

Lesson Time

2011-05-05T17:47:00.000+01:00

Raymie Burns, SC PGA Professional

With 2 months worth of momentum & a spanky new handicap I had high hopes for this month. As delighted as I am to have dropped so many shots so quickly there was only one thing that would please at this stage & that's to get my handicap even lower. Finally I have a respectable handicap, but I have high standards, so I'm not planning on settling here. Time for a fresh angle to lose a few more shots.

I booked a lesson with the South County Pro, Raymie Burns. Raymie had a hell of a reputation to live up to, from what I'm told he was a great striker of the ball back in his playing days & was regarded by many as a huge natural talent.

On 1st May I arrived at the course for my 30 min lesson. First thing that struck me about Raymie is that he's very technical. This was great news for me, this I could work with. He asked me what I was looking out of the lesson, what I wanted to improve on. I'm not sure he was expecting the answer I gave him, "I want a swing like the ones you see on tv", quickly followed by "I'm happy to start from scratch, I just want to do it right". As he smirked, we got to work.

He got me to hit a couple of balls with my 7 iron. From the first swing he identified areas to improve. We worked on the basics - address, grip, hands position, wide arc, hip turn etc. Some of these areas were decent, some had a lot of room for improvement, but he did exactly what I asked, taught me a good technical swing from scratch. Now I think I had an ok swing before this lesson, & there were a lot of overlaps between the old & new swing, but at the same time there were fundamental differences, which would take a bit of bedding in. As it happens I was already on the time sheet to play straight after my lesson, so whilst I was nervous I might be a lot less consistent than normal, I was keen to get hitting a few balls.

Rob & I played with Chris that afternoon, another lady member at South County. I hadn't really met Chris before, but I knew who she was as she was a past captain. I knew she was a good golfer as I'd already seen her handicap on HowDidIDo.com, so time to test this swing. We chatted on our way to the first tee, where I told her about my lesson. She told me that the first few holes would probably not be as good as expected, as lessons often make changes that take a while to come good. She was right! The first few holes had highs & lows but by the back 9 I'd got some consistency back & I even managed to par the par 5 13th, a hole which until then had tormented me. It was good playing with Chris, it was a very enjoyable afternoon & she's a great golfer. Her long game in particular is very impressive, it definitely gave me food for thought.

Awesome April!

2011-04-26T19:03:00.000+01:00

I still don't think I've come down since the hype of last month. I joined a proper golf course, met some really nice girls, gained the option of playing with them every Tuesday, watching loads of golf tips online, going to the range regularly. In fact I feel I'm improving every time I play. And just when I thought nothing could top March, along came April!

April brought the first major of the year. I guess I can admit I didn't appreciate the importance/prestige that comes along with majors. The only difference with this tournament was that it was stroke play & that scared the hell out of me. Rob kept drilling me with the 'don't throw the head up' mentality. I suppose in the past a mini-blow up wasn't the end of the world as stableford was only ever a positive accumulation, however for this one, every shot was crucial so I needed to remember to be sensible.

The ladies can play their medal on the Tuesday before the Medal weekend. Due to how my shifts were scheduled for the week I opted to play on the Tuesday & stuck my name down beside Lynette on the time sheet. I've played with Lynette before so I figured I wouldn't be as nervous as I would playing with someone I hadn't played with before. Thankfully I had a sensible round that Tuesday & as predicted I wasn't nervous at all playing with Lynette. Lynette's a good golfer & she plays regular golf which seems to be the key to getting better as many of the girls up here play frequently. Anyways between the good company & the continuing improvement I managed a 69 gross which by the end of the play that weekend was top of the pile. If I didn't get it before, Rob made sure I realised the deal about winning a medal.

The good play continued to the Sunday & 37 points off my new playing handicap of 27 was enough to see me lose another increment. No change to my playing handicap but all in the right direction huh. Some more practice later & the next thing I know I've managed 46 points off 27 which is obviously my best round to date. I'm convinced that stroke play event was good for my discipline, no more loose play, I now know I can keep my head down. I was delighted with the round to say the least, so I finished my round & headed to the Burlington to rail Rob in the Irish Open. He ended up finishing 7th, which is awesome, great weekend all round for both of us :)

The Start of Serious Progress!

2011-03-31T00:25:00.000+01:00

Since the St Patrick's Day Cup it's all been about improving. I've actually started to not hate the range, I guess the on course results improvements have helped me focus. I've also been reading up on golf tips online & watching loads of online video clips. It's astounding how much free help there is online, & effective free help at that. It's been back to basics for me for a couple of months now, but this time I'm doing it right & I already see a huge improvement. I've also been heading up to the course when I can for practice. South County has great practice facilities & before this enthusiasm novelty wears off, I plan to improve whatever way I can.

Since my last post I've played 4 competitions at South County, & 2 of them in particular went really well. It was non-qualifying for most of the month due to the cold weather, but my first qualifying competition went way better than expected & my handicap dived from 36 to 29.5 :)

St. Patrick's Day Cup

2011-03-18T07:14:00.000Z

So the weather was rubbish & the frost course appeared to be a permanent feature, however I was truly bitten once more by the golf bug. Whilst my main objective to work on my handicap was on hold due to non-qualifying, I was keen to play as regularly as possible to help get my handicap down in any way possible.

The first competition in the club diary (excluding the regular weekly tournaments) was The St. Patrick's Day Cup. It was nice to see such an active time-sheet, something my previous club could definitely not compete with, although with this brought a desire to not screw it up. This was the full 18 holes although qualifying still hadn't started for the season.

That day I played with Rob & the Lady Vice Captain Sheelagh. This was my first time meeting & playing with Sheelagh. She, just like the other lady members I had been introduced to at the club was incredibly friendly. Sheelagh is a fantastic golfer & she has a great attitude, nothing tilts her. It was clear that playing with the women up here would be good for my game & on the day I managed a super 37 points. Now I know 37 points off 36 isn't fantastic, but for me, well it was pretty special.

Even better was the fact that 37 points won the ladies competition :)

Time To Meet The Members

2011-03-14T07:31:00.000Z

Just under 2 weeks ago, I got a text message from the lovely Lady Captain Pauline up at South County to see if I fancied a game with her & couple other of the lady members up at the club.

Whilst I was delighted to be asked, & relished the opportunity to compare myself to other lady golfers, I admit I was petrified that this could be a huge embarrassment. I'd only ever played golf with Rob's mum before & she had a very laid back attitude towards golf, & she also knew I was only a beginner, plus I knew her! But, now, playing with people I'd never met before, & also after looking up their handicaps on www.HowDidIDo.co.uk - these girls could bloody play!

Nervous & all that I was I'd made the effort to get some time in at the range before the game. I'd even spent a few hours looking at golf tutorials online, I had all the steps in my head, I just had to take my time & concentrate, I could do this! Due to the weather we played the frost course. This is a 12 hole course with placing using temporary greens. It's certainly a disappointment to be playing on temporary greens given how super South County's greens are, however it's better to play on temporary greens than not to play at all.

I met the 3 ladies in the pro shop before our round & straight away they were incredibly friendly. With the sun starting to make an appearance as we walked to the first tee, it was looking promising. Hell I even forgot how nervous I was going to be attempting to drive down the first.

In the end I need not have been so nervous, I actually played fairly solidly. Now I didn't hit every shot perfectly & compared to the other girls it was obvious I was a beginner, but the fact that I managed 12 holes without embarrassing myself gave me a lot of confidence & pleased me no end. Perhaps the most important thing I took away with me that day was that we had definitely made the right decision joining this golf club.

New Golf Club picked out . . . Now for that handicap . . .

2011-03-02T14:51:00.003Z

Given the financial climate, it was obvious enough that anyone paying silly money to join a golf club needed their heads looked. Over the last few weeks (as well as most of our snow ridden winter) I've spent a fair amount of time looking at courses within a 45 min traveling distance that fell within a reasonable budget. Again, in golf, typically you get what you pay for. But when you're faced with top quality tracks with annual subs of less than €2k, & in some cases €1k, it would be madness to shell out anything more. I also had to bear in mind that whatever we were faced with cost wise, would be doubled as there are two of us.

I narrowed it down to a few courses, Rob preferring Beechpark out of that narrowed selection. Then we discovered Killeen had significantly reduced it's fees making it a stronger candidate. The distance was further, but the course was worth it (well so Rob told me - I'd not actually played it before). In the end I didn't even get to play it as a trial as at the 11th hour, we discovered South County Golf Club had removed it's joining fee.

Rob loved South County, he had been a temporary member there following the dissolving of Kilternian Golf Club where he was a member for a few years. I'd also even 'played' South County before & we were very closed to joining it the previous year. I say played in inverted commas as the course killed me, I found it hugely difficult.The only thing that stopped us joining SC was the joining fees & the fact another club became a more sensible option due to a few friends having recently joined it. This meant that there was always a group available for company, well it seemed like the sensible option at the time.

With hindsight, it still wasn't a bad thing to have done. Last year we would have been down a few thousand euro to join, then pay a few thousand out between us for the first years fees. This way we got me off the ground cheaply, to make sure I was going to stick with golf & not give up after a few hacking sessions. Now I'm more comfortable with the game, & have played it enough to know I can see myself playing for a few years yet.

Rob made the call & within the week we were fully fledged members. Now to fix that handicap to something a bit more respectable.

Change of Direction

2011-02-01T11:58:00.007Z

For some reason I got very distracted from blogging and also eventually got reasonably distracted from poker.

I made a decent profit from poker in 2010, enough to get me into 5 figures and even managed to scrape into the Irish Poker Rankings final at the end of the year. For those that aren't familiar with it, the IPR final is effectively a free-roll for the top performing tournament players in the country.

In 2010 I had joined a golf course, got myself a handicap & began the process of getting addicted to golf. The course I joined was cheap enough & suited due to a few of my work colleagues having already joined there. Learning the game was exciting, having something to do in between shifts to help me sleep was very welcome, however getting all aspects of the game to come together so I could get my handicap down became 'Mission Impossible'.

I finished the year with the handicap I started with, 36. This bothered me as I felt I was/could be much better. It appeared my main problem was I couldn't last 18 holes, which is a problem as that's the globally acknowledged standard length of a game of golf.

My swing, whilst producing the goods at set intervals, appeared to have a variance issue only a poker player could empathize with. I was able to identify 2 key weaknesses, my 2nd shot (fairway wood etc) & my putting. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the fresh air, the exercise, the social element - however, there was something soul destroying about hitting a decent drive & topping the ball 2 or 3 times to completely reverse the benefits of being able to hit the ball a decent distance off the tee. My putting was another area requiring some serious improvement. Reading greens was never that much of a problem to me, getting the ball to stop within 4 feet of the hole at one point seemed nearly impossible. All things considered, whilst I felt like I was improving, I needed to nail some consistency & quick.

In September we went on a short golf trip to Spain which I was really looking forward to. I decided to invest in a new putter, an Odyssey Blade, to try spur on that end of things. Whilst my putting wasn't perfect, it was dramatically better than it had been, so finally, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Shortly after we came home from Spain the weather took a turn for the worse so we didn't really get playing any regular golf after that. We had decided weeks, if not months, prior to that we weren't going to renew our membership at that course. A serious lack of ethics by the course management, incompetent green-keeping that needed 4-5 months to pole fork greens & the lack of 'club' atmosphere meant we would need to find a new club for the following year & preferably a club we could stick with for many years to come.

Goodbye 2009 . . . You Were Bloody Smashing!

2010-01-01T13:04:00.103Z

So, end of another year & hasn't it been bloody great!

The year started pretty quietly, missed out on a few tourneys I would have liked to have played for one reason or another. Didn't play the IPC in January, although cleaned up in the cash games down there. Missed the Deepstack in February although went deep in a side event.

March marked the big move to Dublin & was also fairly successful in being the last standing of my team in the fantastic Eglinton Team event & also winning €3k in the Westbury EOM (end of month).

I played my first Irish Open in April, didn't catch a break but certainly gained from the experience. May kicked off with the JP Masters which I got deep in but not deep enough to profit. I also played in the World Women's Open in May, beating the reigning champ, Soraya Homan, heads up in my heat, another thoroughly enjoyable experience & a performance I have received substantial positive feedback from. I fully expect to smash the final next time ;)

We headed to Vegas at the end of June & had an absolute blast. Love the place :) Unfortunately I ran like a 3 legged dunkey & was bitterly disappointed not to land a big score, not too disappointed that it put me on life tilt, yet disappointed enough to make me adamant that next year will be huge ;)

Poker in August was a continued disappointment, the only consolation I had was playing loads of golf & enjoying every minute of it. No major poker festivals planned for September in Ireland so after a disappointing couple of months the duck had to break, BOOM, cue October!

October started with Killarney, unlucky in the main event, unluckier in the side event (KK< AT aipf) but at least that bad beat happened on the final table so I had already locked up profit by then. The following weekend we headed to Venice for a mini break then onto Nova Gorica for the IPT events. I didn't get going in the main & managed to get AA busted in the side aipf, but Rob played fantastically & overall we made a juicy profit. Next up was the Boyle Poker IPO & managing 4th out of 1440 entrants was absolutely awesome. Played out of my skin in this tourney (imo obv) & feel I thoroughly deserved this result, in fact I should have bloody won the thing ;) The Irish Winter Festival was on the last weekend of October & again I didn't flip great. My exit hand for both the main & the side was QQ vs AK where QQ just didn't quite cut it. Only consolation was the side event flip happened after the bubble had burst, meh!

