From a Fish to a Shark...

Its been too long...

2011-11-06T14:28:00.002Z

Wow! I have neglected this blog a bit haven't I?

I have been busy promoting the Super Deaf Poker Event which will be kicking off the night before Stephen McLean's Super Poker Event in City West and the interest is huge!

And its not for lack of winning, far from it, I've had a very profitable year since my last post June 2010. It's been my best one yet!

Between winning big at Vegas Night's monthly game in the Voodoo last September 2010, DPN's new monthly Championship game in June 2011 and the prestigious Gothenburg Deaf Poker Open in May 2011. Not to add the countless small wins here and there at DPN local pub games, Bluff Card Club, D1 and shock... horror... dare I say it: I managed to win THREE of Irish Deaf Poker's monthly games in that time which is nigh on impossible! This is notoriously a fish fest with players stacking off with ATC and hitting... The 'real players' never win in here. Ever! LOL!

Another first I've notched: I finally manage to cash, chop, AND win a tournament in the Fitzwilliam! On a handful on occasions... nothing beats that, after 5 years in this game if you can't get an edge over the Fitz regular players, you are better off out! I've yet to try the bigger buy-ins like the Mid-month or End of Month games with the upper echon of players... that's the next step!

Cash tables are a hit and miss, up one month down the next. If I have €100 to play cash with I might as try the roulette table than the cash tables on the Dublin scene isn't soft as people say.

My MTT game has changed a lot: I'm 3 betting without fear, floating flops with a wider range and changing gears constantly. Bluffing more even... in fact my bluffs actually get through way more than my big hands do(!)

If only I can say the same for my online personae. I totally suck online, its not funny. My 'stats' are apparently horrendous with 15 fishbowls over my head on the HUD. I know I should invest in training but right now, I don't really have the time to put into online grinding, plus with the responsibility of a family and full-time job in uncertain times I am better off keeping poker as a hobby for now...

In the meantime I'm off to win myself another one of those glass yoke thingys tonight! See you all at the tables!!!

London Calling

2010-06-07T21:56:00.007+01:00

After two years tripping over to London, running deep but no cash to show for my efforts, I was reluctant to go back and play again. But this year's UK Deaf Poker Series III being held in a reputable casino with dealers somehow sounded stress-free and so by March the flight was booked and my name was on the players list...

May was a very bad month pokerwise, more down than up, couldn't get my cards to hold up against the countless villains I challenged across the felt. To be fair I didn't play as much as I usually do - couldn't afford to - my son was making his confirmation so I saved my money (and energy!) for that instead. Leaving each game without so much as a cent to show for my efforts was disheartening to say the least. I was getting very disillusioned with the game. Time to take a break, one that is long overdue to be honest. But with the London trip already booked I decided to reserve the 'break' til after this game...

Susie was unable to fly over due to a chest infection, and only other Irish player Mark McLaughlin was flying over on the morning of the main event and planning to catch the first flight back early the next morning. My flight over was booked for Friday afternoon til Sunday night, as I had planned to make the most of the weekend. Sergio Sanchez Gil (the Deaf player who won the Madrid European Deaf Poker Championship) kindly offered to meet up with me and be my room mate for the weekend. Now, I know what you are all thinking but no... it was very platonic, sorry no scandal here for you!

On arrival in a hot and humid London, I was horrified to discover Sergio had booked into an overpriced kip of a place and even paid for his share upfront. No amount of arguing with the desk clerk was going to get him his refund so we decided to stay that night and move elsewhere next day. Setting off walking to the pre-event meet up game in the Kensington Close Hotel about 1km away, we checked several places en route hoping to get a room for the next night but they were booked out.

The Kensington game was a local poker circuit game that a number of London Deaf players frequent, the £20+2 buy-in self-dealt game of a higher standard than your local pub game - lots of tight players. With 4 deaf players on my table I was able to play much looser and aggressive than I normally did - great way to fool the players into thinking this was my style too! All good preparation for the game the next day! Was out before the end of the 4th level... settled into the uber-soft cash game and left £60 up for the night - my buy-in covered for the next day.

Walking back to our 'Kip' we came across a vintage car sales room, while admiring the cars, a party was going on in a nearby house a young white girl came running out ran around the corner pulled down her hot pants and wee'ed in front of us... her boyfriend, this tall strapping black guy followed her out and started snogging her as she finished her business, pulled up her hot pants, picked her up and carried her back into the house! We were just standing there mouths all agape... I've really seen it all now(!) Popping into the local Tesco to get a cold drink and a midnight snack, the night was really humid, I was amazed that we could still buy alcohol at 1am... the amount of people drinking among the rose bushes in this affluent area was something else.

Next day, Sergio took ages getting ready, those who know me well will know how long I usually take to get ready... but Sergio is something else! He was a whole HOUR! Deciding to bring our bags straight to the International and worry about the accommodation later, we took three tubes (had our route planned but didn't realise a certain connecting tube station was closed for repairs!) it took us longer than expected to get to Old Street where the International Club was located. The game was starting at 12 noon, we got there barely 5 minutes before the game started. The buy-in was low £50+5 for 5,000 with the option to pay £5 for 2,000 more. I brought the additional 2k reluctantly - this extra fee was another reg as far as I was concerned. £50+£10 game for 7,000 chips and 20 minute blinds for a high ranking game was not the best value in my opinion. But not buying the chips could put me at a serious disadvantage too.

Greeting some familiar faces, I discussed these issues with one of the UK Deaf Poker Series organisers. He confessed that it was the International who defined the stack/blinds as they had their own regular game on and expected our game to be well finished by this time. Fair enough.

I bumped into fellow Irish player, Mark McLaughlin, he looked wrecked! He had been travelling all night, bus up from Wexford to Dublin Airport, forgot to print out his flight ticket so Ryanair fined him €40, the train from Stansted to the city cost more than he expected... the poor guy hadn't a penny left and the lack of sleep was starting to affect him. He had no money left to buy food never mind the extra 2k chips. I had a membership card from the International manager John (its who you know that counts!) with complimentary points for free food/drink worth £20, I offered to share this with Mark.

Of the 94/95 players confirmed, only 83 had turned up with 80 players opting in for the extra 2k chips.

On my first table - I was in seat 8, Mark was to my immediate right, he started open raising, re-raising and getting his bets called by middle pairs/high aces he stunk as low as 2.5k before realising he needed to change his tactics. Chips were as easy to win as to lose, I fell as low at 3.3k at one point but worked my stack back up top 10.9k at the first break.

Had AA twice, won with one and lost with the other. Raised one hand got two callers both folded to my post flop bet, in the losing hand: Mark raised to 3xBB, I re-raised to 9xBB, button flat called me and Mark mucked face-up accidentally showing his cards AQo. Flop comes ten high with two spades, I c-bet and button insta-called, the spade on the turn brought a flush board that we both checked. K on river, I threw out a small bet thinking he'd fold but no, button flat called to show KK.... meh!

Folded 88 in one hand to one player (Ahmed) re-raising my 900 raise in the 150/300 level to 3k from BB position with 40% of his stack - it was his first raise, I had him pegged as a nit so I folded face up thinking AA-1010 or AK. He showed KQo - nice move sir. Later discovered this was Ahmed 4th poker game(!) Nice playing for a novice! He later cashed in an impressive 7th place...

Moving to my 2nd table I hit trips 3 times in a row getting paid off each time to bring my stack up to 47k.

One interesting hand against Henry McDougall (IDP's Deepstack Classic winner 2008): Blinds were 1k/500; I raised 2500 from MP with 22, action folded to Henry who was shortstacked in BB, he flattened. Flop came A45 two suits, Henry insta-bet 2,000 as the flop appeared, I didn't think he had an ace here - I felt if he did he would have re-raised me rather than called pre-flop. I put him on 67s/78s or J9-KQs draw all within his range; suspecting this may be a draw/probe bet I opted to call him and re-evaluate on the turn. As the Q appeared Henry insta-bet out 3,000 without a pause. This had me confused, if he hit the queen, the Henry I knew would have have check-raised here, still putting him on a draw plus the value was too good not to call - 3,000 for a 12,500 pot... I had a 26k+ stack and Henry had 6k approx behind when a lovely 2 appeared on the river! I re-raised Henry's 3k river bet to see him panic slightly before calling with a badly represented AQ - the last hand I would have put him on.

Moving to a third table shortly before the next break, we were now down to two tables and I was 2nd chipleader with 47k behind Sylvain Dwek on 60k approx (the average stack at this point was 32k) the raising blinds were crucifying the short stacks. I doubled up by decimating a couple of shorties before taking down a lovely 40k+ pot with AJs; I raised from the button, BB insta called; flop came K89 with two spades. BB checked, I bet, he re-raised before insta-calling my shove with JTo(!) K on turn and J on the river brought my stack up to 102k and before we knew it we were on the final table!

Asking for a 15 minute break as we had no dinner break and playing from 12 noon til 5:30pm without a proper food break just 2/3 10 minute breaks was a killer. I appealed to the TD but he apologised that they needed our game to be over before their 7pm tournament started, the best he was giving us was 7 minutes. I ordered food and had to eat it as I played the final table which I hate.

The picture above shows the final table partipicants...

Seat 1. 102,000 (Julianne Gillen)
Seat 2. 31,000 (Kabwe Kabosha)
Seat 3, 10,000 (Sylvain Dwek)
Seat 4. 73,000 (Stephen Draper)
Seat 5. 40,000 (Ben Simpson)
Seat 6. 90,000 (Mark McLaughlin)
Seat 7. 15,000 (Cliffod Lane)
Seat 8. 99,000 (Joseph Devine)
Seat 9. 42,000 (Ahmed Mudawi)
Seat 10. 75,000 (Damon Delaney)

Talking to Mark, I learnt that Sylvian had a very loose image and was starting to leak chips raising/re-raising with a very wide range, he had just doubled Mark up in the last hand leaving himself barely 10k by overplaying his A rag on a AQJ board with Mark holding KTs.

With 10 players on the final table and 9 places paid a deal was agreed to take £7 off all places to pay 10th. As action folded back to me on the button in the first hand - two shorties in SB (Kabwe) & BB (Sylvian) blinds were now 3k/6k; I knew Sylvian will call with any two, but Kabwe was nitty enough to fold and wait for another spot - it would be 50-50 against me getting Sylvian out in a HU. I raised with J6s, Kabwe jumped out of the way as Sylvian insta-threw in his stack and turned over As2s, but the flop came a sick QJ6xx and a disappointed Sylvian walked away in disgust.

I dispatched Ahmed in 7th (A3 into his KQ) then Stephen Draper in 6th similar sick fashion. Before I exited Stephen I was tilting a little as Mark kept consistently playing into me; e.g. finding A10s in MP I raised to 30k (blinds now 4k/8k) Mark called from BB, flop came 896, giving me a gutshot plus flush draw. Mark bet out 30k which had me thinking - reraise or call. I opted to call, Q on turn gave me extra outs. But Mark's 50k bet had me thinking very hard, was he playing the same hand or a AQ/AK. I flat called but missed the river which was checked down Mark showed K9o for a pair and a huge pot. Urgh!

Back down to 105k, I found J10s on button and opted to shove as SB (Stephen) and BB (Ben Simpson) were nits and I had them both covered, knew they would not call unless then had AA/KK/QQ/AK etc. As Stephen tanked then asked for a count - I was praying he would fold but no... after 3/4 minutes thinking he called and Ben insta-folded. Stephen tabled AKs, but the board ran out Q9xx8 and it was all over for poor Stephen! Sorry mate xxx

Damon went next in 4th place, he shoved with barely 6BBs holding KQ from SB into my BB I saw A3 and called.

When we were down to 3 handed - Mark kept shoving all-in into my raises/BB, I folded twice but on the 3rd time discovering A7o and after tanking for a bit I ignored my heart telling me to fold and followed my head in calling his 150k leaving myself less than 90k only to see his 33, no suck out for me this time and Mark was now chipleader leaving me as the shortest stack to Marks' 300k and Ben with just over 100k approx.

The Blinds were now 6k/12k, Mark mini-raised me again from SB - I had K9 in BB and decided to race these and shoved back at him only to see him call with AQ. The board came xxxAQ and I was gone in 3rd place.

Barely one hand later - it was over, Ben flat called and Mark checked to see 68T flop. Mark bet the flop and turn (3) which Ben flat called. Ben bet out on the river (7) Mark shoved to put him all in and Ben insta-called to show 87 for two pair which was no good against Mark's 9To to crown him the new UK Deaf Poker Series III Champion! A very worthy winner too! Well played Mark!

The standard seemed better this year compared to last year. Some impressive play by some players - still a lot of check-calling and poor bets sizes still but the raises were getting through and that's a huge improvement. The structure could be improved more: 5k stack is too low for a high ranking tournament; 20 minute blinds doesn't allow enough decent play and was a killer for some players. The loss of couple key levels (especially 75/150) was felt; so was the lack of a decent dinner break.

Once the game was out of the way, I sorted out our accommodation for the night with the help of Freddie (another manager in the International) Sergio was cleaning up on the cash table, I joined him for a few rounds before we headed off in the torrential rain. By the time we got to Earls Court, we were too late to get the room so we headed back to Kings Cross and found a decent enough B&B instead for £25 each which served an alright breakfast too.

After seeing Sergio off on the train to Gatwick, I spent the afternoon catching up with a friend in South London, we talked so much I nearly missed my flight home! Getting to Heathrow with 15 minutes to spare, dashing to the automatic check-in point to print my boarding pass I learnt that my flight was delayed by a further 30 mins - oh thank God for small mercies!!!!

So... will I be taking a break from Poker? Hmmmm lets wait n see... I may be on a roll here!

Heartbreaking Month

2010-04-30T02:24:00.006+01:00

Thank God April is so over!

The month was so sick and depressing... not one small cash to boast of, I'd get off to a good start... running deep even, then crash. Not a bumper-bumper 'blinded out >10bb' crashes but real-time CRASH! BANG! WHALLOP! Sickening beats, and pure unlucky too... Just as well I had a decent enough bankroll to ride out the bad variance this month!

Unlucky as in running my cards into AA no less than THREE times in one Voodoo game, holding AK, QQ and Kd10d on a flop full of diamonds but the fourth diamond on the river saw my beloved chips racing to the AdAs player who limped-called my raise pre, checked-called on the flop, then checked-called my all-in after tanking on the turn(!) Said he was "afraid" of me... Yeah, bloody right you were mister(!)

Unlucky as in getting AA twice, QQ and KK once each in one game raising on all and drawing dead by turn/river EVERY TIME.

Unlucky as in when a misdealt turn card gave me the nut straight, I checked-raised all-in on two players before someone not in the hand spotted the burn card was missing and called for a ruling. All bets had to STAY while TD laid down the river and re-shuffled the deck for a new burn and turn card... naturally the new turn and river card had me drawing dead for my chips that went to some donk that said 'Yeah, I'll call' BEFORE the new turn card was exposed and give him trips(!)

But going to Madrid to be whalloped beats them all!

Susie Woosie, Paul Ryder, Donal Desmond and myself had our flights and buy-in sorted for the 1st European Deaf Poker Championship taking place in Madrid. With the volcanic activity spewing ash into the skies grounding all the flights for the entire week beforehand - it was touch and go if any of us would get there to fly the Irish flag. But we did...

Travelling to Madrid Deaf Club with Donal and Paul (C)

European Deaf Poker Championship Madrid Trip Report:

The tournament which was due to start at 4pm initially, got pushed back to 6pm 3 days before, on the grounds that people wanted more time to eat(!) As the Casino was 25km outside the city centre, a free bus was organised by the Madrid Deaf Association at 4:30pm to bring the international players there with return trip back to Madrid city centre for 2am and 4am. Donal and Paul had headed out early to the Irish pub, planning to meet us at 3:15pm as we had to get two metros and 10 minute walk to Deaf Club for this bus. But the boys didn't turn up til 3:40pm leaving us in danger of missing the bloody bus! Donal had this bright idea to get Metro to the connecting station and grab a taxi from there to the club, outside this Metro was this bull-fighting arena (which we thought was church!) Donal and Paul started flagging taxis as Susie and I stood around taking pictures... a good 15 minute taxi ride later we arrived just in time for the bus.

Meeting Amador the event organiser and the other players from Italy, Portugal, France, Romania, and Spain. The Swedish and German players had to pull out because of the ash but Amador found several Spanish players willing to take the spare seats so we still had 100 players. As the bus set off to the casino, turning the corner barely two blocks down, we came face to face with the same Bull-fighting-arena-Church-Metro square that we caught the taxi from(!) Just as well the 'scenic route' taxi fare was cheap at €2 each! LOL!

Arriving at Casino, a huge massive building in the middle of nowhere, it was 5:15pm. To our amazement we were not allowed to take pictures, security stopped several players taking picture and I was asked to check in my camera at reception. Before I did I got a sneaky picture of Susie at the entrance! The men had to wear formal dinner jackets as part of the casino's dress code; poor Donal was sweating in his suede jacket as he didn't want to fork out the money to hire a jacket. Inside the plush casino (which was much grander than the Sporting Emporium....) the organisation of the seating for 100 players decended into chaos, the TD refused to start til everyone was seated and a number of players had no seats assigned at all and had to wait til 6:45pm for their seat numbers, it was 6:55pm before the tournament finally kicked off...

I didn't quibble the 5,000 starting stack because the odd blind structure posted on the Madrid Deaf Poker's web page looked fair with 10/20, 20/40 and 30/60 levels and 30 minute blinds to make up for it. To my amazement the structure on the day was not the advertised one: we had the standard 25/50, 50/100, 75/150 with antes coming in at 150/300 level (not repeated) and increasing every level after that. So the 200/400with 50 antes, 300/600 level and 75 antes and the 400/800 level had a punishing 100 antes. It was easy to see this game was going to be crapshooty as the evening wore on, we are going to need more luck of the cards to gain valuable chips than skill to win this game.

As the game started, I realised I was playing with a lot of fish players. They had no idea of which poker hands beat what, never mind MTT strategy or poker rules. Players were grabbing for change off other players bets, string-betting and throwing in one chip, when dealer said CALL they would cry 'Noooo I RAISE' much to the dismay of the dealer who spend a lot of time trying to explain why they can't do that... this happened so many times. I was bemused to see players calling all the way to the river with King high/Queen high hands, and showing them all proudly at showdown in the miraculous hope they had won... it was cringing!

Finding AKs in CO in the 3rd or 4th hand I put in a raise to 225, and got no less than 5 callers. No A or K on the all low rainbow flop, SB puts out 50, BB and MP called. I put in a raise to 325 hoping to display strength, but no, they all called(!) Turn was no help to me, SB bets 50, BB and MP call and I just had to throw away my cards. On showdown, SB showed A3o for a pair of 33s, BB had A8 for a pair of eights, Button showed 10 10 (didn't raise) and MP had J7o and hit his pair with the J on the river to win the pot(!) Awful.

Finding KK two hands later I raised again pre and got 4 callers, flop comes AAK, I c-bet hoping to get a raggy ace to call but got no bitters, and was back at starting stack. This was the only pot I won.

Just before the 2nd level started, I found A10o in SB, with 5 limpers and BB to act, I knew any raise WILL be called so elected to flat call. Flop came a lovely AdQx10x, fearing KJ I checked. A loose Portuguese player UTG threw out 1k, there was only 350 in the pot, I read him for Q10 or any A-rag and as action folded back to me I elected to call. BB called too... a lovely 10d came on the turn. I bet out 1k, BB folded and UTG shoved for 2.5k more. I insta-called to see Qd2d... tabling my house, I pointed out that I had full house and his two pair/flush draw was behind, he shook his head insisting that he was winning... then fist-pumped the air calling on his mates on the other table as a sick Q fell on river to push the chips to him leaving me with barely 1,150k. I was gutted. Two orbits later, after total card death and blinded down to 975, I find A4s and shoved into 6 limpers, Frenchman UTG insta-calls with 65s, as the rest of table folded and board reads out 23QT4 to give him a sick straight. I was gone in 92nd place 10 mins into the 2nd level(!) Meh...

After watching Donal, Paul and Susan - I realised I didn't just have a bad table. The overall standard of play was the same, dreadful. While the set-up in the Casino was top-notch, some dealers were turning a blind eye to string bets and basic mistakes (betting out of turn, letting players take bets back if there was a raise!) treating one chip as a raise instead of call. Poor Susie was embroiled in several rows with one such dealer who kept allowing people to get away with this behaviour, she called the TD over. But TD then stated the dealer was the 'boss' and their decision was final! As a dealer myself, I was horrified at how lax the dealers were in controlling the game, allowing it to get so out of hand, at the TD who was obviously being a patronising git with his 'ahhhhh poor deaf player, its alright, its alright, let them, let them!' attitude.

I settled down to play cash in the cash area and was delighted to see there was none of that silly nonsense exhibited in the tournament room in here, this was the poker we all know and enjoy. A number of deaf players came out to join me and got their proverbial knuckles rapped by the other players for string-betting etc. Crying that he was allowed to do it in the 'other room' one player threw his cards down in frustration and the dealer accepted it as a 'fold' which set off a HUGE ruckus leading to me mediating in international sign between him and the English speaking Cash Room manager. After this every time there was a communication issue with deaf players the Card Room manager kept asking me to 'help translate'... some players even started asking me poker advice.

Working €50 up to €180 over 4 hours then losing it all in one 'stupido pot' against a loco Spanish player who wouldn't be out of place in the Fitz as he called my 3-bet-all-in with 99 holding QJo, only to river a Q. I gave up playing poker and went back to meet up with Susie. Paul who busted out in 60-something place, with card-death and the raping ante levels doing the damage, was playing in a STT with the same atrocious Spanish players. Susie had just exited in 45th place, Donal was still in with 18 players left. I was too tired and jaded to bother staying to rail Donal and heading out to catch the 2am bus with Susie.

As I opened my bag to get my clockroom token to retrieve my camera (which by the way WAS allowed in the tournament room...) I found €15 of unused chips, rather than cash them out I put them on roulette and spun it up into €50, LOL! But Susie wasn't impressed as my detour to roulette table that caused us to miss the 2am bus(!) Sorry Susie!

Back in we went to rail Donal while waiting for the 4am bus, at 3am the organisers announced they were putting the bus back to 5am(!) Urgh! Railing the final table was hilarious - the standard wasn't any better than my first table, the constant limping in meant the best players exited in 8th, 9th and 10th place respectively. I don't mind any player getting their chips in good with ATC but calling all-in's from other players with ATC and winning by just getting lucky is another matter...

It became painfully obvious to me that these deaf players didn't play outside the deaf club/home games scene and had developed bad habits as a result. With no access to decent training; the mere concept of position, starting hands or pot odds was lost on them... they lacked the finesse and strategy skills to carry the game. Very few have the confidence to play with hearing, so basically they just played the same way every time 'call and hope for the best'. Just hope the next time I go to Spain, the standard will have improved somehow.

Well done to our Donal who played his usual LAG game (enough said!) and scraped into an impressive 6th place finish... this will silence your critics for many moons to come Mr Desmond! Our ordeal wasn't over, discovering the 5am bus was now leaving at 6am - urrrrgh! A shattered Paul, Susie and myself gave up at 4:30am and caught a taxi back to the city... Donal insisted on staying on for the bus.

Heading home to Dublin next day, we had a lovely trip to Madrid, the weather was beautiful sunny much appreciated 26C. It was a city that loved it meat as poor Susie (a vegetarian) discovered, she had hard time ordering food and even had me to eat things to be sure there was NO meat in it. Even the vegetable soup had pieces of jamon (ham) in it! On our last day Susie asked our hotel receptionists for the Spanish word for vegetarian, after 5 minutes explaining that she did didn't eat chicken (cluck cluck!) or pink (big round nose) or beef (horns) that she only had vegetables, pasta, etc. "Ah! You vegetariania!" says the receptionist proudly.... LOL!

At the airport I treated myself to a bottle of Spanish Brandy as a consolation prize! It must have worked a treat as the following week when the month was drawing to a close I popped to my local DPN game and came 2nd for €200... ending the depressing run and giving me a much needed confidence boost.

Here's hoping the Merry Month of May brings me much better returns... the Irish Deaf Poker Open is upon us on 8th May - the numbers are very small so we are throwing the game open to anyone who wants to play with us.

Hope your cards run good, see you at the tables!

Patience wins the day

2010-03-21T23:48:00.002Z

It's been up and down few weeks for me pokerwise since Killarney. No big wins or crazy hands to report, I had acuminated a small but decent profit considering I was busto at the start and only playing very low buy-ins but by beginning of March the profit margin was slipping back... It was frustrating! I was losing all my races deep in the game to unbelievable coolers.

One example: Playing the Voodoo's €100 game last Thursday, we are down to 12, when UTG (chipleader) raises 3xBB, UTG+1 shoves with 7BB, I'm next to act - I find KK and I've 12BB left... I move all-in. Action folds back to BB, he asks for a count and starts counting his 15/16BB stack... then shoves all-in. UTG folds. I table my cowboys, UTG+1 shows K10o sheepishly and BB tables KdJd... The board slaps out 3 diamonds and the dealer whacks my cowboys into the muck before I copped what had happened!

After this cooler, on the back of several others, I was getting very disillusioned with poker in general. The Paysafecard Ladies Poker Championships was coming up and I already registered my interest to play since it was first announced... When I woke up Friday morning after the Voodoo's tournament, the day before the Ladies game - I was seriously thinking "I'm running bad... why bother?!"

Then Susie texted me; Ciara had just called her all excited about the game the next day. Ciara was going with Ro, who already had her ticket from the Satellite. I had played with Ciara, Susie, Ro in the Satellite for the game, but ended up first out when Ro called my all-n with KJ on a 9 high flop (I had A9) and hit her K on river(!) Hmrph! These are pub players from my local game, something in me just thought: "Ha! They won't last in this game... But then its a bit rich me thinking like this if I can't put my money where my mouth is and prove it?!" So I along I went...

Susie and JCB always moan about these 'women only' poker events, pointing out the poor standard of play and lack of respect for raises. I stopped thinking like this some time ago, if you are decent player you CAN go deep

When we arrived I was shocked to see there was barely 30 players registered and the game was due to start in like, 5 mins... where were the 'over 110 players pre-registered' as announced?! Stephen McLean had worked very hard to get the information out there, he took a gamble on making this event a direct on the day buy-in, when usually he opts for online full paid pre-registration in his games.

By the time the game got underway there was 37 players. There were a number of good players in the room: Collette 'Smurph' Murphy; Jane Topkin; Cat O'Neill; last year's runner-up (I later discovered her name was Rebecca McAdams - a well known poker journalist) whose play I was really impressed with in the Ladies game last year. Sitting in seat 2 on table 3 I had Smurph diagonally opposite me, there were three female dealers as well: Sharon G, Lorraine Gately and another from Northern Ireland that I didn’t know.

I got off to a fine start in the second hand, when I completed the blind from SB holding Q7o. There was 6 limpers in the pot(!) Flop came Qc7c3c, action checked all around. Turn was 8d; I bet out 300, the players folded back to the button on my immediate left who called. Turn was Kd. I bet out 350, button raised to 600 - dealer corrected her saying that minimum raise must be 700. I ain't folding my two pair so threw out the extra 350 before she put the extra 100 in... She tabled two black aces for an over-pair(!) I threw in my two pair... nice wee pot comes back to me!

What was noticeable very early was all these serial limpers and people playing too many hands. I punished those limpers raising big from CO/button couple of times with air. The Northern Ireland dealer, Chantelle, was doing the same, she went very short in the first level but bounced back very well just before the first break. Then fell back again after the break, before shooting back up again. While watching her I noticed that she had no respect for the position players. She re-raised with suited connectors as much as raising/calling with any ace to the river very successfully too. After tangling in a couple of pots with her, my stack drifted back under 10k. When I found AKs in CO, I made the standard 4bb raise. Button (calling-station/bluffer) called as did Chantelle in BB. Flop came Q high rainbow, Chantelle bet out a pot size bet, I felt she was just pushing us out and flat called to see what button did, button folded. Rag on turn, Chantelle being first to act bet more slightly than the pot size bet... I just knew she had nothing on the board. But I couldn'r rule out any underpair (66-99 or 1010 even for trips) I contemplated coming over the top by going all-in but her turn bet was more than 40% of my remaining stack, shoving would be -EVs for me as it wasn't enough to get her out of the pot after putting in so much... I had no option but to fold. That hand cost me a lot of valuable chips, I fell back to 6k. I got hyper-aggressive after this, raising/shoving, stealing blinds and limper's chips until my stack was back up to 9k... when this hand happened.

Smurph was in BB, UTG, UTG+1 (both serial limpers)and UTG+2 (never raises only limps - same girl who limped in with AA in 2nd hand)joined the action... I was next to act and found 10 10; still in hyper-aggro mode I made a 6bb raise. Everyone folded back to UTG+2 who merely called as I expected, flop came AK10, as UTG+2 checked - I made a pot size bet, she then mini-raised me, I insta-shoved praying she didn't have aces or kings... I had her covered by just 4.5k. To my amazement she calls and flips over JJ, I show my 10s for a set and held my breath for the J/Q cooler that thankfully never came! I was back up over starting stack again...

I calmed down and settled back to pace myself, until 2 orbits later when blinds 150/300, Margaret (Fitz regular) came to take the place of the AA/JJ girl I knocked out. She's not played any hands; it looked like she was short... Finding 99 UTG, I bet out 3.5BB, but one by one they all folded back to Margaret in BB who shoved her small stack over the line. Taking a look at the stack I mistakenly assumed 4k (it was closer to 6k) and insta-shoved my stack over she shows AK and the K high board doubles her up; that decimated my stack by 50%... I got too cocky over-valuing nines, meh(!) Big lesson learnt here: asking for a count and THINK before I make any calls!

From this level right up until 500/1000 I got nothing... no more hands, just rubbish, all I could do was sit back and watch as Chantelle (the pretty dealer) and Smurph started running all over the table; bursting players left right and centre. Growing increasingly short I kept looking for key spots to shove to steal blinds etc, I was desperate - shoving with K4s, J10, 78s etc... even shoved once with crap 102o I think... thankfully I got no callers on these hands(!) One shove with A5 got called by AJ, the lovely 995xx board that ran out was a god send! That double-up just before our table broke helped me through the card-death that lasted two orbits when I got moved my next table.

On table one was Gillian Armstrong (the Boyle Poker sponsored player); Jane Topkin (runner-up from JP's mini-WSOP game) and Margaret (a very good aggressive player from Dundalk - regular at Cue Club & Poker Ireland 100 games) I had an awful position on the latter who was the table chipleader, sitting immediately on my left. Usually I enjoy chatting with Margaret at the table but being so short, plus it was a new table, I was back to square one watching and pegging the other players; I remained stoic saying very little... Margaret must have thought I was being rude ignoring her! I shoved twice with KK and QQ but got no callers, showing both I was setting my image for future shoves...

UTG a serial limper made an unusual min-raise the blinds; action folded back to me. Finding 99 on button, after thinking I decided I couldn't fold here with <10bbs, so all-in I went. To my horror Margaret came over the top into UTG... UTG tanked then folded (she later admitted she had AK! WTF?) Margaret tabled KJs and I felt a cold numb feeling of de va ju coming over me at the sight of them... was another tournament going to be ended for me by a poxy KJ(!)

The dealer looked at me and mouths 'good luck', then turns the flop one card up... the top card was a King... urgh! Collective groans all around from the table ladies in sympathy. I stood up to leave as the dealer, slowly spread out the rest of the flop when a glorious nine appeared from under the king and I squealed in delight! Yaaaay!!!! But that didn't get me out of danger. I was still all-in or fold mode as the blinds were going up 1k/2k.

That was also the beginning of the end for poor Margaret, she never won another pot after that... By this stage there were a lot of short stacks on the table, shoving spots were getting rarer. I folded 33 and 55 both times to a raise and re-raise all-in, when the initial raiser called and the board came out - I would have won both times had I called... meh(!)

With Margaret now out of the picture, Jane Topkins who had slowly amassed a sizable stack at this stage started to put pressure on the small stacks, kept raising into all the shorties blinds or limping/raising on flop... she had me on my toes! I re-raised all-in back into her once with KQs and she insta-folded - after that she stopped playing into me.

To my right was a novice player, who admitted she's only played hold 'em since last October, unlike the serial limpers she put it a few decent raises and made a lot of interesting moves. She was joint chipleader with Jane. Every time she was in SB to my BB and there was no other action on the table - she would look at my short-stack and fold pushing her small blind towards me saying 'here... you can have it, I fold.' Bless her - she saved me a few times by doing this! I wouldn't have been that nice if the shoe was on the other foot...

We were down to 10, the blinds had just gone up to 1.5k/3k when Jane limped in, a tight-passive shortie in Button mini raised, I found 33 in BB and swore I was not folding it this time! As I shoved right over the top with 23k, Jane folded after a dwell and button insta-called with AJ - I had her covered. The board that came out was sick: AJ5...5...3 Ouch! And with that I had my place on the final table as the 2nd shortest stack with 35k.

On the final table - only Margaret (Fitz regular) was shorter than me, Chantelle was next in chips, just couple odd thousand more than me. I was surprised as she was tournament chipleader at the last break? Smurph was chipleader with almost 90k, Susie wasn't far behind her with 50k, the rest of the table varied between 40-45k. Rebecca McAdams, a Westbury regular, Jane and the Novice from my previous table made up the rest of the table.

Susie was the unlucky player out in 9th place, after shoving her AJs into Smurph's AA... Margaret was next to go... followed by the novice player. By the time we were 6 handed, I was just behind Smurph in chips having doubled up via the Westbury player with 10 10, flopped a set, turned a house then rivered poker-10s for good measure! We had a deal to take €50 from 1st and 2nd to create a 6th prize - everyone agreed, having decimated Christina (Westbury player) she was happy to push her short stack with any two half decent cards, but her raced didn't hold and she was gone in 6th.

One orbit later I found AA UTG+2, I made my stanadard raise to 22,000 (blinds 4k/8k) Smurph insta-flattened as the others got out of the way. Flop came AK10 all hearts... we both checked. I lead out on the rag turn for 30,000. Smurph tanked before coming over the top... I insta-called showing my trips. The river bricks and poor Smurph is left with <5BB. Few hands later she's gone in 5th place for €250... she immediately sailed off for the Voodoo Festival main event, came back next day 2nd in chips but no joy with AK into 99... UL Smurph! Rebecca McAdams was the next casualty out in 4th when I reraised from SB into her BB.
Then there were three... After doubling Chantelle up not just once or twice but THRICE! I was back playing ultra-tight and putting pressure on Jane for a change! Jane in button was short on 45k, Chantelle was on 136k while I had 150k approx when the biggest car crash happened!

I was in SB, Chantelle was in BB with blinds now 4k/8k. Jane was in button on 46k. As I expected she shoved. I knew she was showing with a wide range but I didn’t want to double her up, finding A9o I knew my only option was to go all-in to isolate the action. I had a bad, bad feeling about this hand... so I tanked, considered the payouts and asked for a count of other player’s chips before shoving my stack over the line... Chantelle snapped called with KK. Jane tables A9s and I knew I had lost the game...

The kings hold, Jane is gone in 3rd place and I am down to >3BB... two shoves later and I was out 2nd for €950 after running K8s into Chantelle's 22. GG... UL... WP... etc. Pose for some photos, smile and good night!

Over all - it wasn’t my finest game but I was happy with how I played, my game plan went askew a few times but the winning factor that saved me was patience. There was a small satisfaction knowing I also outlasted the other DPN regulars! This year's game favoured the strong players, as the final table testified to this. Chantelle was a well deserving winner having played well all day, never losing her cool once. It was a brilliant experience to play on tables with strong experienced players like Smurph, Rebecca, Margaret and Jane.

Kudos to Stephen McLean for a great tournament, while the numbers was very disappointing, the structure was great, it was clear he had put a lot of work into organising the day. The craic was mighty all day, by the time the final table started it was clear that today was the day of the good players...

Roll on next year!

Poker in the Pub Grand Final - Trip Report

2010-02-08T13:03:00.000Z

I came down on Thursday to deal the team event (and get valuable reads/info on the players too of course!) and worked from 7:30pm til 7:30am... crashed into bed and didn't wake up til 3:30pm. The game was starting at 5pm; as I went to register I got an unexpected surprise - there was an additional €30 registration fee due. For what!? I win a ticket and still have to pay registration??? That one’s new to me...

Heading to the restaurant in the bar for a decent meal before we started, I met up with Willow and Eamon Connolly. Talking about the registration fee, I was informed that the organisers were already operating at a loss, due to associated outlay costs like chips, advertising, printing, staff etc.

I barely made it to my seat before the first hand was dealt. Looking down finding AQs in the first hand, I was UTG and didn't want to raise this early – really hate getting good hands so early in the game. So I limped, two other players limped in, button re-pots to 350. I called for the extra 300, MP folds and CO-1 threw in 300 with a 1k chip underneath. Dealer checked and pointed out the chip... 'Are you re-raising Sir?' 'Erm... yeah... yeah...' the player nodded. Button called the extra 1k. I felt it might have been a mistake rather than a genuine re-raise, considering button flat called rather than re-raised, I knew I should get out of this pot but was was well stacked enough to call the extra 1k to see the flop which came J high rainbow. Urgh. I knew I was finished with this hand if either players’ put a bet out. Sure enough, CO-1 bets 1,500; Button came over the top to 4.5k. I insta-mucked. CO-1 flat called. Turn saw another 4k from each player while river was checked down. CO-1 shows AA and Button KK... Nice angleshoot with the €1k re-raise sir(!)

