Drunken Shenigans

The long awaited Dublin Poker Nights Team Event got underway last weekend, after missing the last two and sitting through months of stories from the other players about the 'great time' had by all plus Gum reminding us all again and again how she 'won' it as the rest of us players roll their eyes... I was so looking forward to this!

I was let down by 3 team members who didn't turn up... which meant our remaining team players were out of the running for the top team 'prize pot' of 4k! Very disappointing... got no word of apology or explanation either. Robbie offered to add a few stray players in but we were still short.

As we kicked off, I had Deco the 'Hartstown Giant' (TAG) and Drunk Eamon (tight-passive) on my table plus one well known bluffer; the rest I never played against before. I had aimed to play loose-aggressive and get an early double up then sit back and play tight for the rest of the game. I guess the rest of the table had the same idea!!! I got off to a good start in the first hand getting lucky with a set of 8's against KK... but that was only pot I won! After that I got a string of good hands (really hate getting these in early stages of tournaments...) AQ (3 times), AA, AK (twice) QQ (beaten by K5 off!) apart from stealing the odd blinds/limpers I had a lot of my raises called by luckboxes on marginal hands, ace rag, suited connectors or lower pairs looking to double up and hitting their flushes/straights/sets/two pairs... I made a few mistakes betting out then folding to raises when I should have check/folded; and limping in with KJ suited on the button once and coming up against Drunk Eamon's slow-played AJ on a J high board. The worse damage was done when I limped in with AKo in MP then called one player's all-in on a AcKcxh flop only to be beaten by Qc3c hitting his flush on river leaving me very short-stacked by start of 3rd level... meh!

I got moved to another table where the standard was much better but the chipleader was a total calling station, being short-stacked with < 10BB I only had two choices: all-in or fold. Every time I pushed all-in the chipleader would call and the rest of the table would laugh! Thankfully I managed to win my races and double up 3 times to bring my stack back up to starting point (10k). Then lost 75% of it a few hands later shoving AIPF on button with 9 9 to Tommy's raise (short-stacked LAG) on A6 only for him to call and hit a set of aces. After this I was short again facing the blinds shoved with J10 suited got called by BB on K10; no help from the board and BB won by default with the higher kicker, was out in 42nd place and that's all he wrote.

One of my team mates (Lucinda) made the final table and exited in 10th place for €50! Shay (Clonsilla Inn) who made a spetacular comeback from the dead to chipleader by final table, ended up chopping for top prize with Hartstown's Deco. The massive team pot was won by a non-DPN team whose captain exited in 3rd or 4th place - WP!

While waiting for cash game to start I played four SnG side games (pure drunken feasts with donks playing any two), only to bubble in three of them! Grrr! Discovering my name had been taken off the cash game waiting list and the cash table was full(!) I waited around for 1 hour, getting fed-up, was about to leave and get taxi to town when I got a place at 10pm! Never really got going with Gum being a total luckbox and bullying the entire table (1/2 no limit...) raising to €20/35 PF every other hand and actually hitting her hand! We will never hear the end of this from her for months now! Wish the table had been pot-limit to be fair. The event came to an abrupt end at 11:30pm - I didn't want to go home! I wasn't even drunk like half the room! :( A group of us headed off to continue the rowdy party elsewhere... (Now that's a story for another day! ;-D )

I had expected the team event to be done like JP's (SnG league style with points for all exit places) not tournament FO style. Fair play to Robbie & Graham (and the 3rd dealer) for all the hard work they did, I don't think either of them took a break all day... With not enough dealers to open more cash games - I refused to play any more SnG's, waiting around for the cash for ages was very annoying! Having a 2nd cash table would have generated more income for DPN too. Hint, hint, HINT!!!

Next time: I won't bother entering a team, I'll just stick to the pub league teams (if I get a place) and play tighter/drink more... or simply: stay away!