JP's Mini WSOP was eagerly awaited in November & as expected didn't disappoint. I lost a flip in the main, very cruel flip in the side, got completely dogged in the shoot out & chopped the short-handed. Into December & I managed to play one of the side events of the Fitzwilliam Winter Festival, obviously chopped it. Monaghan Harps game the following weekend, cashed in 7th. IPC was up next & I outlasted the majority of a very high quality field finishing 8th, again first time playing that tourney, certainly won't be my last :) And last but certainly not least, I attended the Irish Poker Awards just before Christmas & was awarded the most improved Irish player of the year, certainly a highlight for me.

I've had an absolute ball this year, had great experiences both at & away from the tables, won a fortune particularly relative to the amount of tournaments I've played & enjoyed tremendous amount of success. I've met some great people, saw a little bit more of the world & had a great time along the way.

Thanks to everyone for their support & well wishes in person, via phone/text, on this blog, on facebook & twitter.

Extract Below is taken from the Hendon Mob covering all 2009 entries:

11-Dec-2009	€ 2,000 No Limit Hold'em – Main Event PokerStars UK and Ireland Poker Tour, Galway	8th	€ 11,000	$ 16,195
30-Nov-2009	€ 75 No Limit Hold'em Fitzwilliam Card Club Poker Festival 2009, Dublin	2nd	€ 1,500	$ 2,242
08-Nov-2009	€ 150 No Limit Hold'em – Six Handed Mini WSOP, Dublin	3rd	€ 2,100	$ 3,120
25-Oct-2009	€ 500 No Limit Hold'em paddypowerpoker.com Irish Winter Festival, Dublin	18th	€ 1,250	$ 1,875
16-Oct-2009	$ 250 No Limit Hold'em – Main Event 2009 BoylePoker.com International Poker Open, Dublin	4th		$ 24,736
03-Oct-2009	€ 270 No Limit Hold'em Ladbrokes.com Irish Poker Festival , Killarney	9th	€ 2,000	$ 2,925
24-May-2009	$ 3,000 No Limit Hold'em Partypoker.com Women's World Open III, London	6th		$ 5,000

And The Winner Is . . .

2009-12-24T03:53:00.095Z

Tonight marked the final Irish Poker Ranking event as well as the night of the Irish Poker Ranking Awards.

Going into this event I was 7th in the rankings meaning there was a decent chance I would be one of the automatic qualifiers for the STT in January. The one potential problem was the fact that the last ranking event was worth double points meaning there were a few people within over-taking distance if they went deep.

First time at the Voodoo Card Club, mainly due to their regular tourneys being very small buy-ins. I have to say the staff in the place were more than welcoming & they had a very nice set up. We got there early enough to allow time to grab some food before the tourney started & to our delight discovered a decent pool table in the back of the place. So we managed to grab a few games of pool whilst grabbing soemthing to eat before the tourney kicked off . . . great start to the night imo :)

The Awards were to be presented at the break & I was nominated for 'Most Improved Player 2009'. If I'm being honest I didn't think much about my chances of winning or what would happen if I did win. I was seated beside Dave Kinane for the first few levels of the tourney & he mentioned that he was there to represent JP, incase he won any of the awards. The conversation then turned to how when accepting an award a speech would be appropriate . . . fcuk . . . I could feel the colour draining from my face. I never for one second assumed I would win this award, but now I was faced with the prospect of having to say something if I did. Whilst I can be overboard chatty with people I know, I'm often tongue-tied when it comes to public speaking, particularly when not prepared at all!

So the moment comes & for some reason I can feel myself getting a lil nervous which Dara picks up on & does his best to make me feel as little at ease as possible to wind me up. Dave Curtis steps up to present the award I am nominated for & it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out I've won when he starts reading out my tournament finishes for the year. Needless to say my speech was very short & sweet & slightly retarded. Obviously I was well chuffed to win a poker related award, particularly because it was a public vote. It's very flattering to think that people rate you enough to vote for you, albeit in my opinion whilst I have definitely improved over the last year, I know that I wasn't a complete dunkey last year & possibly may not have been the best improved in the country. However the only way to measure improvement is via results, & thankfully there have been a fair few of those this year :)

As my so-called speech was very jibberish on the night, obviously I owe a huge thank you to Rob, who taught me everything I know about poker pretty much, from how to avoid string bets to squeeze plays, thanks honey. Clearly I have developed my own twist on things since then, but it certainly helps to have concrete foundations & I have no doubt that there is noone better out there to teach me what Rob has. Massive thanks to anyone who voted, I am both humbled & flattered by the result. Thanks also to Dara & Alan who were as congratulatory as ever, as was everyone there that night including Liz, Phil & Lorraine to name but a few. Think there should also be recognition for Iain & the amount of work he has put into the Rankings, the radio shows & their respective websites. I think the radio show has improved dramatically over the last few months & the effort Iain puts into it is very evident, wp Iain.

I was also approached by a couple of people who told me they read this blog, surprised would be the main word to sum up my reaction to that. I guess I always assumed this blog was only read by a select few, so I was quite chuffed to think that people spend the time to read my ramblings, hopefully I don't waffle on too much :)

The rest of the night was very uneventful for me. I went quite deep in the tourney but busted out when my Ax shove from late position met Wally's KK in the BB. No miracle A & I'm gone. I played some cash afterwards & hung on even after that to see the conclusion to the run in for the rankings title. WP to Dara & Wally who kept it close to the end & congrats to Wally on clinching the title.

Irish Poker Championship / UKIPT Galway

2009-12-15T13:22:00.232Z

*** Warning - This blog post may irritate due to severe whining at the beginning! ***

I was working the night before the first day of this event, got home about 7.45am & I felt like utter $hit! I'd developed a chest infection earlier in the week, managed to get an antibiotic, but it was finished & it appeared my chest infection had not. For this asthmatic, that meant more discomfort than for the average person, especially at night when breathing proved a lot more difficult than it should have. Rob was obviously playing the event himself so we packed up the car & headed for Galway.

Rob drove for obvious reasons, my plan was to sleep the whole way there. Unfortunately the wisdom tooth I was being introduced to had other ideas. So my journey involved no sleep in the end, it was more of a case lying in the car feeling sorry for myself & whining about how I always tend to get sick coming up to Christmas.

We arrived at the hotel in good time, dumped the bags in the room & headed for something to eat. Whilst waiting for the food I was feeling progressively worse. Decided paying €2k into an event was absolute madness given how bad I felt, also knew I was due to hit a brick wall soon in terms of tiredness. Told Rob not to buy me in & I would go for a nap when the tourney started & crush some cash games later that night. The cash games are always great value in Galway, & in particular the IPC always has great cash games which I had well profited from at the last festival.

Half way through the food I started to feel much better, I know now & also knew at the time this was only a short term boost of energy & it would be foolish to jump on the back of it risking €2k in the process. Guess I'm pretty foolish then because I couldn't help myself & literally at the last minute convinced him to run to the ATM to withdraw the buy-in for me to play.

They closed registration at 2 so they could organise the table draw & it was a good 20 minutes before they started seating any late entrants. After a bit of hanging about I was assigned a table which was a table of unkowns bar Peter Murphy & Markus Sippe, so yeah bar Pete, it appeared to be value central. I was active enough early on, most of the table were fairly weak so punishing limpers etc proved to be both easy & profitable. Everything was going swimmingly, got up to about 35k from a 20k starting stack & was very happy with table.

With a couple of levels left to play I was moved to a new table of which I didn't really know anyone until Neil Channing arrived not long afterwards. By this point my stack had already taken a couple of sizeable hits mainly due to raising with QQ then committed to calling a shortie shove. Neil's usually reasonably active at the table, so when he makes a standard raise I duly call with a medium pocket pair. The flop from memory was Q high, rainbow. He led, I called. Turn comes another blank/rag, he led again. At this point I am 95% sure I am good here, however calling again means I have to call the river, meaning I would be better shipping as he is most likely imo to have over cards & I'm pot committing myself by calling anyway. As I didn't see the need to put my tournament life on the line for a soul read I decided to fold the turn knowing there would be a better spot than shipping it with 3rd pair on the turn with blinds still being relatively small. Neil was chatting to Rob on day 2 & confirmed he was bluffing, which I obviously knew, but I'm still happy with my decision to let it go as day 2 brought a fresh opportunity to accumulate chips.

Day 2 started very slowly & bar stealing the odd blinds or re-shipping over a late position raise I maintained a very miserable stack. I'm sure I was never out of the bottom 10% in chips for most of day 2. With about 2 or 3 levels left I was moved to Padraig's table where it was complete & utter chaos to be honest. I was looking a double up obviously but needed something half decent to stick it in with as Padraig was calling at least 90% of shoves, especially if they were short. Padraig raised in early position, I looked down at pocket 8s & shipped. He was pot committed as his raise was quite large so he duly made up the difference & the dealer ran the flop. Padraig tabled AJ which I was obviously happy enough to see but at the same time would have preferred a raggy ace or the like to help my already slim chances as he was hitting everything in sight. The flop came down KK9 which was good but the counterfeit potential wasn't great. Padraig then starts calling for a 9 being the sicko that he is! Thankfully the board ragged out & I had successfully doubled up.

Soon after I was moved to a new table & seated to the left of Big Mick G. Reggie Corrigan also got moved to the other side of the same table soon afterwards so it was almost as lively as my previous table.I was fairly quiet on this table, albeit the conversation at least was great having Mick beside me, being both a player I respect & a very nice bloke. Not long before the end of play I managed to double up which meant I was going into day 3 somewhere in the middle of the field which to be honest felt great, for the first time in nearly 2 whole days play, I finally felt like I was in a good spot.

Day 3 meant another seat redraw & new faces to contend with.I had the great company of Nicky Power on my immediate right, so we got off with a few laughs, the craic was great. To Nicky's right were 3 young aggressive English lads, one of which, Matt Perrins, had enjoyed some recent success on the tourney scene & was the chip leader coming into the day. Unfortunately Rob became an early victim of Paul Morrow exiting in 34th & obviously came straight over to me to give the entire details in an emotional rant.Rob's timing as ever is second to none. One of the English guys had open shipped from the button & I look down at AQ. Whilst trying to half listen to Rob I'm getting a count on how much it is to call the shove. I know with me not instant calling the guy thought I was effectively slow-rolling him which was obviously never my intention. When I snap out of my trance I obviously make the call & have him dominated as it turns out as he tables QT. My AQ holds & I'm off to a flyer as the tourney is now down to about 32 players.

The English lads to my right kept up their aggression which to be honest proved to be costly more than profitable for them. Nicky made some very nicely timed moves, shipping over their raises, picking up a fair few chips in the process. There were also a few times when shorter stacks shipped & they had to call & lost even more chips in the process. We were told at the start of play that ours was the 2nd table scheduled to break & it seemed like no time at all before that time came. I got moved to Parky's table & was seated in between Parky & Big Mick G. Mick had been doing really well & had a very healthy stack. Parky was still flying & still had the chip lead.

I was fairly quiet bar reshipping the odd time over Parky's raises. To be honest he made some sick lay downs all of which I was looking him to call. As we got short handed & down to about 12 players there were 2 key hands that got me chips. The 2nd of which was based more on adrenaline I think. After doubling up the hand before, there was a mid position raise from an aggressive player, a re-raise from one of the English lads from my previous table & I look down at JJ. JJ had been a bit of a bogey hand of mine & yet I felt like I could only be patient for so long. JJ is a premium hand & I felt like the re-raiser was as likely to be behind/racing against my JJ than ahead. I decided the initial raiser was likely to fold & took my chances with the JJ. Initial raiser folded as predicted & re-raiser called with AK. This was it my chance to get a serious stack together or bow out gracefully. The K in the window proved to be a false alarm as the dealer proceeded to flop me quads! A good sign? I think so!!!

It seemed like no time at all before play ended for the day & we were down to the final table. Rob was playing the side event & I decided an early night was in order. I felt quite good about the final table, always good to make any final table, particularly of a major Irish event.

I woke up pretty early so we decided to head downstairs for breakfast. We had been doing this every morning to be honest, then had time for a nap afterwards to get even more rested before the day's play.The first disappointment of the day proved to be the table draw. There were 2 impressive young guys on my left who had already established themselves very accomplished results online, this was certainly far from ideal.

I got off to a decent start, knocked out the short stack when he shipped in late position & I discovered AK in the blinds. I also managed to flop a set but unfortunately didn't get as much action as I would have hoped, perhaps it warranted a lil more slow playing than I allowed it. The cards were starting to hit me which after so much scraping by was steals and re-steals was very welcome.

A few of my raises then started to get picked off, & when missing the flop completely I had no option to fold imo. I was very disappointed with my exit hand & with hindsight honestly feel like I could have played it better. Basically I managed to get my stack in with top pair top kicker to discover I was drawing dead as my opponent had flopped a set. The few hands leading up to that one made a difference to my play as there's only so many times you can be pushed about before you have to play back & it seemed like AQ on a Q high flop was the time to do it. Doh! Gone in 8th for €11k. Fail!

Yes I was hugely disappointed, yes I feel like I under-performed, but by fcuk do I hold myself to a high standard. Obviously going so deep in another big tourney was awesome, I was well chuffed with myself. I feel like I'm becoming one of the more consistent Irish players & I'm still relatively new to the game, onwards & upwards into 2010 & the more poker success I am confident I will achieve.

Huge thanks to everyone for their support at the event, both in person & online. It's great to know I have so many people wishing me well & rooting for me in tourneys, the support can obviously only ever help me continue to succeed.