I didn't see or play another decent hand til the 2nd level when I raised to 550 with 10 10; a loose player re-raised to 1200. He had been doing this a lot, raising with ace rags, suited connectors, small pairs etc. I felt I was ahead of his range and re-potted to 3,600... he folded. Two hands later I was in BB to his button. He was down to 6k approx, several limpers in the pot; I had AQs he raised to 650 on button. I re-raised to 3250, as action folded back to him he laughed then folded showing J10s. That brought me back up over starting stack for the first time since we started. I was on a table of serial-limpers who just wanted to see a flop for cheap but folded a lot to any raise. I hovered along taking couple more small pots with well placed raises, had to fold to a re-raise from BB when I attempted a raised with QJs from CO. By the first break at end of 3rd level, I was sitting on 17.5k, when I met Thomas Maguire who was sitting well on 24k having “only played 3 hands” getting well paid on them all. Didn’t see him again after this – hope you went deep mate?

At the break the final numbers were confirmed. Out of 800-odd players who actually qualified, 706 had turned up to play. A staggering amazing number, but when you consider the prize fund was just €65,000 plus a €10,000 WSOP Vegas package, it works out at €107 approx per player and not the €200 per player as advertised.
Granted most players would have won a ticket having just played 4 weeks of the league, but some people (like me) would have played 8 or 12 weeks to qualify. With an average 8 week play at €10pw, plus the €30 registration fee making a total of €120 average outlay per player for an event that actually would have cost less to enter directly was thought-provoking. There was only €4 per week per player was going into the overall prize fund, but considering that for every one person that qualified, there were at least 7-10 other players who didn’t qualify – shouldn’t there have been a lot more than €65,000 in that prize pool? Another gripe was the prizes, they were only paying out the top 18 or 2.5% of the field, which represented much less than standard 10-15% of usual games.

After the break, I drifted down to 13/14k in BB (200/400) with card death and losing chips in one hand when I limped re-raised with AJ s UTG and was forced to fold them to a re-raise all-in from the initial limper. I tanked long enough before I folded showing the ace and mucking the J face down; he tables QQ. “AK?” he asked – I nodded – the players rapped the table. I knew I had respect.

Then came the first pivot hand of the tournament: Next hand saw me in BB with 6s10s when UTG raises to 600, two players along with the Button called. I was getting pissed off at having my blinds raised into (I had to fold them every time since the break) had decided I would to call to see a flop with any two.

6d10d7s flop... woooo! I checked, UTG puts out 1200, others fold. I think for minute – he could be flushing? I’m out of position for a re-raise so decided to flat call. 7c on turn ... I checked, UTG put out 2000, again I tanked then flat called. 2c on river, I opt to bet out 3250 on river as I felt he had missed and I didn’t really want to show my cards... but UTG calls showing AdKd(!) “I put you on a bluff chasing a flush draw” he says... Scooping in 8.5k I finally got my stack over the 20k mark for the first time!

Two hands later I’m on button when I opted to raise with Q4o as BB (same player UTG from my 610s hand) calls, he’s been leaking a lot of chips... he became the table chipleader very early but was on clearly on tilt after a massive bluff and losing three pots in a row. Everyone else folded. Flop comes 949 rainbow. BB checks I bet a pot size bet. He insta-calls. Turn is 3, action went check-bet-call... on the river came a K. He checks. I felt I was ahead but, opted to check behind in case he had hit the king. “Two pair” I announce, he nodded “yeah I have two pair too... which pair you got?” tabling my Q4, he announced its good and mucks(!) OMG!

I decided to go back into tight mode as I felt I had just shot my image with that hand... I folded for couple more orbits before getting moved to another table. In my first hand I got 99, had no read on the table but I wasn't limping with them... I made a standard 3xBB raise (blinds were 300/600 at this stage) they all folded, I showed my nines. Next hand I got 77, and opted to limp in. Three other limpers and SB completed, BB checked. Flop came AdQd8c, old man in SB bet 1200, I saw this as a probe bet, so flat called, other players folded. 10c came on turn. Old man bet out 1200... I sensed weakness and put him on a flush draw or Qx, so put in a re-raise to 2800, he folded. Phew!

Also on this table was a Gum-type woman player - you know the one who makes HUGE crazy bets and you just can't see where she's going. She was swigging back bottles of beer and was well oiled too. As the table chipleader, she limped in pre then shoved the flop a lot, or bet out 6-10xBB pre-flop... I had to fold my AcQc to her shove on the Q high flop with 3 hearts, as I just didn’t feel I was a head and was drifting back down to 23k. The average stack at this stage was 20k, when my second pivot hand happened: she limped UTG+2, I was in CO with Ad10d and decided to made a re-raise to 3200, action folded back to her. She flat called. Flop came AhKdJd, just as the flop appeared she snapped 'ALL IN!' But I had made my mind up not to let her bully me again – so insta-called to see J10s; 10c on turn and 3d on the river just sweetened the deal... and I was up to a heady 48k.

The structure had changed - instead of antes kicking in at the 150/300 level as advertised on the forum, it was put back to the 1000/2000 level. I wasn't too impressed with this as there was a lot of small stacks still in, blinding themselves down waiting for the good cards and shoving with 4/5/6/7BBs and doubling up to stay in the game.

After winning a couple more pots at this table I got moved again to my 3rd (and ultimately final) table with 54k. Losing one big race with AJ into shorties AK on a A rag flop – he limped called my raise then shoved the flop. I was down to 41k approx when I pick up my first AA. UGT+1 raised to 4,500 (blinds were 500/1000) I was in MP and re-raised to 13,500. As the rest of players folded back to UTG+1 he tanked for an age then shoved, he had me well covered but it was an insta-call for me. Tabling my aces, he showed KK, no king on board and I'm up to 83k!

The antes started to kick in, with the 1000/2000 level being repeated with 100 ante, putting pressure on a lot of small stacks to shove with marginal hands, calling a couple of players, I steadily built my stack up to 128k. I heard the announcement that the ‘tournament chipleader’ was sitting on 117k... eh?! Excuse me! I was just about to call the TD over to tell him, when I checked my big blind holding Jc10c; too many limpers in the pot to re-raise. Flop comes Qc9s3c - I bet out half the pot, it fold back to player on button (total novice player – calling all the way to river with any pair, draws and Aces) he flat calls. Turn is 7x I put out a huge pot bet and again he calls... 8c on river - I've got the flush as well as straight - I jam it to put him all in and he auto calls showing Kc4c for better flush... Urgh! Sick... I'm back down to 79k. Got paid off with another AA, and shoved into re-raise trying ti isolate the small stack holding QQ but both shortie min-raiser and the re-raiser folded. My stack went back up to 93k before we finished for the night at 1:15am. The average was 48k and there was 220 approx players remaining.

Willow from Voodoo was still in, sitting on 45k, we agreed to swap 5% of each other and went for ONE drink to relax before hitting the sack... One drink with Willow?! LOL! It was 4 brandies later before I escaped to my bed at 3am! Waking with a slight hangover in the morning, I went down for breakfast downed a gallon of water then over to the leisure centre for a swim/sauna session to clear my head before starting back at 2pm.

Heading in to play day 2 I noticed from the player list I was in 24th place with 92,000 (dealer error on sheet) - vowing to play tight; I made a colossal error in my first hand: spying 2 red aces, I made a standard raise UTG; UTG+1 min-re-raises - I re-potted to put him all in. He calls with JJ, as I turned over my hand to my horror I had Ah4d.... aaaaaaahhhhh! Mortification! Lost 35k in that pot - was so angry I went on min-tilt and donked away another 20k attempting raises with rubbish that I had to fold to re-raises. At the break I was down to 46k just under the average - I gave myself a mental ticking off and restarted with a better frame of mind. Was all-in or fold mode. Shoved about 6/7 times but no callers... made two bad laydowns – I genuinely could not decide if I did right thing or not.

Finding A8s in BB I was considering a shove if there were limpers or min-raisers, when UTG+1 shoved for 21k, I was on 50-odd approx and blinds were 2000/4000 with 200 antes, average stack had increased to 58k approx. CO flat calls leaving himself with 40k approx behind; this player had just moved to our table after the break and was a serial limper – I had very little reads on him. I tanked for ages before folding. Was disgusted to see UTG+1 table A5o and CO tables QhJh... and sicker was the flop: AA8xx. Meh!

I shoved next hand with QQ – no callers. Got the blinds, antes and one limper’s 4k to keep me going for another orbit. I had 55 UTG+2, was considering a raise/shove/fold when UTG+3 shoved all-in out of turn and the rest of the table started to insta-fold their cards. Dealer tried to stop them but saw Novice player then said ‘yeah call’ getting his chips ready. Dealer stopped him then brought the action back to me. I tanked for ages was about to have the clock put on me when I folded. Novice player calls with A7o, UTG+2 shows AQ... And you won’t believe what came on the board – not one 5 but TWO bloody 5’s(!) AQ wins with top kicker. Meh!

A few more uncalled shoves with QQ, AK, 66, and 10 10 (I showed them all... ) got my stack back up to 65k – but I wasn’t out of danger. The blinds were now a crippling 4000/8000/500 antes and the game was in crapshoot mode with the average stack only 100k. As I found A2s UTG+1, the Novice player to my right was now table chipleader on 200+ folded, rest of table had various amounts from 50-100k I didn’t feel good about the hand but I had enough to put a lot of pressure on other players to fold and steal the blinds and antes (17k total) that I desperately needed. I shoved...

SB woke up with JJ and snaps called leaving himself with 25/30k... Board read out 3...4...6... 10...K... and I'm gone by 5pm. Somewhere between 85-90th place... the board said 95, I thought I was 94th having just seen another player exit before me but there were good few players crashing out and they didn’t update the board properly. 10 minutes after I exited – the board read 80 players left... so I can only speculate it was in the region of 85-90. Not bad out of 706 players and for my first major tournament!

The game was a terrific experience – I was happy with how I played on day one, but day two was so-so: I let the small things bother me, made too many rash decisions and over played some hands; I could have waited another orbit or two for a better shoving spot, considering one of the short stacks on my table managed to get to the final two tables and cashed. But if’s and and’s and all that... I have to take responsibility for my play too.

I wasn’t due to go back on dealing duty until Sunday, after taking a small break I decided to play the €80+20 side event. Got off to a good start, but had a very good player on the table putting solid pressure on other players, finding AQs in button, he raise in MP to 5.5/6xBB I min-re-raised him only for him to tank then shove his stack in. I was stuck... kicking myself for re-raising - calling with AQ would have been fine but attempting a re-raise here is idiocy at its best, as his action was suggesting AA/KK/QQ – AK even... I folded face up. Talking to him the next day he admitted he had nothing, that I was miles ahead... LOL! Nice move mate, congrats on coming 4th in the end too. I went completely card dead after this; steals were few and far between, getting caught by the raising blinds (which was only 15 minutes not the 20mins I expected), constant shoving by other players and the unexpected antes that came in later. Finding my first ace in almost 4 orbits while UTG, ignoring the weak suited kicker, the binds were 600/1200/100 and I had only 7000 left. Needing that double up fast, I shoved to ensure I had my stack in first but ran into another player’s AJ – that’s all she wrote...

Giving up on poker for the night, I went for a walk about talking to various players still in the main event; Willow was still in - going strong winning all her races! I was full of hopes for the 5% cash as well! But it wasn’t to be... she crashed out in 30-something place. UL, WP girl!

The eventual main event winner – Elaine Kiernan from Laois, played a sterling game establishing herself as chipleader from 5/6 tables out, right up until the end. Watching her, I couldn’t help sensing the uncanny similarities between her game and Susie Woosie’s... Good luck to her in Las Vegas!

The off-duty staff started rounding up numbers for a side game, I was going to say no, but hey it was only €20 and the staff games are always fun. There were two tables going. We were so rowdy the TD’s still working in the main event and side events had to tell us to pipe down. Serious bickering started out on the other table over who was to be moved to our table when two unfortunates were quickly eliminated (including Neil Kelly aka ‘shoving fish’) leading to the pot being split between the tables into two sit-n-go’s. I ended up 3 handed with one of the floor staff – James- and Paddy Winston; we remained 3 handed for 2 hours! The craic was just brilliant; I thought it would never end! We finally agreed on a crazy deal - €70 each, €10 to the dealer who stayed with us and play on for the last €20. Finally James, who kept limping in with premium hands got sucked out by moi, I ended heads up with Paddy while the stacks went up and down before I knocked him out with pocket kings. Best game of the day IMO!

Loss making claw-back or underlay alert aside, you have to admit that the Poker in the Pub organisers are on to a very good thing here... These are players that NEVER get play the big events; these are tomorrow’s fish that we need to re-stock the dwindling traditional main events. They have done the industry a big favour. This was the ideal game to give them a taste of the ‘real thing’, to encourage them to try their game at a higher level. Several players even talked about ‘trying’ the upcoming Ladbrookes festival. The atmosphere in the place was electric, the event was well run and there was a general sense of fun, a total contrast to the air of seriousness that populated the last Ladbrookes Festival, in the same centre last November.

Great weekend of poker, if these players keep playing then the future of poker is very secure! Chcek the gallery here and see for yourself!

Whitewash!

2010-02-04T17:50:00.001Z

I’ve not had time to post a few updates, there’s been too much happening in the last month, I’m amazed I managed to find time to play poker, never mind learn and play Mythical!

‘Mythical?!’I can hear your puzzled voices already before this post has been written! You can blame Trisha Stephens for this one...

We’ve all seen that group of 2-4 players playing with two decks of cards at the breaks and after a tournament in the Jackpot, Voodoo and other places. After throwing their money into a pot, the players are dealt 10 cards to make 2, 3 or 4 sets – a straight flush run, 3 or 4 of a kind, etc and complete it before the other players. It is similar to Kalooki, except you keep your sets in your hand and you can’t add to other sets. Mythical allows you to an imaginary ‘mythical’ card to complete the sets. The other players can then dump their sets, but are penalised with points for the game as well as any leftover cards in their hands. If the player makes his sets without the mythical card it is a ‘Bonus’ which means the game penalty point is doubled for that round. As each player hits the maximum penalty points, they are out, with the last man standing taking the pot. If the sole surviving player wins the game without getting one penalty points it’s a ‘whitewash’ which means the other players have to pay double the entry to the luckbox. After standing around watching others play Mythical for so long, I was dying to have a go but didn’t have the nerve to ask them to include me.

On the 5th January I played my first poker game of the year €20+5 Tuesday night game in the Voodoo but no joy. Trish who was out earlier along with Joe the Show and one other player had been playing Mythical in the corner. Joe went for food, and the other player went for a smoke, I sat down to chat with Trish, gave her the lowdown on my game. Asking how she was doing in Mythical, she moaned that Joe was cleaning them up... “Do you play Mythical?” She asked me. “No, never tried it. But I think I have an idea how it’s played...” I replied

“Wanna try play a game with me? No money, just have a go for 100 points?” Trish offered, I didn’t need to be told twice!

Trish won the practice game, only by a few points but it was a close one, she suggested playing another game for a fiver, yeah okay... when the other players came back 20 minutes later, I was already €5 richer, and agree to join the game for €10. Coming a close second to Joe the Show, I was down €5... Joe had us all agreeing to play another game, which I took down for €40, Trish took the 3rd game then I had another glory potting the 4th game for a sweet €60 (Joe the Show talked us into upping the buy-in to €15!) We played a final game, can’t remember who won it but heading home that night I was €50-60 richer and hooked!

I wasn’t as lucky the next night I played; I got hammered for €60 wiping out my new mini-mythical-bankroll! Meh! I think would have stopped there and then but the Voodoo decided to host a Mythical tournament the following week and it looked really good – for €30 I wanted to give it a go. Playing a few more games I managed to run up a small enough profit on the 3rd night, just enough to cover my buy-in for the Mythical Tournament at least!

Most players know that Mythical can be pure luck, while there is an element of skill in watching and determining what to keep, knowing what to throw away. It is still down to luck...

The Mythical Tournament started with 16 players; 4 players on each table, only 2 will get through to the next round, they will face 2 more players. Only the two players still in will reach the final 4. First round points was played to 100, in the second round we played to 150 with the final 4 playing to 200 points. I barely made it through the 1st round, I was 3rd in points and next to exit when I got a lovely bonus hand to eliminate the 2nd place player and advance myself and Eamon Connolly into the next round. In the second round I got several wins in a row to guarantee my place in the final round against Trish Stephens, Big John and another girl. I got an early Mythical within one orbit leading to a spectacular 70+ points for poor Trisha! As Trisha and the other girl later exited I went into heads up with Big John who is considered the ‘Granddaddy of Mythical’, I was on 80 points to his 176 and feeling very positive but it wasn’t to be. Big John won three grand slams in a row to elbow me out into 2nd place for €180. LOL!

But the most memorable game has to be last week – Tuesday 26th to be exact, playing the regular Tuesday game in the Voodoo. I played a €10 Mythical game with Joe the Show at the break and got my first Whitewash! LOLOLOL! Joe had been egging me on to play for more than €10, but I insisted €10 was enough... handing me the extra €10, ever the gracious loser, Joe rubbed it in: “And to think you could have gotten more off me had you agreed to play for €20! Ha!”

I played a few more mythical games but for every night I leave with a profit the next night I lose it all again! The Voodoo has agreed to make the Mythical tournament a regular monthly event, looking forward to the next one on 18th February...

Don’t worry folks, I haven’t given up on poker... while I’ve not won any games outright, apart from splitting a local €40 pub game heads up for €240 each, I’ve managed a few decent runner-up cashes. Overall, since the 4th January to date, I am up just over €400 (yes I’m keeping tabs!) after buy-ins, which is not a bad start to 2010 considering how busto I was at the end of 2009! I’m sticking to good bankroll management and staying with the low buy-in games up to €40 max until I put that figure over €1000.

But the icing on the cake has to be gaining my entry ticket to the Poker in the Pub grand final on 5th February. With a €65,000 guaranteed prize fund including a WSOP entry and trip to Vegas to play for – this is the biggest game I’ve ever played and as the entry was covered during 2009... I’m practically freerolling it!

I’ll be re-reading my Harrington books, especially End Game, checking out all the pro-articles online, to polish up my game. I'll be formatting a serious game plan in my head before I sit down to play on Friday night... Expect a detailed write up on the game in my next blog post.

Woo! Hoo! Bring it on!

Finally!

2010-01-05T01:55:00.002Z

What do ya think of my new skin?!

Played omaha on iPoker tonight, I'm barely finding my feet on this so started with 1c/2c 6max game and pwned it big time! $5 into $14 in 1 hour then got up and left.

Back to work today, after the Christmas break (what break?! I need another holiday to recover!) got LOADS done... but still behind, meh! Two more days to deadline...

Will work on the blog list again soon

Please bear with me...

2010-01-04T02:46:00.005Z

Reading through my past posts I've been feeling a bit sorry for this blog - I've really abandoned it of late. I've fallen into that trap when blogging about poker becomes 'a chore', or as the traffic increases or I'm playing with certain people - I'm getting wary of what I'm writing about. It never used to be that way... *sigh*

Some players take to it well, some don't. Others start fishing for information: "Who's xxx on yer blog? Ah c'mon, ya gotta tell me!"

Deciding to change my blog page design. I never really like it to be honest. Should have kept the 'Luscious Lips' design but the amount of ghey comments I got over it was just...grrrrrr! I went fishing for a new one, trying on several when I realised I had to be elsewhere and just left it. Today I said: 'Hey! It's a new year, fresh start, good excuse as any for a new skin...'

That was 5 hours ago... and I'm still NOT happy with this page!

There are LOADS of wonderful sassy poker blog-skin designs out there, but only for Wordpress or MySpace or Bebo(!) I've gone through many a poker blog, usually one get bored start clicking on your mates blog 'links' and just head off clicking, browsing, surfing... yes I've ended up going deep into blogs of total complete random strangers, non-poker blogs even. But not one on Worldpress... nor MySpace... or Bebo(!) Who the f@#k design these while leaving us poor Blogspots in the shade?!

Anyone know how to convert these into XML for Blogger? Please, please contact me! Anyway I'm currently experimenting with several skins so please excuse the various changes, mad colours/schemes/designs appearing here over the next few days...

I must apologise for the loss of my links too - especially if you are one of those total random strangers 'just passing through' shocked to discover an actual dead-end - I must stress this is a happy dead-end, just need to clarify that as the only other dead-end-blogs you find out there are those written by people 'contemplating suicide'. Seriously... I am not! No matter how bad my poker is - I do have better things in life that I excel at, well things I think I excel at!

In the meantime I'm seeing spots, swirls and sprinkles... I've tried pink, red and sabre-green... And it's 5 long hours and I'm still NOT happy... I'm all googled out now.

On a positive note - I've not played poker at all tonight... LOL! Good night!

2009 Review : My Annus Horribilis

2010-01-01T14:19:00.004Z

2009 has been both my best and worse year poker-wise since I started playing poker...

I'm not going into detail of the games I played or a month by month analysis - basically in a nutshell: its been awful! I'm starting 2010 totally busto.

I lost far more than I have won, I even lost the wee bankroll I started this year on which had been accumulated over the previous 2 years. For the first time in almost 3 years of playing I finished a year 'deep in the minus' category. Despite cashing well in the final 6 weeks where I won an €1,475 approx in various live MTT's in Voodoo, local pub games and Fitzwilliam - but it still wasn't enough to get me out of the red...My saving grace as to be all the various dealing jobs that I have done in festivals around the country this year, without these I would have been in serious debt.

Looking at my first post of 2008, I had some resolutions:

1. Stay away from the cash tables till I get some coaching. LOL! I tried, lord I tried...
2. Play all the IDP events, the UK Deaf Poker Open and two of the Swedish Deaf Poker tournaments. Yes, Yes and No... :( The Swedish Events clashed with other commitments. I became Chairperson of IDP in a difficult year, as with the mainstream poker, we have seen a drop in numbers.
3. Play at least two of the big tournaments on the Irish Poker scene LOL! Had the IPO in mind but got asked to work at it (wasn't flush enough to buy-in either, aimed to get a ticket for 'Poker in The Pub' league game and failed by a measy 1 point(!)
4. To show an 100% increase on my current poker profit for 2009 LOL!
5. Improve my tournament game more This, I am proud to report, was my one success in 2009.

My learning curve rose very sharp in 2009. I getting better reads on players and making far more hero calls and re-raises than I used to... I'm bluffing more and getting away with it 90% of the time. I am making better use of position, pot-odds, M factors and percentages to determine if my hands are worth shoving for. And best of all: I no longer lose it when some ass slowplays me or calls my pre-flop raise with spanners and hits good... I just laugh!

For 2010... I've just three 'small' resolutions:

1 - End on a Profit... even a €100 will be an improvement on this year!
2 - Stay away from cash games... and stop playing prop bets in Mythical
3 - Keep that learning curve growing... Keep telling myself: Every fish will get her day!

Happy New Year everyone... see you at the tables!

Dreary November

2009-12-02T16:38:00.005Z

November was a strange month... at first I announced I was taking a break but it barely last 3 weeks(!)

I had emptied all my online accounts in a fit of 'I'm serious about this break!' so no online games for me til I discovered I had a lot of FPP on Stars and used them to qualify for everything going: - Sunday Millions, Sunday 250k, Joe Cada 100k, I got a ticket into them all! But got nothing to show for my valiant efforts, not even a deep run... Meh!

I had a run in with a rude and gormless player. You know the type that shows their mates the cards and mucks them so no one else can see them, or the one that acts out of turn and tells you to "F.. OFF I can do what I bleedin loike!" when you try to mediate the game; or the one that throws his chip into the pot and takes his change back, often helping himself to another 100/500 and plays dumb when challenged on it; or the one that eggs players on to call "ah ye have to call now, you can't fold dere!" or criticises other players "How can you call with THAT? I don't care if you were in the bleedin' blinds FOLD THEM!" You get the picture...

I have zero tolerance for such behaviour which happens quite a LOT in pub games... usually I ignore it, unless my chips are in the pot of course! But this particular night I had just been knocked out (I had shoved for 9BBs with 66, one Fish was egged on by his Mouthy friend to call me leaving himself <2bbs, he tables K10s and hits a 10 on River) I was still sitting at the table as I was hemmed in (I didn't mind initially as I had just brought a drink...) when the action in the next hand lead our Fish to show his cards to Mouthy they guffawed about the hand and the dealer in me auto-said "Show one show all..." "Eh?! No I f..in' don't have to show! You are not in this game so don't be tellin me whata do! Cheek of ye!" I calmly pointed out it wasn't me but the other players who lose out on that information. "Its nowth to do with you! WE DO NOT HAVE TO SHOW!" Mouthy roared at me. I called TD over as once Mouthy gets started he gets worse and worse... TD confirmed that the I was correct if a player shows one player he must show the rest of the table. Mouth didn't like been shown up and went on roaring about me still at the table when I was out of the game - I pointed out that I was hemmed in to the wall and "waiting for someone to stand up and let me out!" As the TD asked me to leave the table the players got up and made room for me to leave with Mouthy still roaring away "Yeah, tell her to get the f... out and go home!" I left, didn't get to finish my drink(!) In fairness I was more annoyed about not finishing my drink than Mouthy roaring at me!

That's pub players for ya! LOL! I usually don't get involved with bad players like these, but being a dealer I usually spout rules on auto-pilot - gotta try to button it at times too...

I went back into Voodoo for the Wednesday night Ladbroke game last week and ran hot on the final table chipleader all the way to HU... then hit a wall! I went from having the chiplead 4-1 advantage to 1-2 underdog against Skinny John (Jackpot regular now living in the Voodoo); I had good hands but John kept hitting straights, flushes, two pairs and chipped away at my stack til he was ahead - then out of the blue John offered to split for €275 each(!) Oh yes please, thank you very much! I was so disappointed not to have the spot prize (poker chip set in wheelie case) to play for on this night, or to have Roy the Boy's scalp to steal either...

The following week I played the Wednesday game again and came 3rd, started final table 2nd in chips and won a few key pots playing a mixed loose-tight style. One well known bluffer (Daire) raised on button into my BB, I called with 82s, Board came 453 (two hearts), player bet out and I called, the turn (Q) went check-check, I bet out I hit my straight on river(6) and got called by AJ! The player kept going on and on and on about that hand all night. Between Daire and another player (Chipleader)I started getting dogged big time, I had to fold to 4bets and re-raises. When the game got down to 3 hand, I found A9s in SB, made the raise into the CL's BB. He flat called, flop came 773 (2 suits), summarising that he had shoved to my previous raises post-flop I opted to shove and he insta-called with A7o to put me out of the game, meh!

I got my Cochlear Implant switched on this week and the sound is just urgh!!! I have a constant buzz and I'm petrified crossing the road its like something big coming at you from all angles... I keep looking around me expecting to see a rugby scrum coming my way! Playing at the table is just overwhelming, as a result I'm off-form so please do call my raises(!)

IDP Deepstack Classic Festival Report

2009-11-09T23:12:00.004Z

After weeks of preparation, drumming for the festival, organising Satts, dealing with emails, texts, unavailable committee members... I was shattered when the Irish Deaf Poker’s Annual Deepstack Classic festival weekend finally descended upon me!

To address some of my critics first: I accept that hosting this event at Halloween was a bad idea – the event clashed with other Deaf Community events; Swedish and UK bank holiday weekend (which resulted in less players attending from abroad) and a lot of our ‘playing daddies’ assigned to Halloween Trick n Treating duties that they were forbidden to dodge by their Missus... Anyway I’ve promised IDP players that next year we will either push the festival back to early October or out to mid-November. The cost was another issue – at €70+5 the amount of complaints over the ‘high price’ was unreal! Deaf poker players are spoilt with all the low games on offer, IDP will always host one ‘big buy-in game’ to generate a huge pot worth playing for – and I am not going to change this. Swedish players turned up their noses at our Irish Deaf Open €40 game - they want to see the buy-in raised! Nowhere else will we get a professional dealer dealt game with food at the break for a low €5 registration that Denise and the wonderful crew in the Fitzwilliam Casino put on for us - we owe the poker team in the Fitzwilliam a huge thank you for the great service they gave IDP last weekend.

There was a total of 54 names registered to play the main event, but on the day 43 players turned up; the online list never exceeded 41 at any stage - several names dropped in/out while others would only agree to confirm at last minute. This was a disappointing reduction from the majestic high of 75 players we had last year. I wanted to open this competition to the general public i.e. non-deaf/non-signing players but the committee refused to allow me the opportunity to advertise... probably wouldn’t have gotten much more players with the tremendous Halloween parties/games on offer in Voodoo/Westbury/Poker Room anyway, but the €3,000 prize pool was well appreciated in the end. Another disappointment was the lack of female players – we have no less than 12 female IDP poker players on our member list. But I was the only one who showed up to play, along with Sweden’s Linda Hurtig – two females in a field of 41 men!

The festival started for me on Thursday night - some of the Swedish players were looking for a NL cash game. The Voodoo happily accomodated their request and we all sat down to a juicy €1/2 NL cash game with the pot hitting €200 nearly every hand. One of the Swedish players (Stefan) had €2750k at one point... I had AA in SB sitting on €250; one raiser in MP makes it €10, Another Swedish player (Christer)on button with €400 odd re-raises to €20. I re-raised to €100. MP folds and Christer insta-calls. Flop came 345 rainbow, I bet €100 Christer calls without hestition. Ace on turn look good for me, shiping my remaining €50 he insta-calls - I table my aces and he groans showing 77 then a horrible 6 comes on the river to gives him a poxy straight for €500 pot(!) Meh! I called it a night there and then...

Friday night started with a brilliant Team event in the IDP Card Room in the Deaf Club, which I was TD’ing – the structure was simple: Four tables were set up to host 10 players playing Sit-n-Go, with 4.5k starting stack and 20 minute blinds. Team points were awarded to each player’s exit place from their respective table. E.g. 1st player out got one team point, 3rd got 3, while the winner got 10 points. Paying €10 for each table prize and €10 to the team pot – all the players had two chances to win. We had 9 teams (the 10th team dropped out at last minute ) vying for the €260 team pot that eventually got taken down by the Swedish PTG Team lead by Richard Johansson. The Wexford Vikings team lead by Mark McLaughlin with Billy Dickens, Brian Griffin and Paul Waldron came a very close respectable second for €100. Total rocks they all were! As the laggiest players limped and called with horrendous hands, PTG and Wexford Vikings teams played skillfully inching their way silently into the final ¾ then woke up to dominated their respective tables. Excellent game plan boys! The Dublin lot should be taking notes from youse!

Sadly the Deepstack Main Event with 15k starting stack and 20 minute blinds (In my defence - the IDP committee refused to allow me increase this, next year I want the blinds increased to 30 minutes – no excuses please!) did not favour the rock players as we had hoped. It was the day of the LAGs.

Glen da Fish... LOL! He must have signed a pact with the devil; he did not miss the board ONCE playing on my first table! I give you an example: Glen was in BB. MP was a total Rock who was dangerously short, raised pre with AKs to 4.5xBB, CO calls with A10s. Glen has been calling ALL the raises if he is in SB/BB with any two. Flop comes AQ10, Glen checks, MP raises, CO re-raises all-in (he barely has Glen covered) and Glen CALLS with ... wait for this.... Q7o then hits another Q on the turn with to eliminate two players and make him chipleader before the end of level two (!) Glen da Fish played like this all day and ended up coming 3^rd while one of the tightest uber-rock deaf player Michael Kelliher crashes out in the very first level to scoop the ‘Stefan Weitman Wooden Spoon Award’... WTF!? Poker gods have a sick sense of humour haven’t they?!

I had Albert Kenny dealing on my table for most of the day, laughing all the way to the river watching the play! He told me off for folding a couple of times when I mentioned what I had ‘That would have been an instant shove for me’ but then agreed that shoving wouldn’t have stopped these players who clearly hit better hands with the board. E.g. I was down to 16BB at one point and raised 4xBB in CO with 88, two limpers behind including old Andy Smith and Patrick from Limerick. Glen calls (quell surprise he was SB anyway...) Patrick calls and then Andy looks coolly around for a moment then announces ‘All-In!’ Urgh! I just knew I was miles behind, Andy is a dangerous player known for limp-re-raising with monster hands, I folded... Glen flat calls with A2o and Patrick folds (telling us afterwards he had J2), Andy tables QQ and hits his trips on flop of J8Q.

Next hand I get AA, raising to 4xBB with intention on pushing to a re-raise or after flop, I get two callers. Nicholas Dowling (SB) and Christy Parson (BB) – both decent players; flop comes Q high all clubs, both check and I just thought that’s it – I don’t have flush case Ace but hey, I’m down <9bb. style=""> Nico stares me down before folding but to my horror Christy insta-calls leaving himself with less than 3BB with KcQx for top pair flush draw... and thankfully the board bricks and I’m back in the game. I had AA no less than four times that day... a record for me and this was the only time my aces held... the other 3 times: they got cracked sickeningly. Raising with AA twice more, I got called by Glen da Fish holding K3o in MP once and another time with Patrick (one half of the mad Limerick Twins) on 105o (‘I had the button’ was his excuse...) and both hit two pair with the board that appeared. Meh!

Continuing to struggle, I barely held on with Glen da Fish and the Limerick Twins on my table calling all my raises with ATC all day. The final two tables had been playing for an age - I was playing short-stack-ninja for two hours before my eventual defeat. I shoved a lot with marginal holdings that I was willing to gamble with but got no callers just took down the blinds to keep me going for another orbit.

Apart from the cracked aces I played one hand really badly against Glen da Fish holding Ad10d for a nut-flush/straight draw on a KdQd9x 8x 2x board and praying for a miracle diamond or any jack to come. Glen check-called my flop bet then check-raised my bet on the turn which I called only to fold to his all-in river bet. He flashed K8. Should have folded to the re-raise... meh! That pot cost me a lot of valuable chips that I had just won in a sweet triple up 2 hands previous. Managing to outlast the Limerick twins, I went out in 13^th place (wholly appropriate for a Halloween Game don’t ya think! LOL!) Shoving UTG with QJ (<5bb) style=""> Oh, Glen da Fish boasted afterwards how he would have ‘won’ that pot had he called... LOL!

After my exit, both tables played 5/6 handed for an age... then all at once there was three all-ins on one table AND an all-in and a call on the other tables simultaneously! So the final table started with 7 players. With payout favouring the top 5 players it was agreed among the final seven to take money from 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place to create a 6^th and 7^th place €100 payout each. Starting the final table was Ivan Gryzlov (Lithuania) chipleader on 159k; Glen da Fish coming close 2^nd with 124k; Justin Smith (Irish Deaf Open Winner) on 113k; Frank Grace on 80k approx; a very short Geoff Foy with 20k; Colm O’Connor playing with 26k and Wayne Reid on 60k. Wayne and Colm didn’t last too long with Frank and Ivan chipping away at them, while Justin accepted 5^th place prize of €250 gracefully, conceding his flush to a two pair turned house.

My money was on Ivan Gryzlov to take it down – for a novice player who only started playing poker this year; it is obvious that he has worked hard on improving his game studying the various aspects of poker. It was a treat to watch him play solid-aggro all day ending up on the final table as chipleader before losing a huge pot to Frank Grace then bowing out in 4^th for €325 with a set-over-set hand involving the biggest pot of the tournament to give Geoff Foy 70% of total chips in play...

Glen started leaking chips when his winning spree suddenly grounded to a screeching halt on the final table and only barely folded his way into 3^rd place. Poor Glen, who was swelling with pride all day at his ‘successful game play’ all day, started to look pathetic towards the end when his game bottomed out on him. The €425 should console him big time.

Frank is one of the best LAG Deaf players capable of using position and stack control to manipulate the table successfully, he is well known and respected on the Tallaght poker scene. Frank played the final table in our first Deepstack Classic last year and came 2^nd – he got to the final table 4^th in chips, almost grabbed the chiplead during headsup only to be narrowly beaten into 2^nd place for €700 again! UL mate – your big win is coming...

Geoff Foy was a well deserving winner for €1100, for a solid rock player to emerge as winner on a final table after starting with the shortest stack and outlast four LAGs plus two solid chipleaders is no mean feat! His cheeky all-in out of character bluff with J4o to push Frank off a huge pot holding flush draw or middle pair when down 5 handed was legendary stuff! I think this was the first time Geoff ever won an IDP game! Geoff and his brother Stuart play all the IDP games swapping % of each other – it is usually Stuart that cashes more than Geoff so happy days for Stuart to get a decent win back off Geoff for a change! WP Sir!

I heard great reports from several Deaf players who ventured to the cash tables afterwards and turned a sweet profit... Nice one! Congratulations to all who cashed!

I wasn't so successful - popping into the Voodoo afterwards got sucked-out really badly... I had AA (my 4^thin 8 hours – what are the odds?!) raising to pot UTG+1 I get 4 callers – BB & UTG checked, I lead for a pot-bet post-flop on a K42 board with two suits and face 3 all-ins I insta-called for a monster €400+ pot (I had 45% of my money in that pot already!) one chasing flush draw, another for a gutshot and the BB holding a poxy 42o takes it down... Really sucks playing AA in pot-limit! I got up from the table totally disenchanted and angry with poker. Looking back through my blog for this year - I’ve been playing a consistent losing streak – even with all the self evaluations, re-evaluations, pullbacks and the odd small cashes: I’m down big time and starting to lose faith in my game.

Time for a good few weeks break methinks!

Calling with 8 high!

2009-10-28T20:30:00.001Z

I was in a foul and aggressive mood - lots of things were just going wrong. The IDP committee members were totally getting on my whick doing feck all as I'm running around lumped with organising the Deepstack Classic Festival and handling all the emails, texts, updating website and dealing with last minute player change... Grrrr!

Susie Woosie texted me to say she was on her way to DPN's Hartstown €50+10 FO, which was also doubling up as a tribute night in Mark Troy's honour (he won a €40 Satt to the IPO via DPN and finished 3rd in for a nice €33k payday!). With the added €100 bounty on Mark's head and finger food provided at the break the game promises to be big. I decided to give it a spin.

Arriving at the venue, I was disappointed that only 23 players turned up. This game regularly attracts 30-36 players on average but recently numbers have been down around 25 mark. Sign of the times for poker really?