Monaghan Harps GFC Charity Game

2009-12-07T17:06:00.073Z

Rob & I nearly slept in for this one. For some reason we thought the tournament started at 6, well it didn't, it actually started at 4 & the 1.5-2 hours travelling time meant we nearly missed it. We got woke up by chance due to an unexpected phone call & shortly afterwards Rob happened to have a quick look at boards to see if there was much interest in the tourney. It's a good job he did as it was only then we discovered the 4pm kick off, doh!

As it turned out the game was delayed anyway, but at least we made it there in time :) Most tables were self-deal which to be honest I hate. I hate it for several reasons, firstly I'm ridiculously bad at dealing, slow clumsy etc, secondly it slows the game up dramatically and thirdly it tends to lead to even more time wasting & uncertainty due to everyone not knowing what most of the rulings are. My table was self-deal for several levels early on, apologies to anyone who was at my table for I know I suck as a dealer!

I got off to a good start, maintained a healthy stack & was comfortable with both my play & the table. My table was chatty enough & all the guys were very welcoming. There was a couple of guys in particular, who went out of their way to make conversation with me which I certainly appreciated & I thought was really nice of them. Most of them knew eachother from previous local games which I find can be a disadvantage for a stranger like me as they all had eachother pegged but I took on board what I could & soon sorted the rocks from the maniacs.

Even though it was a 20k stack, the blind structure was relatively fast enough & it wasn't long before the numbers starting dropping. The game slowed up a fair bit when down to 3 tables & the bubble seemed to last for months but somehow I got there & managed to make it to the final table.

By the final table I was quite short & didn't have a huge amount of time to wait on a hand which was a shame as I had been card dead for ages by this point & there weren't many spots to steal, mainly due to people being dealt monsters tbh. When folded around to me on the button I pushed my raggy king all in. Unfortunately Damo woke up with AT in the blinds which held. I exited in 7th which although happy to cash was a bit of an anti-climax, particularly considering the journey to get there & back put a damper on what wasn't far off a min cash.

That said I actually enjoyed myself quite a bit. The folk there were good craic & Neil Channing also provided a fair bit of entertainment by pickling peoples' heads as he was moving from table to table as a bounty. He also did a good radio interview whilst there for Irish Poker Radio. The other upside of the finish was it got me into the top 8 in the Irish Poker Rankings. At the beginning of the year I found it amusing how people were playing events purely to chase points, but seeing I hadn't played that many tourneys over the course of the year & was within touching distance of finishing in the top 8 of the rankings, I'll admit I was determined to do my best to qualify for the final table. No matter how flawed the points system was, I consider it an achievement to play less than 25% of ranking events & still manage to make the final :)

Fitz Poker Festival 2009

2009-12-01T15:02:00.026Z

During this festival I happened to have only one night off work meaning the only game I could play was the €75+R on Monday night. I hadn't been sleeping great for a few days & there was a large part of me resigned to spending my night off catching up on some sleep. Rob however was determined to head in for this game & somehow managed to drag me into town with him.

I felt I played really well in the tourney, made a lot of good reads including the odd impressive lay down. I guess that's how I know I'm playing well, judgement & timing were bang on. There were no massive points of note to be honest, it was all fairly bog standard. I did get lucky on one occasion when I called a shorty shove with QQ, turned out he had AA but I pinged a Q to send him home. Yes I got lucky, but to be honest he had blinded himself down that much that losing that pot wouldn't have done me much damage anyway.

Rob, Dara & I all made it to the final table. Rob was short & didn't last long. Dara got very unluckily crippled in a huge pot where he got his AA cracked & exited soon after. I played fairly steady & bar one near catastrophe I survived until we were 4 handed & a deal was done. To be honest part of me wouldn't have minded playing on as I was joint chipleader at the time & felt I was playing well. The problem was the blinds were fairly big relative to stacks & the prizes were steep enough, so happy enough to call it a day, healthy profit & another hendon mob entry wrapped up.

JP's Mini WSOP

2009-11-09T14:01:00.118Z

This was always going to be a great festival for many reasons but in particular it was inevitable to run like clockwork, have plenty of sat winners & a decent prize pool. The venue turned out to be pretty good, handy parking, fair sized room & the food was also better than average. My first table was a bit of a mixture, some good players mixed with complete dunkeys. Needless to say everytime I got a run going I would suffer an equally sized set-back. I survived the first day albeit short, but a new day, new table & hopefully a new run of cards.

The next day I had a tough enough table, several good aggressive players which would always put me under pressure. I managed a double up early enough on but card death & aggressive players to my right meant that there weren't too many stealing spots available. In the end I crashed out finishing on the wrong side of a flip.

As predicted the side event would prove to be too tempting to miss, so I duly jumped in. Few players on my table to note included the likes of Fintan Gavin, Wes Farrell & Lorcan Dooley (who was diretly to my left). In saying that I was comfortable enough in chips, & bar Loran & the French lunatic going mad at eachother the table was playing mostly fairly sensible. I busted late enough in the day when I got it in once again AK vs Lorcan's QQ. This time I held the AK & managed to hit, until he rivered a 4 flush, damnit!

I was pretty deflated after that. It's hard to imo play good poker for 2 whole days & still manage to bust out of 2 tourneys. Rob had busted out of the main event a lil while before my exit from the side so we headed home more or less straight away, still not decided on whether or not to return the following day for the remaining 2 side events.

The first of the side events on the last day was the shoot-out which Rob was very keen to play given his STT experience. In the end he decided he'd rather head in & play it therefore I tagged along as usual. We both played the shoot out. Rob got dunkeyed out fairly on by a Fenchie & I made it down to the last 5 on my table. The structure meant that the top 3 went through to the next round, with 5 left I was just below average but comfortable enough for blinds. There was an early position raise (from someone I would have deemed as very solid) which was called by the Frenchie. I looked down at AK, time to sink or swim & the chips went in. The initial raiser went into the tank, I know by this point he obviously doesn't have AA or KK, a couple of minutes later & I decided he didn't have QQ so I'm thinking perhaps he has JJ/TT or the like & is weighing up his chances of racing or whatever. Eventually he called, Frenchie folded & he shows me AQ. I'm not going to lie, I was so gobsmacked I nearly fell of my chair. He had me covered but not by a huge amount, I'd been very quiet in this tourney & couldn't for the life of me understand how he could make the call. In saying that I was delighted, no Q & I'm laughing . . . well there was a Q & I guess you could say I wasn't laughing. Rob started his usual outburst until I silenced him & we headed upstairs to see what numbers they were expecting for the short-handed event.

A guy I work with, Tony, had been raving about this short-handed events for a couple of weeks, reckoned it was a great tourney for him & at the time I remembered thinking that it would probably not suit my regular tourney game. That said the IPO didn't suit my regular tourney game & I was getting a lot more confident at adapting my aggression levels so perhaps it would be a good tourney to experiment with.

I only knew one player on my starting table, Chris Cooke, who was seated directly to my left. I was very active from the off, playing all sorts of hands with any potential. I was also raising quite a bit in position. Perhaps because I was so active, & in nearly every hand I made my own luck a bit. I hit a few flops early on & managed to win a few nice pots meaning I was always comfortable in the early stages. I also managed to bust Chris mostly over 2 hands which helped as he was by far the better of my opponents. From that point onward I kept up the aggression & to be honest it seemed to work for me.

The tourney seemed to fly in, before I knew it we were down to 2 tables, & I unfortunatly managed to end up at the same table as Rob. I hate playing with Rob, obviously we don't collude or anything, my morse code is pretty non-existent! The reason I hate playing with Rob is he always knows what I have, it's like a game to him, anytime he's railing he can name my hand which is very bad in a way. I've since tried to mix my game up a lil more so as to try to confuse him if nothing else. And unfortunately, I don't know his game anywhere near as well as he knows mine, that doesn't mean he'll ever beat me though ;)

The short ending is we both cashed, he busted in 5th & I was involved in a 3 way chop. I wasn't pleased with how I played 3 handed to be honest & really felt like I wasn't aggressive enough. There's no excuse for that, I'm normally quite aggressive on final tables in general & I'd been aggressive the whole way through this tourney so I have no idea why I tightened up. It probably cost me the outright win if truth be told, but I have definitely gained from the experience & don't plan on playing so passive at future final tables. Another cash & another hendon mob entry though, something I'm happy to report I'm managing on a regular basis these days :)

Paddypowerpoker.com Irish Winter Festival 2009

2009-11-02T15:57:00.089Z

I'd never actually played the IWF before, last year I was working the Saturday morning so never even bothered trying to qualify. With recent success and a 10% swap with Jaye in the IPO, it seemed like fate I should play it, with the 10% swap working out within €50 of the main event buy-in. Definitely a sign!

I got off to a good start, there were a couple of very competent players on my table, but the numbers were certainly made up of some value alright. I slowly built a reasonable stack & maintained it comfortably above average for the first few levels, then I hit a bad patch. That said I never gave up & stole a couple of small pots which gave me a bit of momentum. At the beginning of the last level of the night I got moved table which in one sense I was disappointed about as I was happy with my reads on the table, but sometimes a change of scene can bring a change in luck & I was due some cards.

I can be quite superstitious about dealers & have myself convinced that the dealers I'm friendlier with & know better are always better to me in terms of starting hands & showdown. This is silly I know & even though I know how stupid it sounds I will always have more faith at hitting that draw or flopping a set when the person dishing out the cards is someone I know & like. The lovely Lisa Condon is dealing my new table therefore I'm not surprised at all when she deals me my first decent hand in about 3 hours, AQ, which I shipped (from the button) over the top of a late position raise. original raiser didn't call which I was obviously happy enough with, but the chips I had gathered in were critical.

The very next hand I'm dealt QQ. I'm thinking it's a sign of better things to come, which didn't last long as it turns out . . . . I end up aipf vs AK. By the turn, the K is no good to him as it would give me a straight, but the 4 way flush on the river was enough to bring my tourney to an abrupt end. Guess that one just wasn't meant to be.

I watched Rob play for the last hour or so of the day & shrugged off my exit. I was happy with I played, wouldn't have done much different with hindsight, so onward & upward to the following day & the side event awaiting.

Was really up for this side event, even more than normal. I had a good starting table, several weak spots to take advantage of & a few characters to liven up the conversation. I had a bit of an up & down start. A lot of hands just didn't go my way, missed flushes, never hit a set etc but I hung in there & made some decent calls to keep myself in the game.

Towards the end of the night I get moved to a very lively table with loads of chips on it. This turns out to be fantastic for me as I'm not there very long when I get a full double up and become comfortable in chips once again. It wasn't too long after my double up that they stopped the clock for the evening, bringing back 4 tables for the 2nd & final day.

With top18 paid, there was still a fair way off the bubble yet & things duely tightened up considerably on the 2nd day. I had an ok table, knew what spots to raise light in, knew who's blind not to pick on etc then the unfortunate timing of being the next big blind happened.

My table was much more aggressive & a hell of a lot deeper in chips. This made the bubble harder than I would have liked. The most aggressive guy on the table was on my right, he had me covered by a long way & showed on more than one occasion that he was willing to call shortie shoves with marginal cards. He was doing a great job of putting most of the table under pressure & unfortunately card death meant I was unable to play back at him. A deal was finally done to pay 19th place & we were down to 2 tables.

I didn't last much beyond this point, 3 or 4 hands after the restart & I shipped over the top of a late position raise holding QQ. Raiser called with AK & the dealer flopped him happy. Ah well, losing a race is never the worst exit hand & thankfully it happened after the bubble burst meaning it wasn't a complete waste of several hours of my life.

Pretty much broke even over the course of the festival, but as I had been 'free-rolling' the main event it went down as another profitable weekend :)

Boylepoker.com IPO 2009

2009-10-19T18:22:00.241+01:00

I had never actually got to play the IPO before. Last year we were in England as Rob was playing a GUKPT event & we called in to play some cash. My brief taste of the atmosphere last year was enough to make me want to play it this year, so I arranged the time off work & made sure I registered in advance as recommended by the tourney organisers. Well was I glad I made the effort in advance, as predicted it sold out & my preferred day was snapped up pretty quickly!

With hindsight working the night before day 1B was a bad idea, but I managed to drag myself out of bed just in time to make it to the Regency for 1pm or thereabouts. I got loads of low-middle pocket pairs early on but couldn't hit a set to save my life. I was also rivered in a couple of pots by fishy callers hitting their gutshots which pleased me no end & I went from maintaining close to starting stack to drifting back dangerously low. My lowest point was approximately 3.5k which was scary low given the size of the field & the pace the tourney was moving at. I decided to take a stand & started shipping any opportunity I got which paid off no end. Then I finally managed to get a few hands which got paid due to my stepped up aggressive image. To be honest I was always happy with my starting table, I thought the standard was ridic bad & was probably one of the best in the room in terms of value. That was what frustrated me more, I felt like I should have been flying from the off, but it seemed like I couldn't catch a break early on. Still once I got going I went on a flyer & reached a high point of about 112k an hour or so before the end of play. It then went a bit wrong. I lost a couple of flips. thankfully both pots were all in shoves from shorties & it didn't kill me completely, but it do damage to the nice stack I had scraped together. I finished the day on 61.5k which I was quite disappointed with in the end, was hoping to clear 80-90k to ensure I was at least average, but like Killarney the week before I knew a double up within a few laps would see me right on day 2.

I got a rough enough table draw for day 2, with the overnight chip leader (Rupinder Bedi) sitting 2 seats to my right, his button my big blind, this was going to go very right or very wrong very quickly! I folded for a lap then picked up KK. Rupinder duly raised, as he did pretty much every other hand & why not he had the chips to do it. His raise pot committed him & thankfully he had to call my ship even if he had raised with 6h4h! Poker is never easy even when you get it in miles ahead & by the turn he had picked up a flush draw & a gutshot! Paul Spillane was behind me shouting "ah, don't do it!". The 6d on the river was too close for comfort & it took a split second for me to breathe a sigh of relief. Within a few laps I made a few steals & got myself comfortably above average, however that wasn't to last for long. I drifted back again a little bit, which was the case for most people with the blinds getting up & people just hanging on longer than they were expected to. Even average stack at this point was starting to look short. Rupinder was decent enough to double me up once again when my TT held up against his overcards. I was starting to flip well, something I had been pathetically bad at for the last 4-5 months, well hopefully my good flipping was a sign I was to run better.

The guy to the right of Rupinder who was at the time & remains completely unknown to me, became incredibly aggressive. He was showing good hands often enough but was just too aggressive & it looked like only a matter of time before he raised one hand too many. We went on a break & this unknown guy was the new chipleader with 600k. He won a lot of his chips off Rupinder when he went out of his way to clash with him. To be honest they were both happy to take each other on which seemed madness given their stacks but in a contest of ability there was only ever going to be one winner. Within one lap & two consecutive hands Rupinder had knocked his arch enemy out & regained his chipleader title with a massive stack of just over 800k! He was way out in front & had an absolute mountain of chips in front of him. With his now even bigger stack he was completely running over the table & I went through an utter card dead period meaning I could only hang on until they broke our table, which looked like it would be happening soon.

By the time the table broke I was short, which became even shorter after I got a positional raise snapped off by a Frenchman with a big stack, so I folded my 33 knowing I wouldn't be folding the next time whether I liked it or not. A lap later the same Frenchman opened in late position, and I look down at J2 on the BB. I don't have a choice in this one as the BB was just over a third of my stack so I reluctantly called hoping to have 2 live cards which thankfully I did. So my J2 vs his AQ, J on the flop & it held. That was the first time I'd been all-in with the worst hand & it didn't feel good, time to get a stack together & not let myself get that short again, regardless of big stacks playing aggressively. That J2 was a huge turning point for me. Just before it I had told Rob not to bother registering for the PLO side event as I was likely to bust fairly soon & couldn't be bothered hanging about all night after a long session the night before too. Luckily enough after that J2 hand I managed to work my way up to 270k which was my new high point. Now I wouldn't say that 270k was anyway big, but felt like it was a super stack at the time & I hoped the forward momentum would continue.

Down to 2 tables, I discovered I was the last remaining bounty. I have to admit this definitely felt good. So many well known pros were bounties & when Paul approached me with the jersey the first thing I thought of was, ah I'm gonna make a fool of myself here, I'm likely to be the first bounty out. The likes of Marty Smyth, Andy Black, Neil Channing, Padraig Parkinson as well as Rob were all bounties . . . I was out of my league here. I admit it did feel good firstly to not show myself up & secondly to outlast them all, I do realise how pathetic that sounds but no point writing a blog if I'm not honest right?

Two tables out it was time to get down to business. I was now seated to the left of a young Frenchman who had quickly become known as the guy who called 2 all-ins with KQ & got extremely lucky. The one consistentcy of the tournament to note - aggression! We had a couple of blind on blind hands where straight from the off he showed he was happy to bully when he thought he could so I had to start playing back. One pot I remember well is when I bet him off a J9x flop with K4os. Had that move gone wrong I would have looked very silly & done nearly half my stack. After that point he seemed happy to leave me be which to be honest didn't last that long as the blinds were accelerating things & it wasn't too long after we were down to 9 & final table.

There was a huge deal made of the final table. There was a large set assembled late that afternoon complete with ample lights & at least 4 or 5 cameras. Things were a fair bit behind schedule with the field scraping by a lot longer than expected. We'd had a rushed dinner break with about 15 left, involving us all eating whilst at the table playing & then managed a quick 10 minute break before starting the final table.

From memory I was 4th in chips which would normally seem comfortable, however by this stage the blinds were huge & even the chip leader wouldn't have been overly deep stacked. First couple of laps I was completely card dead & when in late position I never got the opportunity bar one time when I raised in late position with complete junk & had to fold when it was snapped off. Of course I did the prolonged dwell making it look like I had a hand however my cards were that bad I had to ensure that I folded them safely when the time came so as not to expose the complete junk I had just raised with.

The next hand I was involved in was vomit material! UTG+1 open ships. He had been completely nit-like since the final table started but I was confident he could have any 2 cards pulling that move. He had been caught out a couple of times doing that when there were 3 tables left & I was pretty sure I had a tell on him. It would appear that when he looks at his card for a split second, ie. literally flicks them up just enough time to catch a glimpse then immediately shoved his chips in, I took it as a sign of weakness. To me it was like he was shoving before he bottled out of it. Because of this I had him on any raggy A or the like, possibly even worse. When I looked down at JJ I knew it was going in straight behind him & so it did. I wasn't hugely liking the call from the blinds though as I had to assume they either had a pair or even more likely to have 2 overcards, so it was most likely a race imo, however it was a race for a huge % of the chips in play which is obviously always an anxious spot. To my delight with cards on their backs it's my JJ vs inital shove with 63 vs BB with AJ. The guy to my right who I'd been chatting with, a nice guy from Portadown, offered some words of comfort in "you're in great shape, good luck" to which I replied, "I'm not sure I fancy this one!". Well call me psychic . . . I had a real bad feeling I was losing the hand alright, just didn't expect to be drawing dead after the flop!

I get it in, as a fairly substantial favourite in a treble up opportunity only to lose out big time. I can deal with the A hitting, in fact I could even deal with the AAx flop, the over celebrations on the other hand were quite hard to swallow. It was at that moment I suddenly felt the presence of the crowd & how the crowd was dominated by supporters of the 2 foreign players. The roar was deafening, the heat & light coming from the stage lights was intense & swallowing hard whilst a guy jumped up & down after sucking out was hard to take. I don't blame him calling, he had to know he was almost definitely behind, but he had about a quarter of his stack in already on the BB. So calling I could live with, sucking out I would deal with, however the lack of ettiquette was very sickening for me.

A few seconds later I looked around expecting to see Rob on the floor with a crowd around him, cardiac arrest or the like, however Taylor was nowhere to be seen. In fact I couldn't find Rob anywhere in the crowd, nor was he there after I open shipped the very next hand. Thankfully I woke up with TT & quadrupled up. A few laps later I have outlasted a couple of people & wake up with AA on the button. I need a caller here, but a limp would be too sus, so I opt for the nervy shove & hope the Frenchman on the BB who had proved to have a wide calling range previously would look down to find something he reckons he's ahead with. As it turned out he had AT & called me. My AA did stand up, although he flopped a flush draw & a gutshot reminding me of how cruel poker can be. The T on the turn gave him even more outs & really did stop my heart beating for a second. But still, a double up was exactly what I needed & not long after we went on break & I felt like I still had a lifeline. During the break the Frenchman told me of how surprised he was to see I had AA. I guess in poker timing is everything & he was vul I had such a big hand as I know I was shipping any 2 in that spot. At this point I still can't find Rob & only discovered afterwards he was round the corner doing commentary with Parky.

Down to 4 & there wasn't a great deal in it. I had asked at the break would there be any chance of pausing or rolling back the clock & was told it wasn't an option. This is the one criticism I have of the tournament itself. Yes the room was too warm, the food was horrible and very restrictive, but for a 2 day tournament there was a fair bit of play on offer, until we got to the stage that mattered where the money jumps were decided like bingo. The prize pool was very juicy especially for the buy in, so it's a shame the serious money end was settled when average stack was a mere 4M.

I think my exit hand was fairly standard, folded around to me in the SB I open shipped QJ. I think I was unlucky the BB woke up with AJ & made a standard call. I did however flop an open ender but it missed along with my Q & I finished in 4th place.

Jaye Renehan played an absolute blinder yet again. The man is a machine, you just can't question his consistency. He's an absolute legend on the Irish poker scene & was unlucky not to win it in the end.

A quick mention for the other Irish on the final table. Mark Troy, who finished third, qualified for the IPO in a pub sat for €40, classic fairytale story, wp to him. As to the other Irishmen that made it, with so many 'professionals' & serious foreign players in the field it was nice to see an Irish tourney final table being dominated with Irish players.

The winner did get lucky along the way, but anyone who wins a tournament with a field as large as this had to get lucky & in the end it was just his day. He obviously sucked out with his AJ against me, but as far as I'm concerned he played very well on the final table, fair play to him.

The JJ hand was one of the sickest I've ever had at a final table, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect to outlast over 1400 players to make it to the final table. $24.7k is my biggest cash by a mile & I'm so chuffed with it. I'm no professional poker player, I play for the buzz with the intention of staying ahead so the poker pays for itself. I do like to be good at any hobby I take up & certainly poker is no exception. I feel I'm improving every time I play & can only hope to continue to improve. I'm lucky to have Rob to school me, as obviously he has taught me pretty much everything I know about poker although he tells me he reckons I have a natural knack for the game. Hopefully the results will continue & I'll actually manage to win something biggish outright at some point in the next year or two.

A huge thank you required to all involved in the IPO, it was a super tourney which ran like clockwork. Stephen from Poker Ireland was clearly well organised as it showed & paid off dividends. The Boyle Team of Paul, Lisa, Ciaran, Padraig etc were very supportive & top notch as always. The TDs were on the money with John, Toby, Oscar, JP, Richard etc on hand whenever required. The dealing standard was second to none as expected, with special thanks to Kasia who I managed to bump into in the toilets repeatedly. She always had words of enccouragement for me which I appreciated greatly. There are too many people & I'm sure I'm bound to have left someone out, but everyone involved with that event should be proud of themselves as the atmosphere & level of professionalism was superb.

It would appear I had supporters everywhere following the live stream, should it have been folk on boards, people from work, or those that were railing the event live, thanks loads for all the well wishes and congratulatory messages via text, on facebook & the Boyles blog.

Special comiserations to Mick McCloskey who revealed when a bit tipsy afterwards he was gutted to be the 2nd remaining bounty 2 years running. Perhaps 3rd time lucky Mick?

Last year I managed 2 Hendon Mob entries & set a goal of achieving more in 2009. After a disappointing Vegas I figured I had no chance, however the side event in Killarney & the IPO have given me a total of 3 for this year so I really can't complain, really didn't expect to make that target a couple of months ago. I also have the Irish Winter Festival next weekend which I'm really looking forward to.

Enough babbling from me I think, time to do some new car research. I had been toying with the idea of buying a new car for a few weeks, I'm taking my IPO cash as a sign I am destined to get it after all :)

It may look like a bit of a beast, that's because it is & I'm sure my golf clubs will love it!

IPT Nova Gorica

2009-10-12T16:09:00.044+01:00

Rob & I both satted into this €2k main event in Nova Gorica which is in Slovenia but barely across the Italian border. What does a poker tournament on the Italian border mean? Oh yes, loads of Italians!

Our hotel was a fair trip away from the casino but with a hire car this didn't present a major problem. The hotel itself was quite quaint, old fashioned but clean & comfortable. The drive down from the hotel to the casino was glorious, with the sun splitting the trees, this winding road which ran along side the 'Emerald Trail' offered spectacular views & proved to be an enjoyable & relaxing start to each day.

I had a tough table including a few pros & truth be told I never actually got going. It was a 20k starting stack so I had plenty of time to wait for a hand, however the problem was I got hands, they just didn't hold up. I lost reasonably large pots with pretty much all of them. My hate affair with JJ continues as I lost 2 large pots with them & I ran A9 soooted into 88 on a A98 flop. Even after a few potential disasters I still had about 70% of starting stack. That was until I got KK which I had to fold on the river when the board double-paired. So I round things off by shipping AK from the blinds over the top of a standard raise & yet again lose. It was at least a quick death in that I was up against JJ & he flopped a set. JJ always ends in disaster whether I have them or am up against them!
/rant

Decided I wasn't in the mood to play live on the Saturday & with the structure of the €1k side event not being fantastic it was a long day spent downstairs in the casino/hotel away from the poker room entertaining myself with silly online games & chatting to people. I also played a few MTTs to pass the time. Got a few small cashes but certainly nothing to make a point of noting.

Rob managed a bit better making it to day 3 and finished in 24th place. He played very well & even though extremely card dead he went incredibly deep, wp to him. The standard was higher than expected, certainly my starting table was a lot tougher than I assumed it would be. In saying that I would deffo recommend these events to anyone, fantastic structure & the casino itself was a great venue.

Rob's exit was just in time for him to also play the €500 side event on the Sunday. In the 2nd level I was dealt AA, made a standard raise UTG only to be 3 & 4 bet, After a lil bit of trying to look uncomfortable I shoved. Initial reraiser called about a long dwell & the other guy folded QQ face up. I was up against KK, with the only guy who actually covered me at the table . . . x x x x K! Wow, just can't make this shit up.

Rob was going well by this stage so it looked like another long night ahead in the casino. So back online I went to play the Sunday final of the RTE Late Night Stars of Poker. A clown had open shipped the first 2 hands I & call him the second time around with AK and lose obviously. He had J9 as it happened and flopped a 9, which obviously kept in line with my running for the weekend.