Sitting down to play, I was delighted to find Mark on my table. But I was finding it hard to get a hold on chips with Gav going all-in on the flop in every 2nd or 3rd hand. In one hand I raised from MP with AK, newbie player (very short, playing every hand), Mark (in CO & button) and Gav (SB) call to see the flop A85. Gav shoves and I fold after a dwell. Mark insta-mucks when newbie called with A5, Gav has A8, turn was a king - meh!

Down to 5k from the 8.5k starting stack I just sat back and folded into the action, just waiting for a decent hand to present itself. Finding 99 I limp UTG-call a raise, then checkraised the 9 high flop, player folded scowling and muttering at me. That put me back up to 11k as our table got broken, I was with Mark and Gav on the 2nd table with 16 players left. Finding JJ in CO I raise 4xBB; Gav calls from BB and the Chipleader (on 40k) to my right, who limped in , completes. Blinds are 300-600 at this stage and I have 11k approx, Gave had just lost 10k in a big pot 2 hands previously but had me covered by 3/4k. Flop comes J high, and Gav shoves. Chipleader mucks as I push my chips into the middle. Gav shows AJ and my set holds to bring my stack up to 24k!

Few hands later I'm in BB with 83 (blinds now 400/800), action folds around to Chipleader in SB who completes. It is blind-on-blind as flop comes AKK... check-check... A on turn... again check-check. The river is 7; as Chipleader throws out 1200. I just didn't put him on anything there bar a 7; which I knew I would beat with my 8. I only had 3 cards to beat and just had a gut-feeling feeling that he was aiming to steal so I called... As he tables 65s and I show my 8 then the 3 - there is an uproar!

- What a call!!!?
- You got balls calling with 8 high on THAT flop!
- Haw! Haw! And here's me thinkin' you were a player Julianne(!)

Mark comes to my defence - pointing out that the bet wasn't big enough to make me fold, he would have called too. That shut them up sharpish! I was delighted my soulread worked!

By the time we get to final table I am on 33k, the 8 high call had them all folding to my raises/re-raises! Chipleader is still on 40k approx, two to my left and Mark is on 30-odd-K two to my right with Robbie the taxi man between us just under 30k and the rest all shorties.

Sitting tight, I got blessed with a couple of good hands and knock out one of the shorties who shoved to my raise. Mark loses a big pot leaving himself very short on the button; action folds around to Mark with Robbie and myself in blinds. As Mark shoves his 3.5xBB remaining stack out, Robbie and I insta call! Holding QJs, we checked down all the streets on a AKxxx board to see Mark holding 65o, I table my Queen high and Robbie mucks! Yayyy! That €100 bounty is mine!!!

After that I started running amok - open raising every hand and grabbed the chiplead as we were reduced down to 4 players. Chipleader then exits the other 3 players to retain his chip-lead as we enter heads-up. Checking the prizes - €500 for 1st and €350 for 2nd I decided both were equally good to take... and open shoved with air a few times, limped in with decent hands but had to fold to CL's pot-size bets after I hit nothing. Showing a couple of bluffs I vowed not to fold the next decent hand. Reducing the chiplead to a 60-40 margin in my favour, I limp in on button with KdQd, chipleader shoves and I insta-call to see him table 52o. My king-high holds to give me victory! GG, WP, Good night etc.

At last a 1st place win too!

This week we have the Irish Deaf Poker's Deepstack Classic II festival with 40 registered players, including 8 Swedish players and 1 UK player joining us. The Swedish will arrive on Thursday and want to meet up for a 1/2 NL cash game(!) So this win is very much appreciated!

Hero-calling with high cards sure pay off well! ;-D

At last a win to report!

2009-10-22T21:59:00.002+01:00

LOL! Here's the best news: I finally broke the Voodoo Final Table curse I've been carrying on me! Nowt big to boast about mind but a 2nd place finish for €205 in the Voodoo Ladbroke's €15+15 game is not to be sneezed at consider my dismal run in the last few months...

For those of you coming to this blog late, I've reached the final table in 90% of the MTT tournaments I've played in the Voodoo over the past two months ... and only cashed once - winning my buy-in back(!) I would have given up on the place but Derek, Adam, Nick and the crew are so nice, you won't find any place more friendly or welcoming in Dublin. Plus its full of fish attracted to the low buy-in games (as well as some good friends too!) the banter is brilliant and the cafe rivals the Fitz with the great selection (and value) of food on offer.

I had no plans to play the Wednesday Ladbookes sponsored game as Irish Deaf Poker had arranged a last minute satt game that the Voodoo agreed to host for us. I had an ulterior motive that I'll go into in a moment... We had with one free ticket added (thanks to a generous Susie Woosie who donated her ahem, winnings from the Ladies League the previous Thursday) I had aimed this Satt at the girls, but with only two of them interested/available, I had no option but throw it open to all IDP players.

The €10+5FO was only advertised to the players on Tuesday night, I had 8 replies. Ah well - one table is good enough to go ahead... I informed Nick of the numbers and the fact I would be late (I teach a basic computer class to Deaf adults in the Irish Deaf Society every Wednesday night - with a babysitter already booked for the night I tend to take advantage of a live game afterwards...) I was delighted walking in to find 13 players already playing with several short/big stacks already; we were €10 short of a 3rd ticket so I suggested the first person knocked out be allowed to re-buy for €10... all agreed!

Already blinded down by almost 25% of my stack I had a struggle getting back to a even keel on a horrible table with Frank G (brilliant aggro-LAG) two to my left and Glen da Fish (think of an Eddie the Eagle type who just won't fold his bottom pair...) in button to my BB calling every raise going both running over the table! If one wasn't in the pot by river, the other was(!) I barely held up til we were down to the final 8...

Still nursing the shortest stack and getting irritate by the shoddy standard the game was heading going by the early exit of good players by the hands of Frank/Glen's rubbish holdings. I started eyeing up the Ladbrokes Tournament wishfully, where some of the exited IDP players had drifted into... talking it over with Trish who was just out of the game, with only 5 minutes to the break/the end of the buy-in period. Whether it was worth joining at this stage getting 6k chips while blinds were 100/200 and let my stack get blinded down til I went in. She said yes, but I hummed hawed...

The 47 registered players made it such a juicy pot I so wanted IN; making a decision to shove with the next 'best' hand - if I win, I stay on this table and take home a ticket to the deepstack; if I lose - well, I take a shot at the other tournament. Couple hands later I raised pre from CO-1 with Kh4h (I blame Cat O'Neill for this one!) for 60% of my stack... Frank G using his massive stack as usual threw-in a huge handful of 500 chip's then gave a start in horror when he realised I was in the pot... sensing a weakness, I knew it would be a coin flip so all-in I went. Frank tables A10o, flop comes two low hearts, turn was 10c but no heart or king on the river to save me... I duly skipped off to join the Ladbookes tournament.

Within 25 minutes I was down to a miserable 1,600, shoved on button with muck two limpers and blinds all folded(!) 2,300 going into BB 150/300(!) Had a player dogging me big time in two pots, snapping off my raises or calling then hitting... Urgh! Finding Kh10h in BB, UGT made a min-raise to 600, with no less than 4 callers by the time it came back to me. With 5 players in the pot - I elected to call, rather than shove.... Flop came 9h8h4x... I had pre-checked dark, UTG made a continuation bet of €500, 2 other callers before it came back to me. I called, vowing to shove the turn - which was a 10... UTG and MP (IDP's Mark McLaughlin) called. Declan who was on Button then shoved all-in, Urgh! UTG called and Mark reluctantly folded. Both Declan and UTG showed 76o for straight but the beautiful Ah fell on river to keep me alive and over starting stack for the first time since the game started.

It was all upward from here... I was joint 2nd chipleader starting out with 21,500, the average player was on 18k; chipleader was on circa. 32k. After exiting some shorties including Tom Maguire who shoved with K10 into my A10. Limping in with As8s hoping to get action, 4 players and flop comes A high with 2 clubs and possible straight. Roy Keating (IDP Player is in BB and shoves, BB (uber tight player) insta-calls for 40% of his stack, he looked like he was going to raise pre- but checked instead. Other player folds after a dwell, smelling a rat I folded reluctantly - my only option would have to push which would have put me under 20k if he calls and wins. There was still 7 players left with 4 getting paid. Roy tables Jc4c for one pair/flush draw, and BB tables Qc9c. No club comes on turn or river but the 9 on River seals the pot for BB. Urgh! Bad fold me!

I was getting feck all action to my raises, which was fine when I was bluffing but in fact I had AA, KK, QQ... I was basically stealing blinds and not getting paid good, limping in and mini-raising pot was causing them to insta fold(!) Limping with a bluff hand (96s) from MP with one caller behind and shortie goes all-in on button for 3xBB; BB and caller folds, I'm looking at getting 3-to-1 for my money here playing a coin flip that Frank Grace would not hesitate to play and thus elected to call. Shortie wins of course but I get a lot of grief for my call(!) After that I get a lot of action and quickly became chipleader on 70k when we get down to 4 handed.

I lose two key races and was sitting on a 2-1 deficit by the time I got to HU with the players who started FT with 32k, but remained very quietly under the radar. In HU he min-raised every pot... I went totally card dead! Getting 73, 94, 82 etc I had no choice but lay down my hands to the raises, any raises I called, I was missing the flop and facing a huge bet... in 15 minutes the deficit had grown a sick 8-1(!) Clawing it back 5-1 with a couple of all-ins I checked to see a flop KQ5, holding 95s and two suits on the board I shoved. CL insta-called with KQ... board bricks and I'm out in 2nd place. WP Sir... a couple of players watching the match pointed out that my HU play was very weak - I should have shoved in a lot of spots, but with hardly any read on the CL plus card death I was at a disadvantage for shoving.

I won't complain about 'only' winning €204 while CL got €350-odd - I'm so grateful to get some confidence in my play back! Need to put some much needed work into my end game strategy - especially HU before the Deepstack next week. Couple of nights with Dan Harrington me thinks.

Putting €50 on cash table I rolled it up to €175 before the tiredness kicked in and had to call it a night. A €300 profit after buy-ins, tips, and wee blackjack flutter is good enough for me!

On the poker front I was working at the IPO last weekend - which marked my 2nd anniversary of dealing, my third IPO too. Every year I promise I will play it 'next year' but when the time comes I'm always asked to work - and it's hard to say no, especially if you aren't bankrolled for this! Its a top notch festival and I really enjoyed working it - took me a few days to recover naturally! Finishing early on Sunday just before the FT started - I rushed home to follow the live streaming supporting two players: Cat O'Neill one of the familiar female faces on the scene that I deal a lot to (and regard as personal hero) played an incredible game considering the wild field of 1400-odd players she had to wade through, as a female bounty player no less, this made her an attractive target for all the mad LAGs! The closer she got to the FT, I had her pegged to take it down but the pokah gods are cruel with their hands. Still exiting in a respectable 4th place is still impressive, I was so thrilled for her! Bravo Cat! One local player that I play on the pub circuit with - Mark Troy, who won his buy-in via a DPN €40 satt came an impressive 3rd for a cool €33k payday... WP Sir! Goes to show even the decent small-time players can do well sometime! Hope for me yet... LOL!

There's less than 8 days left to IDP's Deepstack Classic Festival... my first festival as chairperson of IDP. We have 41 players registered, a tad small compared to the record breaking 75 players we had last year... but we do have a recession so I'm not going to get worked up about it. Bring it on, boys!

Getting there... getting there!

2009-10-13T23:23:00.001+01:00

I've been consistently going deep in practially all my games over in past few weeks, right to the final table even, but apart from a few small cashes, best being a 4th place €170 win, it's getting disheartening...

I did have one 2nd place win: at Dublin Poker Night's €40 10-player SnG Satt for the Cavan Open. David (Afex on Boards) won the €220 ticket while I crashed into second place for €165 after starting HU as chipleader with 3-1 lead! I actually busted out in the second hand of the game with AK, AK3 on board and Ollie shoved over my 4-bet on flop with trip 3s and rivered a house just to rub my nose in it... Thankfully as first out I was allowed to re-buy. And carefully fought my way to chipleader and remained there until HU. Ah sure €85 up is better than being €80 down!

Was advised to check out the €30FO deepstack game in Fitzpatricks on Tuesday nights. Venturing in last week they had 46 players with 5 places paid out; got to final table with average stack in danger of getting blinded out when I min-raised with A8s, Marie called me from SB then Tom (TM on Boards) shoved All-In from the BB. I had him covered but Marie (older woman, Fitz regular) was chipleader - I shoved over the top of Tom to isolate, and Marie folds. Tom shows AQo I hit my straight on the flop but got piped by his Ace for runner-runner flush to leave me with <3BB. Next hand finding K8s UTG+1, I shoved, action folded back to IDP player Frank Grace in BB, he called with the monster 94o: 9 on flop, 4 on river and I was gone in 6th place... Our Frank went on to split it HU with Marie. WP mate! Was back in Fitzpatrick's this week and exited 9th... first hand of the final table(!)

Played the €50+5 FO in the Sporting last Sunday, I choose the SE because I knew there was a €1,500 guarantee plus with 2-3 tables it wouldn't go on all night. Ha! Little did I know what would happen... With a nice overlay to aim for, there was 3 tables with 37 players. I was happy with how I played, picked up AA no less than three times in the first 2 levels but didn't get paid much with them but it sorted my image for the rest of the game and allowed me to bluff in a couple key hands! Til I lost big holding KK to LAG's raggy ace that rived an 'Ace from Space' and enduring total card death before getting to final table as the shortest stack. Picked my spots well and won enough chips to survive, grabbed the chiplead briefly when we got down to five handed. But the previous owner took them back once the bubble busted. It took almost 2 hours from start of FT til the bubble was busted! had I known that I wouldn't have played there! Tiredness started kicking in, as well as being over-conscious of the time (it was way past 1am at this stage) made me play a little looser. Losing 60% of my stack overvaluing AJs against AKs in a raise-reraise-shove-blind-on-blind action... I then shoved next hand with my remaining 6-7BBs from SB with A4 into BB's 77, the sevens hold and I'm gone in 4th for €170... Kinda glad I left when I did, heard the game continued for another hour or so! Any later and I would not have got up for work next morning! I still think I would have easily won this but for the lateness of the game...

The Voodoo Card Club has become my new base! Apart from the nearest club to my home, the staff are so friendly, the food is good and the tournaments are excellent value... the Ladies League on Thursday nights are great craic! I keep reaching final tables in 3 out of 4 games that I've played here too, but truth be told I've only cashed ONCE! Meh! Next time, I'm going to do a 'Paul Fox' and fold into the money on FT before I play a bloody hand...

Cash action was sick... I swear I find the worse of the on bingo tables on offer, I do! Was dealing in Killarney (the worse job to date IMO, but I digress) and got signed off early one night, missed the bus back to the hotel, got bored waiting around so went into the cash room. Spun €60 into €300-odd with the nut flush, was about to leave when I decided to play my BB the very next hand, a Drunk in CO had raised to 10, button and SB called, finding 99 naturally I call too. Flop comes 962 (wheeeeee!) I bet out on all streets as drunk calls, until 6 hits the river and the drunk shoves. I called to see him table 66(!) Urgh... lost €165 in that hand. WP Sir. Later after grinding my cash back up to €235, when this hand happened: Drunk was still on table, player to his left had been replaced by a new player who was calling every hand, EVERY raise with ATC and hitting. I limped in with Ad3d in MP for a family pot of €20 to see a flop: Jd2d3h - action checks to drunk who does his usual slow act, while he was waffling, Mad Player throws in €30. Drunk loses it: “HEY! f*#@ing bloody cheek of ya, it was MY go! I bet ya got nuthin’! I’m ALL-IN... lets see if ya call now!” Mad player replies ‘yeah... I call’. Next player goes all-in... I was stunned. Facing a huge pot with the nut-flush-draw getting 3 to 1 for my money plus I had them all covered apart from the drunk by €20 odd, didn't stop me from shoving my stack over... praying one time please! But the board bricks, CO shows 5d4d, mad player has J6o while other player shows AsQs; the mad player's pair of Jack holds for a cool €1k pot while I accept the small side-pot. I just gave up and left... This beat has really put me off playing cash.

Online I'm up/down - played one of the Irish Poker Rankings Online game and came 4th, missed it the following two weeks when I couldn't register due to a cake software issue; played again a couple weeks later and was gone before first level with QQ-v-AA... went on uber-tilt two weeks ago and cleaned my online accounts out playing total shite. So couldn't play the last game. But last I saw I was hanging on 5th or 6th in the overall list.... WP to Doke for topping the list - there's no stopping this guy!

Have decided if I don't get a decent live touch soon - I'm going to take a break for a while as I genuinely can't afford to keep playing... with the 2nd November as my cut-off point.

The Irish Deaf Poker 2nd Annual Deepstack Classic Festival is almost up on us, since Ciaran's departure I've been pulling out the stops to get the game off the ground and drum up the players to play it. With 17 days left and only 31 players registered, and 10 of them are non-Irish! At our recent IDP 'Super Satt' night in the Deaf club - 4 of the 6 ticket winners demanded cash instead of the ticket(!) We have until 26th October to get 50 deaf players, the committee have decided if IDP don't get this minimum number then we will open the game to hearing players. Me thinks they'll play just fine among us deafies - I'll film our Frank signing the table signs for them to learn and throw in an ISL version of 'Bing Bang Blaow' to be sure! LOL - now that will be fun to do!

See you at the tables!

Bubble... Bubble... Toil and Trouble!

2009-09-17T19:35:00.001+01:00

It's been an up and down summer... more downs than ups... more bad beats and sticky situs than I care to remember! I'm getting to the point that I'm playing a consistently losing game, going deep but bubbling within a few yards of the cash - the bad variance is constant. I'm growing deep into a minus profit figure and it's bugging me: "I'm losing my touch here... what the hell is happening?!!"

Taking a valuable stepback I recently noticed a few key factors attributing to the constant downswing:

1 - I'm not paying sufficient attention to hands any more, especially post-game, as I used to. I'm letting them go without going over the action in my head, analysing them, putting them through pokerstove and recalculating the M, questioning myself how I should have played it differently, was it the correct move for me? I've been switching off to the extent that I can't remember the details the next day! A bad omen. The main reason I've been switching off is to stop myself from losing the rag with moronic people calling me with atrocious holdings and hitting them and/or putting myself into tilt and throwing my chips away.

2 - I've widened my range waaaay too much! I blame all the bad beats for this one honest! When you see some donk win with 69o in MP calling your raises holding K10s on button: pre-, post-flop and all-in on the turn with a board that reads 7710 K only to spike an 8 on the river to complete his gutshot and wallop you out of the game. Only natural that I see them bloody 69 a couple of games later and decide to hop along and bluff with them, but hit zilch! Of course I DID get lucky a few times with similar equally atrocious holdings: the most memorable being 7d4d shoving on turn to an all diamond board, and getting called by trips Kings and a straight... to treble me up to glares and tuts, BUT my raise holding AA a few hands later in the same game didn't garner any respect from the table and put me back into short stack nijia mode... Back to ABC poker for me!

3 - Playing online while doing other stuff - not paying proper attention to the game. I prefer playing SnG/MTTs rather than cash - I don't have the nous for playing cash online. This hard-hitting well-written post on Boards was a reality smack in the face, as I read down the list I was guilty of all these errors! Urgh! So now the TV stays off, no website open, etc. AND When the table is on a break I get up and take a break too. Aside: The preservance paid off with a 4th place finish in the new Irish Poker Online Rankings game on 9th September, even if I was a tad loose on the final table taking advantage of position more than anything else and annoying the hell out of one of the players (and taking 65% of his stack in the process) The same player then started dogging me, shoving into all my raises and berating me in the chat box, once the bubble burst after a long play 5-handed I was happy to call his shove with 88 only to see his 104s river a flush and I was out 4th... the other players then ganged up to push him out in 3rd.

4 - I've stopped reading HHH Theory sections in poker forums, poker books and other online sources. I used to devour these! Anything new I read I would put into practice, more than often with good results. This could be a key point why my game is in a rut. I'm not switching gears as often I should, I'm not respecting the images of the other players and 'quiting while I'm still ahead', I'm not picking my spots as well as I should. I've three poker books on loan from friends - I need to take some time out from poker, brush up on my theory and read them!

5 - There's a lot of personal crap going on elsewhere in my life: I had a serious life-threatening illness in July that put me in hospital for 10 days, thankfully I have recovered well from it (and no, it wasn't Swine Flu! LOL!) I am due to have a cochlear implant this November a very scary and emotional for me. I've had a lot of courtroom-tussles with my Ex; this has been ongoing for past 3.5 years but he stepped up the pressure BIG time this year; thankfully, it seems like Justice is prevailing for me at last! My work is busier than usual, the amount of people who use our service have increased sharply and we are already feeling the strain in an unforgiving economic climate. How can I reason and fight for a client who got full ISL interpreting for 30-hour week education course last year now can only get a maximum of 80 hours for ONE year?! It's very hard to sit down at a table and play with all these stress-factors on top of you...

Last night I was in a mood for a game - posting a request for recommendations on Facebook; I got some great suggestions: New AK Club opening night in Maynooth (sounds great but not going into a club I've never been before on my ownio!) Voodoo Ladbrookes €15+15 night with Roy the Boy in attendance; Fitzwilliam with €25r/b game (I don't have a lot of tournament luck in the Fitz plus the huge size of the field always means a late finish - impractical for working gal like me); Freeroll plus 2nd Irish Poker Rankings Online game on BrucePoker; JJP's €2k 'guaranteed' game. Considering I had a 4th place to defend in the IPR game and a $700 freeroll sounds good... I choose that.

Rushing home I logged on to register, saw both listings beside each other, a quick look on the IPR game showed 5 players registered including Doke and Smurph. I clicked on the freeroll, registered for that - saw the other freeroll for a ticket to Bruce game on Sunday in Carlow (I'm in Limerick this Sunday - detour on the way home maybe??) reg'ed for that too... came back to the listings and ... the green highlighted IPR game was gone? Impossible! I searched everywhere, nothing. Noticed that no MTTs were showing from 8:35pm to 00:00am - urgh? Another blip on Cake? Contacted Smurph, it was still showing on her PC. Logged off, restarted and tried again - still not showing. Contacted support - 'Try uninstalling the software and reinstalling it..." FFS! I gave up - switched off the laptop got in my car and drove to Voodoo; was there in 15 minutes!

Voodoo club is lovely, nice set up and a great pub (Ryans) to the back of it. After a warm welcome from Paul and Adam I was assigned to Roy the Boy's table, the game had already 10 mins gone on the clock when I sat down to BB. Second hand I had 77 in SB button; BB was dead stack, UTG raised to 250, Roy was UTG+1 and re-raised to 750. Action folded to me I flatted putting Roy on a aggro-move with any two (well.... I did read his book you know! LOL!) UTG shoved, Roy insta-called and I insta-mucked! UTG showed AA and Roy had KK and sucked out with a K on the river. Facing a re-buy UTG was €5 short of necessary funds, Roy instantly jumped up and opened his wallet and put the €5 on the table 'pffft'ing off UTG's offer to 'pay him back later'. Really decent of Roy IMO.

One orbit later, blinds 75-150 I had Ks10s on button LAG in MP raised 350, three callers, I called for value. BB comes along for ride. Flop comes 8sQs3x, actions checks to me. Betting out 700, leaving 1100 behind, initial raiser calls as others folded. As comes on turn, raiser checks I insta-shove, he calls after a dwell announcing trips tabling 33, I show my flush. But the board pairs and I'm looking for my 2nd chance 2k chips. Playing tight, I get to final table having grinded my stack up to 3,900 with small pots here/there; paying out 3 places. I get blinded down to 2,850 when I find AQs in SB. Shortie in CO shoves 66, I have him covered and shove. I was stunned when BB with 4.8k calls with A9s leaving himself with less than 2k(!) A9 on board and I'm toast in 6th or 7th place. Meh! Voodoo is an Aquarium waiting to be tapped! Well worth a visit, definitely a 2nd... or more!

To summarise: if my actions to get out this rut works then my big win is just around the corner! If it doesn't happen... I'll copy Susie and take a long break from Poker!

Wonderful News!!!! (I Love Spam)

2009-09-10T17:40:00.003+01:00

MANAGING PARTNER ROGER FLETCHER BAKER SOLICITORS & Co
326-328 Old Street London,
EC1V 9DR
England

ATTENTION:

I am Roger Baker, an attorney at law. A deceased client of mine, that shares the same last name as yours, died as a result of a heart-related condition on March 12th 2005. His heart condition was due to the death of all the members of his family in the tsunami disaster on the 26th December 2004 in Sumatra Indonesia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

I am contacting you to seek your consent to present you as the next of kin to my late client. He has a deposit of Seventeen Million Five hundred Thousand Dollars (US$17,500,000) left behind.
This will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. If this business proposition offends your moral values, do accept my apology.

I can be reached on :rfbchambers11@gmail.com

Sincerely Yours,
Barrister Roger Baker.
Attorney at Law

Email : rfbchambers11@gmail.com
Tel : +447599873786

******************
WOW!

Looks like I'll be playing in all the big buy-ins now, plus a few of the WSOP events, anyone have the contact details for the EPT organisers?

Must draft up my letter of resignation for my Boss!

Wait... do you guys think I'd be better off asking for a career break after all it is only $17.5m (€11m) ... I just fear it might be gone in two years... I could spend a million a month at the tables very easily, so I might be glad to have the auld job to fall back on?

Just thought it was fair to give you pros some advance warning before I'm set loose with the cash...

I'm rich!!!!

Falling flat on my face....

2009-08-28T12:32:00.004+01:00

I had the biggest 'Urgh!!!' night of the year last night...

The Fitzwilliam End of Month game was on last night, decided to try a Satt myself a ticket; joined a €60, 10 player Satt for 2 tickets, was in MP when I found Ad10d in the 4th/5th hand dealt. I hadn't played any hands at this stage. One limper plus the blinds (25/50) I raised to 200. Player next to me (old guy - plays very wide range) calls, Phil (PGodkin on Boards.ie) re-raises to 800. I've played Philip before, he often re-raises if he has position with any ace/pairs, as action folded back to me I felt my holding was good and I flat called leaving myself with 700 behind. Flop comes QdJd8h; I had a nice clean inside straight draw, flush draw and straight flush draw - with 17 outs, I shipped! Phil insta-called with AcKs... then groaned when he saw my hand... But no diamond, never mind a king or nine, to save me and Phil is fist-pumping as his better kicker holds to put me first out of the Satt(!) Urgh!!!

Denise offers me another Satt but I declined - instead I asked to join the list for a cash table... Playing 1/2 PLHE cash, I raised to €10 UTG+2 with two black 7s, MP, CO and Button calls to see a flop of 8s9s10s. I checked along with MP, CO bets 50, Button ships for 180 approx... I'm in a spot. I WANT to call the Button, an awful LAG, who I had pegged as chasing a A high flush draw with one pair on the board but CO's raise just scared me more as a good hand. All I had was 2 outs to beat him... my instincts were screaming at me to call! Showing my cards to the players on either side of me, I folded after a dwell. CO insta-calls the all in, as the dealer deals the SICKEST card on the turn: 6s(!) Button shows As9x as I predicted, and takes the pot, while CO had trips... Urgh!!!

But wait... there's more...

Irish Poker Radio asked me for a brief interview to talk about IDP, I agreed until I saw the questions! It was more about ME than IDP... eek! The interview was being recorded in the Fitzwilliam in the corner where the €50 Blackjack table is... I nearly chickened out, but demurred and spent the whole afternoon preparing my answers etc. But when I arrived my mind went blank and all my well prepared answers went out the window! I just hope I don't sound like an idiot! Nicky O'D and Iain were lovely, putting me at ease, reassuring me it was grand etc. It'll be a while before they show the interview, they will have a hard task editing out all my 'ummms' and 'errrs' making sense out of my speech, LOL! Nicky has kindly promised me a few transcripts from the show so that deaf/hard of hearing poker lovers can follow what was said. I'll put them up on IDP website when I get them...

Just as I said my goodbyes - I turned swiftly around to go back to the tables, slipped on the tiles and fell spectacularly flat on my face...

Urgh!!!!

Ciarán Moloney Tribute Night (photos now on IrishDeafPoker.com!)

2009-08-11T01:25:00.001+01:00

For years, Cee had been dreaming about taking time off work and travelling the world. Getting a team place on the Irish Squad for Taipei Deaflympics was the Push he needed to achieve that dream... Going travelling means he has to step down from the IDP, so muggins here has been nominated to take over from him (pending official approval from the members of course!) My first job was to organise a good send off for him.

Finding a suitable date to suit everyone was almost impossible but August 8th was the one and only date that no one had an excuse for! After asking around, checking Boards to ensure our event didn't clash with anyone else's, confirming it with the Jackpot etc., I posted the event up, bombarded people and spammed everyone I knew about the event. Then the proposed Joan Vickers' Fundraiser in the new Voodoo club on the same night, was announced a mere few days later. I was disappointed, as I would have loved to attended that Joan was always big at supporting women playing poker; the Fundraiser raised almost €2,000 for the family - kudos to those who organised it. I notice the Fitz have a Memorial game for her later on this year - will definitely be attending that.

As I arrived in the Jackpot on Saturday evening, there were very few people around, I had a list of 28/29 pre-reg names but 7/8 players texted me with excuses at the last minute, disappointing but what can you do? I notice the Jackpot staff were telling drop-ins that the event was a 'private-game for deaf players only' I stepped in quickly and informed them that it was open to all players not just IDP. Cee plays far more with hearing players than deaf, we were not closing the ranks for them if they wanted to come along and wish him well while having a go at tackling his bounty... Plus the more money in the pot the happier the IDP players will be!

The game finally kicked off at 8:30 with 18 players, Cee was fashionably late as per usual. Three more latecomers joined us after the 1st level, with a final entry in the 2nd level to bring us to a total of 23 players.

My game started with the two luckboxes running over my table basically calling pre-flop raises with any two cards and hitting the board sickeningly-goot! E.g. my AsQs were no good against K4o on a AKsx4sx board(!) I was down to less than half the starting stack by the 2nd level...

On Cee's table the action was flying, no doubt punctuated by the added treat of the bounty on his head! Cee was playing more TAG'ish rather than the LAG game he's usually known for in the IDP, but no one was paying attention! With all his raises getting snapped off left right and centre! The Bounty Hand came sooner than anticipated and the entire room stopped playing to watch the race to Cee's table...

Tim Grace was in BB with 12k approx, blinds 75/150, Andy Smith had 10k and opened with a standard raise from UTG+2. Finding AAs Cee shoved for 3k (approx) from CO-1 Tim insta-flattened as did Andy. Flop came J10x. Tim checked, Andy shoved and Tim called. Andy showed AK for straight draw and Tim tabled a horrendous KJo! But much to Cee's disgust the turn brought the suited Jack, to give Andy more outs for flush/straight-flush draw as well as trips for Tim... Cee started roaring for the remaining Ace but no... The sickest card of all came on the turn - Jack - giving luckbox Tim runner-runner quads, the €100 bounty and the added privilege of knocking Cee FIRST out of the game!

I felt sorry for Cee, especially as it's his 'night', Cee's mate Declan suggested that Cee be allowed to rebuy. I agreed, announcing to the players that Cee and Andy (couldn't exclude Andy as he was knocked out same time as Cee) would be allowed to re-buy because of the Bounty hand; but no one else can re-buy. It also boosted the prize pool to a nice €750 - not too bad for a €33 buy-in!

At the break the IDP made a presentation to Cee, amid thunderous applause and cheers, we had a fun card using various indiscriminating photographs, a special framed appreciation in honour his work to IDP over the past 3 years, plus €100 toward a buy-in to poker game of his choice. After a brief speech from Cee thanking people for coming, telling us how he set up IDP, its growth from strength to strength, with approx 30 'regular' IDP players (maximum ever was 37 but we have 47 listed IDP members to date) and the honour of our biggest event with 70 deaf players last November including those from Sweden, UK and Finland.

Cee will be a hard act for me to follow in IDP!

Unfortunately I didn't get to the final table, after a much needed triple up with AK against same K4o fish holding A3 on a AK3xx board, I went on downward spiral finally eliminated by Mark McLaughlin on Button to my BB. As action had folded around to him, he raised to 2,100 (blinds 200/400), Lorraine was in SB (playing ultra-tight) insta-folded. Putting him on a steal, Mark had been bullying the table with his huge 30k+ stack, I found A10o with had barely 11.5xBBs left, I decided to shoved. It was 'Ugh!' seeing his AK! No help from the board and Mark's AK holds.

One of the IDP regs looked at me as the chips were pushed toward Mark and signed to his mate "Watch, this is where QueenJ gets angry! Right?" I looked over at him and laughed - "Angry? Why would I be angry? I got beaten by a superior hand not a mickey mouse crap that YOU usually call me with! Well played Mark..." Mark went on to exit in 5th place.

Cee made it to the final table too only to crash in 8th place courtesy of David Bowers. Bowers must have been in cahoots with dealer as she kept dealing him AA (twice!), KK, AK and the nutz in EVERY single hand! There were 5 places being paid out (€350, €190, €100, €50, €50 in that order...) but Bowers refused to negotiate any deals, refused to allow money off top to pay out 6th place, or increase 4th place etc. Karma has a way of working on people like that. The dealer was changed when it went down to 3 handed and the Bowers-winning-streak was halted. Geoff Foy exited in 3rd place, leaving Bowers and David 'Muffman' Mulligan to play heads-up, Muffman went from a 3-1 underdog to a worthy winner shoving Bowers into the shade!

I went over to join the 50c/1€ side cash table, but the IDP bog standard of play continued here. Putting €50, I barely made it up to €60 after 2 tough orbits, when I called a MP's €2 min-raise with 4s5s from BB along with 6 others. Flop came Js,4,5; I raised to pot €14; Andy Smith who was UTG to my left, flat called as did MP raiser. Turn 8s giving me flush draw, I shoved for my remaining €43/44, Andy insta-called and other player tanked for a while before folding. The river was non-spade 6, and Andy tables 77 for sick runner-runner straight... Meh! The initial raiser announced that he had "10,10"... Welcome to IDP(!)

Too lazy to go to the ATM, I borrowed €50 from JamesR, and whacked that up to €125 thanks to Cee mainly, raising and re-raising with my 109s to his 107o on a 10,10,8,J,x board (sorry Cee!) before the table broke. Gave JamesR back his €50 then wandered over to the €1/€2 cash table and ran my €75 up to €325 in 1.5 hours before calling it a night at 5am. Should have done that in the first place... LOL!

Profit aside, I had a good night, it was great game for everyone...

Just hope Cee had fun too! Now, go and enjoy your travels mate, and be sure to do us proud in Taipei (as the Goalie with the Irish Squad) just keep your eyes off the local girls and don't let the big balls in!!! Please make sure you come home in one piece too, Cee!

On behalf of IDP: Big ups to Paul and all his crew in the Jackpot for their fantastic support! The staff did a sterling job making great effort signing throughout the game, it was noted. We got very positive feedback from the IDP players, they asked me to thank the dealers, the TD, the serving girls for all the drinks and the lovely spread at the break. Last but not least: a heartfelt 'thank you' to all the players that came along for Cee...

Next week is the Annual Vera Duffy Classic in the Sporting Emporium, I have great memories of playing in this last year - will be donating again for sure!

See you all at the tables!

Horrid July so far... and I'm not talking about the weather!

2009-07-28T00:43:00.005+01:00

July has been horrible, apart from the recession doom and gloom I had the worse month since February, poker-wise. I took ill suddenly at work and was blue-lighted to hospital. After a day or two I was fine, but they fcuked up on some tests, so I ended up being kept in much longer, 8 days longer, than I should have with the meds spacing me out. I was so bored on sick leave I played far more poker than usual - nothing to show for it...

Went to the Fitz for the Sunday freeze-out games - never really got going in either. Jackpot re-buy had just started so Susie and I went to check it out. With only two tables - I played solidly. Tracksuit Tommy came in when this hand happened: I was UTG+2, UTG and UTG+1 limped in, I was sitting on 15/16k Ah4h and called to see the flop. Two other limper and the blinds came for the ride, blinds were 300/600 and we were down to one table at this stage. Flop comes 6 high two hearts plus gut-show straight for me. UTG checks, UTG+1 (one of the Jackpot reg) throws in 3.5k, more than 2/3 the pot... I elected to flat call, the other player folded. Turn brings the heart I need to complete my flush. UTG+1 checks, I fire out 5k, he starts muttering angrily then makes the call. River is another heart UTG bets out 3k, I shove for 6k, he had me covered by 3/4k. Turning over my hand he insta-mucks then attacks my play, "How can you call my 3.5k bet with that shite?!" I pointed out that he had limped in, which allowed me to see the flop for cheap, there was this HUGE discussion on whether he made the 'right call' on the turn/river with all the Jackpot regs agreeing in his favour bar one who consiprationally whispered to me that the particular reg was 'a sore looser' who HATED being put in his place by a 'woman poker player'. Tracksuit Tommy jumped on the bandwagon and started criticising both Susie's and my standard of play, obviously thinking he was taking advantage of our deafness. But Susie was able to hear every word and of course relayed it to me. Needless to say that tosser lost my respect big time. As the Sore Loser lost the rest of his chips and stormed over the cash table - he kept going on, and on, and on about his poor Kings(!) But the incident didn't do us much favours - as we went down to the last 5 players, the game went very slow over 2-3 hours. I exited in 5th place, after losing my chips to a slow-played trips and Susie got raped into 3rd place by the blinds; with just two cash prizes (€210 & €410) we tried in vain to make a deal but the Regs were having none of it. It was really agonising for Susie to bubble like that... We don't play that often in the Jackpot, but a wee bit of consideration would have went a long way in ensuring we go back to play there a more. Between the Sore Loser and the Faithful Regs we declined the cash table and called it a night.

Vegas Night had a €35+5 game in Clonee with a 2k guarantee prize fund. It was my first time attending, I've dealt for Nick a couple of times, he runs a brilliant game. I was very happy with how I played it had a great image on the tables and had garnered a LOT of respect, until we reached the last three tables. At that stage I had a 58k stack (average stack 32k), the game had turned into a crapshoot. On reflection I should have settled-in and tightened up at this stage, as the majority of the players were in 'all-in or fold' mode. As it was I lost with three hands AIPF: AQs v A3 that caught a straight on the flop, AK into JJ turned trips and 77 into 10,10. Great game though... I'll be back to play it tomorrow, knowing what to expect but with a better game plan that hopefully will work!

I had to go home to Roscommon at the weekend, between grave cleaning and turning the turf (oh my back!) I managed to find time to check out a couple of local games, plus the 2009 Roscommon Championship. The pub game was a strange one - the game was the traditional NLHE but the betting structure was similar to 7-Card Stud. Confused? Yes I was too and missed several key points trying to get my head around it! The player to the left dealer (in SB) puts out the 'blind' (which doubles every 15 mins! 5-10-20-40-80-160-320 etc) and the Blind is the first to act! He/She opens for a minimum of 5, other players who want to play must call or raise this amount. If the Blind checks then all the players will see a flop for free and can win the blinds money(!) If there is a re-raise pre-flop, then the action starts with the raiser post-flop. Aside from the confusion it was an enjoyable game, the standard was awful, lots of limping and giant stacks going to war with all-ins on J4 and K6... and hitting of course! The most embarrassing thing was: I knew everyone sitting on that table - among the 10 were two ex-boyfriends, one teenage crush object and two 'not-wee-any-more' boys that I actually used to babysit(!) LOL! Cue free drinks for moi all night...

After the pub game ended, I joined my mother in another pub before walking home together. She was playing 5 card draw for 50c. One player had to leave early so Mum took his place and his cards ordering me to take her hand for the 'last hand' of the night. Picking up the cards I got 6-7-7-9-9, I was informed that "6s and 3s were wild and we needed 3s or better to open".... "Sure, I can open..." the remaining players all started at me. "You have 3s or better?" I nodded, as they discarded/collected cards, I declined any cards. Cue more hard looks, then one player points out that I was to 'open the bet or check' seeing €7.50 already on the table I picked up €2 from my mum's stack of coins. She frowned crossly at me, I replaced it, picked up €1, she shook her head took it off me. "50c bets only!" "Oh... Okay I bet 50c..." one by one they all called with their various explanations:
"No offence, don't think you have anything there... Call"
"She's making mistakes, doesn't know what she's doing... I'll call"
"Tut-tut, I shall call her bluff too... "
Mum folded of course, she was looking nervous at this stage... As I lay my house on the table - one by one they all folded, you could have cut the air with a knife as the €9 pot gets slided over to me! Not one 'Well Played' or 'Nice Hand' did I get(!) LOL - reminds me why I left the bloody town in the first place!

The Roscommon Championship game was in Boyle, 18 miles away over treacherous roads that two school friends met their deaths on, I had spent the morning cleaning my dad's grave for the annual cemetery mass that afternoon so by the time I found the place I was feeling very melancholy. On my first table the standard was pretty average with couple decent players and one eejit calling to see every flop without checking his cards! Going down to 8k from the 11k starting stack, I built my stack back up to 13.5k and had earned a lot of respect when I got moved to the Table of Death. Here there was 5 players, 3 monster stacks, I learnt that 4 players had been dispatched already from this table! Plus the standard was far worse than my previous table!

After raising pre- with two key hands, winning one/losing the other, I was on 15k in going into my 2nd orbit when I got A8s UTG. Limping (blinds 100/200) in to see the 8 high flop (2 spades) with 4 other players, I opted to check to see what would happen. Action checks around to Button who fires out 800, more than 2/3 the pot. I made a bad play, instead of re-raising as I would have done, given the standard I had decided to 'play safe' and flat call. Turn was 9c checking back to button who fires 2k, smelling a rat, I flat called. River was 10d, he fires out 4k I should thrown my cards away and declared myself finished with this hand but no, I made a brain-fart donkey call to see 9s10s. WP sir.

Next hand I'm in BB with AhKc, UTG a loose lag limps in, CO(previous Button villain in above hand) raises to 600, button & SB folds as I re-raise to 2200. UTG calls as does CO. Flop comes J high all hearts, I bet out 2,900 and UTG insta-shoves all-in for 5,600 more, CO folds. I've 5150 behind and tanked. My mind was racing - 12k plus in the pot, with half my money already in I was almost committed. I had no fold equity here had I? Calculating my outs, I had 15 with my nut-flush draw plus two over cards; I had a low opinion of the villain's standard at this point, I knew he played a very wide range. Putting him on a J-7 to JQ, two hearts, low pair 22-55, Plus still tilting from previous hand I felt I couldn't fold. Calling to see villain's J10off I was disgusted! I was more sick when the turn and river bricked on me, not one Out did I hit(!)

After watching the game for another hour, I walked over to the cash table. Here the standard was way worse than the ME! Losing couple of raises when I missed the flop, I With just €48 left, I raised UTG pre- holding QQ and got 6 callers. Flop came 985, rainbow. As blinds checked I shoved with my remaining €40 got two callers, A9o and 97s(!) The latter hit his gut-shot with 6 on river... LOL I had enough of bad beats for one day and drove home feeling worse than I arrived.

Well Done to Stephen (AKA Carfax) who was to my left on the 'Table of Death'; he struggled with a below average stack all day but "luckboxed" (his words not mine - but as it was, only a luckbox would have gotten as far in this game! LOL!) his way to heads-up and split 1st/2nd prize 50-50. WP!

On 8th August IDP are hosting a Tribute game to Ciarán Moloney (AKA Get In There) who is off to Deaflympics and then on his travels at end of August. Cee, as he is affectionately known, is on a strict training regime so alcohol and partying are out! The Jackpot has kindly agreed to allow us have the game there, the buy-in has been kept low to allow the deaf players to come as well as Cee's hearing friends. To make it fun we have a bounty on Cee's head. So far there's 21-23 players confirmed I think we can get 40 players approx. If you are interested in playing, please add your name on facebook or Boards Poker Forum we need to arrange food/dealers.

In the meantime there's 3 days of July left and one game to play. If I bomb out of that... I'll blame the July blues... meh!

"All-In with J5!"

2009-06-29T13:26:00.003+01:00

I'm Giving You On Count Of Three
To Show Your Stuff Or Let It Be...
I'm Telling You Just Watch Your Mouth
I Know Your Game What You're About!

Well They Say The Sky's The Limit
And To Me That's Really True
But My Friend You Have Seen Nothing
Just Wait 'Til I Get Through...

Because I'm Bad...

Michael Jackson 'Bad'

Everyone will remember where they were, what they were doing, who they were with etc, the moment they heard MJ died. I was at a poker table in the Bell pub!

I just lost a big pot betting hard with with 77 into a loose lag who wasn't folding A2 on a 2,8,J,6,A board. As I checked-folded the river, he showed his cards proudly. I had just settled back to 'calm down', check my phone before playing another hand, as a message came in from SusieWoosie simply saying 'F@#k... Michael Jackson is dead'. When I announced the news to the table, they cracked up laughing, they didn't believe me(!) Hearing the banter, the barman switched the TV from horse racing to Sky news and there it was...

I grew up with MJ, he was always 'there', that distinctive high voice. I would recognise him instantly when he came on the radio, wouldn't have a clue which song it was for a few minutes but I recognise him instantly, most deaf people do. I used to be able to do the Thriller dance (don't ask me now - I've forgotten most of it!) and I can still moonwalk, even in my heels! As he got more and more detached from reality, I just switched off but deep down he was a born entertainer who lit up the screen with his amazing dancing! I felt a hint of sadness when he passed away, it was end of an era, another link to my childhood gone.

At the regular IDP night last Saturday, Cee opened the game with a gem of advice: "Hey! In honour of MJ, if you get J5 go allllll-in!" cue laughter! As it was J5 was the nutz! Everyone that played J5 won... I shoved with J5, no callers... shortie goes all-in, I find another J5 and I'm well stacked but passed it, BB called with K7, shortie shows A2 - bad move as it was the flop came 44542! Shortie goes on to win the damn game(!)

€75 down and I decide to hit the Jackpot with Susie for a bit of cash action at 12 midnight, thinking it will be good for usual drunken fish! As we sat down, we notice the cash league final was on, ahhhh there'll be feck all fish playing tonight! Vowing to limit myself to one buy-in, I played solidly and cautiously til 2am, when three drunks joined our table. Left at 4am with €360, not a bad profit for me.

Some notable hands: I just lost a big pot in the previous hand before last betting from the button into a slowplayed monster; when I found A5s in CO-1, limped in, SB raised to €12. BB, MP called. I called as did CO and Button! Flop comes 245, SB (loose lag) bets €30, BB & MP fold, I think for a minute and something just popped into my brian: I just knew he hadn't hit that! I had €79 left, I shoved. CO & Button insta-fold... SB is agonising "Huh?! What the... there's no way you hit that! No... I'm ahead, F#@k, I gonna have to call her... she's got nothing!" He calls, turn shows K and river 8. Just as I think I'm beaten he asks what I have, I table the 5, "and the other card!" he demands. Showing the ace he mucks angrily. Asking him what he mucked "A10" he replied. So kind of him to call me, wasn't it?

Building my stack up to €225, I was in SB with AKs, UTG was an ultra-loose lag open raising several pots. So far I had kept out of hands with him; He opened for €5, 3 callers, by the time it came back to me. I raised to pot - €30, UTG called as did one other player. Flop comes 6 high, no suits, possible straight with 74; I bet out €60. UTG re-raised to €200, practically putting me all-in... I knew I was probably ahead, but knowing how loose he was, he could have over pair, hit his straight, 2 pair or was holding trips at best guess. I folded, perhaps I should have checked, perhaps I should have called the €5 pre- to see the flop rather than play out of position? That one hand bothered me all night.

One orbit later, I find AJ in SB and call UTG's raise along with 4 others, flop comes AJJ! Thinking how to make the most of this, I led out for half the pot, UTG insta-reraised... I flattened... led on on turn and he re-raised to put me all in. I insta-called for a nice little double up against AQ.

Next hand I've KhQh in BB, Button raises to pot, SB re-raises to 30, I call as does button. Flop comes K high, 2 hearts, SB checks, I bet out €50, Button shoves for €80, SB folds as I call to see K6o, I'm miles ahead with the 9h on turn, button is up and gone before the river card is exposed.

I was about to leave when dealer said last hand before breaking the table... I found J5s winking at me, LOL! Gotta play this! 5 on flop, checked all around, J on river, check, check, bet, re-raise, fold, call, two pair beats AJ and pot pushed to me... I'm up to €360, €5 to dealer and I'm heading home!

GG, GN, WP Michael J... Thank you for the memories!

So Listen Up Don't Make A Fight,
Your Talk Is Cheap You're Not A Man,
You're Throwin' Stones To Hide Your Hands!

But They Say The Sky's The Limit
And To Me That's Really True And My Friends You Have
Seen Nothin' Just Wait 'Til I Get Through...

Because I'm Bad!

MIA

2009-06-20T00:10:00.002+01:00

I haven't been playing much lately... The two times I've been playing: I've played well but just got unlucky or crashed just before the final table/cash. Cash game ran goot but then lost the majority in couple of weak spots and donked the rest 'on tilt' mode.

In one game I was away with the family in Fermanagh, ended up visiting Damo72's club in Monaghan town. He has a nice set up, there was no games set for the night I was there but couple of €20 FOs with winner take all, I was fortunate to take down the 2nd game after an epic 1.5hrs long HU with Damo himself (great player) culminating in a sick suck out! Final hand saw me all-in with 66 (after wrestling the chiplead from him by in previous hand) he limped called with AA, flop came 345... A... 7... Ouch! GG! LOL!

Another night I was in mood for a game, DPN had a €35 FO in Bell, I arrived as Robbie was leaving. Not enough players and he had no choice but to cancel the event. I ended up in the Fitz €20+3 FO with 82 runners, I crashed in 40-odd place with 10-10 into SB's min-raised AA. I played damn well that night... just lost my final race to a chipleader with his 3rd or 4th set of aces(!)

I've been avoiding DPN big time since an unpleasant incident with two rude players 5-6 weeks ago; where they reduced me to tears at the end of the night. I've a cheat-dar in my head when it comes to poker, I'm clued-up when I see any evidence that a player is cheating... but when I tried to deal with an issue on this particular night, it got nasty. I haven't been back. I like the DPN, Robbie puts on a good game, the majority of the regs are basic playas with weird notions of the game - it's so easy to cash at least once or twice a month. Had I had the same success in Fitz or Jackpot as I do in the DPN games, I be a legend!!!!

But that's not the reason I stopped playing. Life got in the way!

I celebrated my birthday; I took the family way for a week long break up North, I had my son's second level 2010 entry applications to prepare (yes, already!!!); a new Director of Services at work = more work and responsibilities for muggins here who was too bloody timid to say 'No!'; And the washing machine blew up on me, destroying the wooden floors in the process, thank God for insurance you say 'but my bloody insurance are demanding a list of 20 reports and 100 photographs, before they release a cent!' Grrrr!

I also discovered I was on the wrong tax/PRSI bracket for the past 3 years so a nice payback on the way if only I can find the necessary paperwork among all the clutter to put my claim in! It'll be put straight into my savings account so that Christmas is already taken care of!

There's also another big reason: Over the past year, I've been painful aware of my close friends drifting away, barely seeing them as much as I use to. Because of poker. When my birthday came around recently - I got unexpected visits, lots of beautiful flowers, whiskey and beautiful gifts... I felt so guilty. I really enjoyed catching up with them all!

By fluke I only recently discovered I have a Hendon Mob Page!!! Small win, 4th place in LEPO side event, but hey, I'm bloody impressed myself! This means I've achieved one of my poker goals for the year already! I immediately upped that goal to have a second listing before the end of the year... Eyeing up several events already, but most of them already clash with other non-poker events that I've compromised myself to with my friends.

Gotta be realistic here... cut back on the poker, put it back on the 'just a occasional hobby' shelf, and live my life more. Gonna get a wee bit more selective too with my limited playing time availability too.

To a couple of poker mates playing in Vegas for the WSOP - Best of luck guys, bring the bracelets home! Another two poker mates who go together almost 2 years ago have just announce wonderful news of their wee bump, I was delighted for them!

To the rest of you... have a good Summer! I'll try to update after the IDP EGM!

Grounded frimly to the ground

2009-05-25T15:08:00.003+01:00

No heady highs to report since my last post, apart from a small profit from the cash table one night that just about helped to balance the book and basically undo all the losses I accumulated this month. I'm still 'down' overall for 2009.

It was a sick month from start to finish... a mixture of usual bad beats, atrocious play (or 'brain farts' Smurph calls them) and bad calls.

One positive highlight: I finally made it to the famed Sporting Emporium! What a palace, this is definitely the plushest card room in the whole of Dublin! The SE Membership fee of €25 was an unexpected shock, was thinking of asking if we can host a IDP tournament there but I doubt if our Deaf playas will pay that €25! Now that I'm a member will be checking it out more...

Everyone has been asking for my report on the recent IODPC (Irish Open Deaf Poker Championship) which took place in the Jackpot on 16th May. We had 43 players, I was so sure we would bust last year's record for 46 players but at the last minute we had 4 drop-outs. We have a great representation of players from Northern Ireland, England and Wales; as well as some of our regular players. Cee turns up, announced that he wasn't playing, he was going to play some cash then head at 7pm to catch a flight to London(!) WTF!? As it was Cee did better on the cash table in 3 hours than the 2nd place finisher (Michael Kellegher who nearly didn't want to play!!!)

Cards went in the air at 2:25pm, I was in a horrible seat (7) on very tough table (2) draw. Rob Archer was to my immediate left, Brian Griffin (weak-passive player, mini-bets only, never raises but calls you down with the nutz!) to my right, and Justin Smith 2 to my right. Also at my table was Susie Woosie and Terry Spurgeon (UK Player). Getting any chips on this table was not going to be easy.

I got off to a good start with pocket 10s, raised to 250, two callers including Brian and Justin (on button) flop comes 9 high, I bet out 625. Brian insta-folded, Justin thinks for a moment then folds AKs face up. Next hand I get QQ... 3 limpers and I raised to 250, got no less than 4 callers but I'm last to act. Flop comes Q high, BINGO! Action checks to Rob, he bets out 500, I re-raise to 1750, he insta-folds. I mucked my hand. Few hands later I'm in SB (blinds just increased 50/100)finding AQs, 4 limpers including Rob Archer on the button, I re-pot to 1250. Flop comes 773, I checked, Rob checks behind, Q on turn I fire out 1800, Rob flat calls. A on river, I bet 2150, Rob raises to 4500. I think for a moment then realised I couldn't fold a 10k pot with 2.3k left to call... I flat called to see him table 107off for trips. You donk!

Down to 3.5k I was playing a short-stacked game as Rob started welding his massive stack around the table pushing people off pots left, right and centre. Finding 77 I called one of Rob's raise as did Brian Griffin, facing a JK8 board, Rob bet out but calling would have meant I was pot committed, I had to fold them and watched as Brian called. Action went check-check on turn and river, Rob shows 72s (You Donk!) and Brian tables 66 to win(!) Shoved a couple of times and got my stack back up to 5k; then went card dead for several orbits, checked my blind holding 57 to a flop of 245, check called a bet from Rob, 3 on turn and Rob raises half the pot calling would put me all-in mode, instead I put him on a raggy A or 6 and opted to fold my 5 face up to see his 92off smile at me! (You Donk!) I was in danger of getting blinded out with less than 6BBs when I discovered AcKc UTG and shoved. Rob called with QQ, they hold and I'm out in 30th place.

Rob's lucky streak and constant bluffing finally caught up with him and he loses the bulk of his chips in 4 way all-in holding the worse hand to give Justin Smith (holding 22 for trips) the much needed chips to go all the way! UL Rob - but well played! Susie played a great solid game but kept saying she wasn't staying all day and was leaving to watch a show in UCD later that night... Guess the pokagods got fed up hearing that and took the last chip and chair from underneath her in 25th place. Justin Smith went on to take this down. WP! Congratulations! It was all over by 10pm.

Several players got free bets from Jackpot for signing up but hadn't a clue how to play Blackjack or Roulette, so gave me their chips instead! Spun it up to €50, add another €50 and put it on the cash table, built it up then crashed all in on turn with K10 v J10 on a 10 high flop, 2 on river gave me flush draw but sick J on river and the Villain was whoopin and hollerin something wild(!) Should have known better, Pokagods were not my friend that day so called it a day and went home.

The Jackpot put on a great service as always, big thanks to Paul, Sarah, the hostess, and all the dealers who did a terrific job! The dealers really put a lot of effort into using the signs (which they only learnt that morning!) and dealing with deaf players pulling all kinds of stunts! The Jackpot sponsored the beautiful glass trophy that was presented to the winner. Thanks you all so much!

Next day after a long lie-in I made my way to Tallaght Poker Room for the cash league final. First league I ever qualified for! Before anyone quibbles at the 101 hours I achieved since last November, 90% of these were double cash hours! Starting with 10,100 stack I had my work cut out with three monster stacks holding well over 40k each; over 50 players qualified by 43-44 turned up. Ross had a book open for the various players, there was 25/1 odds on me; not bad considering I was the best odds bar one other player, for those with less than 20k! LOL! Managed to dogged one of the chipleaders big time - holding K4s (in my defence he was constantly rasisng into my BB and showing marginal/mickey mouse hands!) I called to see K4x and shoved, he called with AK (ooops... LOL!!!!); two hands later he got his own back and knocked me out with QQs which held up against my Ah6h all-in on a 6c5h2h flop; no heart, 6 or ace and I was out in 28th winning €50 for my troubles.

Put the €50 on the cash table and lost it to Justin Smith who came down hoping to play the tournament but had to settle for cash. Put another 50 on the table, went down to €20, moved to another table and spun it up into €335, threw the dealer €10 and left at 12 midnight. After 3 days of poker (had a pre-IODPC night in the IDP Card Room with almost 30 players) - I was shattered.

Rumour has it that the Tallaght Poker Room is taking over the ground floor of Atari Expo (the acarade that one walks through to get to TPR upstairs) and planning to renovate it into a "...new swanky poker room to rival the SE". The work has started... lets hope it includes better toilet facilities than they currently have!

Last Wednesday I ventured into the SE for the €50+5 double chance; there were 4 tables with a lot of familiar faces. Had Vera to my immediate left on the first table and managed to antagonise her at one point with blind on blind action, I called she checked to see a flop A9X (2 diamonds) I raised with Kd9d and Vera shoved. I voiced an opinion that she wouldn't have checked an ace, maybe she's flushing etc got a swift lash of her sharp tongue... boy! I folded face up and stayed well out of her way after that! I was happy with my game playing really solid, picking my spots well and made it to final 18 with above average stack. Limped in with KJs Button calls and SB shoves for <8BB BB and button folds, as I call, had him on a wide range - he tables the 'monster' 63 off ... first card on board is a 6, last is a 3(!) LOL-Luckbox! That was the start of the 'leak'...

I raise UTG AJs few hands later and face a re-raise from a rock who has me totally covered, I fold. Next hand I'm in BB, 4 limpers, I look down and see QQ, I have 16bb left, 2 of these limpers have me well covered. Slowly shove my stack over the line and UTG (Biggest Shark Chipleader) insta-shoves, I knew instantly I was in trouble he had a monster as that was the first time I saw him limp in, should have copped it, sure enough he tables AA. They hold and its Uh-oh, UL, GG, GN, WP...

Wandered over to the cash table where several regs sitting nursing huge stacks, including Tony (Flushdraw), Sherman, Danny (TylerDuran) and two other LAGs I recognise from Fitz. I retreated to the blackjack table with Trishakids, sure have better odds winning here! Put the free €25 chips I got, spun it up to €60 then hovered up and down over 2 hours then out... Meh!

Just reading several other blogs, seems a lot of the regs are experiencing massive downswings, so breaking even for the month (I didn't play much this month) is good going. Was planning to play the Satt for the Westbury 270 game tonight but looks like I won't be available to play tomorrow's 270 game so not worth my while playing the Satt. Staying local tonight me thinks!

After tonight - I'll be offline for a week. Taking a much needed break with the family, going to Monaghan and Fermanagh, really looking forward to it! No PC, no laptop, no poker!

Rebuy Madness

2009-05-11T13:51:00.003+01:00

Grrrr! Remind me again why I don't do re-buys.

Free to enter, first hand I get AKs in CO-1, button re-raises, Gerry Grehan is in BB and does his head bobbling act (signifying he has nothing but 'fancies his chances') calls. I shove... Button shoves... Gerry's head bobbles like mad "why the f@#k not..." and tosses his chips into the pot. AK and button's AK meets Gerry's Q10 off suit and we see a board of xxx...Q... 10(!)

Not to worry it's only €5 to re-buy.

Facing a table of limpers, I shove with AhJh on the button, David Bower's in BB he has me covered twice over... he scratches his head and rubs the felt, "she's got something good... damn... damn... ah f#@k it!" and flat calls, all the time acting very nervous and sighing in relief as each player folds. Tabling my cards, David shows two black aces(!)

Ah, another €5 for chips please.

Facing one raiser in MP, I find Ad9d, gonna have to race these to get a much needed double up... Chris McGovern starts rubbing his mouth and stratching his half grown tuffy beard (trying to copy Andy Black me thinks!), he's short I've barely 150 on him, but not as short as MP. Looks at me then shoves, MP folds. Chris takes KdQd, I table my pair... two diamonds on flop and Chris has his €5 out already... sick King on turn no ace or diamond on the river. Nice one Chris. Down to 150 I shove with 34s; 3 callers, 4 on flop, another 4 on turn and I'm safe. Next hand find Q10s and shove for 650, David Bowers stands up shakes my hand says good luck and SHOVES his monster stack in, tables AK with a flourish; no magic board for me.

Not to worry it's only €5.

Shoved with Pocket Kings feeling very confident about this one. Mark McLaughlin (The Wexford Supremo) smiles at me sadly, sighs and whispers "sorry, I gotta call..." and tables pocket aces. Ace on the flop... meh!

Ah sure... I'll chance another re-buy.

Paul Ryder shoves, I find 66 and I'm still reeling from the kings... so yeah, I call. Paul has QQ and my 66 gets crushed. Bad call me.

Another €5 worth of chips please...

Few hands later my AQs smile and wink at me, I fall in love and shove... everyone has me covered, they all call. Board comes queen high, all clubs, Chris rubs his mouth, scratches his beard then bets out, making me worried. I should be, he has J10for the flush. Grrrr!

Realising I only brought €25 with me (how confident was I?!) Brian gives me €5 for the chips... I sit on this til the break, get my top up thanks to another mate. Now the re-buy madness is over, we are down to 14 players, 7 tickets generated and €40 for 8th place. My luck has got to change, right? Right???!!!

But no...

Limping in CO into a family pot with 33; I was delighted to see a 943 board. Mark bets out 4xBB from SB. Action folds around to me, it's now or never - he has me covered by 3k. I shove; he sighs and smiles sadly at me, whispers "...I gotta call" eeek... He tables 94off for two pair, sighing in relief I annouce I got trips and table my pair for bottom set. Instead a sneaky sick 4 appears on the river and I'm out in 14th place... WTF!???

No more re-buys for me! Meh!

Caught between a rock and a tight piece...

2009-05-08T13:26:00.008+01:00

Except the 6'3" 'rock' was actively raising into me with ATC and the 'piece' was a smug fecker who fancied himself as a tough guy (with the cut off shirt and over tattooed arms to match) kept getting lucky when his marginal hands were hitting the flop goot or over-valuing his 2nd/3rd best pair to my ace high... If one wasn't in the hand the other was. When both were in the hand everyone folded. I was happy to get up and run with a €10 profit(!) With the day I had so far - I was lucky not to be crushed!

After dealing for 12 hours the day before, I opted to play the €100+15 game in the Plaza on Monday. Never really got going, all my raises got called by hands that hit the flop better than I. As I raised UTG with QQ I got called by a LAG to my immediate left; board comes king high-all hearts and I opted to check; he immediately checks behind. K on river gives me two pair, betting out 1100 into a 1300 pot. I get flat called; didn't put him on a king, I assumed he had J or 9 for lesser pair with ace kicker; the turn brings a 4th heart, I knew I should check here but felt it would show weakness so bet out 1500... he called showing 9s 10h for a cheeky flush. Meh!

Lucinda was on my table, the button to my BB, kept limping in a lot with AA, KK, AQ, AK; limping in once is fine but not all the time Luc! She limped in with AK (blinds 100/200) I checked with A8. Flop comes AKx with two suits, I checked to see what she would bet and she fired out 600 (pot) big bet, thinking she had king for 2nd best pair or flushing. I flat called, we both checked the 3rd suit on turn, I bet out 2/3 pot on the river... she hesitated before flat calling to show AK. Meh!

Raised pre with AK, had to fold them post-flop as two LAGs went to war locking horns on a dry board high card versus high card, with the weakest hand pairing his low kicker on the river(!) LOL-donkaments! Shoved with AK and no callers... still less than 10bb and the blinds coming around again. Found lovely 22 UTG+2, debated with myself for an age before folding them reluctantly, was sickened to to see board come 2xx2x! Grrrrr! Oh why oh why!? Two hands later found 33 UTG and thought: now or never... shoved, called by BB with KK and I'm gone.

Went straight to the cash table into an awful seat - had Kayroo raising in button and CO (very passive player betweeen us) into my blinds and a smug tattooed guy 2 to the left activily re-raising me in several pots. I had mickey mouse hands every time I had position to them - attempted a raise with one but had Kayroo, Tattooed guy and our Tony limping in, all on ace rags and checking down to me on an AKKxx board(!) I wasn't betting guys, no way!!! Tony was playing uber-cautiously much to Kayroo's frustration, he was dying to trap Tony into a big pot but the sly fox kept one step ahead of him! LOL!

At 8:15pm the Dublin 15 players on the cashtable all left to head to Hartstown for DPN €60FO; 20 mins into the game I'm going really good with AA and 88 raising my 8k starting stack up to 10.5k when the lights went(!) 30 minutes later realising the powercut is wide spread in the area, sitting under the glare of the emergency lighting Ciara, Lucinda and Tony talked me into going to the Padlocks in Clonee to a 'JJP Poker Navan' (not to be confused with JP Poker from Tallaght) run game...

€55 entry, double chance, we joined at the 100/200 level with a 3400 starting stack(!) 5k re-buy or 6k top-up. Turbo bingo poker at its best(?!) Discovered that only €40 is going into the prize fund, WHAT!!!? €15 reg fee?! One player pointed out that we can't 'quibble' as its fully dealer dealt with food (pizza and chips) served at the break. Hmmmm?

First hand I have Jc10c and hit flush battling against a lower flush held by Paul Jr. Two hands later I limp in 7h6h and Paul Jr raises from SB, BB calls, MP calls - I'm last to act, of course I'm calling! Lovely flop - 4h5hx action checks around to me - I bet out half pot, Paul Jr flat calls and other players folded. 3c on turn Paul shoves I call; Paul tables Ah8h no heart on river to save him and he's calling for his double chance chips. Finding AQ couple hands later, Paul Jr is short in BB again, as I raise and he mutters then says 'ah feck it... ' shoves. I call to see him table QQ but an Ace on the flop put an end to his game and our table breaks up.

Finding myself on soft table I quickly amass a 90k lead. A four way all-in with 3 short-stacks see me calling with K9s along with the 2nd chipleader the flop which gives me a gut-shot to the king. I shoved all in and other chip-leader calls with A6o(!) Questioning him, he pointed out that there was two suits on flop and he had the case ace, "possible chance" to beat me with a 'runner-runner'(!) LOL! He wins with high card as we both miss while one of the shorties trebles up and I'm down to 55k. The blinds are going up rapidly lots of all-ins left right and centre - I ducked down and waited for my spot. Finding AK I called and lost on a AK9 to a slowplayed set of 9s from same A6o player. On final table I was fronting 35k with several 50k+ stacks - was mainly card dead but held on to 4th place for €150, this was given in form €100 cash plus €50 ticket for entry into their 'big game' on Sunday 31st May when I asked for an alternative explaining that I was away that weekend 'JJP' suggested I sell it on or "hold on to it til nearer time" - if he makes his '€2,000 guarantee' he will "buy it back from me..." Hmmmm I hope so or I'll be kicking one hell of a fuss!

The Irish Open Deaf Poker Championships take place on 16th May in Jackpot, we have fewer players registered due to clashes with Deaf weddings, holidays and the fact some of the players are saving to go to the Deaf Olympics taking place in Taipei this September. Or maybe they are just holding on for the DDA freeroll event taking place next Sunday 10th May? Whatever - if you are thinking of playing the IODPC - hurry up and register ASAP!!!!

Clonsilla Inn 100+15FO

2009-04-28T01:12:00.009+01:00

As most of you already know I play Dublin Poker Nights local pub games; each week the final 9 players would generate league points, with the top 5 league point holders creating a team to play against each other in the bi-annual team events. This year Robbie decided to do a different format: the top 5 get free entry into a €100 FO game, with a €2k guaranteed prize fund, and a limo ride from their house to the venue!

Meh! I wasn't one of the lucky league winners, as the league stopped just as I started to win some games! But I went along anyway to donate.

I nearly didn't go, as I had lost big this week getting slowplayed something awful; my online game was going from bad to worse - I was feeling on totally tilt. About 60 minutes before KO, I had a domestic calamity to sort out. my little girl fell and split her lip. We had blood, scrapes, drama and screaming demands: 'I need a plaster!!!' spent 40 minutes cleaning her up, trying to calm her down explain that we can't put a plaster inside her mouth! Then the Ice cream man comes, the brat jumps down like a shot, grabs the €2 her granny gave her and ran was out the door before you can ask 'where are you going...' came back with her cone, tears and blood forgotten and asked if she can go to her friend's house to play. Ha! I might as well go too... No guilt here!

Arrived 30 minutes late, 4 tables set up with 5-6 players on each table... I was placed on a 5 handed table with Gum to my immediate left, Benny on my right, Eamon and Phil were also with us. Starting stack was 15k,almost immediately I was tangling with Gum in one pot holding JJ (Q high flop) which I folded to her raise, she showed 2 pair... WP. And Benny in another, played into his trip 2s against my pocket 10s ...ah! I must be mad! It's too early for this! Down to 11k and it wasn't even end of the 2nd level. Finding AKs in SB; Eamon (rock player) raised 3xBB in MP, Gum called (standard for Gum) and I fired off a triple barrelled bet. Eamon called, Gum folded. Flop came 55x, knowing Eamon's range, I popped off a c-bed. He flat called. River brought another 5. I checked, Eamon checked. K on river and I fired out half the pot. Eamon insta-called to reveal AK for a split pot, phew!

Finding KK some hands later, my raise got two callers, hitting my trips on the flop, I bet out and got two callers, seeing a straight draw and flush draw possibilities I shoved the turn. They both folded... I was back up to 14k. Checking my BB a few hands later I flopped a nice straight and increased my stack up to 18k as Robbie came to break up our table.

On the 2nd table, I went card dead. Couple of missed opportunities. At one stage I called a pre-flop raise with pocket 6s and folded to huge flop bet on a J high flop, another player calls, 6 comes on the turn... and at showdown, I'm looking at A high hands(!) FFS! Called one raise from BB for value (there were 4 other callers!) and check called with middle pair King kicker, initial raiser shoves on turn and I fold as my pair becomes a set on river, meh! Went down to 10,375 approx at the break.

After the break, the play tightened up considerable. I hovered along for the next few levels, made a few raises but no callers just got binds/min-raises. Falling back again, after wrangling in a stupid spot with Paul S the slowplayer extraordinaire! Thankfully the damage was minor as he had a very small stack. He gloated afterwards how he 'loves taking my chips'... I just laughed at him.

Got my first break with KK in SB; MP raised to 2.5xBB several callers on deep stacks, I shoved for 8/9k, action slowly folded back to button who thought for a moment then elected to call with Qc9c. Two clubs on flop had me worried but my kings held and I doubled through. Shoved again with AK on a A high flop called by shortie on lower pair, to bring my stack up to 20k (approx 20bb) for the first time. I wasn't out of danger yet, the blinds were increasing every 25 mins and we had a monster stack LAG luckbox on our table with 60-70k knocking people out! He called raises from SB/BB/EP and bet out big if he got a pair or better... forcing people to fold or shove. Couple of run-ins with him saw my stack decreasing back to 14/15BB, it shoving time again.

We were down to two tables, I saw several good players way ahead of me at the first break, falling like flies, busted out with sick beats and slowplayed nuts. UL guys... I know how you feel.

A nice run of cards saw me treble up: the first AK, tangled with AQ. Increased my stack to 26k Then 2/3 hands later I got QQ and shoved with a raise and re-raise on the table, called by Benny who re-raised with JJ, Q on flop and I was up to 45k approx. Then I shoved with AJs on button a raiser and two callers all less than 20k - folded. I was just under 60k when this hand happened.

Horsebox1 was to my left, very good solid rock player, UTG is a LAG who raises in certain positions (UTG, UTG+1 if UTG had folded, CO and Button) with a lot of marginal hands and small pairs. The blinds were 500/1k at this stage; UTG made a raise of 3.5k, slightly more than the standard raise of 2.5-3k for the table. Finding 66, I flat called, he looked at me and frowned. Horsebox1 insta-shoved all in for 12.5k. As the action folded back to UTG, he tanked for a moment deciding whether to call or not... He kept looking over at my stack, counting out his stack then counted out the difference between Horsebox's raise and his bet comparing it to his remaining stack then called leaving 7.5-8k behind...

Sensing a weakness here. I put him on a marginal hand: A4-A10, J9-KQ combos, small pairs 22-55. Plus earlier he had flat called a shortie's all-in with 910s and hit the 9 to win. I felt my pockets were ahead of his range, knowing Horsebox wasn't shoving light KK-QQ and AK possibilities, but against the LAG I had an option to oust a dangerous opponent and just lose 6-7k in the process. So shoved my 60k stack over the line...

The look of terror in the LAGs face confirmed my suspicions and he didn't take long to fold. I couldn't believe that he folded with 70% of his stack already in. Horsebox tabled AA, I tabled my 66, flop and turn 2458 gave me an up and down gutshot. I was praying not to hit... The AA stood and Horsebox started breathing again. The LAG started telling everyone he would have had trips, that he folded 88s. But I personally doubt that, he would have shoved with 88 to push me out of the frame, not called as he did...

It was a risky move I made, but had the LAG folded I would have folded too. In his read, a fold here would have looked really weak for him. People would not respect any his raises after this, and raise them thinking that they can get him off if they shove. After this he stopped raising in EP sticking to limping in instead, and raising only in LP.

Couple orbits later I was card dead when I got A2s, getting bored I fancied my chances with them so limped in, BB checked and the flop came A2x. Niiiiiice. Action checked around, I opted to check to see if any aces in the frame. 10 on turn, I bet out after the blinds checked. BB called, others folded. River was a low card. BB shoved, thinking I was ahead with 2 pair, plus I had him well covered I called to see A10. Meh! NH sir...

Down to 20k, when the final table started, Paul S was still in on 21k, telling all and sundry that he was planning to outlast me(!) Muha-ha-ha(!)

There was three giant stacks. Tony on 160k; Eamon on 80k-odd and the luckbox from the 2nd table on 90k. Then came various stacks from 50-20k... with me on the lowest. As Robbie announced the prize structures, paying out the top 5, a deal was suggested to take money from the 5 places to create €100 money back for 6th-9th place - great deal, no one objected. I had my money back, and a good day playing for just €15 I was happy!