I was very bored with sitting downstairs & figured I'd give the cash a go as Rob looked like he was going to go fairly deep. I bought into the €2/€4 NLH game for €300 & worked it up to just over €700. I'm very happy with the table at this point, the 2 to my left are quite solid/tight, the few behind them are spewy/fishy and the 2 to my right are quite aggressive but decent, can tell they know what they are doing. Most of my profit has come from the 2 on my right, the guy to my immediate right in particular, who was playing about €2k . . . . :) very happy about that. I had a good rep & was getting as much respect as I could hope for in an Italian setting. Great, things are running a bit better. No of course they're not I just spoke too soon.

I call a late position raise (€22) from the blinds with 77. The flop comes 784 with 2 spades. I check, other 2 callers check, preflop raiser bets €60. I make it €150. To my surprise one of the callers goes all in for ~€200 followed by the preflop raiser who reships ~€1k. I'm obviously never folding at this point, so I call & start praying for no spades. Obviously the spade hits on the river, the initial raiser scoops the lot & I lose a €1,700 pot which certainly would have gone some way towards recovering my disappointment in the side event.

This is all very negative I know, but I feel like I have been running bad for months & I've witheld any serious rant until now. At this stage I think I deserve one. I decided that was enough running bad for a weekend so I decided to call it a night & rail Rob instead.

Rob got very unlucky 2 tables out where he had KK cracked by 88 in a 3 way all in pot. He recovered & managed to come 4th, eventually being knocked out by the guy with the 88 (bit sick huh). Still another cash, another great performance form Rob, and rounded off the trip nicely.

So that was all from Slovenia & we headed home on the Monday night from Venice airport. My next tournament is on Saturday, playing day 1B of the Boyles IPO, where hopefully I will have some sort of result to report. Fingers crossed.

Venezia

2009-10-08T23:55:00.000+01:00

En route to Nova Gorica for the IPT event, we had time for a couple of days in Venice! Always wanted to see Venice, the sort of place I'd heard loads about but never actually got the chance to go to myself.

The plan was to have a relaxing couple of days & have a stroll about the town. We've both been so busy these last few weeks that a couple of days set aside to do nothing was very welcome. We didn't organise much for this trip, only arranged to go about 2 weeks ago so most of the booking was done mid journey. Initially we figured we would hire a car from the airport, we'd looked it up online & figured it would be the most efficient & convenient thing to do. However, naive & lazy that we are, we should have finalised things online as the airport units for the very same car hire places were taking the absolute piss. Time to reassess - €3 express bus into town to sort a hotel & get some dinner.

We basically stopped at the first hotel we saw, about 100 yards from the bus station & checked in. Lovely hotel, quite old & traditional, but was pretty much what I was hoping for. Then out to dinner, which again was a walk & find mission. We randomly made our way through some very narrow streets & lanes eventually reaching what appeared to be a central square where we also found half of Venice eating, drinking & socialising. This was my first time in Italy & being a huge pizza fan I couldn't miss the opportunity to have a proper Italian pizza, which I have to say was really nice. Rob opted for the uh hum 'Chips Pizza' which was basically pizza with chips on top!

After dinner we had a nice walk along the canals (albeit in the dark) & then headed back to the room to investigate car hire further & also look into getting a hotel as near to Nova Gorica as possible. We already knew the Casino was fully booked, which was a shame, not often you get a Hotel in the Casino outside of Vegas.

Rob managed to find a decently priced hire car online from a place in Venice town & also took care of finding a hotel meaning we had the whole following day to explore Venice.

We spent the day strolling about the place, made a point of taking in the Grand Canal & a few other historical buildings etc. I wasn't even fussed on shopping, partly because there was nothing that caught my eye, but mainly because the walk was so pleasant. The weather was lovely, perhaps a lil warm for walking about in, but certainly no complaints to be warm in October.

Such a nice place, so different in so many ways & the people are really nice. Rob has informed me it's supposedly sinking which is a real pity, unless they find a fix it could be reduced to nothing.

Irish Poker Festival Killarney 2009

2009-10-05T16:16:00.006+01:00

Enjoyed my time in Killarney last year so was looking forward to another weekend away & hopefully some profit to go along with the nice scenery. The venue same as last year was something else, fantastic room for a poker tourney with the added benefit for a large balcony for food and drinks as well as spectating.
Got off to a decent start in the main event, which pleased me as I didn't have the easiest of tables which was made worse when Oz got moved to it also. I didn't get many cards & found myself lying low, allowing the active players to go at it & kill each other. Only played one large pot where I got into a tricky spot with AK vs Oz's JT, needless to say he got runner runner straight & with hindsight I probably should have folded the river. Guess I slow played my hand more than I should have & allowed him to catch up, my bad.
It's always good to make it through to the second day although I didn't have many options with my stack & pushed AQ over the top of Albert's cut-off raise. I flopped an A but he turned a 6, so that one was never meant to be.

I was in 2 minds about playing the side event. Part of me figured I had to or I would be really bored. I wasn't in the mood for a cash game which is becoming the norm for me these days & I'm not a drinker so my options were limited. I decided to give the SnG sat a go, 10 seater 2 tickets. Got down to the last 3 without any tricky spots & was hopeful I could lock up a ticket. At this point it becoming a total crapshoot & decided my AT is too good to pass, unfortunately both of the other 2 called also. AT normally plays quite well on a T high flop, but with 3 of us all in, the runner runner to bring 4 spades on the board could only signal disaster. Bubbled, poop!

Due to a lack of alternatives I decided to play the side event all the same. Rob also ended up playing the side & both of us survived the first day again. I was quite short after accumulating a ton of chips through running AK into a K high flop into a set of Ts. Sick last level for me, but worked with the starting stack I was reduced to & picked a few spots wisely. Towards the end of the first day Oz was moved to my table & I was hoping to avoid him especially as he had a monster stack. I did my best to stay out of his way on day 2 also but with him 2 to my right I knew it would have to give at some point, can't have him raising my BB every lap.

I manage to claw my way back to about 80kish where I find myself on the BB, where Oz finds himself on the button, where's it's folded around to him & he . . . you know the rest. With blinds 2k/4k, Oz makes it 10.5k, SB folds. We're down to 3 tables, Oz has about 200k at this point & was running/playing well since the restart, so whilst not knowing what would be best to do all I knew was I had to be careful. I look down at A2os & decide to flat to see a flop. I prefer reraising here but didn't like the idea of committing nearly half my stack & it was too much to ship so I chickened out & just called. The flop comes A77 with 2 hearts, check check. Qh on the turn which I wasn't overly concerned about as I believe Oz deffo bets a flush draw on the flop, I can't put him on a 7, if he has I guess that's just ul but I'm happy to go with the assumption he doesn't, he also deffo bets an A. So at the point I'm thinking I have to be ahead. When deep in a tourney I'm playing to win, we're very close to the bubble & I decide it's time to up the ante a lil.

I open for 17k, he briefly looks at me then calls. To me this was a confident enough call which made me think he had to have a decently kicked Q. I normally don't put people on exact hands, if I can get their ranges half-way accurate then I'm improving as a player, but the voices in my head said he has a Q here & you're good. Blank 2 on the river & I'm thinking it's do or die time. I have about 53kish behind, there is slightly more than that in the pot & I'm looking to get a full double up (or go down in a blaze of foolishness). I have pulled the odd bluff on Oz in the past so I know he knows I'm capable (only once per year though for everyone who still regards me as a nit). I'm thinking, hmmm, would he call a shove here, oh shit, can't take too long, need to act quick to help confuse him, all in! I can see Rob behind me out of the corner of my eye starting to jump about (Rob style) conversing with others in the little crowd which had been there for a while at that point. After weighing up the pot, my play, Oz decided to call. Tbh part of me wasn't convinced he would call a shove with a Q, so I showed him the A & (as un-dramatically as possible) stopped breathing for a few secs . . . "A is good" . . . omg thank fuck! He showed the Q before mucking & I could relax again, now with a very nice stack :)

After picking Rob's jaw off the floor for pulling that stunt I got my sensible head on again & maintained my newly playable stack. Down to 2 tables, I lost the first couple of pots I played, with blinds & antes getting up, my stack had depreciated somewhat. On the final table bubbly I shoved 88 on the cut-off only to find the button couldn't fold his KQ monster for his whole stack, but my snowmen held up & it was final table time.

As it turned out the bubble actually burst twice, losing 2 players at the same time, 1 from each table. So with 9 left I'm one of the shorter stacks & on an aggressive table I can't afford to blind away much. I manage to survive a whole 1.5 laps when I get KK on the cut-off. With blinds 6k/12k, I raise to 30k & do my best to look weak. I need a double up & am not going to get many better starting hands so need to maximise this one. To a serious poker player, saying things like trying to look weak is usually laughable. I'm not talking about forcing 'the shakes' or anything, more so looking nervous, I've raised just enough to leave me fold equity, hoping someone will read into it & try to put me under pressure, expecting me to fold. The Norwegian guy directly to my left took an eternity (or so it seemed at the time) to make a decision. I didn't look anywhere near him but have been reliably informed that he was constantly staring at me, looking for info. He has been relatively solid up to that point, but stakes had increased, he had a huge stack and eventually decided his AT would be good against my raising range and reraised pot committing himself. With cards on their backs I could see he was clearly surprised that I was so strong & initially could only say "wow". T on the flop which I could live with, however the A on the river was a sick cruel death to my tournament.

9th place got me €2k, which in theory is a decent return for a €300 entry, however the jumps were so steep at that point, with €18k for the winner so those KKs being cracked cost me a fair few quid imo. Still always good to final table, even if it was a brief final table appearance!

Well done to Nicky who chopped it HU. I was hoping that if I couldn't win/finish top 3 that him or Derek Murray would at least go a fair bit deeper.

CSI: The Experience

2009-09-20T20:23:00.004+01:00

Headed down to this with a friend after seeing the ad on tv. We expected a lot from this, raving reviews on tv and online, no idea how much it cost but happy to pay whatever based on the assumption we would not be disappointed.

Well it was €18 per crime scene, 3 crime scenes in total. They didn't differ in terms of difficulty or anything, just differed in terms of settings. We picked our crime scene and off we went to the briefing room where we were given clipboards & investigation sheets. Our next stop was the crime scene where we had to take note of anything we deemed to be relevant to establishing the identity of the victim & how they died. After that we then moved on to mock CSI HQ where we ran drug tests, got results of tyre tracks & looked at police records to ascertain who the victim was.

Needless to say we were able to identify the victim, the killer, cause of death & everything else. It was a fantastic set up, really different & very glad I went. Only downside was that it was definitely aimed towards a family day out & most kids would have also been able to work out the puzzle with the help of their parents.

So as a review, it was good, very good, but not the most challenging of mysteries to solve. Worth the €18 imo though. Just left it at the one crime scene mind.

SE September Weekender

2009-09-06T15:41:00.003+01:00

After attending a way busier than expected wedding fair in Belfast we headed home to play the SE's 'September Weekender'. This looked like a super tourney and promised a good few numbers with the numbers going slowly back to the old haunt. Such a disappointment . . . 19 turned up meaning there was actually a €250 overlay.

This tourney went on for several hours with the structure being so good, the food was lovely the dealing standard was second to none, nothing less than I would expect. I went out in 10th, only made one bad decision the whole tourney and that was calling Declan's shove with JsJx on an all spade Q high flop when getting just over 3:1. He of course had AsAx and I missed my 2 outer.

Hopefully this won't stop the SE running this event again in the future, I imagine a big reason numbers didn't turn out was due to the fact that very same evening Tom Kitt was putting on a stunning performance at Electric Picnic. I assumed I wouldn't have been able to make this with a weekend planned of things to do in Belfast, but then as it turned out I would have been back in Dublin in time to have enjoyed the concert after all.

Nice one to the SE for their efforts . . . Rob was involved in a deal 3 handed and we both played some cash afterwards, nice to know the fish can still find the place after a Saturday night out in Dublin! Cash tables were busy with plenty of money on them.

Fitz EOM

2009-08-28T09:42:00.000+01:00

Got the opportunity to play this with being off work and due to the numbers it never disappoints. Feel like I played ok, won a few small pots and got a decent stack together after the break. Had a tough table, the average standard at my table was certainly tougher than average but I was coping. When the antes were introduced I was conscious of not blinding away and tried to steal a few pots. This worked initially then I ran into a couple of big hands and had to pick my spots better. Unfortunately with the typical Fitz player liking to call you need to keep your shoves a lil bigger than usual to get them through and with an active table I failed. I finished in midfield in around 50, with 120 runners. Hopefully I'll get to play it again soon, consistently great prizepool, it's a great tourney to get a run in.

No rest for the wicked, late night then early morning . . . up to Belfast to check out a wedding venue!

Teamcop 2009

2009-08-23T21:34:00.001+01:00

This whole weekend turned into a bit of a disaster, mainly in terms of numbers. At the beginning it was billed as one of the largest poker festivals of the year . . . in the end it was a mediocre one at best. Now don't get me wrong, the dealing standard and professionalism was as expected, second to none . . . well it was TD'd by JP after all. The atmosphere, the buzz, the craic, well let's just say there was something lacking.

I guess it always had a huge act to follow following the Eglinton's version of the same event. The atmosphere being electric back in March, the room, high ceilings, only half filled didn't quite cut it. That said, the objective of poker is always to make a profit, regardless of how enjoyable or not enjoyable that money-making process may be.

We had a strong team, a very strong team - Rob, KP, Dara, Rory, Albert and me. I was card dead from the off and it never really improved from there. We were successful in that all 6 of us made it through to day 2, which in theory should have set us up nicely for a decent cash, had we not been mostly short stacked! Dara was the only one going back with a stack but in theory we had a good team, so a better player can play a short stack better, right?