I was in an 'all-in or fold' mode vowing to play very tight. First hand, I was in CO, one of the bigger stacks raised. Finding 33, I decided to fold, regretting it when 3 came on the flop. Tony called in BB, and won with A3(!) Two hands later I got my third KK and shoved. Two callers, who checked to the end with A high, and I trebled up to 60k.

As the 9 slowly became 8, 7 and then 6, LAG (folder from the 66 hand above) down to about 20k shoved UTG. Finding 10 10, I shoved my 60k stack over the line, knowing none of the chipleaders would risk doubling me up. LAG tabled KJ and I showed my 10s; J on river and he was back in the game. Booo!

But with the blinds going up, my chips were going down, as I was card dead for almost two orbits, then shoved with 20k with AK. 4 callers(!) Hilariously they checked down on all streets on an odd 9 high board with no flush or pair in sight... as the last player checked. I threw in my AK expecting someone to table a low pair... not one, they all mucked! Phew! I was back in with 80k!

Shortly after this a furry of battles among the chipleaders saw 2 of them exiting in spectacular fashion, including Tony the chipleader at the start of the final table. He got dogged big time - UL Tony.

Down to 4: Paul S, Eamon (now chipleader) myself and the LAG... Paul S was shortstack, with less than 2-3BB for the past 4 orbits, and winning every time he was in BB! The luckbox! But it wasn't going to be 4th time lucky, and he exited in 4th place. But not without a parting shot. Coming around to my end of the table, the sly old fox rapped the table "May the best MAN win!" I just laughed...

The lAG just kept raising every hand, I didn't have anything worth shoving, kept folding. Finding AK in SB shortly afterwards, Eamon was on button as he threw in a raise, I shoved. LAG folded and Eamon tanked for a moment before calling with A7... 7 on the turn and I was out in 3rd place.

I was happy to get this far, considering I hadn't played my best game made some bad moves, until the final table of course. I would have been happy to exit in 9-6th with my money back... Any more than this was a bonus! My money was on Eamon to take this down as he played a sterling game from the start. Eamon and the LAG fought a lengthily HU game, with the LAG grabbing the chiplead, before they eventually split 60-40... WP!

GG! Well done to Rob and all in DPN for putting on a great game and a well run show!

Photos from the final table Eamon (2nd place) is to my right, Tony (5th place) two to my left. LAG (Winner) to Eamon's right. Paul S (4th place) is diagonally opposite, two places to left of dealer (DPN's Victoria)

The Week of the Slowplayers.

2009-04-27T12:41:00.005+01:00

I have a lot more respect for bluffers than slowplayers or slowrollers.

I hate being slowplayed, especially when it ends my tournament life, leaves me perilously short-stacked or robs me of practically all my cash chips! Want to piss me off or put me on tilt... this is a very good way to do it! Be warned, just make sure you have me all-in to succeed as I play a very good shortstack game as proved in yesterday's €100+15 FO in Clonsilla Inn! (report to follow soon...)

Definition of slowplaying: when you hold the nuts, check-call another player's bet to the end with no re-raise/bet to show your hand strength, then trapping then with a re-raise/putting them all-in once you know they are totally pot committed...

Doing it once in a tournament, in order to mix your styles after betting big and winning with strong hand, is a good method to complicate reads on your play and acceptable to a degree. Or if you are a shortie in need a double up to survive. Doing it against a short stack player is not. Doing it against a ultra-TAG rock is not... And doing it again and again is most definitely not. Slowrolling the nuts is worse.

Overuse of the slowplay/slowrolling technique a la Paul S style, is just stupid; you get tagged as a slowplayer and lose valuable chances to earn chips this article explains exactly why...

I rarely ever slowplay, I never slowroll (which is worse IMO) I prefer to get my money in good with my best hand and race it against the chancers. When I do slowplay, I usually reserve it for players I really detest i.e. people who slowroll/slowplay others; or in playing safe against giant-stacked luckboxes running ultra-hot at the table or ultra-loose LAGs.

All week I've been running into slowplayers... Vegas Night team event was full of them, constantly limping in with AAs KKs, QQs, AKs, and check-calling when they hit! All my exit hands hammered me out by slowrolled/slowplayed nuts. In the Westbury last Tuesday, Ginger guy calls my pre-flop raise hits his flop good, flat calls me to river then re-raises to put me all-in, recognising the signs as he already did the same earlier three times - with no desire to be his 4th victim I folded with 60% of my stack on that table. Looked really weak but felt what I had left was ample to rebuild on... but sadly that opportunity never came.

In the DPN Satt for the Triple Header main event, Tweety traps me on the river with his A8 on a K8A7J Board with me holding KJs! Calling my raises all the way to the river! Then gloated about it for the rest of the night... Grrr! Later met the other two players, at the DPN 100FO game, (they ended up 3 headed with him) and discovered he slowplayed them just as bad too... LOL! Watch out Tweety - we have you tagged same as Paul S now!

Or in a recent cash game: player on the button, last to act, checks down with the 2nd best nut flush on an Ace flush board, then calls your shove on the river when you have a slightly lower flush claiming to be 'afraid' of the top nut flush when challenged! Why call my raise if you were so 'afraid' then!?

Even yesterday in the game, I got rendered shortstacked by slowplayed, not once but TWICE! Still managed to hang on to 3rd place... just about(!)

Andy Smith (a fellow deaf player) has a great tactic he uses at IDP games. He doesn't bluff, he never slowplays. When he hits his flop well, be it top pair top kicker; trips; two pair; any flush; straight... with no possible better straight, flush or otherwise to beat him, he shoves. He's happy to take down the pot there and then; he is clever enough just to 'show' weaker holdings like 2nd best pair, top pair or bottom 2 pair - to encourage callers later in the game. That's the reason he's always on the final table, who is going to take on his mighty stack without the absolute nuts - apart from the odd donks of course! Its his way of rooting out the slowplayers. They fold, they don't want to tangle with that stack as they can't be sure what he's shoving with!

I don't mind players like Bomber Nolan or Donal 'The Value' who re-raise you all-in with dodgy hands then hit their 'one outter' on the river... I rather lose to them than slow-played nuts any day!

Can't find an apt slow-player image (Smurph already has the best one IMO!) but I lurved this:

April madness... and some Sadness.

2009-04-24T04:51:00.002+01:00

Starstruck at the IO...

Went to the Westbury for the Good Friday €100FO, with a 20k starting stack and 1k early bird - I don't think I have played anything as deep as this before! There was quite a few notables there with Tom Maguire, David S, Alan Carroll, KoolKid and of course our Susie Woosie! I had a loose, loose lag to my immediate right. Involved in several pots left right and centre with marginal hands, just getting lucky here/there, losing just as much as he was winning with his stack yo-yo'ing like mad. I was just waiting for my spots and keeping out of his way after he whacked my AK with 710s. Down to 16k in BB, blinds 100/200, Yo-Yo Lag raised to 600 from SB. I looked down and found QQ. Bingo! Re-raised to 2400, Yo-Yo Lag shoves his 20k+ stack over the line (standard for him) I insta-called. He tables 88... flop came J810... but no queen or 9 to save me and I was gone. Meh!

After that got persuaded by Alan Carroll (busted out early on a cooler AA-v-KK) to go up to City West, while I was keen to play cash/SnGs I think he was more excited at the fact a bar was open on Good Friday, LOL! While he went off to drink himself something silly, I added my name to the list for cash table. Waiting to be called for a cash spot I went for a walk about the room, practically blinded-starstruck spotting likes of Jamie Gold, Jennifer Tilly, Phil Laak while looking on in horror at a desperate looking Andy Black!

WTF with that beard Andy? When I first saw Andy in real life - he came in to officially open the first IPO in RDS looking radiant, trim and sexy (oh yes!) in a nice suit, what changed?! Here was a down and out with tatty clothes, unkempt beard and a hair style that makes Doke's look neat... He was a walking advert how poker can put you in the gutter! I was so stunned I missed looking for the people I know like: Smurph, Clamper, Doke, Flushdraw & Gilly or JamesG!

I was more pissed at missing Michael Greco! Had a HUGE crush on him years go, mind you it's probably just as well as I'd have made a total eejit of myself chatting him up or worse: stalking him for the entire event... LOL!

Finally got into a cash game, and yo-yo'ed my initial €100 buy-in up and down all night. Had a figure of €300 in my head (trying to win my buy-in back plus a wee profit - enough for the buy-in for the Ladies Side Event) but never got beyond €200... just kept crashing back down. After few hours I shoved with JJ and got called by QQ. As I was walking out of the room right behind Andy (looking even more destitute walking out arm-in-arm, deep in conversation with Channing) and watching a certain Boyle Sports rep wrestle drunkenly with some players in the foyer... exiting the building got a shock seeing how bright it was, realised the night had just flown!

Following night I decided to give the cash tables another bash, but no luck, another 100 down and ruled myself out of the Ladies Side Event. By all accounts the standard was as dire as last year, I guess I missed nothing!

Had a nice and quiet Easter in Roscommon instead, until I put my back out something awful... went to GP and got anti-inflamms etc, had a sick note for the week but made myself go into work. Bad idea, ended up worse and having to take this week off.

Coolered at the Scalps

Was in the mood for a game on Friday, went into Fitz for the scalps game, and didn't win one scalp! Practially had to fight for my pots, was barely up to 8k by break, topped up to 12k. Then went card dead after the break, til I then found KK, one raise (all-in short stack), one caller already and two blinds to act... I shoved, as you do. All four called(!) Two AKs, AJ and JJ... what are the odds of an ace AND a jack appearing on that board(?) I kid you not - they did!

Went down to the cash tables with €150, barely 2 hours later after a nice rush of cards I was up to €450, but the tiredness from the sleepiness nights I was experiencing was kicking in, I was happy to call it a night at 1am.

Vegas Nights Team Event

Got asked by JamesG to join his team for the Vegas Night Team Event with '€5k Guaranteed' for the winning team. With 65 players, or 13 teams, the numbers fell short of the 15 needed to meet the guarantee, never mind providing a payout structure for the final table from an expected 'excess'. Vowing to play tight I had a rush of good cards from the start, which I hate... They all got busted. Limped in with AJs and called a raise to see A810x flop, got kicked by A10. Next hand raised in LP with AQs hammered by MP's 910s for a straight to the Q on the river. Down just under 5k from a 7k starting stack - I got AA in BB, 4 limpers I re-raise 6xBB. Action folded around to SB (4k) who called, then check-called all my raises to the river with 810 off - he floped a straight on the flop(!) Grrrrrr! Shoved pre-flop with my final 1k holding AK called by 10 10 - no ace to save me and I was out by the end of the first level! Meh! Well done my friend, fellow-dealer Paul Fox, who took it down!

Playing cash and the side event - the amount of limping in with prime hands (AK, AA, QQ etc), slowplaying and trapping was unbelievable. I gave up and went to Tallaght Poker Rooms to build up my cash hours. No luck there either, just got the hours sorted for the Cash League event on 17th May. We met John the new manager for Celbridge Poker Rooms and bagged an invite to the grand opening freeroll next week. Looking forward to seeing the new premises!

Malahide EOM Game

I was so looking forward to this since I won the ticket! With 65 players generating a huge pot, 17k starting stack and 25 minute blinds we had a full night of poker ahead of us. Well, I never really got going.... I was so card dead it was sad!

I had aimed to play tight for a first few levels anyway, I had a migraine on/off all day, kept coming back in the game and folded a couple of hands that I would have normally have played (both would have paid me off well with flopped straights and big pots etc). Finally got a pair of 10 10s to raise with, but BB (chipleader) re-raised huge and I had to fold.

I raised with air a couple of times in desperation to keep my chips up, my heart was hammering til they both folded! Was so thankful to take down those pots to keep my hoovering around 15-17k until a couple of levels after the break, falling to a low of 9k, I re-built the stack up to 25k approx with two key hands; then I found A10s in MP and overplayed it badly. Raising 3xBB, button and SB called, flop came A32, SB checked I bet out 2/3 pot, both button and SB called. Turn was 8. SB checked, I made a continuation bet of 1/3 the pot, and botton insta-re-raised to 10k. I had 14k left and folded after a dewell showing my ace putting him on AJ/AQ/AK/A8/88. Bad move, I should have check-raised the flop or shoved the turn. Asking button if he had two pair he said no... that my ace would have won, meh, I felt a right fool for thinking I was behind. The mistake put me on tilt a bit and I shoved with A4 shortly after into AJ, Jack high board sealed my fate.

Great game, I learnt a lot from some players, the standard was really good. Will aim to win another Satt and play it again! Hopefully I do better than exiting in 30-something place!

Sad News

I was stunned to learn of Joan Vicker's untimely and tragic death this week. I first met Joan while playing the Sean Jethi Team Event, we played on the same team with Smurph, Sam (the dealer) and Laura Lashes; I spent the rest of evening drinking with her and her husband; after both we got kicked out early in our heats. I continued to meet Joan around the poker circuit, exchanging small talk and good humoured banter, she was a good player and great craic to have on the tables. I often miss out on the general banter at the table and Joan would repeat it for my benefit. I really appreciated this small gesture, so disappointed I never got to thank her for doing that for me. Bumping into her after exiting the scalps game last Friday in the Fitz, I moaned about my cooler exit hand and she listened sympathetically urging me not to take it to heart... I never thought it would be our last meeting.

RIP Joan, you won't be forgotten.

"You play too much poker for a Lady..."

2009-04-07T11:17:00.005+01:00

I was dealing in the BrucePoker Mullingar game last Friday, there was a surplus of dealers available so naturally we offered a chance to play. The standard on some tables was so bad it made my local pub game look top-class, I was so tempted to take up the offer before the window closed knowing I could easily go deep in this, but by the time I made up my mind, Dani had no intention of letting me go with people already looking for cash games...

Moaning to one of the older dealers, he shook his finger at me and admonished sternly "You play too much poker for a lady!" The guy has only dealt to me a handful of times in 2 years, asking him why he thought that he went on to point out that women are not suited for poker at all(!) They are more likely "lose" early to be targeted by male players calling their raises with "any two". Of course! But that's EXACTLY what we want them to do anyway(!)

He even offered a bet with me that there won't be any woman on the final two tables. I laughed him off saying the ratio of players wouldn't make it a fair bet while reminding him kindly that Smurph took down the last game... As Smurph and Vera came up looking for a cash game a few minutes later, I caught his eye as he gave me this "see, told ya..." look, shook his head and sighed sadly. I just wish I had taken him up on that bet! One of the female dealers Gerri, just about made it to the final two tables as the last woman standing! Then it would be ME giving him the look as I take his money! LOL!

The IDP monthly game was on Saturday, with half the usual numbers due to several other events clashing. Went to the Fitz afterwards to play some cash it turned into a marathon session! I playing totally crap at the start to be honest and getting lucky. In the end just as I started picking up my game I got well and truly hammered by men who fancied their chances playing with "any two against a woman..." Meh!

Last night the Westbury were hosting a €20+20 Satt for their infamous €250+20 end of month game with two tickets guaranteed; Value! I already told Larry I'd be there. Had a rotten day at work, had kinda made up my mind to leave it for another night. But after putting the little one to bed, seeing nothing worthwhile on TV I quickly changed my mind, alerted the au pair I was heading out after all, hopped in the car and arrived at 9pm only to find the place practically empty!?

Larry welcomed me and asked had I got his PM, I hadn't, he pointed out their regular players had requested the Monday night €35FO and not the Satt but he had a sweet deal for me: if I play the FO and come 1st or 2nd place he will personally give me a ticket regardless of the prize fund with a €100+10FO ticket if I came 3rd. Couldn't refuse that excellent offer, could I!

By the time the game got underway, we had 20 players playing for a €600 prize fund. On the starting table I had Derek 'Ex-Clamper' Williams on the button to my BB, a tough and unpredictable player, he doubled up not once but three times in the first level. I locked horns with him all night, more than any other player! He was very active in nearly every pot, while I didn't see much cards in the early stages. I played aggressively using my position on him and tried to steal with what I had. I yo-yo-ed from 5k starting stack to 7.5k then back down to 2.5k before doubling up, and re-building back to a 9.5k stack by the time I arrived on the final table and tightened up my game.

Derek was on my immediate right as chipleader, that position proved valuable for me later in the game. I picked up QQ and AA and shoved both times, the AA hand knocked out two players and made me chipleader with 6 players left. But Derek being the devils advocate just keep chipping into me! My only regret was when we were 4 handed, I folded ace high to Derek's river shove only to be shown a 9 high bluff, after calling his raises all the way... Grrr!

Once the bubble had burst I quickly eliminated the 3rd player and faced Derek in a battle of wills showdown that last a good 40 mins... where he slowly took the chiplead from me before I levelled the play back to 50-50 with a well executed slow-played two pair. After this Derek offered to split 50-50 with him being declared the outright winner for league points, knowing I had my ticket secured plus €60 in cash, I agreed. Good game, great value for €35... if they increase the starting stack or bring in an early bird chip, I can see this become a regular fixture!

Bring on the €270 game on the 21st April... There will be a Lady on that final table boys!!!

What's your best April Fool's?!

2009-04-01T17:50:00.005+01:00

We have our monthly team meeting first Wednesday of every month. Today was no exception, there an long and heavy agenda to discuss.

I deliberately stayed quiet during the meeting (very unlike me, by the way!) especially in talks about future plans/projects etc. When asked for AOB everyone did their piece and the team leader started to wind the meeting down "...okay, that's it, right?"

I switched on my best poker face "Ahem! Hum, err, actually there's one more thing... I've got some, erm, bad news to announce." Cue shuffling of chairs as people sitting up straight to listen closely

"Well, erm, there's no easy way to say this ... but... I handed in my resignation to the Regional Manager yesterday. I'll be leaving the company on 30th April."

Cue audible gasps, shocked looks, sheer panic in some faces, confusion on others... Team Leader's face goes purple and her eyes budge maddeningly behind her glasses as I continue:

"I've been under a lot of pressure lately, I'm really finding it harder to juggle everything, I've also worked it out that I would actually be better off financially if I wasn't working... I'm really sorry guys!"

"But... but... WAIT a minute! What wasn't I informed... " The Team Leader injected then a smile appeared on her face as she scrabbles for her watch "Ah feck off Julianne! It's gone past noon, yeah... 1:13pm! No April Fools jokes allowed pass noon! Ha! Ha! Gaaawwwwd! You really had going me there! Get outta here you brat!!!"

LOL! Ah, it was soooo worth it for those 20 seconds just to see those faces: priceless!!!!

Rigor Mortis Sunday

2009-04-01T00:48:00.003+01:00

Last Sunday I made my way to the Jackpot for the team event, playing with Jamie Costello, Gary Clarke and James McManus as part of Team Poker Ireland. I think I must’ve used up more than my share of pokah-luck for the week, I only lasted one hour!!!

When I got my table, I realised pretty quickly that sitting in seat 9 I was at a disadvantage – I was unable to view the bulk of the action which was taking place among players 1-4. It didn’t help that I was totally stone-cold hand dead either, any decent playable-hands I got were OOP and only worth limping in with, I had to fold them to raises. And was glad I did, the amount of AA, KK, QQ, AQ & AK shown by other players was phenomenal! Several players developed big stacks pretty fast... I had nothing - 93, 10 2, J5, 72, 53, etc etc etc ... Just kept folding; folding; folding... not one ace card did I see, never mind KK or QQ! I found 10 10 on the button and raised 4xBB, BB called from seat 2, rest folded flop comes AKx. BB checks, I bet out a continuation bet, and he flat calls. Turn is Q. Again he checks – I bet ¾ of the pot and he flat-calls, checks the non-important river I had to check behind, he shows K with low kicker for better pair(!) WTF!

One more orbit later I’ve 66 in MP, flat call a raise (on AK) but folded to a re-raise (holding AA). Another orbit passes me by til I’m in SB again, I’m down to 3.5k half my starting stack when 3 new players join the table with good size stacks, and I’m surrounded by 15k++ plus stacks I had to get moving. Find JJ in SB, putting out a good size raise, limper in MP hums for a bit - I indicated that I was shoving, if anyone wants to re-raise me all-in. MP had just joined our table. He mulled for more than a minute (he had me covered 9-10 times over...FFS!) before calling with QQ. The queens stand and I’m gone... went looking for the lads, Jamie had just exited. James was still in hovering on an average stack and Gary was nowhere to be seen!

Great game, wonderful atmosphere, if only I had the cards to play! Well done to Boylesports team that won – Lisa C was on my table and caught several fine hands and doubled up not once but 3 times in that hour!

Played a bit of cash pre-game but got no luck there either... went over to the blackjack table and stormed it and won my buy-in and cash table losses back plus a little more! Fed up waiting for a new cash game to start in the Jackpot, Susie and Trisha were in the Fitz, I decided to head over join them there. Susie Woosie did really well splitting the tournament 3 ways for the better share! Plus we went to play some cash...

What a rollercoaster, starting off I had that table owned! And quickly raised 75 into 475 in no time at all... then came the sick beats, I was wiped out in three big pots, the last being the most memorable and the sickest! Limped in with A10 in MP, 2 callers behind me and button (loose calling station) calls too. SB, LAG who has been raising a lot with a wide range, makes it 12 to go. BB and the rest of the players call including me. Flop comes AA7... nice! SB bets 20, BB and 2 limpers fold, before I could think, button throws in 20. Dealer points out I’m still to act and I raise it to 60; button calls and SB folds. I put him on A rag, K7s/Q7s/J7... Turn is another 7, I bet out 100. Button calls. I’m thinking, its gonna be a split pot. 10 on the river had me excited that I’ve hit the better house and I shove for 200+. He insta-calls and shows 77 for quads (!) NH sir... Meh! Had enough went home via blackjack tables – no luck there!

That’s my degeneracy done for the week, me thinks!

Hat Trick!

2009-03-29T02:56:00.002+01:00

I asked Robbie last night if anyone ever took down 3 or more of the DPN games in the same week before... he said no. Told him I was aiming to achieve that, ‘going for a hat trick tonight’ he smiled and nodded demurely, I’m sure he thought I was just being arrogant!

DPN games are usually bingo poker at the best of times; decent enough stacks (7-8k) with turbo 15 min blinds, which leads to all sorts of play as the games are limited by pub opening hours and the constant supply of alcohol that renders the best players inebriate enough to make questionable decisions. The Dunboyne game is an exception – the standard is higher, but this might be due to the deepstack longer blind structure, unlimited time, dealer dealt etc.

As reported previously, I took down the Hartstown game last Monday by steamrolling the players welding a mighty stack from 2 tables out. The Clonsilla game was a different kettle of fish altogether. I started the final table with just 8.5k getting the lucky draw of the button as the shortest stack with blinds 800/1500. I was playing tight. After a few hands we were 6-headed with only 4 cash prizes being paid when two bigger stacks shoved aipf. Finding AJ suited I had a dizzy moment when I considering shoving, but reckoned I was wiser to fold to safeguard a cash place for myself... as the players turned over QJs and QJo and split for a high card on a J high flop, I was mentally kicking myself, having showing another player my cards he told me off after the action for folding. But if you gave me that decision all over again I would have still folded them again... On the button shortly after with 5k, looked down and found QQ and shoved, three callers, and my girls held up. Shorty UTG Shoved as I was in CO-1 and I called with AK , gave me the double-up I needed to survive one more orbit seeing nothing of note .... Once the bubble had burst I decided I was shoving with any two, pokah gods dealt me another QQ and I went from shortie to chipleader with 3 players left.

Two hands later and I was HU with Shay, sitting on 130k+ to his 40k approx stack, Shay asked to split and I had to refuse him, felt awful as he always splits at this stage regardless of stacks etc. But Shay kicked me out twice with sick beats in the past month I wasn’t letting this one go! It only took one hand A3s to his K8o... and the board read out 4x5K2... and I was €420 richer. GG!

On Friday I had an accident in my car (my fault-no one else involved) but the damage is gonna cost me some to repair... Susie suggested the Dunboyne game and I in full agreement! It was either that or 3 bottles of wine or worse a bottle of whiskey (!) LOL!
There were barely 18 players, a drop in numbers. Several of the regular faces weren’t there, on my table I had several new faces – and apart from one guy, it was a table of good/strong players. I had a tough seat with Paul S to my left, and Jam-Tighty-McTight to my right. To Paul S’s right was a player that kept breaking off my raises and dogging me. Gonna be tough to earn any chips at this table... I rode a rollercoaster game up and down between 13k and 8k.

Just before we moved to the final table, I was languishing on 9k when I found 33 in CO and decided to shove. I had Paul S covered and was only concerned with the Dogger on Paul’s right, who had lost a big pot a hand before and was down to 12k approx. I expected him to knuckle down and preserve his chips but no, he called.... and tables 66(!) Flop comes J 3 10 saving my skin... and earning me a place on the final table with 20k. Blinds were going up to 800/1.5k so I was still in ‘all-in or fold’ mode. Finding 77 in mid-position in the first hand, I raised to 3000. Action folded back to Susie Woosie (chipleader) in BB, she re-pops for 10k. I thought for a moment and think she looks too comfortable and folded, she shows AA... phew!

One orbit later, I’m hand dead and in BB when Susie goes all-in, she’s lost a few chips at this stage and wasn’t looking too comfortable... I lifted my cards high expecting to show/fold them and pass her my chips when I see AKs... there’s a James McManus-look-a-like beside me and a eastern European to his right, both utter a collective gasp and one of them said “you can’t fold that... you gotta call...” I knew if I folded people would suspect collusion, and I called. Susie groans when she sees my cards “oh you are miles, miles ahead!” she retorted turning over K9o. K on the flop and A on the river saw the chips coming to me, and I was back in the game.

There was a loose cannon in a beanie hat on the table, he was yo-yo’ing all over the place. Not wanting to wrangle in a pot with him, I stayed tight to the end even folded A9 to allow him to push the other players out, I didn’t even get the glory of knocking him out... we were down to 3 when I found that A9, I was on 91k, the other two were on 53k each, blinds were 3k/6k. Beanie and Jam-TT were still in with me. Jam-TT raises to 18k, I am in SB and I fold... Beanie completes then checkraises all-in after the flop. Jam-TT calls and his hand (can’t remember it!) holds... and I’m HU with Jan-TT.

Didn’t last long, Jan just eyed my stack and offered to split 50-50... I thought for a minute, looked at Susie who was railing me. “He’s got more than you now...” she signed “only by 20 odd” I replied. I looked at Robbie who was dealing, asked him for the figures... €350 each, €70 off the top. Ah what the hell! I put out my hand and agreed to take 50-50. So I guess I could claim the hat-trick ‘Maddog style’! GG

Leaving a tip for the dealer, I went over to the cash table, where people were getting up and walking away in despair. Paul S son was holding court on one side with over €600 in chips in front of him... Unlike Paul S, his son is not the good player he thinks he is... he’s all Vegas this and Vegas that... really annoying fecker! I put 50 down but he had €40 off me with 82off to my A high. Adding another 20 I doubled it up to €80 in next hand. Found A5 in BB and checked 4 callers to see flop... 437 ... hmm okay. Action checks around to Mr Vegas and he bets €16, I call, as do the other two players. Turn is 8, one player goes all-in for 15, Mr Vegas makes it 33, smelling a rat I called, needing any 2 or 6 to complete. As Graham deals the 2 I just shoved out of turn. Mr Vegas starts to grip about this saying it was not appropoiate etc. Graham points out that I was not folding ‘the pot odds are too great’. I nodded and Mr Vegan looks at me and says yeah... I’ll call. All-in shows 76o, Mr Vegas shows 108o and I table my A5 for a €240 pot!

LOL! Guess I got my car damage paid for now!

I’m playing the team event in the Jackpot tomorrow, last minute request... here’s hoping my hot run continues!

Bingo Poker Weekend!

2009-03-24T13:33:00.008Z

I should moan more... the pokah gods must've been listening to me last week!!!

I skipped the Dunboyne game, turned down a dealing job, to stay in on Friday night and rest for the Irish Ladies Poker Championship next day.
Met up with the IDP ladies for breakfast before heading to the Plaza for the game... Was disgusted to find Stephen had positioned me to Susie Woosie's right! Grrrrrr! She's not someone I want to have position on me, we even got to locked horns Dunne-style in a couple of pots.

I had resolved to play tighty-mctight, perhaps not a good strategy from observing the general low standard of play. I regret folding some key hands that I would have won.... ah well.

First hand I actually played was KK, I was in CO with 3 limpers, Susie and the blinds to act. Really hate getting hands like this at first.. I raised to 350 (blinds 25/50) and got no less than 5 callers! Susie folded. Flop came 223 two diamonds, SB bet out 500, BB called the 3 limpers folded. I didn't like this flop, but flat called. Turn brought the diamond, SB bet out 1k, BB mini-raised to 2k. I knew I was in trouble and folded. SB called and river was 2. Hmmmm, before I could feel any regret, SB bet out 3k and BB looked at her warily before calling I was astounded to see SB table AA for the house and BB holding Ad10d. Phew! Just as well she didn't re-raise me! After that I didn't get another decent hand for a few orbits, We were being bullied by the ever-increasing-stack of two maniac LAGs who where literally playing with any two. I had to start moving and made a few raises and shoved on the re-raises with the maniacs just winning small pots etc. Attempted a bluff holding 45s in BB (which I checked); flop came A39, I bet out 2/3 of the pot and got flat called by the chipleader. Turn was 6 giving me a nice edge with OESD. I bet out half the pot got flat called by CL; river was A. Damn! I missed my outs... not wanting to cede the pot I put out a decent sized c-bet, but she still called me. Expecting to see an ace, but nope, she tables 98off and I mucked. WTF!!!? That left me with barely 10k.

After that hand. the CL kept betting into my blinds and snapping off any raises I made. I ignored her and played solidly re-building my stack up to 25k then got gutted by another maniac on 18k who just couldn't lay down her 66 hand against an AIPF's JJ and my AQ seeing Q77 flop, I shoved - she insta-called only to hit her house on the turn(!) Meh! Clawing my way back up with a few double-ups I was still under average on 13k when I found AK in MP and raised 3xBB, Button shoved; I just had to make that crying call to see her table AA which held up. I had her covered by 700 - knew I wouldn't last long with 500/1k blinds coming towards me, I shoved on the first picture card I saw (Kc5c) Sharon G raised in SB with K10 to push out BB who dutifully folded. 2 clubs on the board gave me a glimmer of hope but the non-club 10 river sealed my fate and I was out in 17th place. Maeve did really well to hang on til 18th, it was her first tournament outside the IDP circuit and she loved it...WP girl! Susie got moved to a mental table full of LAGs but eventually lost her race to exit in 26th place. Abi (aka IMFT - she took JeFoy's ticket) found the pace and the dire standard on her table a bit outside her league - she was grateful to exit in 33rd place. The 66-Maniac ended up heads-up spliting 50-50 with the eventual title winner. Apart from thr dire standard it was good fun, and hilarious at times! It was lovely to meet up with Trishakids, Gillcarr72 and other familiar faces.

I went straight to the bar for food with the IDP girls and watched the last 20-30 mins of the Ireland Grand Slam match, what a game! Didn't we do well?!!! Went back in to rail the final table and play some cash. The cash table was 4/5 handed and difficult to master with Sharon G's partner welding a €400 stack against us 'shorties'... I kept losing my bets til one big pot put me back on up with €25 profit, so I decided to quit while I was ahead! We headed into Buskers to meet up with friends and watch the fight, when Bernard Dunne took down the title the roof nearly went off the place and the drinks went flying in all the excitement, even hitting one of the TV screens but surprisingly no damage done!

Went to the Fitz afterwards with Susie, sat down on the cash table, put €150 on the table and got up with €650. Happy days!!! The biggest pot was holding JJ on a KQ9 rainbow board hitting my straight with a beautiful 10 on the river! There was 4 players in the pot - two ATC drunk players and one Asian LAG, all calling one of the drunks outlandish bets. We learned early on that these ATC drunks were pure value so neither I nor the Asian was folding! On the river I was first to act and went all-in with my last 100, and they all folded. Tommy was on the table roaring "ya, she had the straight from the word GO!" then muttered to me "Go home! There's no more money on this for you to win!" he was right everyone had 100 or less... so I tipped the dealer and got up to leave at 5:30am. What a nice start to Mothers Day!

I had a really lovely mothers day with the kids, my sister and her family and our mum in Newbridge House. Donabate. The weather was dry and mild - the farm and the playground kept them happy for hours; we finished it off with a lovely meal in Skerries overlooking the Marina and didn't get home til 8:45pm. Too late for the Bell game...

On Monday night I was in one hell of a mood, I fancied the distraction of a game so went off to DPN's Hartstown €60FO and took it down for €500... the lads are so loose and aggressive, its not rare to have 4k pots in the first two levels, bingo-poker at its best! LOL! You need your wits not to be pushed off pots and go with your inner gut feeling. With the mood I was in, I played an aggressive game playing more hands than I normally do. And it paid off... Just wish I could bottle it!!!

I got criticised for making one 'dubious' call. Two shorties all-in pre-flop (we are down to two tables 7 on each) I'm table chipleader in BB I have 21BBs and the highest bet was 7BBs; looking down to see A10 I called... Derek on 2.8k turns over AK, other guy on 7k turns over JJ (my read on him is 'uber loose', he limps in with any two hoping to see the flop cheap and then bets big when he hits. Here I'm putting him on any pair 55+, any ace, QJs, KQ-K10s), board reads A high. Derek triples up and I get the rest... then the JJ player loses it with me ranting "that's a DREADFUL call... that was a really BAD call... I NEVER play A10 like THAT!" (bit rich when you play 69off and K2 off yourself mister!) Other players are tutting and agreeing with him, as Graham comes over. I'm defending my decision explaining pot odds, I was in BB, I had the chips, it was an opportunity to eliminate at least one player etc etc etc) The discordant voices are getting louder when Graham asked what happened, Derek gives him the run down. Graham nods "Actually... that was a good call. She was getting 3 to 1 for her money. Yep... Well played!" Everyone goes quiet. JJ storms off in disgust!

Amazing how they all look down on the woman player but one man praises the move and it's aaaaaaawwwwwrioght(!)

I got snapped at for encouraging Benny in BB to call a shortie's (in CO) all in with <2.5 times the BB. Benny calls and tables 93s, Shortie has K8o. Shortie scoffs at him "WTF are you calling with that muck for?!" I spoke up saying I'd have done the very same, there was no one else in the pot FFS! Benny was 3rd chipleader, he had no folding equity plus was 40-60 to win by calling with any two! I pointed out that he wasn't under pressure to push as he had 6 more cards to see before the blinds reached him... Board reads xx9x9 and shortie storms off calling Benny a 'F@*king donk!' and how 'clueless some players are about poker!' LOL!

Well that cluelessness helped me to take it down so don't knock it!

Ended up 4 handed with Benny, Lucinda and Paul S. Paul and Lucinda were short stacked, with both Benny and myself leading. I kept shoving and they all kept folding, increasing my chiplead. The blinds were 8k/15k when Benny decided to shove with J9 into my AQ, not a good move with Lucinda all-in next hand for 2nd time - and facing 4th place exit... Instead poor Benny was out in 4th, Lucinda who didn't play one pot on the final table exited in 3rd and I faced Paul S for Heads Up. "Wanna Split?" he asked cheekily eyeing my 110k+ stack then looking at his own 20k... I laughed. I kept going all-in, he doubled up on the first one, we split the second pot and eventually 3rd time lucky I had his J5o well whipped by my A9s. GG.

In the space of one weekend I'm almost back in the black... These wins tend to happen in three's so I'm due one more soon! Hmmmm? Me thinks the downswing is well and truly on the way UP!

Long may it last!

On a massive downswing...

2009-03-18T18:40:00.004Z

Poker sucks right now.

I don't know where to begin... but let's say I'm just not winning lately. A mixture of bad beats, grrr-on-tilt-play and yeah... some crappy hands that I just shudda/cudda/wuddn'ta fold. I didn't have the heart to keep posting about losing here... it may work well for Doke, but not moi!

Ah, let me backtrack a little: I did win 'something' a ticket to the Ladies Poker Championship in the Crowne Plaza on Saturday 21st March. First time I ever won a satt. Disappointing numbers aside, its shaping up to be a good game with a few of the IDP ladies playing... I'm still trying to persuade the rest to come! They've never played outside the IDP circuit/home games before so this would be a great experience for them. Here's hoping one of us goes deeeeeep! It will be fun putting a face to all the Boardies/Facebook crowd too...

Stephen/Poker Ireland always puts on a good game, he's promised to increase the stacks/blinds so I'm just looking forward to having a good day of playing poker for just €10! Anything else that comes out of it will be a bonus... Bring it on!

In profit... only just!

2009-02-21T22:16:00.008Z

It's becoming standard for me. I buy-in to a game, become chipleader, make final 18 then bomb out before final table... don't tell me to tighten up, loosen up or 'get it in goot' - cos I'm doing all those things and meh, I'm not getting anywhere near the cash! Send me to the nearest cash/side game and I prosper well there(!)

I missed playing in the Bell on Sunday night, so allowed myself a game on Monday in Hartstown. Hadn't been there in a while... I forgot how loose they can play! I set up a SnG side game with 8 players, ended up HU with Ciara but egged on by others, we split it for €80 each so we all can play another SnG! Didn't win that... leaving the pub I was grabbed by a couple of the regs - they were hosting a game back in one of their houses and were insisting I join the 4 of them. I made excuses (honestly!!!) but got brow-beaten into going back for 'an hour'... 3 hours later I finally arrive home €160 richer. Don't think they'll be inviting me back again... LOL!

Had back-to-back meetings in town all day Wednesday, last one finished at 8pm - making the most of my 'freedom' for the night I hit the Jackpot with Cee, Justin and a very reluctant Susie Woosie. Getting off to a good start, it wasn't difficult considering how loose the first table was, I was up to 20k before end of 2nd level. Cee and Justin crashed out early. By the time we got down to the final 2 tables, I was 3rd or 4th chipleader. Lost big with AQ to QQ by a player who I had tagged as loose, WP sir. Went utterly card dead for several orbits getting raped by the blinds. With < 5BB shoved with Q9s from BB, 4 limpers on the table already, I got 2 callers: KK and 88!!! WTF! Why limp with them hands people?!

Susie was still in, so I joined the cash table - bad move, I was too tired to play properly and allowed myself to get pushed off pots when the fresh-alert-me would played on... Got up 100 down and railed Susie on the final table. She played a tight game getting it in well but bombed out the 4th place with the villain hitting his flush on the river. WP Susie! Now aren't ya glad you came along girl?!! LOL!

Friday I was in the mood to go to Dunboyne, I really like this game: 10k starting stack and 25 min blinds. Food at the break and a late bar - meaning no rush to finish the game within a time constraint. There's 3 dealers so if there's extra tables they all take turns at the various tables, so it's not all self-dealt. Plus a nice soft side 1/2 no-limit cash table... There's nothing else better on offer out there! Its taking over from the Bell as my favourite game of the week!

I had to sort out kids before I could take off, arriving 'Maddog style' at the start of the (75/150) level... There were 4 tables in full swing, looking around my table, I had a mixture of regs and new faces; I vowed to play tight til I had a feel for the players. First hand was JJ; ah feck! Can't fold that!

UTG raised to 500, I re-pop to 1300 (didn't want to commit too much at this point with no read on the guy, plus I was in MP with 3/4 players left to act)... Player to my left called and action folded back to the blinds. As the BB was mucking his card one accidentally turned over and revealed a Jack. I wasn't too pleased to see that... UTG promptly folded, tapping the exposed J and announcing 'No point me calling!' Great(!) Making a mental note to myself to play this tight, plan to fold to raise on A/K/Q high boards. I was stunned to see the flop:

AJx (rainbow)

Ah... So someone is telling porkies(!) Feeling really powerful here, I bet out 5k expecting other player to fold. But no, he shoved for 2,900 more. I had to call... He tables AQ(!) Bad call sir, I could've had AK even(!) My set turns into house by river. Nice double up to start off. I get a ribbing from some players comparing my play to last week's similar but premature exit!

I gradually worked my stack up to 40k before I got moved, finding QQ UTG, I bet out big and SB calls. Flop comes 10 high... SB checks and I bet out 2/3 pot, he flat calls, turn is Ace. He check-raises me shoving all-in. Calling him would have left me with less than half my stack I had no option but to fold. He proudly shows 73 suited for air. Cheeky Chancer! Was down to 30k approx when we were down to final 18 and our table got broken. I was placed in a tough spot between Koolkid and the unpredictable Paul Stynes. After losing 10k to Paul, I went card dead and started drifting down to 12.5k, blinds were 800/1600. Finding Kh10h in CO, 2 limpers and the blinds on the table I felt it was a good spot to shove and gain 5k for my stack. I wasn't expecting Paul (one of the limpers) to call me with KK(!) Standard for Paul(!)

Two hearts and a 10 on the flop gave me a lotta outs but none came to save me and I was out in 11th place. Koolkid wasn't impressed, muttered at me for shoving when 'you weren't short stacked enough' til I pointed out I had an M less than 6, with the blinds increasing to 1k/2k in less than 2 mins I felt it was a good spot to shove. He gave out big time to Paul: 'Limp in with kings?!!! Why would you do that?! Dreadful play...' LOL! Think that ticking off put Paul on tilt and he bombed out shortly after that!

I trotted over to the cash table and sat in the only available seat beside the most annoying yakker you can have on a poker table; GHA was there too obviously on tilt from the Yakker (who was also drunk) going on about 'short arms'... so I tolerated him for that reason. Susie was also there, as was Lucinda and a couple of new faces. Plenty of value abound. Cheeky Chancer joined up making a deal with one of the regs to play with his money for a 50-50 profit split... Graham and I glanced at each other bemused. Putting 50 on the table, I used it to push two €12 bets off the pot with all-in button shove. Finding Js9s in BB, 4/5 players limped into the pot and Button (Well dressed LAG) raises to 25, I counted €14 on the table and felt WDL was just pushing us off the pot with any two, and called. Flop comes 10sQs10x, I check called another 25, 8s on turn and I was looking at a lovely straight flush! Niiiicceeee... I bet out 25, he raises to 50, I re-raise all-in for 20 more, WDL folds muttering 'ah you got your house right?' I table my straight flush to his disbelief!

The speech play banter between the Yakker and Cheeky Chancer was so off putting I folded a couple of key hands. Til Graham announced last hand... bugger! I'm on button now and so playing this regardless of what it is! Looking down I found 2 black aces - deadly!!!! 5 limpers and blinds to act - I made it 10 to go. 4 callers... including the WDL and Cheeky Chancer. Board comes 10 5 x, 2 clubs. Action checks back to WDL who bets 30. I min raise it to 60, and... they all flat call(!) Eh???! Turn brings another 5, as the players check back to me I shove. First player thinks for a minute then re-pops all-in but Cheeky and WDL folds, river was non-club. I table my aces announcing 'two pair' expecting to be beaten and was stunned when other player mucks. 'What did you have?' I asked... 'King 10, top pair, flush draw'. Oh. Ship the pot to me please!

After tipping the dealers I was delighted to cash out for €390.

Sunday was a beautiful day - really warm too... Spring has arrived at last! Had my princess fast asleep in bed by 7:15pm, she was shattered after being out in the fresh air all day! Was down in the Bell 10 mins later, just in time for my early bird chip.

I joined Tweety, Charlie (1st and 2nd last Friday in Dunboyne) Hussan on the table with Kojack on my right; Kojack was clearly spewing chips, playing so bad, I made a kindly comment on his play more or less telling him to take it easy and he took it badly snapping the head off me... a couple of times I was calling raises he was counting up my chips wrong and I had to ask for a re-check... The tension was mounting. I was playing Tighty-McTight, gradually building my stack up to 14k from 10.5k, folding more than I normally play. Finding QQ in SB (blinds 100/200) 3 limpers and Tweety to act in BB, I raised to 900. Tweety re-raised to 2400, and limpers folded. I had him covered so re-popped all-in. Tweety insta-called tabling AK off... I showed my Queens and he groaned, stood up and put his jacket on. Kojack started dealing out the board, chanting 'ace or king... ace or king... ace or king' - boy he really wanted me off the table didn't he(!) As it happened Tweety managed to suck out with a 4th club to hit his flush... as Kojack started pushing my chips over I stopped him counting them out rapidly myself... he lost it with me and threw the rest of the deck of cards at me. I was going to snap at him but instead told him to 'relax, I have him covered...' and got a curt 'f.. you' in return. Great sportsmanship there sir.

With less than 5bb I was out in one orbit, shoving with AJ - Tweety kindly 'donated', as did Kojack 'hope this gets her out' he mutters, 'Check it down yeah?'. Tweety looks at him after the 7 high flop and bet out 5k (nice one!) Kojack scowls and folds in disgust. Tweety tables K7 and asks if I had better I shook my head, tabling my hand, no ace or jack and I was gone. Glad it was Tweety than Kojack though...

I took myself off to Tallaght Poker Rooms and rode the roller coaster cash table, more for the double-cash hours than anything else! I've never earned enough to play in any of the leagues in the casinos so taking a shot at this one... Which looks like the most generous one around.

Arriving in an aggressive mood I made some maniac hero calls with A high and low pairs and winning them, drove 50 up to 345, had a 400 limit in mind but went down again... Another 50 on the table, went up to 200 then crashed out. The table is mad, they will call raises with any pair, any ace, any king, any suited two! It's a tough one to crack. Enjoyed the craic and the banter... very risqué and brash though it may be! Suffering for it big time today...

For all my playing this week I've just €125 left to show for it... ah, better a profit than a loss!

Brag and the Beat

2009-02-16T18:55:00.002Z

This week has been up and down... two steps up, one step back!

Went over to the Westbury on Wednesday to try my hand at Satt'ing a ticket for their Monthly 250 FO; arrived at 9pm the place was empty (Ha! Suits me, a possible guaranteed ticket on a bye...) but by 9:40 they had 5 players and we kicked off the race. Unlike your standard Satt game this one was going very loose, very fast! By 10:20pm I was HU with a 2-1 disadvantage. 15 mins later we were almost level in chips when I got it all-in with a straight to the 9 but my opponent sucked out on the river with a straight to the Q! WP Sir...

Four players arrived late, so another Satt was suggested, everyone played (including the ticket winner who bombed out 1st) one ticket for 1st, 150 for 2nd and 50 for 3rd... I bubbled again in 4th place(!) Meh! Good luck to the winners - will be watching out on Boards for how they did! Will attempt the Satts again next month. The Westbury is a lovely club, well worth a visit. The cash games there are maniac, worse than Tallaght Poker Rooms, don't think of raising as they will ALL call you... to the river if they have to...

Playing Dunboyne on Friday I had my fastest exit ever! QQ into a 33-set-on-turn-house-by-river jobbie(!) Shoved short-stacked with AJ on a AAK flop, two clubs, called by Jc10c... Q on turn was sick... but the club on the river was sicker! 18 minutes after I drove in the gates I was driving out again!

Head into town feeling very tender... decided to visit the Jackpot, hadn't been there in months, sat down at the cash table with €70 and rode a rollercoaster cash game up to €650, down to €180, up to €450 then home! Best hand was AA, I was in MP with €180 approx, raised to pot got two callers including a LAG Asian player with a beautiful coiffured mane that would make any woman proud! Flop comes a glorious A66. I bet out 2/3 pot, the Asian LAG raised to €50... This guy had just bluffed me off a huge pot in the previous hand with air, I was going to milk this! I hummed for a minute before flat calling, turn was 9 flushing the board, I checked... Asian throws in 100, I insta-shoved, he jumps up flicks his hair and calls throwing 69 on the table. I shook my head and table my aces... very... slowly... he actually growled in disgust starts muttering to another Asian in their language. Borrowing €100 off his friend, the LAG proceeds to tilt that off in less than 4 hands, with his remaining €25 going to me... the look I got. He definitely put a curse on me, I didn't win another pot after that and trotted home with my wee €400 profit.

I was set to deal at PokerIreland's monthly Dublin 100 game. Arriving at 12:45, there was 15 players, 5 dealers, and 5 tables... By 1pm, with just 18 players registered Stephen asked if I still wanted to deal or if I fancied playing. I agreed to play... I think he was regretting that 40 minutes later when the tally had increased to 44 players! I never got going in the game, apart from being card-dead, we had the loosest LAG I ever met on our table, he put the bejaysus into all of us! I won't go as far as call him a fish... that would be insulting to the real fishes. I just won 3/4 pots hovering between 9k-12k all day. But this LLAG guy, a well-known player apparently, called every raise pre-flop just to see the flop! Only folded 3 or 4 times pre-flop in all(!) It was so hard to put him on a hand - he raised, limped, bet and called with any two... with no regard to position or hand ranking! E.g. the luck box made some lucky hero calls with A3 on a KJ3610 board against an all-in player and managed to win with a pair of 3s(!) He puts Bomber Nolan deep into the shade with his play! To cut a long story short, I became shortstacked after losing two pots, when he limped in with AQ and put me out holding QJ... Meh!

Great game, excellent structure, will definitely play it again. I went out somewhere between 34 and 30, at 4:30pm. By 5pm I was back in the room dealing cash, and eventually the final table (which ended up being split 4 ways) earning enough to cover my buy-in!

Had a wee bit of cash coaching this week - which paid off a little... but it made me realise I've still a lot of work to do to improve my game.

Suckouts!

2009-02-09T01:17:00.002Z

This weekend the pokah gods are playing sick jokes on me... dishing out lovely hands, with a gullible player calling for the ride only for them to hit the better hand! If you don't like bad beat stories look away now!

IDP cash game: JJ in BB, .25c/.50c, Cee straddles UTG for €1, 3 callers, I make it €10. He calls, rest folds... low flop with 2 clubs... action goes check, raise, call all the way to the river when a club appears, Cee shows the Kc2c to claim a lovely pot(!) I get Queens, shove big, called by Donal-the-Value he turns over J9 and board comes Q810...4...K meh!

Fitzwilliam cash: K8 on button, limped in to a family pot. Flop comes Kh, 8x, 3h... SB bets the pot, 2 callers, I want to re-raise but made a mistake with my chips so it's accepted as a call(!) Turn brings another 8, SB bets out pot, actions folds back to me, I shove he calls and turns over 33 for lower house. But the river? Another 3(!) Grrrrr!

UK Deaf Poker Online Reunion £1k guaranteed William Hill: UTG I'm short stacked with 850 chips approx, blinds 50/100 finding AsKs I raise all-in; Chipleader (who has been dogging me BIG time) calls showing K10 off. Board comes out: AxKx10s...Js...10x. FFS!

Bell Sunday Deepstack Game: I'm 2nd chipleader after Shay, and finding KKs UTG I make it 1800 to go (blinds 300/600). Action folds back to Shay in SB, he flat calls and BB gets out of the way. Flop comes 8c7c2x - Shay checks, I bet 2.6k (yes I know I should have bet more! But...) he re-raises to 7k. I shove... he hums for a second then calls without asking 'how much' for my remaining 5.5k and tables 9d 10d for OESD(!) Of course he hits a Jack to complete his straight, on the river(!) So sick!

My tracker line is on a downward spiral(!)

Anyone got any prayers, suggestions, superstitions to appease them gods in order to achieve a decent cash prize to put me back into the black?!

DPN Dunboyne Debut

2009-02-07T04:17:00.004Z

DPN are starting a new game in Dunboyne on Friday nights - really good structure: 10k, 25 min blinds but I feel €50+10 is a bit low, they need raise the buy-in to get more players. Dunboyne Castle is really lovely venue and there's no pressure on the game to be finished by a certain time. Starting at 8pm with 35 players approx, it wrapped up at 1:30am.

I'm too tired to recall key hands, very unlike me... Ha! But my table was a mixture of LAGs, Newbies as well as a couple of DPN regular donks. One LAG kept annoying me big time, calling raises with any two and getting lucky, claiming the pots showing one card and mucking the other before anyone could object. I raised big with JJ in MP, and he called from SB flop comes K high, he bets out, I re-raise, he insta-shoves.... I folded my JJ face up and he shows his King with a smirk, when he showed the other card to his friend, I insisted on seeing it too. Yelling angrily "K6? What!!!! You call my raise with that muck?" he replied "Aaaahhhh I like kings, anyway I had the chips and they were sooted... har! har!" Grrr! Lucky chancer(!) That action would be his undoing... Later he raised in CO-1 and I called from BB with Kc6c (Oh yes... they were soooooted!) board yielded KKxxx and I check called all his bets to the river. He went very quiet after that, lost a race, grew short stacked got blinded out then took off to the cash table. The table got boring after he left...

After a couple of good pots, I hovered between 18k-26k for several orbits, but never got pass 26k, went down as low as 11k then back up to 25k before crashing out in 10th place, after losing two prime races AIPF holding AJs (into Benny's 10 10) and AKs (into newbie's 88) no help from the board on either race and I was gone... Meh(!) Benny later put my chips to good use on the final table to end up HU and split 50-50 with Maddog's friend. GG, WP Benny! That Newbie ended up on the final table too and exited a respectable 3rd place... beginners luck can happen, we so want more players like him! ;-D

After my defeat I wandered over to the cash table, really soft with €1/€2 rake per pot. Putting €40 down (all the cash I had left on me!) and got up 3 orbits later with €210. I just played my best hands and they paid off... for once(!)

Good night, good game, hope it continues!

Tomorrow night the Irish Deaf Poker are hosting their first ever team event, I'll be the non-playing TD, but we will have a proper cash table with dealer - looking forward to that!

UK Deaf Poker Series II

2009-02-02T23:40:00.006Z

What a weekend... what a game... what an event!

The journey from the airport to the venue on Friday night took much longer than Susie and I anticipated, with our flight landing at 9pm, we knew we would be too late for the warming-up game that started at 7:30pm but had hoped for the chance to play some cash or a turbo SnG even. The Loose Cannon private club closes at 12 midnight sharp if you weren't in a seat by 10:30pm latest you don't play, we got there at 11:05pm - we couldn't get a drink either as the bar shuts at 11pm! No buts!

Cannon tube station was closed (no one told us that this London City based station was only open during the business day!) we got off at the next tube station and decided to catch a cab, we got one that took the scenic route to a location which we discovered later was barely 100 yards away from the station(!) But it wasn't in vain, we met up with some of the deaf players still playing, got a great welcome talked to Stephen Draper (UK Deaf Poker organiser) greet some familiar faces that we recognised from last year. And met some new players including 2 French guys, watching how they all played provided me with some very valuable information!

Finding our hotel was another mad discovery. I know it was close but Susie's bad ankle had swelled up, we were bothered walking and decided to catch a cab. Asking the cab driver to take us to the London City Apex Hotel we got a blank look 'wot steet is it on luv?' Struggling to remember... I knew it was "off Lower Thames Street on 'something' lane near the Tower tube station” then a name popped into my head 'Wapping Lane'... Driver nodded 'yah that just up t'road 'ere... but there’s no 'otel on it... do 'op in we'll look!' 10 mins later we are cruising Wapping Lane and he's right, no hotel, it wasn't showing on his sat-nav either(!) Susie suggested looking up the WAP on my phone for an address, lo and behold, it was on the aptly named Seething Lane! Amazing how I came up with a different name of a street so close to the place(!) Once in the hotel (really lovely place, small room but very plush) we were delighted to discover the bar was open til 1am and ordered some cocktails and nibbles before hitting our comfy beds at 1:30am.

Next day I was wide awake at 8:30am... that's a lie-in for me before anyone asks! It's a luxury to be able to wake by yourself, no little hand on the face, no jumping on my back, or loud warm whispers spitting in my ears of 'are you yet?' LOL! I just opened my eyes, after a brief panic when I realised I was not in my bed, got annoyed at how early it was, turned over and tried to go back to sleep... but gave up at 9am. Susie was still in meta-sleep so I went for a walk to find a shop (I'd forgotten my toothbrush!) but every where was shut, it was like walking in a ghost town(!) Gave up came back at 9:45am, moaned to the concierge who informed me that the City is always closed at weekends... ah!

Loose Cannon was serving breakfast from 11am, we walked down the 300 or so yards from the hotel and joined the rest of the waiting group outside the place. It took them til 12noon to serve us our breakfast, which I wasn't impressed with. English traditional breakfasts are hardly a patch on ours anyway! While waiting for our breakfast the registration had started but the queue was moving very slow... I waited til the queue was dispersing before I joined it. Oliver and Stephen were at the table, I was allocated to Table 10 Seat 2, querying about numbers I was surprised to discover that the initial 131 players pre-registered had fell to 118 with the bulk of them pulling out before the 4 day deadline. So far that morning they only had '80-odd' paid so far. The start time was delayed til 1pm to allow for some latecomers. Oliver asked if I was willing to deal as well as play? "Just for a few hours?" as some of their volunteer dealers hadn't arrived. I agreed, I knew I could keep the speed up...

Susie was on table 11, other Irish players: Gerald, Paul and Kathy were on the paid reg list. Donal dropped out for personal reasons. Cathy, who currently lives in London, informed us on Friday that she wasn't 'bothered to play'(!) And there was no sign of Cee (Get In There) or Tim, both had flown to London for the weekend too but had yet to appear... hmmm?! Some of the stronger UK players (e.g. Henry McD) didn't appear either? We had a chat about general rules for the dealers to play with, most of which I suggested, and were accepted.

Cards went in the air at 1:10pm after a short speech from Loose Cannon's owner-manager. We got the official numbers of 86 players. As we started table 12 & 11 had < 7 players on each - all got reassigned to new seats, I lost sight of Susie. Loose Cannon use a method in self-dealt tournaments when a player elects to deal for the table, the entire table must move their places in same order clockwise til the dealer is in the 'dealers spot inside the kidney', the button remains with player in seat 1. As I was officially assigned to seat 2, the players only had to move one place over. At first it was awkward, trying to look at my cards without player 1 and 3 (who had eye-advantage by sitting back from me) seeing them. Unlike here, where players wait til it was their turn to act before looking at their cards it was rather funny watching the players (bar one) grabbing their cards as they got them! I instantly knew, apart from that one player, the remaining 8 were inexperienced... This was going to be fun!

Off to a Flying Start!

I was SB in the first hand, UTG limped in for 50, UTG+1 raised to 1k(!) Crazy move considering we only had 5,000 starting stack and 30 minute blinds! Action folded back to me. I looked down and found 99, no way was I folding that! I debated re-raising but elected to call as I've no read on the players yet. BB folds and UTG calls. Flop comes out 664, I bet 2k, and both players insta-folded(!) I'm up to 7k my best start ever! Next hand I'm on the button, UTG folds, and the rest of the players limp in. I look down and find 22, using my chiplead and position to my advantage, there was 450 on the table so I raised to 550. I got two callers: MP and CO. Flop is Q72... Niiiiiiice! MP and CO both check, I bet out 500 wanting them to pay, MP raises to 1k, CO folds as I re-raise to 2.5k and MP calls. Turn is 7 giving me a house, MP throws out 2k leaving himself with 550 behind. I shove, he looks down then tosses in his remaining chips, as I take back my 'change' he turns over Q10 (????!) and groans when I table my pair. MP got to leave, there was applause as he was the first person out... which mortifed him that he sat down and refused to leave the table!

With my stack at 11,750; I remained inactive, folding til the blinds came back to me. In BB I checked my 89off with 6 limpers. Flop comes out X89 2 suits, betting out 375, an amazing 4 players called including the one I had noted as being the only other experienced player on the table. Turn is 8 giving me another house, as first to act I threw out 1.5k, all the players fold bar the exp player who shoves for 1.6k approx more, I call and he tables K9s for a 2 pair/flush draw. Ouch! As he got up to leave, I dealt the river and land a lucky 9 to split the pot and keep him in, pushing my stack up to 14k.

The very next hand was my best of the tournament. I was in SB with Ac3c; I complete the 100 with 6 limpers and BB for a family pot. Flop read Qc3Jc, action checked around to the Button who threw in a 300 bet, less than half the pot, of course I was going to call with top flush draw and one pair - so did 3 players! Turn brought another 3 giving me the trips and a nice leading advantage! Wanting to capitalise on this I checked as did the other players, Button throws out 900, I called hoping the other 3 players would come along for the ride and they did(!) Turn brought the remaining 3 to give me 4 of a kind. Whoa! Not wanting to be seen as a slowplayer, I bet out 1.5k hoping to be raised, the calling stations folded and Button shoved his stack over the line. Sweet! I looked at him sadly: "Yeah, I'm calling you" and flipped over my cards without putting my chips out... He turned over AQ. WTF was he slowplaying that hand for?!!! The shock on his face was priceless, I held my hand out to shake hands but it took him a while to register what my hand was there for! Poor guy. I was up to 19k.

By the end of the 3rd level I was on 24k, and had exited 2 more players, when the floor staff announced that they were breaking our table, the relief on the players faces! They jumped up immediately and ran, very happy to get away from me I supposed!

Then Went Freezing Cold...

I got moved to a difficult table, I didn't have to deal at this one, the LC owner was dealing: Susie Woosie, Paul K, Stephen Draper, Ben Palmer and Nick Lewis were all on it! Eeek! All strong capable players, I knew easy chips on this table were going to be tough to get. Susie warns me that the other players were very loose-aggro - one who played okay but 'bluffed as much as Gum' and a luck-box of a calling station playing 'any two'. I was thankful to have position on Stephen (I never got the opportunity to wrestle with him!) but had Nick (short stacked but well able to weld it) & Susie (3rd chipleader on the table with 16k) were to my immediate right. Very difficult position to play in.

Finding AK I raised to 4xBB in late position and get called by the calling-station (CS) and the LA-Bluffer (LAB), the board comes out wet, action checks back to me each time and I bet out strong on all streets... with both players calling me to the end. LAB won holding A2 making a pair with a 2 on the Board to win with ace kicker against calling station's K2(!) FFS! I lost about 6k in that hand trying to get them off that pot! I got my revenge on the CS some hands later, I was down to 16k after wrangling with in SB with Q4 suited, there was 3 limpers: Susie, (playing very cautiously on 8k after losing half her stack to Stephen) the CS, LAB plus Nick (who had just doubled up through Paul K rendering him short stacked) in BB. I tanked before deciding to call the 200, Nick looked at me suspiciously then checked. Flop came out a lovely 356 rainbow, seizing the opportunity as first to act I bet out 500, half the pot, Nick folded while rest called. Turn brought 7 giving me the straight, I fired out 2k, Susie folded, CS and LAB called. Turn was an innocent 2, betting out 3k, CS called. LAB tanked for a while before folding. Throwing the four on the table... CS mucked and I was back up to 21k approx.

In the very next hand I got JJ on the button, and raised to 1.8k, trying to kick out the blinds and four limpers including LAB & CS! I was happy to take it down here... as Nick in SB folded, Susie shoved for 8k... (WTF!) Looking hard at Susie, I saw her annoyance when CS folded his hand before action came back to me. That look set warning bells off: Susie rarely does this unless she has a hand, I tanked for ages watching her before she called the clock on me! Then I spotted another tell: she didn't look one bit worried or tense, I knew she had something really good... putting her on KK or AA, QQ even. I folded reluctantly. And did an excited fist-pump when she tabled AA face up! Phew! Telling Cee about it later, he told me I should have called(!) Yeah right!

At the dinner break, all the 'dealers' were told that their dinner (Chicken burger & chips) was covered plus a drink. Nice one! We were brought to the kitchen to get our meal, I discovered Cee & Tim had managed to find their way to Loose Cannon in the end. Both were too late to play and offered to deal instead. Telling them about my progress, Cee told me he was witnessing "the worse standard of poker ever" that some players were slowplaying the nuts by check calling to the river, not just one random hand, but EVERY time they had a hand!?!! One such player was now on 70k (WTF!), and another was on 45k ... After the break the LC Manager asked me if I would take over from him to deal for the table, I agreed as long as he broke my table up first and FAST! He asked why? "...you sure? Your table is the only one table that is playing good..." I agreed pointing out that we didn't want to knock each other out to end up on final table full of donks on monster stacks! He promised to do his best.

After dinner I was in SB before I got a good hand to play with, Susie was in BB, Paul K had limped in UTG, along with 3 other callers (including CS and LAB of course!) finding AQo I decided to raise 2,400 (blinds 200/400) Paul and CS called. Flop came AXX all spades, I checked my hand and had the Q spades, good enough for me. Betting out 2,500, Paul shoved for 5k approx. I knew Paul wouldn't have limped with AK or AA, so ruled that advantage out, he wouldn't call 2,400 pre-flop with two random spades either. I called. He tables AxJs, turn brings him a J (ahhh!) but the river brings the extra spade I need for the flush. Sorry Paul! GG WP!

It was at this point that I started to feel queasy, Susie noticed I had gotten quiet, making a couple of unusual mistakes and asked if I was okay, I blamed it on being tired. Dealing is not an easy job, especially if you are playing as well... I was constantly active monitoring the game, the players were acting out of turn, string betting, etc that I was totally moving. She suggested asking Ben to take over the dealing for a while, I agreed, my stomach started 'bubbling' loudly! I scampered off to the loo and had a really bad case of the runs. Guess I ate something off?

I came back, played a few hands really badly, once into Ben doubling him up, another into a new player who had just moved to our table whom I had no real read on. I doubled him up as well! Went down to a disappointing 15k... before I could re-track our table got broken.

... From Bad to Worse!

Initially I was delighted to be moved, I went to the same table as the players who eventually came 2nd, 7th and 8th: all playing really badly! But it bit me hard too, I managed to creep back up to 26/27kk approx, when I found KK in SB, CO and Button limped in with BB still to act. I wanted to capitalise on this hand, so I raised to 5xBB. Talking it over with a poker friend afterwards I realised I should have raised more.... BB, CO and Button all called me(!) Flop came A high, I bet out and got called, checked the turn, the others checked behind (!) With no pair, no flush no picture card I felt I was ahead so raised to just over half pot on the river with all 3 donks calling me holding ace rags: A2, A2 and A4(!) FFS! Down to 18k I was moved again...

We were down to 4 tables of 7/8 per table by this stage, blinds were 500/1k, I was moved into BB, having just been in SB on last table! Grrrr! I folded another set of blinds as I was waiting for a hand that I could shove with but none was forthcoming :-( The action was very slow on this table. I only saw 3 hands before that table got broken and I was put on another table, Stephen Draper along with two of the players were 1st, 2nd and 3rd chipleader in the competiton with the latter two were calling in every hand!

I barely sat down on the 3rd table when I discovered I was in UGT facing the blinds AGAIN! In the space of 7 hands I had paid 3 sets of blinds, which were now 1/2k. Very annoying and very unfair!

Matt K was on my table too so was Stephen (still one of the chipleaders) the rest of players were virtually newbies/inexperienced players. As I folded UTG two players limped in UTG+1 and CO on Matts BB, he raised them pre-flop, and got called. Action checked back to him post-flop, he raised again and got called before checking down turn and river, and they checked behind to show AQ and AA on a xxxQA board(WTF!?) Comseriating with Matt, he told me they had been playing like this ALL day(!) Never raising just calling, checking, calling... unbelievable!

I went down to 12k, got 99 then JJ and shoved both times but got no callers, just won the blinds etc. Was in BB again with 15.5k when my exit hand happened. UTG limps, as did chipleader in MP, SB completes. Finding 10 2 off I checked, expecting to fold, flop came a lovely Q 10 2. Checking vowing to shove to any bet, I was miffed when the action checked around. Turn brought an Ace, remembering the KK fiasco plus UTG is a notorious slowplaying donk, I decided to check, as did the other players. The 2 on the turn gave me a house plus the confidence I needed to act... As SB checked, I shoved, UTG insta-called... alarm bells were going off in my head as the rest folded.

I tabled my 10 2 as UTG tabled a sick AA. Really bad form IMO. But what could I have done differently?

I was this close to throwing a full strop a la Annnette_15 style, but thankfully I digress, just shook his hand... looked at Matt and Stephen "Don't let that donk win!" I signed as I exited in 14th place, last woman standing and the last Irish player too. Guess that counts for something! I took off to the bar to get a stiff drink...

Moaning to Ben Palmer (who held on despite very short-stacked only to be kicked out in 5th place) about the way the guy played the aces, Ben remarked "but that's the best way to play it...you know" I replied sagely that the slowplaying the odd hand is fine but not every single time! Pointing out the fact how I had hit the house, and if that ace hasn't appeared on the turn, it would have been a bad bead. He 'pooh-pooh'ed me telling me that it was the 'correct' way to play, and adding for the win(!) perhaps I didn't have "enough experience"(!?) LOL! I love Ben big time, but he can be an annoying little fecker, playing the devils advocate to the hilt!

After the game, I joined the Irish continent, a couple of British and one Swedish player on a brilliant cash table game! The conversation turned to the standard of the UK event; while we all agreed that the structure, the tables, location etc was good, "the lack of professional dealers was bad, unfair on players paying a £10 reg fee" plus the standard was atrocious! The Swedish player commented that he has never seen such "poor sportsmanship" as exhibited by some British players, adding that he would not be coming back! Hmmm? He concluded that us Irish played "much superior style" of playing (just as well Ben, Stephen and Matt weren't at the table!) he would definitely consider playing in Dublin and we should come to Sweden to play, even offered me a room to stay if I ever went to Malmo. So sweet!

We all watched the final table with candid eyes, hoping that the remaining decent players: Ben, Stephen (9th place) or Matt (4th place) would take it down... but it wasn't to be.

The first drink went down rather well, I ordered another then another, and conveniently forgetting my earlier bout of queasiness: I got rather drunk very quickly! After Loose Cannon closed we went to this trendy hip-music dance bar with Paul K, Susie, Gerald and 10 mad British players. That bar served the cheapest drinks ever (3 pints, two spirits, two mixers and one cocktail for £16 - beat that!) I stumbled into a taxi and made it back to my hotel very well jarred, harassing the night reception staff for food before crashing into bed! Just as well I did, I think it saved me from having a massive hangover the next morning!!!!

Flying back to Ireland, our mood was sombre, Susie remarked that she wouldn't be playing the UK Series again next year and asked if I would be playing... On Sunday I said no, but now I'm swaying towards a 'maybe', guess I'll keep an open mind for now! Perhaps if Stephen can price the donks out of the tournament it'll be more platable?! ;-D

The event was structured way better than last year by a mile, but the standard was worse, much worse... Well done to Oliver and Stephen for organising it!

Still in the black... for how long?!

2009-01-29T00:17:00.007Z

This month poker has been a yo-yo ride, up one week, down the next... Looking at my spreadsheet I've cashed in every 3rd game so far, but the returns are small, I wipe it out in the next 2/3 buy-ins then I'm in the black again. Crashing out early of the main games at the DPN, I usually jump into the side cash game and take that down. Played in the Tallaght Poker Room scalps and came 3rd for €100 plus 4 scalps at €5 each. Okay these are small buy-ins with a lot of newbies and donks lately, I've lost count of how many times I crashed holding the best hand pre-flop to a lucky chancer who called because they "could afford it..." or the immoral "... they were soooted!" Meh!

But hey, I really do cherish these experience as I'm off to London this weekend for the UK Deaf Poker Series ... and trust me, those players will put our usual donks in the shade and make you cry! I'm so looking forward to writing my report on the event! LOL!

Last year myself and Susie went over to the first series which was an total expereince in itself! We were among six Irish players in a 60+ British strong field, narrowed down to the final 9 with 3 of us Irish on the final table (says a lot doesn't it?) including myself and Susie. I was shortest-stacked but held on only to bubble in 6th place while Susie cashed out in 3rd. This year's tournament kicks off with a much smaller-buy in of £35... an unbelievable 50% reduction on last year's buy-in and includes a hefty £10 reg that Cee still harps on about! (Me thinks its the loose standard he is more worried about than a measy tenner!) The organisers said they were more interested in getting the numbers in, they were hoping for 120 players, and hey! There's 131+ registered... Bravo! I expect that number to be exceeded on the day too, generating an acceptable prize pot to be shared among the final 10%! Didn't they do well?

I'm going over with an open mind and no expectations. Planning to put the wee profit I have this month to good use and enjoy myself doing it with no regets! I'll be play uber-tight-aggro: if I'm out first - first hand even - so be it! But I promise ya I will exit on the best hand pre-flop at least... Bring it on!

Good luck to all the Irish playing on Saturday, try not to get toooooo excited about the AA or KK hand until you know you have the nuts...

Copycats never win!

2009-01-19T12:46:00.004Z

Thursday night and the Gum was in flying form... we hadn't seen her in ages, she was telling us about her latest 'big' success at the Fitz cash tables last week sitting down with €300 and leaving with €1850! Sweeet!

Betting 4xBB UTG+2, as Gum traditionally does with any two in the opening hand, I called holding KcQc in BB (this is our very first hand of the night, BTW) SB comes along for the ride too. The flop comes out JQ10 all spades, I check-raised her and she called my raises on all streets before pushing when the 8s appeared on turn. I folded reluctantly and she proudly shows 99s with the 9 of spades for a sick straight flush! Niiiice! I was down to 3,250 before the second hand was dealt. My, has our Gum has really improved big time?

But no... But we were reminded how baaaaaaaad she plays too! Playing Q6 into AQ on a Q6xxxx board, and winning with J8 against AA and AK on Kx8xJ board(!) Then ousting me spectacularly in 2nd level holding the sickest hand yet: I raised with Ah8h, she called, board reads out A54 two hearts. Betting out she re-raises to put me all-in, which I duly called with top pair and flush draw as you do... only to see her coolly lay 54 off on the table(!) FFS! Cue titters all around...

Last night in the Bell, there were several new faces, some regulars missing and a new early bird chip offer that really worked as the game started off on time with two full tables. Looks promising for future games! One of the new players made a comment about all the women playing - there was 4 of us last night (Gum was absent)- expressing amazement when I told him we had 8 female players on the 'DPN network', in his local 'game' there was no female players at all!

A number of players noticeably changed their playing styles last night to mixed results. A couple of loose players tightened up, usually aggressive players turned into calling stations and slow played premium hands, while tight/safe players turned up the volume... I played like a total donk (I was genuinely trying to see if Gum's method works! LOL!) and paid for it bombing out 3rd last! GG!

Meh!

I'm still looking for some cash coaching, if anyone has any recommendations!?

First Win of 2009!

2009-01-12T00:10:00.005Z

I reset all my poker counters to Zero entering 2009... two live games and I was -€86 already(!) Was feeling really 'focused' heading to the Bell tonight: either I take it down or I cut out poker til after UK Deaf Open on 30th January...

The numbers were disappointing, barely 16 players, Robbie needs to advertise this game more! It offers a beautiful structure: 10k starting stack and 15 minute blinds for €50+10, it deserves much more players. With a three way prize pool of €700 (€100 kept back for the league which started again tonight...) I was determined to play tight to the end.

Got off to a good start with several great hands in succession which I hate, as I always get too many callers who managed to hit the flop and put my hand in the shade.

By the time we got down to 9 players (final table)the blinds were 1/2k - Susie Woosie was chipleader on 40k approx and the rest of the table were hovering just above/below average with 2 short-stacks less than 10k. I had 18k, checking K4s in BB with 5 callers, flop came out Q74 rainbow, action checked around. Turn 4 - I threw out 6k and got two callers, river was 2. My 12k saw them fold and I was up to 38k just behind Susie. Susie lost 16k playing A10s into all-in's AA that hand also eliminated two short stacks with 15k between them. In the next hand blinds were 2/4 I found Ah4h in CO-1 to her button, and raised to 12k. Susie had less than 25k hummed for a minute, I knew by her expression that she had a decent hand and resolved to fold if she pushed but no, she called. The blinds and EP limpers got out of the way fast. Flop came Q49 spades, throwing out 11k into a 35k pot I hoped it would show a flush or AQ and expected Susie to fold... but she shoved her remaining stack over the line and tabled JJ. Oooooh, I was in trouble with my low pair... but turn brought an ace and poor Susie was out making me new chipleader. Few hands later we were down to the bubble with 4 players, I raised on button with KJ. The 2nd chipleader (who won with AA) had limped in UTG, called my raise when the blinds folded. Flop came out J high two diamonds. UTG shoved for 35k and I insta-called, he tabled QdJd; turn brought a King but no diamonds and I was chipleader with over 100k facing two players with less than 23k each.