Well right and wrong . . . I was first out, nursed my stack as long as I could and eventually open shipped 66 with about 7BBs into 99. Unlucky I guess that I ran into a bigger pair, but still felt I shouldn't have let myself get so low considering I was playing against very active players. Open shipping when you know you'll get called more often than not is usually not going to work when you let yourself get too low. Even if you get it in ahead you're always vulnerable to a degree, racing more than not, and well 66 looked too good so that said to me I was too low.

Next time I think I would be tweaking my strategy a bit, playing more my own game, and not playing too tight that I'm missing opportunities to accumulate chips early on. With hindsight I think that's where I went wrong. In a regular tourney I like playing a few pots early on, with small blinds you can get away with seeing a few flops, take a few chances. I let the team aspect cloud my judgement too much, and decided that taking less chances and playing tighter than normal would be +EV given the circumstances, with hindsight that was wrong. I can only take positives from it in that I think I will be better prepared for next time, well here's hoping.

The team came midfield in the end with Rob lasting longest going out in 13th. Luckily enough Rob's finish secured a couple of side bets making it a pretty much break even event, which is always better than a losing one I guess.

Viva Las Vegas!

2009-07-01T20:31:00.002+01:00

Before we knew it, it was time for Vegas already. Rob was only getting a short stint in Vegas this year as his one and only sibling was getting married in the middle of the Main Event. We decided to go for 2 and a half weeks at the start so he could play the $2.5k shoot-out and I could play the ladies event (I know . . . another fecking all girls, no poker logic, crapshoot, bingo session).

Rob opted for Ballys this year due to the central location and tennis court facilities on site, I know both crucial factors when deciding on which hotel to stay in.

Like last year, as well as plenty of poker we try to fit a few things into the trip, and went to see 'O' in the Bellagio. I really enjoyed this show, so much work and effort goes into each one of these performances that it's really hard not to like it immensely. I think I still preferred 'Ka' from the year before but 'O' was certainly not far off it, truly something to be experience when in Vegas is a Circe Du Soleil show or 2! Half way through the trip we did a tour of the Grand Canyon, taking a helicopter from the strip over Lake Meade and hoover Dam and landing in the Canyon for a picnic lunch. It was a fantastic experience which I would deffo recommend to anyone, certainly money well spent. We got back to the hotel early afternoon, had a nap, then showered and headed out to dinner. Rob decided to end a fabulous day with a trip to Neros (in Caesars), my favourite place to eat in Vegas. Little did I know that after the never-disappointing glorious food, he planned to propose, making the day all the more rememberable!

I played the WSOP Ladies Event for the first time. Played well in my opinion but found it hard to get going. Time and time again I saw bad play getting rewarded which is so frustrating, especially for what I would consider a large enough buy-in. I was surrounded by old biddys who looked like they were there becaused their regular bringo game had been cancelled. My exit hand resuting in a button limp, me raising from the SB with AJs, button calling. I flopped a flush draw on a Qxx flop and open shipped, she called me with Q9 and her one pair held. I did enjoy this tourney though, perhaps if only due to it being an actual WSOP event which I had never played before. Hopefully I'll qualify for the Main Event next year, I've never actually tried to qualify for it before, but I think it's time to start.

The trip was very quiet in terms of poker results for me, and for Rob I guess. Rob managed to chop one of the Caesars nightly tourneys and we both did well enough in the live sats in the Venetian. Unfortunately neither of us got anywhere decent in any of the bigger tournies but both had a few winning cash sessions. Overall though we were down a fair bit in live tourney buy-ins. Luckily enough Rob had a good spell online whilst there meaning we broke even on the trip, including expenses and shopping, so in theory I guess that means we made a small profit, albeit a well spent small profit, thanks to me :).

Party Poker Womens World Open III

2009-05-28T19:34:00.014+01:00

I was so nervous entering this for several reasons . . .
1. My record in female only events is abysmal!
2. The standard was much higher than originally expected, attracting more pros than ever before.
3. $3k is a large buy in for me, regardless of selling %s, and didn't want to let down stakers.
4. It was a fully televised event . . . therefore making any poor performance for any of the above reasons a million times worse!

I'm not the glamorous type, so I opted for a novelty tshirt, which seemed to attract a lot more attention that I could have ever imagined.

I was in heat 6, the last heat. It appeared to be one of the tougher ones with last years winner and runner up both figuring. Smurph had unfortunately had no luck in her heat but her words of advice were certainly a help to me. She'd advised me to keep a count of the hands so I knew when the next blind level was due, and right enough this helped a great deal when making my decisions. (Thanks Smurph!)

My tactics were basically to waste no chips at all, and pick my spots to literally go with a hand in the hope I don't run into a monster. I got a stack together earlyish on when I was fortunate to pick up AA and have TT ship after my raise, obviously an easy call and my AA stood up. From this point onward I stayed above starting stack.

When 3 handed I seem to stay out of the way more than anything bar one hand when all in against Soraya Homam (last year's winner) holding QQ vs her AK. She hit her K but I rivered a T giving me a straight . . . phew!

I then got HU with Soraya without playing another hand. She had a very decent chiplead at the time but it wasn't long before things started turning. There were 2 massive hands for me HU, 88 holding against her AK, then 22 holding against her A3 for the game.

I was so shocked at winning that heat, really didn't expect to, and I'm sure the look on my face would have spelled it out very clearly. I was reliably informed by the others in the Green Room that Rob had several near heart-attacks whilst watching the live feed and they were apparently on the brink of calling an abulance at one point when he was on the floor with his head in his hands not able to watch the screen! Meh, men, typical! My heat is on Channel 5 on 30th September, but I am supposed to be getting a DVD sent, which I'm sure I'll manage to watch whilst cringing at every opportunity.

The final was the following afternoon, a lot of money at stake and the bar raised quite a bit more in terms of standard of players. As well as Rob watching from the green room I know a lot were following on boards and getting regular text updates from Rob . . . thanks to everyone for their support.
The main problem with the Matchroom posts was that they never detailed everyone's position when detailing what they were dealt. This meant that people only able to follow online updates weren't necessarily getting the full picture.

One hand in particular which generated a lot of opinion was me open folding 66 when still 7 handed. The 66 hand was sick alright, Jen was short, she was UTG, and whilst I'm fully aware of how capable of making moves she is, I knew that raise was never a move. I was playing about 65k at the time, Jen makes it 10k to go. Calling is not an option to me, we're playing 6 handed, I'm on the button but the BB (Kim) had been extremely active, she was also quite short and I would certainly have preferred to have not had her to act behind me. So I had a decision to make, do I ship it and take my chances knowing I'm racing at best or do I fold and wait for a better spot? Well rightly or wrongly I decided to wait. As predicted Kim called and unfortunately we got to see a flop. Sure didn't I know at that point that the 6 would have to hit, ouch!

Nothing really went right for me after that. Perhaps I was too aggressive with hands or maybe not even aggressive enough, but my strategy going in was to play relatively tentative early on and play as aggressive as I felt I would be able to get away when the blinds started to go up. I did start to get busy, forced into raising light when the opportunity arose but raises got snapped off more than they got through. I was pretty card dead, which was sick given the structure and when my late position shoves with 62 and K2 were called I knew that people's calling range was widening! That said I couldn't let QT pass when on the button next time around and it's folded round to me. Kim calls with A4, happy enough with that, at least I was live and I needed a double up to survive the structure. So I hit the T on the flop, nice one, although I wasn't prepared to feel any relief just yet, I was half expecting to see an A soon enough. Well my gut was right in that the T wouldn't be enough, but not for the A hitting, for the runner runner gutshot straight with the 4! Even though I got it in behind, that was a sick river for me alright.

So the dream was over, well for this time around anyway, close but not close enough in my own opinion. I gained the experience, (I think) I gave a good account of myself and held my own in a well respected international field. A huge positive I took out of it was winning my heat and beating the reigning champ HU even though I was fairly out-chipped when we got heads up! Soraya Homan has a great record in this event, I've been reliably informed that she has never finished out of the top 2 in any of her heats. I would recommend playing these to anyone that gets the opportunity, great experience and there is value there. The one downside is the crappy structure, especially for a $3k buy-in. I guess there's always next year . . . well maybe!

JP Masters 2009

2009-05-11T22:24:00.004+01:00

This was my first JP Masters, but I'd only heard good things about this event. The dealing standard as I would expect from a JP event was second to none and the tournament was very enjoyable from the off. I felt like I played some really good poker, had some tricky decisions in the few levels after the dinner break and came through them quite well.

I made it through to day 2, which was a big enough deal to me. This is certainly the biggest tourney on Irish soil I had made day 2 of. I started the day quite well, initially getting a double up then stealing pots when I could. I then had a couple of tricky tables where stealing just wasn't quite as easy. Half way through the day with about 50 left I get moved to what I thought at the time was a 'table of death'. It included Tom Hanlon, Michael Muldoon, John Eames, Big Mick G and Mark McKeever to name but a few.

I had a reasonable stach at this point but was short in comparison to the rest of my table, very short in fact. I lost a couple of pots early on with AK and AQ and decided the only was I would survive on this table was to connect with any flop, stick it in and hope for the best. I reckon I was being bullied post flop, so I needed to accumulate some chips if I were survive this table in particular.

My exit hand was a loosely calling a button raise with suited rags in the BB, flopping a flush draw and check shoving. I guess I don't need to point out the obvious that my flush draw missed and my JP Masters experience was killed off there and then.

Would definitely play it again next year, great tourney, fantastically ran with a superb structure.

My First Irish Open

2009-04-13T16:46:00.002+01:00

Not much to report here, this was my first Irish Open and it certainly wasn't one of my best poker experiences. Nothing seemed to work for me, when I got a big hand I either got no action or else got it busted. I decided to take the cautious approach, thinking that patience would pay off and it nearly did, well sort of.
I made it to level 7, not sure how, as I never had a comfortable stack as such and when I eventually got it in racing I didn't flip well enough. Still I guess it was an experience, hopefully one that will be improved upon next year, when I last a bit longer and hopefully get a reasonable stack together at some point. Rob exited about 30 mins after me. He was going better but he's as bad at racing as I am.
Very high standard of field, really does manage to pull in most of the big names, so I guess I can't hope for too much in my first year playing it.
Hopefully I'll get the chance to play it again next year and do better than this year. Well done to all the Irish who cashed.

Westbury EOM

2009-03-28T17:03:00.010Z

When I lived in Belfast this tourney was never possible for me, Tuesday nights playing poker in Dublin were just impossible. So this being my first chance to play the Westbury was always going to be an opportunity not missed.

It took me a while to get going and in the early stages it turned into a mission of survival, but as the blinds got up and people started dropping like flies, surviving was good enough. Towards the end there was loads of play again and the tournament was heading into the no longer wee small hours.

After a long enough contest HU I ended 2nd. It could have gone either way to be honest, but I guess it ended as it was meant to be. There was a deal done HU so the jump in prizemoney wasn't as steep as it once was.

All in all I was happy with how I played, €3k is always nice too huh ;)

I also played the Fitz EOM, went deep enough, but unfortunately didn't cash.

Galway Team Event

2009-03-16T18:50:00.010Z

There were high expectations for this event but at the same time it was always gonna be tough. We had a good team, a very good team but we weren't the only ones. Our team had Rob, KP, Dara, Rory Brown, Paul Coyle and little old me. On paper, our main rivals were the Bundys: O'Shea, Brennan, Fallon, O'Dea, Walsh and Hayes. There was some side action between us and the Galway Team, in fact I'm pretty sure there was some side action between the Galways team and most teams!
The casino was fairly packed, good atmosphere, everyone in good spirits. There were clashes from the off, losing a few casualties very early on. We got off to an ok start, nothing major for the first level or 2 but our main rivals were all gathering chips together nicely and most of us were fairly short stacked. It wasn't long before we lost a couple of our members, Rory Brown ran his AK into AA on a K high board and Paul shipped suited connectors in late position to find a limper with QT decided to make a huge (aka terrible) call for way too many chips! At this time our difficult but manageable feat was looking more and more out of reach.

As a team we tightened up and tried to salvage something. Dara was totally card dead but managed to hang on to grab 28th or thereabouts which was huge as it turned out. At this point the Bundys team was looking much healthier than ours and the Eglinton Team was absolutely flying. However things were to take a turn for the better for us. 3 Bundys made a very sharp exit very soon after Dara meaning we were now in a decent spot after all.

In the end it got very close between us and the Eglinton Team with the Bundys totally out of contention. Out of those who made the final table, we had 3 (Rob, Kp & I), the Eglinton had 2 (Dave & Jay) and the Bundys had one sole survivor (O'Shea). O'Shea had a chip lead but was playing for sole prizes only, as was Johnny Weafer. There was a lot of banter and it was certainly the funnest final table I've ever been on.

Unfortunately KP was first out meaning both Rob & I had to go very deep to have any chance of winning, but it was looking like we had 2nd place locked up. Given our position half way through day 1 we would have definitely taken 2nd place for team prize money of €5k. Jay sucked out on Rob with 6 left cracking his AK with 89, swinging the chip stacks in the opposite direction to what we would have liked.

Dave Curtis ended up 6th, Rob was 5th and Jay was 4th . . . meaning the 3 left were O'Shea, Johnny Weafer and I. On paper if I won the thing our team could still grab 1st place, but that was never going to be easy as I was the short stack and both O'Shea and Weafer were playing very well.