Tweety was shortest-stack in SB shoved for 12.5k into my 2k BB, finding 3s8s I called to see him table J8o and taking it down on a J high board. The criticism I got was absurd! Eh? I had over 100k, I was BB and knew he was shoving with a high hand; I felt my low hand had a 6-1 chance of knocking him out and went for it... but no... I got told off by Susie and Shuddaman for playing 'bad'! Comments anyone?

A little later I was on Button with Ac6c (blinds 2/4k)and raise to 16k. Shuddaman is in SB and shoves for 36.5k... I called the remaining 20k and faced AJoff... no pair for either of us and Shuddaman is new chipleader on 73k to my 60-odd and a serious threat to me. Graham (the dealer) who had remained silent at the last criticism looked at me sternly "Hmmm, now THAT was not a good call Jules, a 'good' player knows when to fold..." Looking back, considering the possible chip advantage and the Shuddaman's 'tight image', yes, I accept in this spot it was an awful call: I should have folded my A6, I should fold anything other than AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK or AQ.

Knocking Tweety into 3rd place I faced Shuddaman HU 70k to his 90k (approx). Tweeety and Tony voiced an opinion that we should split 50-50. Susie laughed "don't think Jules will split..." Shuddaman looks at me "shall we play it out?" I nodded thinking 'sure... I will be walking outta here with the top prize anyway!' and settled back in to enjoy the HU.

Our HU lasted a good 20-30 mins, blinds increased to 5/10k, I had gradually clawed back the advantage to me with 100-60 when I found Q3s in BB, checking to see the flop: 367... while deciding if I should shove or check... Shuddaman acted out of turn shoving his stack over the line. WTF!? Smelling a rat, I tanked for a minute to think, I knew from watching him play previous HU he likes to slow-play good hands and push on nothing other than underpair, two overcards or draws. My pair was good... but before I had actually decided anything I just 'heard' a voice say "yeah... I call...". Uh oh was that me!??? a fine trickle of sweat ran down my back.

Tabling my Q3, Graham nodded appreciatively, then looked shocked at Shuddaman's 84off hand. "A draw!? You push with a... ohhhhhh... okaaaaaay... a pair of 3s against a straight draw... lets seeeeeeee..." Turn 10. River 2 and it was all over. I had won and was sitting top of the new Bell league to boot. I was still sweating leaving the pub! Even now I'm still warm and the window's wide open...

I'm so glad to have a win starting off my 2009 bankroll, I've kept my resolution to avoid the cash tables too... Long may it last!!!!

Next Tuesday (13th) Susie and I will be hosting a free Deaf Women's Poker Night in Drumcondra to teach some newbies and help other Deaf women players to improve their game. There's some potential players in IDP including IMFT, her partner Maura (who put me out of the PTIG's Swedish Open Satt last Saturday... Grrrr! Serves me right for limping in with a premium hand... meh! WP Maura!) and Cee's sister SJ. Our aim is to have whole bunch of IDP women playing at the 2009 Ladies Championship (now postponed to a later date)... So here goes! Hopefully we have a major winner among our numbers yet!

Looking back at 2008.... Looking ahead into 2009

2009-01-01T15:33:00.007Z

Happy Hangover Day! Yes I've got a fine clanging one... Went home to Roscommon to my mam's pub and the bloody barman kept giving me different drinks cos they had ran out of scotch whiskey(!) I was given Bourbon, rye, Irish, rum and something that smelt like Southern Comfort but tasted like Drambubie! I get serious hangovers when I mix my drinks... regardless if I'm drunk or not!

2008 was a swinging year for me... I got off to a good start in January but went down, down, down after that, my 2nd place win in May's Irish Deaf Poker Open put me right back into the black until a disastrous June & July brought me to a new low and I had to fight hard to regain some sort of bankroll (never mind making a profit!) October and November brought decent wins at both tournament and cash. December was break-even... up in tournaments, down in cash.

Playing at the cash table is my biggest leak. If I cut out playing at the tables I would be up by 3k... Not the €1370 that my records currently show. Pretty sobering thought eh? I will take a leave out of Cee's book and 'swear off' them for a while! Maybe I just stick to SnG/Tournaments like BigMickG does? I usually get off to a flying start in tournaments, become one of the chipleaders at some point, reach the final table even but then I crash.

In fairness this is my first year playing outside the Deaf Poker circuit, so I shouldn't complain! We can't all expect have spectacular wins in our first year like DOKE... hmmm!

Highlights of 2008 include coming 6th in UK Deaf Poker Open and winning 2nd place Irish Deaf Poker Open (May 2008); organising a charity poker event in September which raised an impressive €1,781 for DeafHear despite a low turnout; joining the IDP committee and organising the Deaf Deepstack Classic in October 2008 - our best tournament yet. Meeting and getting to know some of the notable players on the scene, and putting a face to the people who comment here and on Boards.ie! Playing with and dealing to some brilliant (very experienced) poker players, I really learnt a lot, my game has improved from being at the same table as some of them too.

2009 looks big for Deaf Poker, both here and abroad. As well as IDP's two events in May and October, I'll be venturing to Sweden and the UK for some meaty action.

I've registered for the UK Deaf Poker Open on 30th January, which is being heavily (and unfairly IMO) criticised by Deaf players for the lack of dealers and high reg fee etc. UK Poker is only new, the first UK Deaf Open event last year was organised by players who had never played outside of their home games, Stephen Draper has taken over the organising this year and is a highly capable and experienced player, so lets give this event a chance guys...

Swedish Deaf Players added an interesting dimension to our Deeepstack event, I met some quality players and heard a lot about one pro-poker Deaf player who resides in Sweden. I've promised them I'll make a trip over to play at at least one or two of their main tournaments this year. With six events to pick from I better get a move on and decide pretty soon... hurry up with the dates guys!

On the regular scene I'll definitely play the Irish Ladies Poker Championships 2009 that Poker Ireland/Titan Poker are organising... and attempt at least two other big events (not the IO - I'll hold back till I have more experience me thinks! :-D)

2009 Poker Resolutions:

1. Stay away from the cash tables till I get some coaching.
2. Play all the IDP events, the UK Deaf Poker Open and two of the Swedish Deaf Poker tournaments.
3. Play at least two of the big tournaments on the Irish Poker scene
4. To show an 100% increase on my current poker profit for 2009
5. Improve my tournament game more

In a nutshell: I need to win... win more... win big!

Happy New Year Folks... may the river be good to you in all your races!

4th.... again!

2008-12-30T04:05:00.005Z

Went to LEPO this evening with Susie Woosie to rail Cee in the final 18 of the main event, and donated to the €100+10 side event.

Cee played a terrific game to exit in 5th for €1750, Stephen K (a regular from the Tallaght Poker Rooms) kept his act together (for once!) to come 3rd, while Rob Cooker split 50-50 HU for €7250. VWP guys! I dealt at the event for a few hours over the weekend and the standard at the tables I was on, was impressively high, WP to Bru and the Clamper for the great event. I heard nothing but praise from everyone about it. I'm sad they didn't make their numbers but if this becomes an ongoing event (and I hope it does) I can only see it getting better.

The side event that I played in was the toughest game I've ever played in. I had MickG on my first table dogging me big time (I swore I would get his scalp before the game was over but I never got the chance! LOL! Next time Mick...) plus JP and a few good French and one Italian 'rock' players. With so many 'rocks' on the table I decided to play a wee bit loose than my usual cards and it paid off giving me a nice stack going into a tougher final table! I shoved my bigger stack with AKs into JP's AIPF with 55 and stopped another young French player from joining the race, in hindsight am sorry I didn't just call JP's raise to bring the young French player in and trap him.

On the final table I was 2nd chipleader in a tough spot with Clamper (chipleader) to my right and MickG to my immediate left, the infamous Katherine 'Kathy' Hartree was also present on Clamper's left nursing a shorter stack. I had no choice but tighten up big time, my stack got a little bigger (to 52k) but I went on tilt a bit after losing a race with AJs against young French player's AIPF for 9k on A5s (AAQx5 board, 5 on the river...) he kept going on about it to his mates so much and wagging his finger at me that when he moved all in a few hands later while doing this mad "oooo don't call me, oooo don't call me, yaaaaa!" speech-play act at every player who folded down to me - I had A6 off, putting him on another raggy ace or small pair 22-77... I called to see AK. Meh! Bad call. I limped in (Blinds 500/1000) on button with QJs (4 limpers and blinds...) flop comes Q57 two hearts. BB who checked led out for 5k, Polish 'Rock' guy calls, action folds back to me... I want to raise but didn't trust the Polish guy who has not played a hand in a while and is big into slow-playing; I opted to call hoping for a J or Q or heart... River is black Ace, BB then moves all in, Polish player insta-calls and I'm outta there! Clamper was giving a running commentary throughout "...Jules now realises that her hand is not as good as she thought..." just before I folded, (I snapped at him to shut up!) that 'call' really made me look weak... I nearly yelped in dismay when I saw BB's Q4 off but the Polish guy tables 55 for trips, WP sir!

My stack got decimated by the blinds and for the next orbit (we were on the bubble) I went totally card dead - I folded 88 to Clamper's UTG+1 raise with one French on shortest-stack in BB; I was disgusted to see Clamper show 22 when BB pushed his meagre stack with 78 off. Flop Q78(!) I gave out like hell to poor Clamper who kept apologising to me... I faced another set of blinds without any cards. After the bubble had broken, I raised 3XBB on the button with K10s hoping to entice the now shortest-stack BB all-in but faced a re-raise from the Polish 'rock' in SB, short stack folded and Kathy (who had limped in UTG) called the raise and I had to fold the hand... after another I got a slight reprieve I pushed all-in with AQ on Button to be called by the shortie in BB with his K4 to put him out in 5th place, and my stack went back up to 38k.

Kathy raised 6k into my BB (1k/2k) finding A10s I pushed all-in I thought I had her well covered, she called with KK. Ouch! The 10 high flop brought a little glimmer of hope but with no 10 or A forthcoming, I was down to 7k with Blinds going up to 1200/2500 after the break; Was in BB, Polish guy raised UTG and Kathy called, I knew I was in a bad spot but shoved anyway hoping luck would be on my side... but no, out in 4th for €300.

It was great, but challenging, to be playing against really good players considering my limited experience - I'm happy with how I played apart from 2 or 3 terrible mistakes. I certainly learnt a lot from it too. Clamper played a terrific LAG game making the most of his big stack, and offered a deal with French rock and Kathy for 700 each with him taking the excess 200 as Chipleader and rest to the dealers. Nice one!

Googling Kathy and the Polish Rock afterwards I was very proud to get 4th! LOL! Onwards and upwards!!!!!

Le Big Zeb

2008-12-29T05:35:00.003Z

A friend got a free pass to the races the other day... (lucky so-and-so!) for the craic I asked him to put €10 to win on "the 3rd fav in the 3rd race..." turned out to be 'Big Zeb' who romped home in first place at 9/2 odds! Yay!!!! As he passed me my €45 'winnings', I knew I had to put it on the felt somewhere, spending it on trivial/materialistic stuff would be a crime...

Was going to save it for the Irish Ladies Open that Carfax is promoting, but decided put it into the Fitz's re-buy €40+5 tonight, didn't re-buy or top-up... was chipleader from final 11 onwards... running good, running beautiful, running sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Then...

CRASH! (Donk overvalues his Q7 on a 6647x board against my 55s: I raised pre-flop, post-flop and turn...)

BANG! (A5 AIPF beaten by shorty on A9)

WHALLOP! (final 7BB in SB shoved with J10 called by BB's JJ... and another one bites the dust!)

Out in 4th place for €250. Grrrrr! Drove home ranting to Susie Woosie about that 55 hand! Picked up a cold sitting in a constant draft from the smoking area too. Meh!

Now, where can I put that €250 to big-it-up more? Apart from staking myself into the Ladies Open of course! A percentage of Yuletired's run in the Bahammas? Increase my 2% stake in DOKE? Stake Susie into her next cash game (that woman runs goot). Or is Big Zeb racing again soon do you think???!!!

Them pesky Ace Tens!

2008-12-21T01:11:00.004Z

zOMG! What a week... I'll never look at A10's in the same light again!

Feeling pretty flush, I played in four tournaments this week: JP's Monday night game in the Kestrel, the Poker Room's €65 FO and their Christmas night special plus the Bell's €60 and gained another €410 for the books.

Got off to a great start in JP's game, after winning two pots including one with A10 for straight, I got Ac10c again in hijack position, called and got two clubs on a Q,10,X flop facing 2 'all-ins' from UTG and MP - I called after a dwell leaving myself with 4k behind and hit my flush on river to oust JJ and AQ to make me chipleader on 32k until the break. Dropping back to 23k by break (had the luckbox Bomber Nolan on the table too - need I say more?) Another player kept raising a lot, winning the chips pre-flop. I found my 3rd A10 in UTG+2 and raised 3xBB (900) hoping I would get paid off big with a lot of shorties on the table, got 5 callers(!) Flop came 10 2 5. The player made his standard post-flop raise to 3.5k, I wasn't going to let him take this pot on me and shoved with top pair hoping I get credited with trips. He hummed for a moment then called with JJ leaving himself with less than 2k. No 10 or Ace for me and I'm gone. Was talking to JP on the way out he asked if it was Bomber that put me out "no, but I wish he had, then I wouldn't feel so annoyed with myself for making that shove!" LOL!

The Poker Room's €65 (+€5 reg,free for ladies) on Tuesday night was an excellent game. I played my best hands hard and aggressive, amassed myself as table chipleader from 1st level until after the break... then was gone in 2 hands: re-raised As5s (in BB) on a Ks10sAx got called by button who called all bets to River, I put him on a QK/JK/J10/Q10/K10 etc missing the straight, I shoved with the A on river hoping he didn't have an ace himself. But no, he called showing A10 for house... meh! Couple of hands later I got 77 in CO and raised to 70% of my stack, got 2 callers (both had limped in) flop came 5 6 10, chipleader pushed all in, other player folded, I had to call... Didn't he show A10(!) Loved the 4 on turn but sadly no lucky suck out for me on river and I was gone.

Had just about enough cash hours to wrangle a free ticket for the Poker Room's Christmas tournament "Pineapple Poker" with table quiz and 'Deal or No Deal' game... it was great fun! The craic was good, Ross and his staff put on a terrific night, would have loved to have got a shot at the Deal or No Deal game but it was just as enjoyable to watch. In the Pineapple tournament I got a nice triple up in the first hand then went down, down, down, til I bombed holding AA1010 (I kid you not...) As I went over to the cash game, where Denis (card room manager) was dealing, he looked at me in disgust "what happened to your big stack?!"

It wasn't all doom and gloom - I went on the cash table from 11:30pm til 4am put €150 down and got up with €650... and nearly got lynched in the process too! After taking €200 off one player in the previous hands, he is still tilting and ranting at me as he limps in pre-flop and called my €16 raise (I had A8) with a string of choice words... flop comes A83, he bets €25, I raised to €75 and he insta-shoves for 400. I knew he didn't have a pair for a set (he would have raised big) and called to see him holding A3 and after a 50 second rant, he calms down and asks quietly: "Hey, can we make a deal?" feeling sorry for the bloke I agreed and offered him €200 back from the pot. He was my best friend after that, and the rest of the table were full of praise, but Denis looked at me in disgust "Pfffft! You too soft! He would have been happy with just €25!" he tutted at me, LOL! Ah I was more happy to get out in one piece! I announced that I was playing one more hand then heading home, bet out blind just to donate to the pot, looked down and saw A10 (eeeek!!!!) and folded to a re-raise! LOL! Left a decent tip for the dealers and put a €25 chip on the table told the players 'that's for the next pot' and left... I may be a marshmallow but hey, it's Christmas and a €500 profit is good enough for me!

Played the DPN's deepstack Bell game last night, was chipleader from the very first hand thanks to Drunk Eamonn (LOL! How could you play that hand Eamonn?!!!) until the Final Table. Susie Woosie was there too as one of the short stacks, and ran an amazing game hitting no less than 3 set of quads to end up heads up with me! Looking at her massive 4-1 chiplead, I offered to deal 50-50 but she wasn't accepting it (Rightly so!!! Susie's no marshmallow!) I pointed out that we have never done heads-up together... shall we play? I lasted all of 5 mins, pushed with K6 called by A7... 77 on board and that's all she wrote!

The game was finished at 11pm but I didn't want to go home (making the most of the babysitter - bad mammy!) persuaded Susie Woosie to come with me to the Fitz and brought Drunk Eamonn along for the craic. €200 on cash tables, and 30 mins later I was gone(!) QQ - split side pot, AK and AQ but not one decent pot did I win! My AQ got hammered on a Ace high board against Susie's 66 and Drunk Eamonn's all-in with KKs, dealer dealt the turn without allowing another round of betting put the card back, shuffled and re-dealt a 6 to give Susie her set. I just laughed knowing Susie the luck-box had the poker gods in her pocket already! But poor Eamonn... that really put him off cards! He moaned about those kings all the way home... says he's now sworn off poker 'for good'! Famous last words!?

As for me: after that hand I was down to €50 shoved with JJ few hands later and got called by A10... need I say more?!

Them pesky feckers... Meh!

A much needed ego boost!

2008-12-13T20:05:00.005Z

Paul Fox was trying very hard over the past few weeks to get me up to City West Casino (formerly Blinkers where he's the new card room manager) to play... I haven't been there since Vera's bash. Not because of the political fall out on Boards.ie, but more of a case of 'out of sight out of mind' really.

I was only free on Friday to play, after a few bad weeks I needed a decent win to boost the ego! Wasn't in mood to go to town, plus with working late made more sense to stay local. The FitzCasino had a nice sweetener with a €5k holiday added, but the re-buy aspect would have been expensive for me (I've lost enough money lately!). The Atari had the satellite game for the Leprechaun European Open, I'd already agreed to deal so no point playing that! JP was hosting another satellite in the Red Cow for the IPT game on Sunday (not free for that either). City West Casino was it...

By the time I was talking to Paul again on Thursday night... I confirmed I would be in attendance for the €50 FO the following night! He promised me the game would be soft... (Ha! That means I'll have to play tight!) and there was an added sweetener with a €500 bounty on Tom Hanlon (WSOP finalist)and €100 on his son.

I arrived at 8:50pm and was warmly greeted by Luke and Paul. The place was quiet with 5/6 people hanging about watching the Poker Millions Final on TV. Paul confirmed that there were almost 2 tables registered and they will possibly fill a 3rd. I went to the Blackjack tables, by the time the game started I had made back my buy-in. As I joined my table - I notice there was only one person I knew, the rest were unknowns... Dealer handed out a double chance chip, I wasn't aware about the DC. A fourth table was filled as more players came in late.

I didn't have to worry about playing tight - I was totally card dead for most of the first level. Entering the 2nd level I was getting bored and found a nice A9 suited in CO, facing 3 limpers and the blinds I raised to 250, button, SB folded, BB and the three limpers all called. Flop came out Q93. Action checked back to me, I threw out 700, BB called and the rest folded. Turn: 3, BB checked, I bet out 700 again, BB called. River was insignificant - I had less than 2k left and my DC chip... I checked. BB looked over and threw 1500 at me, not at the pot or dealer or in front of him but directly into my 'betting space'. I saw him do similar earlier and wondered if this was a tell... thinking through the action I put him on a J10, missed flush/straight or AJ or AK, I felt my pair was good and made the hero call and he mucked berating me "What if I had the queen???!" "You would have raised my 2nd 700 if you had a queen" I retorted

A few hands later in the 3rd level, I had A7 suited in CO-1. Two players were hoovering up the chips between them on the table - one good player (Derek) and older man (Luckbox/calling station playing any two and get lucky - I lost 2.5k when he called my raise holding Q3 to my 77 on a 568Qx board). Old Man called, Derek raised, I called, short-stacked BB shoves all-in for 2xBB (approx) more. Old Man calls as does Derek and I. Flop comes AJx; action goes check check back to me, I bet out 1200, Old Man folds, Derek hums for a moment then calls. Turn is 7, Derek checks, I bet, he calls... as he checks the river, I shove only for him to call me with a set JJ. Grrrrr!!!

Cashing in my double chance chip for 4k, slowly worked it up to 6k. I checked Qc3c in BB to 3 limpers. Flop comes AcKcX, MP shoves 3xBB, with several callers - including Old Man - but Derek raises to 8k and I was in limbo. Do I call for the flush draw... risk my chips for Q3?! After an age I folded, turn brought another club(!) Meh! Two players tell me off for folding but I really felt it was the right decision at the time.

The third and fourth table got broken, the chip-leader and Tom Hanlon (Bounty) joined our table. We quickly discovered why he was CL: he plays like Gum, raising to 1200, 2100, 3000 etc stealing blinds. Tom had 3.5k left. I was in BB, as chipleader made his usual raise to 1300 with one caller, looking down on A10 I re-raised all-in and chipleader calls with Kx, Ace on flop and I was up 13k. Hanlon goes all-in next hand with K4o and gets KO'ed by Derek's AJ/AQ.

One orbit later as blinds are 400/800 I'm down to 9k when I get AA in BB. Chipleader is down half his stack at this point but is still raising, I re-raised to 4,500, leaving me with 4,500 behind. The Chip Leader and one other player call. As the dealer dealt out the flop I shoved my remaining chips over the line before the flop is flipped. CL just looks down and says "yeah I'm calling... how much?" my aces hold and I'm up to 23k.

Next hand Chipleader is gone and we are all on the final table with 9th place getting free ticket to Sunday's FO and cash for 8th-1st. Thinking now that ChipLeader's gone, it would be good to loosen up a bit but losing 6k on KdQd on a flushdraw flop, I folded the turn bet, to see him show K7o... realising we had another Uber-LAG on the table I had to tighen up again! I was down to 17k when I got AA again in SB (Blinds 500/1000) Derek was new chipleader UTG, and raised to 3,500, I was delighted - knowing that he will call me with whatever he has. Button pushes all-in for 14/15k and I insta-shoved. Tabling my aces, Derek had 10 10 and Button 88. A9x on flop and 9 on River ship the pot to me! Paul came over and coolly informed me that I had the best hand of the night 'so far!'. After that hand any raise I made was respected, even the Uber-LAG folded!

As my stack increased, Uber-LAG became chipleader putting Derek and half the table out - getting lucky more than anything else! I took out two other short-stacks and we were heads-up with a 3-2 lead to the Uber-LAG. Not wishing to end on a coin-flip (as it will come to that) and knowing I had already secured €100 for the best hand of the night... I looked at the man and just knew he will be pushing all-in with anything and offered to split 50-50

"You offering to split?"
"Yes 50-50 of the cash for 1st and 2nd..."
"Yeah, no problem! I'm happy with that"

Taking €450 each leaving €40 for dealers, I walked over to Paul dealing on the cash table and left another tip as a thank you... Went back to the blackjack table, made another €100 then left for the night €700 up. My best return yet!

Drunken Shenigans

2008-12-11T13:59:00.002Z

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!

AA... QQ... No good...

2008-12-04T12:38:00.004Z

Arrived late, spur of moment decision, blinds 50/100 first hand get AA in MP. UTG+1 and +2 limp in... I raised to 400. BB (Total Donk) calls, as do the two limpers(!) Flop 7d7x6x, action checks around to me. I fired out 1,500... Donk calls, limpers fold. Turn 6d... Donk looked happy at this, but checks looking at me warily... I checked behind putting him on a pair or AK-A2 diamonds; River brought the 10h and Donk fires out 3k. Thinking he had missed his flush or was hoping for A high kicker or higher pair... I just had to call. Donk turns over K6 for the house.

K6 OFF! WTF!!!!!

Down to 3.5k, I folded two more hands after this. In Co-1 I look down to see QQ. Blinds had increased to 100/200 I raised to 600, CO said 'call' and put 200 on table - when told that it was 600, he made to fold but was told he had to call - cue 5 mins of 'but I didn't hear!' and 'I shouldn't have to call!' before he grumpily put the remaining 400 out... Ciara called (BB with 4k stack). Flop came out Kd10dx... Ciara checked. Knowing the CO had nothing worth calling I shoved for 2,900. CO and Ciara calls(!) I'm bricking it, praying they are flushing or overvaluing their pair of 10s.

Turn K (Ciara bets... CO folded showing 7d9d flush draw) Ciara tables AdQx for gutshot straight, and I'm fist-pumping inside!!! Good call me!

But no...

River brings the friggin Jack to give Ciara teh luckbox her straight and I'm out less than 20mins after I started.

Meh!

Tripping the Limit at the Holland Casino

2008-11-24T23:29:00.012Z

I had been neglecting my non-poker friends of late between playing and dealing left, right and centre! The trip to the 'Dam with two of my most neglected friends was my idea, with the aim of surprising another mutual friend of ours who is currently studying for his MA over there. There was a few conditions including "no poker!" Ha!

In line with the recession, we had to travel on a tight budget, finding a cute 'Boatel' in the Oosterdok to stay in (floating hotel) offering B&B for the unbelievable price of €294 was a steal for a 3 bed cabin for 4 nights. At first I was worried about the cold, damp etc. But we had no reason to fear, the boat was lovely and warm! The rooms are tiny and the individual showers-cum-toilet wet-rooms were shared with plenty of hot water. The breakfast, a simple buffet style but delicious, good value for the price! I would recommend it to anyone looking for a clean, safe, basic accommodation. All weekend I felt we were the oldest ones staying there among the students til a couple of 40-something women in bright pajamas and big jewellery greeted us on Monday morning!

Poor Hilda picked up an viral infection a few days before the trip and the Doctor refused to allow her travel... Our mutual friend had his partner over for the weekend so his available time to spend with us was limited (teach us to try to surprise him like that!) and Vean developed a strange pain in her back that got just grew steadily worse as the day progressed, all she was fit for by 10pm was bed!

We managed to fit in some sightseeing, a couple of museums and several good quality (and damn good value) meals. And shopping of course! Not as much as I would've liked... but I digress.

What else can a nice girl do in this city at night, bar go to the Casino?! LOL!

On Friday night I arrived in the Casino at 11pm, it was wet and stormy, I had grabbed a taxi that from my tourist map seemed to take the scenic route to the place! The entrance €5 fee was a surprise, considering the perks we have in the card rooms in Ireland... There's no complimentary food or drink provided. The place is huge, spread out over 3/4 floors with several nooks and cranies. It took me ages to find the poker rooms tucked in the back, the room was surprisingly small compared to the rest of the establishment.

With three €1/2 limit (€40 buy-in) tables going strong; one €2/5 limit (€100 buy-in); one Omaha €10/10 with a minimum €1k buy-in(!) And the only no-limit table was €2/5 with €250 minimum buy-in. There were waiting lists 8-12 names deep for the limit tables... I was 8th one one and 11th on another! Talking to the female TD, I discovered they were short of dealers (they change shifts every 40mins) and couldn't open the extra 4 empty tables. Reluctantly I put my name down for the no-limit too balking at the minimum buy-in, and was 4th on the list(!) The lists taking ages to shift with several people standing around waiting to be called.

I went on a walk-about, the place seemed totally overrun by slot-machines. Counting 3 blackjack tables, I wandered over to see if a spot was free, and was amazed to see blackjack played a little differently! The actual game was the same but people were laying 4-5-6 bets per 'lane' and even betting that a 'pair' (better odds than a blackjack hand!) will come out! Unlike here, you can only have one prime spot on each of the lanes (an elongated blackjack betting spot in front of the dealer) 'lane' is the wrong word but in this case it seemed appropriate. In Ireland, no one else can bet on the same cards as you, in Holland they can: The player with the main spot at the top of the 'lane' decides the action - to hit, double, split or fold. The remaining bets on the lane behind the prime bet are at the mercy of that player's actions! But they win when the prime spot wins! There's a smaller 'lane' to the right of the main for betting on pairs. You had to keep a sharp eye on your bets, I watch a few squabbles break out over some of the bets, scary stuff!

Going back to the Poker area, they were opening a new €2/5 limit table and I was called... assuming this was pot limit, I was gobsmacked that limit was same as the online limit games! Each bet could only be last plus 1 BB, unless after the turn when it's 2xBB. After two hands, I wasn't impressed with the standard of the limit game, when I heard my name being called for the no-limit table I immediately jumped up and made my way over to the €2/5 no-limit table and paid the minimum €250. Baaaaad move! Looking around I knew, I had landed among the sharks - my €250 stack was pathetic compared to €800+++ stacks! Vowing to play tight I folded for a few hands watching my players: the 'standard' first raise was €50, re-raise €100/150(!) General play was super-aggro loose with suited connectors and low pairs equally valued as AK or QJo! Value table if you have the funds! Finding AKo, I called an UTG's €50 bet in MP; button raised to €150 and the action folded back to me - I shoved my stack (decimated to €220 at this point) and he folded after a dwell. Next hand I got AQ suited and raised to €50, two callers, flop read 5,7,K. We all checked, the turn showed a Q, action checked to me and I bet €100. Both players called. River 8 giving the flush, action went check, check, I smelled a stinky rat suspecting a slow-played king or possible straight or flush and elected to check behind too. Was so glad I did! One player won holding K8 off, the other showed K2suited! FFS call a raise with them! I mucked my hand in disgust. A few hands later I lost €200 with KK calling a shortie's AIPF A9 - A on river - and my last few chips went in the middle when I checked with Kh10h in BB with 6 limpers, to shoved with the Kx10x5h flop, and got 4 callers(!) But lost to one player holding 55 for trips... meh! I probably should have shoved instead of checking the blind, but I doubt if that had made a difference...

Getting up after that awful session, the TD called me for the €1/2 limit table (my name was still on the list!) it was only 12:30, and I wasn't in the mood to go home either! The TD egged me stay and play "Naw, use girl power!" she urged "Go! Play! Show them your girl power!" So over I went, sat down and put €50 on the table... what fun it turned out to be! Compared to the solemn no-limit banter-free table the €1/2 table was full of craic, the garbled English used by the various French, German, Dutch, Italian and British players was so funny (Oh yes, English only at these tables!!!) and the game was enjoyable! I eventually got up with €150 at 2:45am... walking past the blackjack tables (which were still open) looking for the cash desk, I decided to sit down to play with €20 both my 'neighbours' immediately placed a bet on my 'lane' as I doubled or split they added the extra bet, giving me hugs when I won (cos they did too!) Left at 3am with €30 extra from the BJ and made my way home in the fast falling snow.

By Saturday night the weather had gotten worse it was still snowing but it wasn't settling, after shopping most of the day getting wet and cold, I elected to stay on the boat with Vean, drinking beer and playing Yatzee... Could've made money on that, I could! ;-D But Vean wasn't biting! I tried to teach her poker... difficult to do without chips.

The Anne Frank house was on the agenda for Sunday, followed by late 'all-you-can-eat-in-an-hour' buffet lunch in Chinatown for €8:50... Afterwards Vean wanted to go back to the boat and gave me her blessing to go on to the casino! Shane brought me over on the tram (only 4 stops - confirming my suspicion I had been ripped-off by the taxi driver on Friday night!) Once inside, I made a bee-line for the €1/2 limit tables, and got a place immediately.

The Sunday table had different faces, here play was more mental than before... couple of the players kept raising and re-raising in EVERY hand with any two! Putting €60 down I rode a roller-coaster ride over the next few hours getting as low as €12 at one point, and as high as €230... finally getting up with €195 at the end! I had AA no less than 4 times (a record for me!) and only once were they cracked; I even manged a lovely bluff! Holding K9 on an AA44 board I kept raising and got two players to fold on the turn! LOL! One cute Italian was right behind me and saw the cards, started braying with laughter begging me to 'Show! Show! Show!'
I cheekily busted one of the looser 'raaaaaaiiiiise'ing players' who was holding a good hand for once(!) He had KK while I was holding a pathetic 85 suited (my most memorable hand of the night!) I just didn't 'believe' the raise and flopped a beautiful 467 straight to win a €130 pot! LOL!

Counting back - including my €5 entrance fees on both nights, I broke even, I'm not complaining! Just paid for my taxis and drinks...

Exiting the casino (very swish with ticketed cloakrooms, huge bathrooms, full bar and dining service; and best of all - electronic deck shufflers on all tables) the police presence outside made it feel very safe the taxi rank is 150m away - a taxi after midnight to any point within the Centraal area is €15 regardless of distance travelled. Beware the Casino closes at 3am; just bring your chips, cards and duty-paid-but-cheaper-than-Ireland drinks for a post-poker party!

Never mind the coffee shops - if you fancy a 'space cake' experience - just go straight to the Holland Casino and trip-away on their wild limit tables!!!

(Don't I look Iorish enough?!!!!)

Rolling along...

2008-11-17T18:13:00.004Z

Ray will laugh when he reads this! I took down the DPN's Bell game at 10:30pm last night...

DPN had barely filled 2 tables, when I arrived fashionably late at 8:30pm. I was so sure Graham would turn me away, but my pre-reg'ed stack was still on the table, minus whatever had already been blinded away. And the rest of the players were happy to let me in - more value for the pot!

Less than 2 hours later I was HU with Ciara the chipleader, with a well jarred Tony and his moody sidekick Tommy egging us on to split the prize... but neither of us would agree. Less than 5 mins later, I had narrowed her lead considerably from 3-1 to 1-1 and knocked her out to take the €330 first place. Not bad return on €60 for barely 2 hours playing!

In our final hand, I limped in with 76o, Ciara checked her BB; board showed 975 rainbow. Ciara checked... I pushed, Ciara looked at me for a minute then said 'yeah... okay, I call!' showing J9. Graham the dealer dealt the turn (J) and the Tommy/Tony duo started prancing around Ciara; patting her back and shouting their congratulations... Graham just looked at me mouthing "sorry" as he burnt for the final card; "just give me 7 or 8 please, Graham!" I retorted. The good man did as he was told, and put a lovely 7 on the river! Cue the "aaaaawwwwww"s from the prancing duo, as Ciara (ever the good sport) shook my hand.

I had been dealing for most of the weekend: Dublin 100 and the Bruce Poker Launch. The atmosphere in the Green Isle for the main event game on Saturday was very subdued compare to the livey buzz of Friday night. Several players were taking advantage of their hangover/drink-induced bravado with questionable play on some of the tables and getting lucky delivering sick beats to players holding the better hands pre-flop against low pairs-turned-sets/low flush draws or calling with gut-shots and hitting the straights. As we got down to 60/70 players the game improved considerably, I left just before they got down to 3 tables, had my eye on the luck-box Pat Mitchell (who had his name pulled for the Vegas raffle twice!) to take it down but he bombed out.

In contrast the Dublin 100 game in the Carlton exhibited a much higher standard of play, an nice unexpected number (49 in total) turned up to play considering the freeroll and two set of Championship Tickets on offer in the Green Isle, definitely no donks here!

With 25 minutes to the start, there was only 4 names registered, I offered to play instead and Stephen was happy to let me register. When I opened my wallet - I hadn't enough to pay and drove off to the nearest ATM. When I got back at 12:55pm, the numbers had swelled to 47 - Stephen just looked at me apologetically. I just winked at him and went straight over to the the dealers seat on the 5th table. Well done to Ray for taking it down - he played a sterling game all day. Kept crediting me for dealing him all his 'lovely hands' but I'm pretty sure he was bluffing half the time!!!

After dealing all weekend - I was itching to play! My favourite Bell deepstack was on at 7:30pm but Stephen wasn't letting me go til the final table started at 8pm... as I ran out the door, Ray called out "I bet ya off to the Bell?" I shouted back: "Dunno if Graham will let me play now... it's very late!"

LOL! I made it in the nick of time!

Big ups to Graham for keeping my place open so long!!!

Out there in the Bewilderness...

2008-11-13T20:06:00.004Z

The poker gods have deserted me, since my last win I've not cashed in ONE game!

After going deep in several online tournaments, and cashing in the early levels just before the FT; I decided to try and satellite my way into one of the biggest online tournaments, namely the 250k... but not one ticket did I win. Might as well have brought in direct for all my efforts(!) THEN I fell in with the idea of playing the main event at the Bruce Poker Launch; I played no less than 5 satellites for tickets only to bomb out early in them all!

All my key hands ran bad... I put my hands up and admit to some stupid mistakes like slowplaying, under-raising when I should have pushed but with the standard of play I think the villians in question would still have called me anyway(!) The most memorable was re-raising all-in pre-flop with KK, initial raiser then called holding A3off(!) Board read K245x and I was gone... FFS(!) After spending €160 (approx) I had to call it quits... if it's not meant to be, it's bloody well not meant to be! Laura texted me this week asking me to deal at the launch on Saturday, so it looks like I'll be there after all, with the greenest face in the room earning the money back the hard way! Grrrr!

Went to Tallaght Poker Rooms last night with Susie Woosie - the Atari is a kip, but Ross and his staff are lovely! There's nothing that man will do to get the players in... He threw in a fine sweetener of a U93 (boxing match) Ticket for the winner (would have been a fine Christmas present for the brother) and €100 extra in the pot for every goal Liverpool scored in the Liverpool-v-Spurs match, when the final score showed 2-4 to Spurs the ever generous Ross exceeded his offer and threw an extra €300 into the prize-fund.

It was a good final table - the IDP was well represented with Susie, Justin and myself sitting comfortable... Justin Smyth (one of the deaf runner-ups at the recent IDP's Deepstack) is a true LAG at the best of times - he called Susiewoosie's AIPF holding 22 and hit his set on the flop to oust her Kings. Sick!