I ended up finishing 3rd, think my exit hand played itself. Weafer made a standard raise and I shipped AQ, unfortunately he had a monster and his KK held up. I won €1k for 3rd as well as the team winning €5k for second. We also made a team side bet profit of €1,500 for outlasting the Galway Team to contribute to the winnings . . . not bad for a couple of days in Galway!

The Big Move South!

2009-03-07T13:30:00.003Z

So we made a life choice , time to move in together, the next decision was where . . . & the winner was . . . . Dublin!
Not a hugely tough decision in the end:

Belfast: Bank job, New house expense, Pretty much no poker

Dublin: New job, No new house expense, Loads of poker

Hmmm . . . . tough decision!

So I start my new job in 2 weeks and now have 2 weeks to unpack, settle in and fit in some poker too :)

Fitz EOM

2008-12-28T16:10:00.001Z

This month's EOM was held on the last Saturday to allow for Christmas falling on it's usual date. True enough it got a decent amount of runners coming in at around the 91/92 marker.

After a patheic start I find my stack dwindling away at a rapid pace then manage to lose most of what I have left when I run a J high flush into a Q high flush. This leaves me with 1100 chips and screwed basically. Next hand I'm UTG with K6 and I go for broke open shoving to get 4 callers! To my surprise my 6 hit and was good! This was a nice boost in chips, still very short but the newly found momentum was certainly welcome.

After a couple of steals I find myself on around 8k and wake up in late position with AK. A newly arrived woman at the table makes a standard raise in mid-position and I decide to gamble and shove. She calls with 88 and I hit the flop to double me up. A couple of laps later I raise with AA and get reraised. I shove and he insta calls with AK . . . obviously my image must not have been as tight as it normally would have been. No suckouts and I'm flying on around 30k.

We get to the last 3 tables and I have T4 on the SB which I make up, only one other limper and BB checks. Flop comes 44x which I bet, BB folds and limper calls. Turn comes another blank, so I bet again and again he flat calls. T on the river giving me a full house so I shove, which was always the plan as the amount in the middle at this point was a lot more than I had left. To my delight he insta calls with AA & I scoop the lot!

Nothing too exciting for a while, I have a healthy enough stack & maintain it from positional raises and reraises. When we get to the FT I'm not overly well stacked but due to the 2 huge stacks I'm not far off average. I get a bit if a boost when I see off Paddy Hicks & basically bide my time. Reesy & Stuey were very active, Stuey being 3 to my right & Reesy to my immediate left. This meant that it was very tough to try anything without the goods as they didn't give up easily. With 4 left Stuey manages to bust QQ with AJ meaning I'm now incredibly short inbetween 2 monster stacks. Deals were discussed 4 handed & couldn't be decided on so it was play on for a huge jump in payouts. Reesy took a hit from Stuey, both pulling moves on the other I suspected at the time but it was good for me in that I was now only a double-up away from 2nd.

My final hand ends up when I make a crappy weak looking bet with KK, Reesy reraises me with A9 & (ship the oscar) I 'reluctantly' shove with the first monster hand I'd had in ages. Reesy calls & to his disgust I flip over my kings, only for the dealer to throw 2 Aces out on the flop! Ah well, 'twas not meant to be, €3k certainly not to be sniffed at, however those Kings stand up & I'd be favourite for the €5.5k second prize if not more.

SE €250 Game & Degen Cash Sessions Afterwards!

2008-12-07T18:25:00.013Z

Since Rob and I were back in Dublin, we headed into town to play the EOM game in the SE. After reading boards we weren't very hopeful of the turnout but headed in to see what sort of numbers they would get all the same. When we got there there were 2 full tables with the potential to get a 3rd one going, so we decided to stay and play it.

I really wish people would be more proactive on boards with regards to their intentions of playing tournaments. I know there must have been at least 30 or 40 people who would have liked to have played that tournament, if they would just post to indicate they would be up for it, it would encourage several others to post something similar or even just make their way in for the tourney. I would have posted to say something had I have been sure I was going to be able to make it. Unfortunately I planned on still being in Cavan but as that didn't go according to plan I figured the SE game was the next best option for my Saturday night.

The tables had their usual line-up including Vera, The Chief, Danny, Vinnie, Ecktor, Dara, Rob and myself as well as a few other regulars. I was fortunate to have the entertaining Liam Flood on my table which certainly brought plenty of banter & craic. Rob played a hand badly against the chief resulting in an early exit for him, but luckily enough the Chief managed to also knock out half of that table in the first level so the cash game got going earlier than expected!

I was pretty quiet, earning a 'rock' nickname from Liam as he commented on how little hands I had been playing. I managed to accumulate some chips after the break and was fairly comfortable when I paid Liam off when I ran my TT into his KK. That took about half of my stack but the structure was very good so I wasn't under any pressure yet. I slowly started to recoup some chips and made it to the final table. After the KK hand, there was no stopping Liam and he managed to gather a monster chipstack together as he knocked out half of the final table.

Whilst UTG I limped with QQ expecting someone to raise as most pots were raised preflop and to my disgust it was limped/folded around. Thankfully the flop came T high and I check shoved, called by Vinnie who sternly informed me he had a T. I quickly turned over my QQ and watched his face drop. Nice double up for me!

Another hand where it was 6 handed I had 95 on the BB and checked after about 4 limpers. The flop came 975, I bet out to discourage any flush draws, the button raised me and I shoved. I'm not overly familiar with the player but he had been caught out bluffing several times on our first table so I decided to take my chances. He turned over 68 for the flopped straight, which was weird given the stage of the tournament we were in, so it was the one hand I didn't even put him on. So I needed a miracle 5 or 9 to in the hand and stay alive and thankfully I actually got that 5 on the river (which normally never hapens)!

This put me in decent shape, still nowhere near Liam's stack but it did put me into 2nd place. Liam starts to get vey active and I'm happy enough to let him run riot until Vinnie wins a reasonably pot off him knocking me back to third in chips. Soon enough I pick up QQ again on the button. Vinne UTG had limped and I made a standard raise which is folded around to Vinnie who reraises me. I then shove to have him insta-call me . . . at this point I'm thinking what the hell can he initially limp, then reraise, then call my shove with. He turns over AK and my QQ is looking fantastic until the river where a solitary A sends me packing in 4th for €400.

I have a chat with Danny for a few mins and John manages to presuade me to give the cash game a spin. So I buy in for my usual €200 and within a lap I have it up to €800, like wtf!! This cash game was ridiculously soft, I never wanted to go home! So about 2 hours later I'm moved to the main table and have worked my stack up to about €1,200. I sit to the right of Danny who informs me of the dunkey to his left who is raising and calling blind . . . . sweet!

So first hand is dealt and thank you Jesus! I've not just been dealt KK the very first hand and to my delight hear the blind man raise to €7 UTG!! It's like Christmas come early as 4 other people call knowing he raised blind and I re-pot from the SB making it €50 to go. Everyone folds bar my blind friend and the flop comes T98 rainbow. I bet out €100, he calls blind. Turn comes a 4, I bet out €300, he looks at one card, announces he likes it and calls. River T so I check thinking if he has a T here this will be sick. To my surprise he actually checks behind and turns over K6! Scary how some people can play so badly and lose so much, isn't it? To Danny's disgust, blind man leaves after another few hands taking his last €200 or so with him. Danny had lost a big pot against him where he sucked out with his T7 vs Danny's A9. By 5.30am I'm playing about €2,100 and after the blind Omaha I'm still hungry for a game and so convince Rob to go to the Fitz.

We played there for 3 and a bit hours and I managed to work €400 up to just over €800 even after losing a €1,200 pot, damn that river! Thankfully there was a dunkey also in the fitz, he wasn't playing blind, but probably should have been! He bluffed off over €1k of his own cash before tackling the blackjack. One hand I had QQ and raised pre, he called leaving us HU, Axx flop, he bet and I called, K on turn, he bet and I called, x on river, he bet and I called. I managed to catch a glimpse at his cards before he mucked, he had T3 offsuit, what was he doing?

Can't complain, turned out a very profitable weekend, especially after the disaster of Friday. No poker for me next weekend as I have some family committments, so hopefully I get some play in the following week.

Cavan Poker Open

2008-12-06T18:11:00.007Z

First of all, the roads in Cavan are shockingly bad! The mortality rate in that county for deaths on the roads has to be ridiculously high! I mean, we all allow for country roads to have the odd bend, bump and chicane thrown in, but personally when driving in the dark on unknown roads, I'd rather if they didn't feel like a rally asault course . . . rant over.

So I arrive about an hour late, find my table and discover that my table is a self-deal! I was disgusted, not only was I late and had some catching up to do but my table was getting a hand in on average every 10 mins, just not good enough IMO! So I sit down and spend the first 15-20 mins watching people.

I pick up 88 and call a standard raise as do 2 others, I flop a set and check, initial raiser bets pot, I reraise as there are 2 clubs on the board and everyone folds including initial raiser who dwells then folds KK face up. This guy was an official nit, and the hands I see him play later confirm that's he's one of the tightest nits I've ever seen and quite possibly the tightest nit in the room.

After the addon I have about 25.5k. For the next 2 hours I'm completely card dead bar AQ twice whichI have to fold when I miss the flops and my cbet is raised. After blinding myself down to about 12k I get 99 twice consequetively and both times get paid by the 2 aggressive players at the table, I also take down a nice pot with AQ and now have my stack up to 50k. With blinds 500/1000 I end up in a tricky spot and without spoiling the hand history thread I've just put up on boards can conclude this blog entry.

I then played some cash, the standard was atrocious however I was running that bad that I did in €600. The last hand I played involded me losing a ~€550 pot with KK vs QQ, TJK flop, A on river. I watched Rob play some cash, he was up ~€700 and it was a round of each so it was certainly quite entertaining. The cash gets wrapped up at 7am and to our dismay the hotel has no rooms left so we ended up driving home at -5°C with both cars and getting home absolutely shattered.

Dara had lost a bit pot right at the end of the day's play and was left short giving him the crappy task of heading back the next day with about 12k to spin up. Unfortunately lady luck offered no help and he had a wasted journey! At least it meant he had time to get back to Dublin for the SE's monthly game!

Bruce Poker Launch Festival

2008-11-17T14:59:00.003Z

Fresh off the plane from Blackpool, we headed to the Green Isle hotel to check out what was going on with the Bruce Poker Launch Festival.

The cash tables were going rightly and Rob (as per usual) made it his business to check up on every player he has ever met before that was still actively participating in the tournament. After about an hour of meeting, greeting & general chit-chat we stuck our names down for the cash. Yet again Festival Cash Games didn't disappoint and by 3am (4-5 hours later) I had successfully put myself at risk from a severe case of food poisoning (dodgy burger, thanks Rob) and managed to make about €760 in the 1/2 NLH game.

Rob was also playing cash but spent more time wandering about the place and even found himself in the bar where he rediscovered Guinness with Paul Spillane, he didn't have much to drink, but not much was ample and he quickly reached his limit. He did manage to spend enough time at the table to suffer 3 sickening suckouts, 2 times with big pairs AIPF so maybe it was as well he didn't sit there as much as he should have. I can only assume it would have cost him more. That said, between us we had still made a profit on the night which is certainly a bonus given his bad beats cost him all his accumulated profit as well as most of his buy-in.

We came back on the Sunday too to play the side event. Rob went quite well in it then came a bit unstuck but certainly outlasted me by a long way. I never got going but wasn't too disappointed, cash table please! I didn't have long to wait and a table was formed within about 10 mins as the waiting list just grew at a fierce rate. The first hand I played didn't go according to plan though and whilst limping after several others in the CO with 22, I miss the flop but luckily get to see a free card and bang 2 on the turn. I duly bet and get a raiser on the button, he was only playing about €100 so we end up all in at this point and I discover that my button friend had flopped a set and I'd doubled him up, awfully nice of me.

Within 3 mins or so I'm moved to the next table and decide to top up for another €100 giving me about €200 in total. I can't complain as from this point onwards my stack never dropped below that €200 and by home time I was up to about €1,350. I never would have considered myself a good cash player and still don't, but when you don't get going in a tourney I have to admit I enjoy the consolation of making a reasonable profit in the cash. So off I went, up about €1,800 over the 2 nights in cash which certainly made the trip to the hotel a pleasant one.

The one let down I had was Mr Taylor winning the chance to draw for a Man Utd Champions League match only to come away with €100 instead! Don't get me wrong, as freebies go €100 is not to be sniffed at, but how I would have soooo preferred the footie ticket! :(

Boyles IPO

2008-10-20T15:14:00.003+01:00

Unfortunately due to the GUKPT event we missed this one, would have been a great one to play, especially for the small buy-in, there was fantastic value. But that said, where there's a festival there's always excellent cash games!

And so that's what I concentrated on, the tables were mostly full of foreign players, primarily French, with a few Dutch and Scandies to make up the numbers. I sat at one cash table in particular for a few hours, 2 young Dutch fellas on it, they had been up for 3 days solid and were recharging the batteries with Red Bull! They certainly weren't the value at the table but they did provide the entertainment. It's fair to say that it was the most entertaining cash table I have ever sat at. As well as the ladies event I did play one of the small side events, but unfortunately due to a pretty poor structure it was a crap-shoot from the off and as I didn't get the cards it was over and out for me pretty swiftly.

I've said before I hate ladies events, and so now it's time to confirm that I still hate ladies events. I hate watching girls play how they have been instructed to by their professional playing other halves, if it's checked to you twice bet the pot with any 2 etc etc. I have a better idea, learn the game yourself and think with the soft squishy stuff between your ears and give it a proper go! Even though I hate such events, I went steady enough in it and managed to yet again effectively bubble the bloody thing. The French girl to my right, who played very well from what I saw, was very active and raising 2/3 pots - no problem with that, she had the chips for it. I find AQ in the SB and reraise her which she calls, flop comes Q high and I ship, would be a nice double up story only she had flopped a set of 4s and I'm not the sort to get runner runner so we can all guess what happened next. Can't complain really, I had pushed before I was forced to and with hindsight could have waited for a better spot, but alas it was not to be.

That said I made a few hundred at the cash so it covered the tourney buy-ins with a bit left over as a souvenir - Festival Cash Rocks!

GUKPT Thanet

2008-10-18T02:51:00.000+01:00

Headed to Thanet with Rob, he was playing the main event whilst I was playing the slightly more modest side event. It was a one day NLH with a £100 + £10.50 buy-in. Yes that's right! The reg fee was £10.50!!

The structure wasn't great as is typical for the smaller buy-in English MTT, but it was something to pass the time while Rob played in the main event. I got off to a decent start, managing to stay one step ahead of the shorter stacks and was in even better shape after knocking out Nik Persaud and Jeff Kimber.

Due to the crappy structure the field was fading fast and it wasn't long before we were down to 10 with 9 paid. A deal was done to award £100 to 10th, certainly not that appealing but always nice to know you're guaranteed your money back as a worst case scenario. Well money back less the £10.50, did I mention they stuck a 50p on the end? (Still can't work out why)

As mentioned in my previous entry I am reasonably good at bubbling and that's exactly what I did here too. Now you'd think that pocket 8s on an 833 flop would be safe, well not when you're up against QQ and there's a river card to be dealt . . . . Bang Bang . . . taxiiiiiiiii!

Another bubble, another sob story, but I felt it was another decent performance especially against a few experienced players, even a few pros.

SE Betdaq Bubble

2008-10-15T02:01:00.012+01:00

Rob & I both played the Betdaq Live Sat in the SE. Rob had won his €400 + €40 ticket in a sat the night before and we bought my ticket off Ian who had also won a ticket in the same sat but was unable to actually play the event.

There were a lot of good players in this sat, so to win 1 of 3 tickets was never going to be easy. My first table featured Donal Norton, Dennis Reyes and Kevin Farelly so it was never really quiet, even early on there were several raised pots preflop. From memory I had very little cards to see a flop with and pathetically managed to blind myself down to around 4k by the break. Great! Just in time for the break time questions . . .
"How are you getting on?"
"About 4"
"40? no way!"
"No, 4, well 4ish "
"Oh"
Like these questions weren't awkward!

Well as my friends were all going well I was on a mission after the break . . . and so I did. I managed to double up a couple of times soon after the break and at least give myself some breathing space. It wasn't long before we were down to 2 tables when fortunately I had 2 keys hands that held up. Firstly I had raised with 5s6s on the button and got one caller in the blinds. Anyway the flop came all spades Q high and I shipped, my caller dwelled for what seemed like an eternity and finally called with KQ, with the king of spades. Thankfully no more spades for him and I doubled up. Not 10 mins later I find myself AIPF and called again with AK and thankfully again I manage to hit! This put me in 3rd position at the end of the first day with 10 players remaining. As the plan was to play down to 9 being the final table it was decided that all 10 would come back for the final table the following day.

First hand on the FT I'm UTG+1 and look down at AQ. Kevin Farrelly to my right (UTG) ships for about half my stack and I hate the spot I'm in. I know I'm ahead of his range but why did I have to be sitting in this seat. After 20 secs or so I fold knowing that calling would be madness with the entire table left to act, there would have to be better spots to move later. So I fold and Troy immediately to my left then shoves and the rest of the table fold, Kevin tabling TT and Troy QQ. Phew, good fold my me . . . oh no wait . . . is that an A on the flop . . . crap another A on the turn . . . feck it . . . that's not a good sign (and so it proved).

From there on in it was always going to be a case of survival. Troy happily took on the shorties as they shoved and managed to suck out at least twice sending folk on their way. I had 99 once and managed to double up but due to a few missing blind levels I was always under pressure. I was shoving every late position I could with absolute junk and managed to get away with it for ages, especially on the bubble were I managed to get away with shoving light for about 3 hours! Basically I ended up shoving one time too many when I shoved my A5 on the SB into Troy's BB when he woke up with QQ, no A this time and the bubble had burst.

Happy enough with my play in the end, just sick that it effectively came to nothing and it was a huge bubble with the seat working out at €8.3k as it was a €75k prize pool! Well done to the fellas that won the seats, all going on to claim €6k+ due to the deal that was done on the night and in particular well done to Troy who went on to win the final for €15k and a €550 SE Winter Festival main event ticket.

IPC Tour - Fitzwilliam Leg

2008-09-13T17:26:00.009+01:00

I actually had no intentions of playing this. I had to be home in Belfast for about 2pm as Cemetry Sunday started at 3pm in the graveyard my dad is buried in. It would have been a mortal sin to miss this and as it's only once a year I couldn't justify not going, not even to myself. Well I headed to Dublin after work on Saturday as normal anyway to see Rob if nothing else. I figured I could even make my way round to the SE and play their EOM €200 game if Rob went well or possibly play cash in the Fitz although I don't consider myself a good cash player, but it would occupy me if nothing else.
So I arrived and discovered Rob was on the only table to be located downstairs. I didn't know anyone on it bar 'The Chief' who I hadn't seen in a while . . . I assume he has taken up a new residence in the Fitz! Since I started playing live poker I find it hard to watch as I usually want to play. Rob suggested I check the start time for the second day with Denise, so I did. This may sound big-headed but I never enter a tournament assuming I'll not make the Final Table. I'm certainly not the best at poker but I'd like to think I'm solid enough to go deep in most of the tourneys I play. Hence as I knew I couldn't be back down for an early start on the second day I opted to not enter. So I had a chat with Denise who told me a later start would prefer her and she hoped the second day wouldn't commence until 5pm or after. I explained the spot I was in and said the earliest I could get back for was 6pm. She was very accommodating and immediately gave me the option of playing, saying that should I make the FT she would have no problem with a 6pm start - Nice one Denise! I thought this was very good of her and duly bought in and headed upstairs to my table.

Strange table, in that there were 3 Belfast natives at it, this doesn't happen very often, especially in Dublin! I had Marty McCabe 2 seats to my right and the legendary 116% Jim 3 seats to my left! I had a slow 45 mins-1 hour then I started getting some chips together. I'd worked my stack up to about 25k and was quite happy at the table until some of the 'value' dunkeyed out and their replacements were not so much value! :( The table then gained players like Smurph, John Weafer and Seamus (unknown surname, but good cash player) so I wasn't liking my new company much! I lost some chips to Seamus when I flat called his preflop raise with QQ to try and trap him as he hasn't been paying me off, also called his bet on a K high flop to see if it would slow him down any but then had to fold as the board didn't help me out, just a pity my Q didn't hit. He told me afterwards he had AA and I have no reason to not believe him as I believe he could have played AA just as he did.

I was moved table shortly after which I was happy about as I was starting to dwindle in chips and a fresh table can sometimes help in my experience. Nothing really to report at this table other than the 2 hands I can remember . . . I called a shorty shove with TT, he has KQ and hit his K leaving me even shorter!! Damnitt!! Then managed to treble up (although still short), pushed with my A3 sooooted to be called by the BB with AQ. 3 on the flop then Q on the river! I hate it how it's always the river that shafts you!

So that was me, gone in 20th-25th, somewhere around that region, but again I enjoyed the tournament so I was glad I entered, still disappointing performance in comparison to Waterford. Rob had been knocked out about 2 or 3 hours before me (as usual) so he played some online then when I made my exit we headed downstairs for some food. The food in the Fitz is great and ideal at that time in the morning as nowhere else in Dublin would serve such great food at that time!

Just before I was knocked out, Rob had done an interview with Manus but he didn't tell me much about what was said. I checked it out later when following the Poker Events updates and heard a few compliments about my game metioned so I have to say I was quite chuffed (I'll pay you later Maus, Rob your comments were free, haha). And for anyone that listened to it, Manus referred to me not looking happy when I was knocked out. I can't imagine I was full of the joys of Spring, however I didn't think I was that annoyed looking. I was however annoyed at the dopey English git that begrudged me hitting my 3 on the flop of my exit hand, which made the Q all the more annoying for me on the river. I wouldn't mind but the dopey English git wasn't even in that hand, so his comments weren't necessary or welcome! Rant over, as is my account of last weekend.

As today is Saturday I'm about to head down to Dublin yet again, unfortunately too late for the charity tourney in the Fitz, but hopefully on time for whatever is on in the SE!!

IPC Tour - Waterford Leg

2008-08-31T22:32:00.008+01:00

Played the main event on the Saturday, which took considerable effort on my part. I was working on Saturday morning as usual and only left work at 1.20pm. It was a mad dash home to collect Rob and get on the road. It was certainly a daunting task as it was physically impossible for us to make the starting time of 4pm, but we had to arrive as near to that as possible and even more importantly had to arrive within the first 2 levels to be able to join the game. Well everything that could have gone wrong on the way did go wrong . . . traffic was horrific in parts, the road towards the end of the journey wasn't great not leaving many over-taking opportunities and we even managed a wrong turn which cost us 20 mins! But finally we made it with about 3 mins to spare!

I'm quite happy with my play on the whole, got some good cards and made some good reads. I had a tough table pretty much throughout, when I have at least 2-3 very aggressive players to contend with. There were only 3 females that entered the tourney and as usual my first goal was to outlast them, which thankfully I did. I had managed to get myself up to about 50k at my highest point which I was very happy with especially considering my table. I hate being at an agressive table, it really does take me out of my comfort zone. I'm happy to get aggressive at the later stages and final table but don't see the urgency in the eary stages. I took a hit at the end of day 1. I had JJ, opened for 3k (Blinds are 500/1,000) and Big Al repopped it to 8k. I duly called and we see a flop of Qxx, apologies for the lack of details but it was a terrible raggy board. I checked he bet 6k which I called hoping it would slow him down. Turn comes yet another rag, I check he bet 6k. Now I know check calling twice here isn't great play, but I know this guy has a huge range and I find it hard to give him the respect to fold which is silly really. The river comes another blank and I check again (I know, with hindsight I really should have made a move here) and he shoves. I think for a while, I certainly don't like this. I didn't think he had a Q, but the raggy raggy board doesn't help me either. Al is known for his wide range and I know he could easily have 2 pair here, even a set. Also, he did reraise me preflop so I can't rule out AA, KK, AQ. I'm sick seeing people paying off big hands because their opponent has a 'huge range'. All players can be dealt big hands and I am certainly very aware of this. Anyways I fold to his 20k shove and everyone is shocked. Al told me afterwards that he had KK. To me the KK would fit the 6k bets but not neccessarily fit the shove on the river. My gut told me to fold so as far as I'm concerned it was the correct move. With hindisght I should have folded after the flop and saved myself 12k.

I made it to the FT anyways although shortstacked. I had 23k, Mick McCloskey had 20k and the next smallest was mid 40s from memory. I was on a mission to double up early and get some chips together. Suprisingly a lot of my raises got respect and I found myself on about 50kish when I get KK UTG. I made it 3600 (600/1200 blinds), shortstack shoves and then a tight guy with a big stack shoves after him for well more than I have. I had a really sinking feeling but I have to call. The original shove turned over QQ and the tight guy had AA! Just as expected and I'm gone in 7th. Sickening alright but luckily enough I get busted out just in time to enter the €200+ €20 side game.

I start with about 7700 (8k starting stack) and am eager to go deep to make up for the disappointment of my ME bubble. I got some chips together early on and was running ok when card death struck. Like the ME there were a few aggressive players but these ones aren't paying me off when I do get any sort of a decent hand. I get unlucky in a couple of hands when there are 11 left and I'm now incredibly short. Scraped my way to the FT with a piddly stack but I know when here anything can happen. I'm hoping the fresh seat draw will bring me hands and it does, well 2 of them! I first get AJs and shove in late position to get no callers. Then the very next hand I get QQ. Guy in early position makes it 2k and I shove for about 6k. He calls and flips over his AA . . . thank you Waterford and goodnight!

All in all happy with my play, solid enough and timed my moves well in the most part, which is all I can hope for really. 2 final tables and not a bean to show for it though which is very frustrating! Rob has been coaching me on my STT strategies and I'm happy to report that side of things has picked up and did pay me over the weekend, so that combined with the tour points for the final tables has made this another worthwhile trip for me.

Rob bubbled the ME final table but as I type this he is currently still in the side event with 5 left.

Edit: Rob has just finished, he ended up 3rd. He played very well & ran into more than one dunkey who got lucky, still a cash is better than a bubble . . . always!

Creating A Monster!

2008-08-19T01:46:00.002+01:00

Ok, so everyone else seems to have a blog these days, well everyone except me that is! I created this about a year ago & never bothered posting so I figured I'd give it a crack.

Nothing really to report right now so to cover some background . . . . I've been playing live poker (seriously) for 8 months now and I have to say I can't complain. I've had several decent results, most of which were against reasonably tough fields, but more than anything I've enjoyed every hand of every tournament. Win or lose I always leave wanting more, looking forward to the next game, does this mean I'm addicted??

Not expecting to get (m)any readers here so if anything this could well be me talking to myself . . . Welcome to the Life of Me!