But $250k question is... did I cash? Noooooooooooo... I bubbled! After being whalloped by Justin in a couple of sick beats: holding 58 against a slowplayed 99 on a 3538x board (in my defense: I was in BB, had him covered and they were soooooted! :P) I shoved my remaining 10k a few hands later AK-v-66 and no Ace or King on the table to save me, ship the lot to Justin and I'm out in 5th place.

With the €15 scalps I earned - I sat in at the new blackjack table and spun it up to €50, got bored and put it on the cash table; got it all-in with QQ and lost to AK-spiked-K-on-river. Meh!

Should have ran when I had the chance!

The Comeback Queen!

2008-11-03T00:39:00.003Z

I knocked Susie Woosie off her 'Best Comeback' throne in the Bell tonight!!!

I was down to the proverbial 'chip and a chair' with 1k left on the final table, after making a stooooooooopid donk call (I'm too embarrassed to repeat the action here... it's that bad!) I so deserved to be knocked out! But, no the poker gods stood by me and helped that 1k run me all the way to 1st place for a cool €500!

There were 9 players left, with 5 places paid out, I was in BB with 1k. Blinds were 1/2k, going up to 1.5/3k in the next hand... action folded back to SB (newbie, who had came with his friend-same guy who benefited from my donk call) who shook my hand and said 'good luck' as he turned over K4 off. I replied "Thanks but I don't think you have me beaten..." turning over my favourite: QQ. No K on the board and my queens held, but I was still 2k playing into SB for 1.5k.

LAG in CO-1 raised to 6k; Newbie called, I looked down saw 2h3h, thought 'feck it...' and threw out my last 500 "ALL IN"... BB came along for the ride too. The flop showed Q 10 3 rainbow... my 8k side pot started to get eclipsed as the player in BB, LAG and Newbie all bet the flop heavily... Turn 2, putting a possible flush on the board, action saw more bets including one all-in but I was doing somersaults inside hoping the other players had nothing better than one high pair! River 7 and everyone checked(!) I threw down my two pair expecting it to be beaten... but no... none of the 3 had anything better than flush draws/straight draws(!) I was sitting on 8k, and we were down to 8 players!

Few hands later I was waiting for another spot to push, blinds had increased to 2/4k, when I got 55 and pushed for 8k... got 3 callers (Tweety, LAG and Newbie) flop came 864. I was mentally wishing for a 7 as the other 3 callers tripped over each other to take down the pot, raising and re-raising... of the three, Tweety really had me worried as the turn brought a Q . But my prayers were answered with the beautiful 7 on the river giving me a glory-saving straight to knock off Newbie's 2 pair (64 off BTW!), Tweety's AQ and LAG's A8!

With 32k I couldn't afford to get too comfortable... 7 players left and blinds on 3/6k and raising every 15 mins, Tweety pushed in MP with QQ for 13k, the LAG called (quell surprise!) as everyone else folded. I was in BB with Q10 suited, seeing it cost me 7k more to call... I felt I had a good shot knowing Tweety's tight range but with the LAG in the pot (it's hard to put him on a hand) I choose to call vowing to push if a Q or 10 appeared on the Board. We checked down to the river on a dry K high board, the LAG turned over K4off to win the pot and knock Tweety out. I was down to 19k, as we entered the bubble...

I sat tight folding for an entire orbit, losing 9k on the blinds; was UTG facing 4/8k blinds when I found 99... I shoved my remaining 10k over and got called by Newbie with K10 off and my pair held to give me a life-saving 14k extra chips to tie me over the next set of blinds. I managed to hold on to my BB but folded the SB... we lost the LAG into 6th place and I felt I could loosen up.

Susie Woosie was short-stacked on 8k (hardly surprising, as she was determined to fold her way pass the bubble!) pushed into my BB (blinds 5k/10k); Newbie who was in SB, was joint chipleader with his friend decided to fold(!) I checked my BB showing J8off, as Susie tabled her 55, board came out AKAxK and I had won with the 'better kicker' (ouch!) poor Susie Woosie was out in 5th place... Sorry Susie!

After this - I went card dead. On the final table I had smelt something fishy between Newbie and his friend, who was joint chipleader when it got to 4 hand... one would raise, the other re-raise and 1st raiser would fold their cards face up showing A8o, KQs; etc. Cards Harrington recommends playing with when down to 4/5 handed! They just wouldn't get into a pot with each other as myself and Phil folded... Phil ended up practically blinded out into 4th place. Sensing defeat, I was down to 8k in BB sitting on Q4, but the flop came out Qx4xx and I was up to 24k!

Next hand I was in SB, finding QJ suited I pushed, both guys called, board came out JJ3 and I was back in the game with 72k covering the Newbie's 68k, and just under the chipleader on 100k (approx)...

Next hand I found Jd6d on Button... I called the blind for 16k; Newbie checked the BB as his friend called in SB.

Flop came out QdKd2d

SD checked... Newbie checked... wanting to capitalise on this lovely flush board - I checked behind.

Turn 7h

Play went check, check... I threw out 20k; call... call...(!)

River 10h

SB said "all-in" ; Then Newbie announced "all-in" and I nearly wet myself thinking one of them had the Ace high flush! But I stopped and started going thru the hand in my head... realising something not right here; I'm not getting pushed off this pot when I am probably holding the better hand and shoved my stack over. Newbie showed 72; his friend had AQoff and my flush took it down to make me chipleader and Newbie was out in 3rd place!

Newbie's friend turned to me... "wanna split?" but I didn't hear him. Susie who was railing the game signed over to me 'don't ya dare split!!!' I signed back 'no way... I've got 4-1 lead!' 'He's just asked if you would split...' 'Oh did he?' turning to him: "sorry, no deal!"

Annoyed he shoved all-in; then with each hand dealt he continued to ask for a split, when I refused he then shoved all-in. Winning the pot/blinds each time til my chip-lead was down to 2-1... I finally got a hand worth calling a possible all-in threat from him. Finding Js8s in BB; I insta-called his now-predictable shoved... He had A4 off; but Board came out 63759 with the river bringing the one card to carry me home! At first Dealer declared other guy had the straight til I corrected him that I had the higher straight!

GG! WP! Pity about the crapshootiness at the end, good night...

It's been a nice end to a rather profitable week: Bringing home over €500 profit from the Fitz cash tables on Sunday (after crashing out from the FO which I never got going in...) and folding my way into 5th place as the shortest stack in Hartstown for €100; I finally hit the 1k profit challenge that I had set myself for October... with tonight's win, albeit 2 days late!

Swimming with the fishes at the IDP's Deepstack Classic

2008-10-26T11:21:00.007Z

Unlike the Irish Deaf Open in May... this weekend belonged to the fishes. I never saw so many sick beats and stupid calls in my poker experience!

Friday night the IDP committee pulled out all the stops to provide a great night of 8-max Sit-n-Go's with an international feel with over 55 players from 6 different countries on 7 tables playing various levels. And we didn't have enough tables to satisfy everyone! I was working for most of the night; but managed to join the last €30 game of the night...

A quick look around the table showed a Finnish TAG (had observed him playing earlier); three aggressive Swedes, a 'it's-my-first-time' player (IMFT) who got very lucky cashing 2nd in previous €10 & €20 SnG games to bragged her way into the €30... A fellow Irish who bluffs more hands than he has and a sleeping Brit who folded 90% of his cards! He folded so much that people FORGOT he was there! He won a pot by default after a Swede mucked his cards thinking he had won, with no callers to his raise!!! LOL! And me...

After getting my raises holding 10 10 and QKs called by IMFT and the Bluffer King, both who bet out continuation bets with the board showing Aces. I folded both times. Then I got AK suited, UTG, in the first hand and raised 250... Was called by the IMFT and one Swede. Flop came out A45 two suits. IMFT bet out 250, I reraised her 800... Big raise but I wanted her out of the pot; but no... She called! The Swede folded. Turn was a K... I bet out 1200, IMFT called. River 4; putting her on a raggy Ace I shoved... she called to show 54 off and I was out(!) FFS! The Sleeping Brit later told me that she had been playing like this ALL night and getting lucky with the board.

Sweet Nick from the UK had been asking me all night to play a game with him... I hunted him down for a game, and offered to play HU with him 'after' his current game. He replied 'really?! Well then...' and insta-shoved his stack into his opponent "I really wanna play with Jules... lets finish now?", the opponent agreed calling with 55, Nick had something like 93o and board came out with 33(!) LOL! But in HU with Nick - I was totally card dead, folding to every raise :( ... didn't want to play for money again; I really need the HU practice so offered to play a couple more HU with Nick - for the craic, the practice, no money right? And I won 'em both... typical! Afterwards moaning about my unlucky night, Sweet Nick ever the gent he is, offered to buy me a drink to make up for it... the pet! Before the gossip mill starts: he's already committed (lucky girl!) And I have NO notions on him!

The day of the Deepstack in the Fitz started with a buzz - everyone was milling around ready to go! Susie Woosie drummed up 8 players to play cash as I assisted with the seating plan - I wasn't to ensure that I was not on the same table as any of the calling stations or, indeed, IMFT! In the end the biggest Calling Station in the world (Vincent McArdle) turned up late for the game only to get the last seat going.... on my right(!)

Vincent proceeded to play in every hand - limping in with both weak and strong holdings and calling EVERY raise only to get lucky; he became the immediate chipleader! Although I played ultra-tight, having position on Vincent is NOT an asset. He checked down to the river with QQ on a Q high board, reducing one of the better Swede players to a short-stack (!) I woke up with KKs in SB when blind were 100/200 and raised to 1000... Vincent who had called the blind in CO, along with 3 other limpers was my only caller. JJQ board had me checking down to the river, with Vincent checking after me. On the river I threw out 2500. And he called showing J3 off(!) FFS! After this I was practically playing short stack game, with less than 6k and folded for the next few levels til after the dinner break.

After the dinner break, blinds were 300/600, in my very first hand I found AK suited UTG... and shoved, Vincent wasn't back on the table so I got the blinds! In the next hand I was BB, button raised to 1,800; Vincent called from SB, I checked my cards and found KK... and shoved for 5,400. Button (Swede) tanked for a moment then shoved his stack. Vincent picked up his chips, looked at me... I smiled sweetly at him and urged him "Go on! Call me! Go on!" Looked at the Swede... who started to copy me "yeah... c'mon! Call!" Poor Vincent panicked and folded! The Swede tables QQ and my kings’ hold, phew!

One more level later and I was on 17k, Vincent had been moved to another table, but I before anyone could take advantage of his departure; a very strong Finnish player Kalle joined our table sitting to my immediate left with 35k, 2nd overall tournament chipleader. He proceeded to bully the table, reducing several stacks and increasing his own, I even lost 3k to him in one pot folding the better hand, I was furious when he showed a bluff. Finding AQ in CO I raised to 3xBB, Kalle re-raised me on the Button for 50% of my stack, as the rest of the table folded back to me. I insta-shoved the rest of my stack over the line. Kalle called showing K10 suited. Ace on flop, Queen on turn, with two suits and I was so sure I was finished... but thankfully my pairs held and I was up to 25k. For the next two orbits I was card dead, Patrik (Swedish player and over all chip leader) joined the table and sitting between him and Kalle was tough. Falling back to 13k after losing a race with a short-stack on 66 versus my A10s, I was getting despondent; blinds was 500/1000 I was in SB with 55. Kalle (who raised every time he was UTG!) threw out 3k, the table folded to Patrik (in the CO seat to Vincent's right) who smelled a rat, and re-raised to 9k. I just saw red! I insta-shoved the rest of my stack then mucked my pair without showing as both Kalle and Patrik folded; quizzing me for information 'what did ya fold?' "A pair of twos" I replied to much laughter! Kalle patted me on the back patronising... 'Very good, you are catching up now!' he signed. 'Yeah...' I replied 'soon I will overtake you!' Kalle laughed shaking his head. Grrrr! I made a vow to put him out of the tournament but never got the opportunity as I was moved to table 1; with 9 strong Irish players including Frank Grace (the shortest stack on 15k), Justin Smith and Susie Woosie (on 35k)!

Blinds had increased to 1k/2k, and finding 66 UTG I raised to 6k leaving me with 20k left. Got one caller who raised me to 12k, then Frank (BB), pushed the rest of his stack over the line... I thought for a moment then folded my pair reluctantly, immediately regretting it when I saw the flop: Frank showed AKs and other caller had a middle pair; board showed A6xxx and Frank doubled up. Meh! Falling back to 20k meant I was in an 'all-in or fold' mode... very next hand I found AdJd in BB. Nick D who was in mid-position raised to 4k (2xBB); Susie in CO-1 re-raised to 10k; as the action folded back to me - I was already committed to a shove and pushed. Nick D folded then Susie Woosie tanked for aaaaagggggggeeeeeesss before calling me with AK off. The flop had two diamonds but turn and river didn't bring the 3rd diamond I desperately needed, Susie won with high card plus king kicker... I was out in 25th place. I was soooooo upset, I exited the room immediately.

While I'm still bitter with the way my play went, calling stations and fishes galore, I'm sooooo glad I lost my final race to a good player on a better hand!

Susie eventually exited in 12th place having lost a big pot before getting blinded out; Kalle bubbled in 11th (ha!); the sleeping Brit (ultra-tight Doke style player!) Exited in 7th place; Patrik (chipleader for the entire tournament til the final table) crashed in 6th place and our Frank Grace ended up in HU against UK's Henry McD.

Henry (who came 7th in the UK Deaf Poker Open last February, in which I was 6th and bombed out in 17th place at the Irish Deaf Poker Open in May) played an amazing short-stacked game after losing 30k to IMFT in a sick beat: She called his raise pre-flop holding 73 off and Board showed 77 to burst Henry's queens. That pot made her joint-chipleader with Sweden's Patrik at one point (!) Henry was then moved to my table and tangled with Kalle, winning his final race to double back up to 15k (approx) before he was moved back to IMFT's table. He shoved twice and IMFT (table chipleader) called both times, Henry won both races and eventually kicked IMFT out of the tournament in 29th/30th place! Go on ya good thing!

I didn't see the final stages of the tournament as I succumbed to temptation and joined the cash tables. Frank later told me that himself and Henry ended HU, into a showdown with Frank all-in holding AKoff and Henry called with Q2 suited, and won with a straight on a KJ10Ax board. GG Henry! Well done!

On the cash tables, another Deaf Swede (who was kicked out of our tournament in 70th place, during the very first hand on bluff!) turned €200 into €1,550 while making loads of enemies along the way! More than what our Deepstack winner won! Several people on the cash tables were calling him the 'Deaf Fish'! Ouch! But he was so proud, he taught them all to sign fish as in 'flapping gills' LOL! The very next day when I went back to the Fitz - several players asked me using that sign - "where is the 'Deaf Fish' today?!"

At one stage, he kept pushing me off pots I was getting annoyed - chanced my arm calling his raise holding 5c6c and flopped a flush draw/straight draw... he bet pot (€7) pre-flop, I had position on him and called; SB called too. Flop came 8c10c7x. Deaf Fish called pot and started signing to me that he had a good hand and 'don't think of calling it... trust me... I got the best hand here' but I pointed out 'tough, I have a good hand too' and called pot, covering his raise twice over. SB called while complaining that the signing was 'unfair' that we could be 'collaborating' in the hand and the rest of the table agreed - leading to the dealer asking us to stop signing. Deaf Fish tried to re-raise me but dealer wouldn't let him (threw out a €100 chip without saying raise) and the turn brought the 3rd club I needed for a flush. Deaf Fish checked looking at me; I called for Pot, SB went all in and Deaf Fish folded showing rest of table 88 and I pushed rest of my chips over. SB tabled AA and I got the pot,”That's the REAL Deaf Fish" DF quipped pointing at me in disgust! One hand later and he gave me a hug congratulating me on the €400 pot I won, and left.

Several players stopped by my table to see how I was doing and giving me updates on the Deepstack final stages, saying their farewells, giving me hugs, kisses etc. After Henry won, he came down with Sweet Nick; just as I hugged and kissed Henry in congratulations for his win, one cash player shouted over "hoi - that's enough hugging and kissing here!"

I gradually built my €50 into €480 with the aim to go home once I hit €500... But lost it all holding Qd7d (which I limped in with on the button) on a Qx6dJd6x9d board against Ad3d (American in BB) who raised on all the streets then checked-raised the flush on river to put me all in (!) Meh! I put another €100 on the table and got up 3 hands later with €250 - after getting a 5 high straight flush! I was exhausted had enough beats for one day, and was glad to leave with €30 up after putting €150 on the table and €70 buy-in for the IDP Deepstack... not a great show for 13 hours playing poker but I reckon it’s better to go home with something than nothing at all!

PLOs at the IPO

2008-10-21T17:28:00.012+01:00

One thing that came out of the IPO for me: I have gone off Pot Limit Omaha!!!

It's the worse game in the poker world to deal for, especially when one is dog-tired! It doesn't help when every second player is shouting POT either when your brain is totally mush after almost 35 hours of dealing over 3 days!

I had already agreed to work for Stephen & Jeff at the IPO; expecting to do some of the main event, a couple of side games, with the plan of getting Sunday off to join Susie Woosie in the ladies event with a few cash games. Alas no! A 'rule' was put in place that if you dealt, you couldn't play too: "deal or play only or stay away" - but over the weekend I noticed some of the dealers got exemptions from this rule.... Grrrr!!!

I could hardly stay away could I? Not when it was the 1st anniversary of my first ever 'proper' dealing stint - it felt wrong not to pass up an opportunity to show last year's critics that one of the 'bad dealers' from IPO'07 has improved big time!

The 2008 IPO was a huge improvement from 2007... better venue, better deal for the dealers (fairer breaks and unlimited refreshments, especially the Red Bull!), great choice of games/side events and several 'famous' names sitting down to play with the ordinary Joes. Kudos to Stephen for all his hard work... To Ciaran & his Boylepoker staff for the glamours show they put on! Well done guys!

The atmosphere was electric for the entire weekend! I even got to see Marty Smyth's WSOP's bracelet!

Day 1: Arrived at 2:30pm straight from work, had a good lunch, before reporting to the Dealer Manager. The place was buzzing with familiar faces everywhere. Andy Black was giving a workshop in the main hall, the PA system was booming all over the place, I could barely make out what Andy was saying (or any other announcer for that reason!) but he had the crowd hanging on to his word that he must have been good!

First impression of Danni the Dealer manager was scary! She was a real dominatrix: barking orders and really putting people on the spot for being a minute late back from breaks; not a woman you want to cross. It was thanks to her that the dealer arrangement, changes and placements ran smoothly for the entire IPO... By the end of the weekend I had a LOT of respect for that woman.

The main event was very squashed, and the room was boiling hot! The standard of play was ultra-tight on most tables with very few flops being seen.

4 hours into the main event, I was asked to report to Charlie on the cash tables... And stayed there for rest of the evening right into the next day. Charlie had no time for tardiness and not bringing in the right rake! The rake was a whopping €10 ppph on tables €100 or less; €16 on the €250 tables. I felt awful raping each pot for rake at this level! It was difficult to meet the rake on some of the €1/2 tables... There were times I barely took enough, and I used my tips to make up the shortfall. Some tables were under-raked practically all evening: the pots were either too small or had big stacked players frequently taking breaks for 30 mins or more. One such table, I had to ask each player to throw the extra €2 each to make up the difference, after that I thought it easier to ask each player to throw in €5 per half hour then I left their pots alone. The higher staked tables €2/5 and PLO €250 were so much easier to rake...

I left at 4:30am got home by 5am and couldn't sleep!!! My mind was still buzzing from all the Red Bull(!) I finally drifted off at 6am... setting my alarm for 10am.

Day2: My wee princess woke me up at 11:30am.... eeeeek! I barely made it for 1pm having to drop her to my mum's en route. The 'look' I got from Danni told me there was no point making excuses-just took the ticking on the chin and get on with it!

The second starting day went much better, the tables were better spaced out and the air con was on full blast... which was great to start with but soon all the players had their jackets back on and I was regretting my short-sleeved top! There was less dealer changes, due to less dealers working than Friday, but Dani managed to juggle it amazingly well.

I went over to the cash tables after dinner and stayed there dealing well into the night. At 2am I was dealing to several mad French players (didn't tip a penny all night), such charmers! They would deliberately call 'pot' in an accent that sounded exactly like 'check' to me... To much laughter! At the very end, when Floor Manager called out for the last 3 hands to be played at 4am, I allowed myself to be persuaded to deal them a fourth... then did a fifth while they were claiming it was 'only' the 4th... I 'promised' a 4th(!) Then got rewarded with generous parting tips from each player. Merci beaucoup monsieurs!

Day 3: Having finished at 4:30am, before I left I asked Danni for a late start on Sunday - she allow me til 3pm. I found it tough dragging myself out of bed at 1pm to meet Susie for lunch! Before anyone shakes their head and point out that the other dealers managed to do it; sure, but the other dealers don't have a full-time job and kids to think about, do they?!

Susie Woosie was playing in the Ladies Side event with Ciara (another decent player from Clonsilla Inn; I was in heads-up with her 2 weeks ago... she turned my 3-1 chiplead into 2nd place!) I was so envious, was really in the mood to play now! 55 women, including JCB, the Shudda Girl, Dame Vera were all playing too... I kept railing them during my breaks. The standard of play was atrocious at best - a lot of limpers in each hand, raises and re-raises getting called by 3 or more players with any two... AA's; JJs and KKs were no good and JCB, Vera and the other good players went to the rails early. Susie Woosie ended up playing a short-stack game for most of it; she played a uber-tight nit game folding A10, AQs and small/middle pairs to raises, with no regrets. Susie Woosie hung on til 12th place... Commiserations and well done girl!

Dealing on Sunday was tougher - didn't help that the Red Bull had ran out! And I was listed to deal the Double Chance Pot Limit Omaha €150 side event that started at 6pm, in what must have been the hottest area of the room! The play was limited to 64 players (8-max tables) due to limited chips available... and the amount of grumpy players who didn't get a ticket was amazing. It was a great measure to Poker Ireland's success having nearly all the weekend side events booked out!

For the non-poker players: calling 'pot' in a pot limit game means the maximum the player can bet is the total of what is already on the table. If a previous player has already bet during that turn, then the 'pot' is the last bet plus the total chips on the table. E.g. there's 250 on the of the table at the flop... player 1 bets 100... player 2 raises to 200... player 3 calls 'POT' and the dealer has to announce what the pot amount is. Here player 3 has to pay 950 (200 x 3 plus 100 plus 250). Sounds straight forward... til player 5 says POT too! Ahhhh! Doing the constant math is tiring! Naturally there will be a few mistakes....

Ohhhhhhh before I forget... I have a wee confession to make. I am crap at spreading the cards out on the table pre-game. All weekend I was trying, trying and trying... they still wouldn't spread right! I was constantly asking other dealers, it was pathetic! As I set up the Omaha table, I picked up the cards, looked around for the nearest dealer... no one *sigh* ah feck it... here goes. And whaaaayyyyy! I did it! A nice perfect even spread! Was so proud of myself I even took a picture with my phone! LOL!

On my first table, I had two of the French Charmers from the night before, as they sat down they started braying with laughter pointing at me... so I made a point to teach them the signs for pot/check/raise and "English only spoken please!" They behaved much better this time... phew! I dealt that table without any cock-ups, until the next table 2 hours later.

Then I dealt a series of gaffs. Blinds were 200/400, UTG+1 called for 400; action folded to DCB in CO (yes... the famous troublemaker from Boards.ie!) who announced POT. I quickly said 1400, Button folded and SB (Red Faced Aggro-Bluffer RFAB) said 'call' as he was counting out the chips. Another player pointed out that the Pot should have been 1800 - I did a quick count and yeah... he was correct. RFAB objected to this saying that he was willing to pay 1200 more not 1600. I called floor manager for a ruling - he ruled that the 1400 should stand... Poor DCB got 3 callers for that pot! On the flop action checked back to DCB who shouted POT again... this time I had the figure ready: 6200 and everyone folded. DCB was very quiet but played a good game... guess he had to, with the biggest Bluffer you ever met (RFAB) on the table; plus JCB and the Big City Banker!

In one hand we had 2 players all in... I sorted their chips and pushed them into the centre then burned the top card and dealt the flop, burnt the second card as RFAB (who was not in the hand) interrupted me: "Wait now... they need to show dem first!" pointing out that the players cards must be face up for the showdown. As the players sorted their cards I burnt another card and exposed the wrong card super fast... only noticed what I had done when I was about to burn the 3rd card that there were 3 burn cards there already (DOH!) RFAB saw the mistake and quickly leaned over the table picking up the burn cards and scrambling the turn card muttering "here, here... thats de way it shub be..." to the effect that I hadn't a clue which card was which... or what he had actually done! There was an uproar, I told him to leave it and called the Floor Manager over for a ruling. The ruling was given that the burn cards, exposed cards and the remaining deck had to be shuffled three times and re-burnt/re-dealt. Leading to a better board for one player... and an short-stack-early-exit for JCB. Sorry JCB... :-/

I was mortified after that, paying extra attention to the game and dealt slower to ensure no more mistakes. When I was relieved I headed back to deal cash for couple more hours but the tiredness meant I kept making stupid mistakes - forgetting to deal one player, raking a split pot without thinking, sweeping up another players hand. I asked Charlie if I could go early and she agreed...

I signed out, got my bag and was about to leave when a group of dealers announced they were having a Dealer Tournament! And was I interested.... oooohhhh tempting! When I pointed out I didn't have enough cash on me to play (a deliberate tactic I had to ensure I didn't get tempted to play!) Two other dealers offered to sub me for "of a % of your win!" LOL I was flattered! I agreed telling myself that playing is easier than dealing, sure a game would be good. As I put my money on the table it was tactfully pointed out by one of the Floor managers that the other cash/Omaha dealers were not allowed to play this tournament, it wouldn't be fair if I played, considering I asked to leave early due to 'tiredness'. Feeling very guilty, I returned the money, thanked them all, wished the other players luck and said my farewells.

It was a good weekend... I still haven't fully recovered from it! Am so glad I don't deal full time...

Next year... sorry guv but I wanna play!

Credit Crunch Bitten You Yet?

2008-10-03T21:41:00.009+01:00

I've been following the news with interest all week: all doom and gloom, cutbacks left right and centre... Seems ironic that the Government seems more concerned with propping up the banking sector than safeguarding community services. In the mist of it all the shocking revelations that €83m was siphoned from the Disability Services funds, by that ongoing bad variance AKA the HSE, barely cause a stir.

'So what' says the News '€400bn is more juicer to chew on...'

All the talks of the ECB lowering the interest rates has me sceptical too. Do anyone really think that will happen??!!! Did any of you notice that almost all the fixed rates have been steadily increased by the banks by .1/.2% across the board?

'So what' says the News 'We need to speculate what the banks will do with the €400bn...'

The Unions are encouraging us to reject the recent paydeal, rising unemployment and the Government majority owned 'State' airline is considering laying off its ground staff in favour of outsourcing. Hardly reassuring...

'So what' says the News 'US Congress just approved a $700bn bad debt bail out! Everyone is working towards recovery...'

Two of my friends announced that they were doing their Christmas shopping this week. My eldest gives me a list of 20 toys/games and subtly hints that I pass it on to Santa for him. Eeek! Why so early!!! I plan to bring my winning from the Deepstack to Amsterdam in November - that's time enough for me, and Santa will have to make do with what he can find in Kalverstraat! Then the rumour mill starts grinding out more bad news: the credit cards will be withdrawn, overdrafts will be frozen, forget shopping and start paying them off now!

'Ah sure' says the News 'If you run into debt the Banks are covered... just don't go over €400bn on the credit cards.'

Several prominent players were complaining they were too late to register, or had other commitments, to play in the IPO or Laddies game in Killarney ... Let's be honest - the real reason lies with the credit crunch... right?! Come clean!

I'm old enough to remember the bad old 80's, being in secondary school with peer pressure to look good was tough if you didn't have the means! The shame of having to wear those god awful council glasses! The shame of having no headstone for my father's grave for 4/5 years! The shame of having to sell the family car,and my mother had to hitch with the weeks takings (we had a business) to the bank in the next town... No worse than anyone and we survived.

'Uh oh' says the News 'WARNING: This recession will be worse. MUCH worse.'

With the looming threats of rising bills, food costs and interest rates reared last May - it was time to start cushioning myself for the worse. I changed my driving style, turned off the air con, and shopped around for petrol, I pay my son in PC hours to clean the car (he's very good!); shopped for food bargains (very easy right now), the new fridge with the extra freezer space is full! I reduced our heating usage, got strict with electricity and got rewarded with the cheapest utility bill I've ever had last week! A gas bill for €17!!! I'm so proud of it - I carry it around everywhere! I even applied to fix my mortgage for 5 years... just before the rates went up.
But the best advice yet had to to from a client last month. This little old lady whose daughter is regular on the poker scene, upon learning that I was a player asked me how was my 'poker purse'. She had me mystified at first then explained that her daughter held two purses: one for housekeeping and the other for poker! "And never the two shall meet!" LOL! While my virtual online 'purse' is pathetic... my live purse is currently richer than my housekeeping one that's for sure!

I set myself a 1k challenge for August - started really well but had a disastrous final week, but glad to report I was €700 up by 31st August and already had that spent! September added another €230 profit to start off my 'purse' (didn't play as much, kept to low stake games) plus a bottle of sparkling wine the best hand (straight flush to the Jack) and October is off to a good start with another €170 profit into the 'purse'... it should have been €390 but I messed up in the final hand headsup. Meh! Feck the credit crunch - I'm setting myself a 1k target for October!

"Ah now" says the News... Shhhhhhh! I'm enjoying my wine!

Maybe I should rename myself Queen Fish!

2008-10-01T02:00:00.008+01:00

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I'm so pissed off at myself!

Was in the mood to play tonight but was too late to go anywhere. Had $300-400 spread out over 3 sites... Betway; PPP; Devilfish... Decided to hop on those! And totally spewed the lot to $100... Well below $100!!!! Nothing but major spewing sessions with stoooopid donk calls! :(

I should have logged off when I was falling below 20% but no... Being the total tilt-roller I just had to keep going "trying to clear variance!" IDOT!

66 into 78 on a J10Q board, the 78 kept check-calling my raises to the end... meh(!)
Called UTG's pf-raise holding KK ... checked behind him on the flop... A on turn and I push, UTG calls with AK(!)
Meeting KK on a KQx board holding J10 for straight/flush draw - I really need to stay away from draws! I'm an awful one for over valuing them :(
KQ suited flush beaten by A3 off for a higher flush... I checked behind on the turn (3rd suited card) and pushed when the river showed a 4th suit(!)
Re-raising with AK on all streets - on a flush board with no ace and no king in sight(!)
And folding 55 in SB to a 3xBB button raise, button went on to show 97off... very next hand he does same and I shoved with 72, only to kicked out by his 44s or 55s(!)
Worse was calling an all-in with 50% of my chips holding J9 (what was I thinking???!!!) into QQ! I deserved the criticism in the chat box that went something like this:

-What a donk
-J9 OFF? LOL
-LOL
-sry... I pressed t wrong button, meant to fold (pathetic lame excuse!)
-yeah yeah donk!
-Ty fish! LOL

When I pushed AIPF with JJ a few hands later - wasn't surprised to get 4 callers(!):

-Another J9? Me calling
-LOL More value donk!
-havta call tat!
-bye bye fish!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Time to get some coaching me thinks. :P

Charity Poker Event - 28th September

2008-09-16T16:26:00.005+01:00

The HSE cutbacks have really affected the voluntary community sector; and DeafHear.ie is no exception. With all the rural outreach clinics curtailed Deaf/Hard of Hearing have to travel to the nearest Resource Centre for information, hearing aid batteries (we sell them for €3 compared to €7 in your 'local' chemists!) and other advocacy services. Cost of Deaf Technology has increased; a hearing person can buy a simple smoke alarm in Woodies for €20 but the cheapest Smoke Alarm for a Deaf/Hard of Hearing person will set them back €170 plus installation costs (and no, there are NO grants available). The Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Project has been put on hold despite a well run campaign and a successful pilot project with Rotunda Hospital - unbelievable considering that Ireland is the only Western country without one! The Mental Health and Family Support (social workers) Service is struggling with an increase in referrals. With the majority of our clients depended on Social Welfare - the Celtic tiger hasn't really benefited the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community and the current recession is really biting hard.

Rather than moan about it - DeafHear.ie embarked on a fundraising drive with each centre doing their share. A National Sky Dive has been planned for 12th October and two of our staff members: Shane & Geraldine (Gerii) along with Gerii's partner Andrew will be throwing themselves out of the plane for the cause! Two of them are really scared of heights (I give ya a clue: it's not the female!) which makes it all the more funnier! We need to raise a minimum of €2,000 but we set ourselves a challenge of €3,000!

I suggested running a poker night, at first no one would agree... Thankfully the CEO & the Regional Manager gave their blessing, and I was off to organise it before they could change their minds!

JP Poker has kindly agreed to host it in Molloy's Pub (it's also known as the "local deaf club" due to its close proximity to the Tallaght Deaf Club) on the provision that it starts at 4pm. Some colleagues from the other resource centres have agreed to come along on the provision that we teach them how to play; a couple of Irish Deaf Poker regulars have agreed to show them basics from 3:30pm

I am actively looking for sponsors to sponsor a table (half a table even) to cover the organising costs (e.g. refreshments etc); so far I've three tables sponsored... We have a raffle too, I have several lovely raffle prizes already - including vouchers for restaurants & shops, concert tickets, gifts and bottles.

It should be a good fun day: please come along! Leave the car at home and check out the cheap booze on offer at Molloys including their famous pitchers of beer! Join the re-buy madness and support DeafHear.ie Dublin South Sky Dive Challenge!

Cya all there!

IDP's Deepstack is coming and the seats are getting HOT!

2008-09-10T13:46:00.006+01:00

Sorry I won't be there at the Irish Winter Festival on October Bank Holiday weekend - I'll be in the Fitzwilliam for the Irish Deaf Poker's Deepstack Classic! A note of advance warning: I'm going to win!

The Fitzwilliam have been very generous: allowing us the use of the premises, staff, and food 'for peanuts'. Enabling us to keep the reg small and allow more money into the prize fund.

There are several Deaf poker players who have never set foot inside a casino and this novelty along with the news that the expected prize fund will exceed €4,000 has the event selling fast!

IDP set ourselves a limit of 80 seats, expecting to have 70 players, but as of today and with 7 weeks to go: 75 seats have been pre-registered! If you haven't reserved your seat - DO IT NOW!!!!!!

Once we hit 80, there will be a reserve list set up... I'm sure the good people in the Fitz will help us to accommodate the extra numbers... But don't count on it! Reserve your seat now!

Betway.com offered to run a freeroll (password needed) on Monday 8th September or IDP with $100 GTD and 2 tickets to the Deepstack up for grabs. All the registered players and Deaf poker clubs were sent details. When the freeroll started there were 70 players registered, on my table I had one London player and 8 Latvians all from Riga(!) They played into us very aggressively, I was literally in a 'push or fold' mode for the first two levels finally building my stack up to 12k. Then lost it in two sick hands... one Latvian kept going all-in pre-flop every few hands trying to win the blinds, he got called twice showing 10 7 suited and a J4 off and was down to 5.7k when he shoved again UTG+1. I was on the button with AQsuited and called; he showed 88 - flop showed two hearts, but no heart never mind a A or Q to help me and I was down to 6k. Two hands later I had KJsuited and raised, another short-stacked loose Latvian pushed all in on the button with Q2; I called, seeing it as a steal... he won with a pair of 2's and left me with 580(! ) When the blinds got to me (blinds 200/400) I had to push with Q8 suited against AA... and it was GG, UL, G'nite to me!

I continued to rail Cathy 'Forever Late' (in sit-out mode!!!) and Ciaran 'DefSheriff' the last two Irish to make the final table, along with 1 Swedish Deaf player and 6 Latvians who were being coy about how they got the password if they were deaf etc. Cathy in sit-out mode was hilarious! She was all-in no less than 6 times... and won 5 of those showdowns with top pair, two pairs, straight (holding 2 5 on a A34xx board against 88) and a set (holding 9 5 against QQ with 9 on the flop and 9 on river!) She got to final table, then managed to get online just in time to push with her remaining 120 chips and lost! You should have stayed offline Cathy! LOL!

Ciaran made it to 3rd place - not easy with Latvians colluding with each other, it was so obvious, the Latvian chipleader (who had double the average stack on the table) would raise to ensure Ciaran/Swedish player folded, another short-stacked Lativan player would re-raise all-in and chipleader would fold with only a few chips left to play! This ensured that the Latvians remained in the game... When it was down to the final 3 - both Ciaran and one Latvian were sitting on less than 5BBs; my suspicions of collusion were confirmed when chipleader made his usual raise and Ciaran folded only for the short-stacked Latvian to call him with A3... Chipleader showed 10 3 off... WTF! The cheeky chipleader then wrote a comment on IDP website asking if we were paying for his trip to Dublin now that he had won the Freeroll(!)

I wrote a complaint off to Betway afterwards; got the usual reply that they will look into it. I hope they will investigate this thoroughly and reward the tickets to the final two deaf players (Ciaran & Swedish Player Chris Markvelle) although it was a freeroll with small stakes the principal is still important IMO. A few players told me afterwards they had trouble getting online/getting into Betway; which was a shame, I would have loved to see more Deaf players in the game.

Back to the Deepstack: the rumour has it, that our next monthly game on 4th October will be a freeroll with re-buys with one FREE Deepstack ticket up for grabs; with the re-buys funding a few extra tickets... Seeing we'll burst the 80 player mark by then, with most of our regulars are already pre-reg'ed for the main event - the free tickets will just mean some of you lucky ducks will get your seat for less than €70!

Wooo-hoo! Bring it on boyos!

UPDATE: Betway got back to me after an investigation and agreed to awarded the tickets in the freeroll to the two Deaf players: Ciaran & the Swedish Player. Bravo! WP!