Cowboy Dreams

Story of me travels so far..

2009-10-25T04:08:00.001Z

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcySu5hLLDYkZGNod3d4dGdfMnE0cnBwZGhm&hl=en

Poker lol

2009-05-01T15:28:00.004+01:00

Having one of the biggest breaks I have ever had from poker (in the sense I actually sit down and take it seriously, cos everybody knows boozy games with ur mates, pushing with crap don't count)... Am el busto cos of recession, pay cuts and mainly cos of the new car and the whopping insurance fee. So dropped out of Connie's 10th anniversary down in Killarney. It was a game that looked to have absoutlely fantastic structure, the kind I like to play. But then at the start of the month I realised the 275e buy-in fee along with addditional expenses (travel, accom n food) for the weekend would make a sizable dent in my fast diminishing funds so I dropped out. Which was just as well, cos I hadn't played poker in like, forever. So I did the next best thing and bought a 10% stake in a horse, TJ Tracey who I had tangled with at the LEPO and earmarked as one of the two good players I figured played very well.

When the tournament came around, I had no pangs of desire or regret which sigifies how much my appetite to play poker has dwindled and I don't know if I will ever recover the desire that used to rage within me every single day when I took the game up.

But poker did provide me with a big thrill that weekend though even though I wasn't playing. It was following TJ's progress in the tournament, which he would keep me updated by texting me. I got a massive buzz out of it especially when he was chipleader at the final table with 6 players left and a first prize of 8k. As it turned out, he came 4th but all the same it was a fantastic result and I was really thankful for the absoultely fantastic run he gave me and for the buzz I got out of it.

So a 10% stake saw me get €250 which was much welcome. TJ transfered the money on stars on monday night and just as I was about to cash out the monies, an emotion of impluse overcame me and before I knew it I had registered for a $10 tournie with less than a minute before it was due to start.

Managed to battle through a field of 2000+ runners to finish 12th after 6 hours of play. I had forgotten how frustrating it was to go so far and yet finish so close to the final table where the real money is paid out to the top 3. The next day I still felt the same way about poker, the run I went on didn't really reinvorgate my desires. As it transpired the guy who busted me in the tournament posted on boards too. Spotted his user name and asked how he got on. He went on to take down the tournament for 3.5k. Not a bad result for a $10 buy-in! :) At least he was irish and put my chips to good use.

Anyway probably wont post again for another long period of time I don't really feel the urge to post nor to play poker.. In the meantime, take care y'all

Waffle Waffle Waffle

2009-02-07T14:41:00.003Z

Since the LEPO, I've not been playing that much poker, both online and live. Living out in Ashbourne, if I were to play in town it'd cost me 40-50e for the taxi back home. So that discourages me from playing live. That's not to say I can't be arsed anymore, it's just that its far too much hassle than its worth. With the current financial climate, I just can't be spending €100+ in Silks every friday plus the taxi fare on top of it. I could play the €55 double chance on the Saturday but I don't think it's worth it, sacrificing saturday nights out with my mates for the sake of a tournament that gives 5k chips in total. Midweek tournaments are no-gos cos of work, which makes it difficult for me to go out and play live as opposed to online.

On the flip side, since live poker is very limited my only real outlet whenever I want to play is to go online. When you go online and inevitably lose, you just can't bring yourself to admit there are major fundamental flaws in your game and you deny what's strikingly evident by blaming the bad beats, the lack of tells, the lack of interaction which leads to yourself subconsciously convincing yourself that you don't suck as much live as you do online.

So my goal for the time-being is to confront the fact I'm a fish and to do what is necessary to improve my results. I've always detested maths all of my life, I've only ever passed one exam in school when I got a D for my junior cert. I'm okay with the basics but anything more advanced than that, I struggle. I've been playing poker casually for the last two years but if someone asked me to provide them with a clear and concise explanation of how to calculate fold equity or pot odds, I wouldn't be able to give a clear answer although I kind have developed a warped and muddled concept of what are essential skills in poker. But I recognise if I am to make any significant strides in the development of my game, this is an area that requires a lot of work on my part and if I'm truly honest with myself I don't know if I have desire to put a conscious amount of effort into a subject I despise.

I've looked up my sharkscope stats based on my pokerstars performances. It's not pretty but what's really embarrassing is to see a little goldfish jumping out of a fishbowl right beside my alias. It brings it home that I'm definitely guilty of thinking I'm a better player than I actually am. So this goldfish icon will have to serve as a motivation tool to take online poker seriously cos I would love nothing more than to see it disappear.

As I said in a previous blog entry, I wanted to concentrate on tournaments. Yes I also said I would swear of cash games but I've suffered relapses of which were, as per usual, un-profitable. But anyways, in regards to improving my tournament game, I really want to play a big tournament again. I played in the IPC 2008 and when I look back on it, I really enjoyed the experience even if I was an extremely naive player back then. So in conjunction with wanting to improve my game and play in major tournaments, I've gotten a poker coach in Dara O'Kearney, who informed me that I eliminated him from the IPC when he went all in short-stacked on the last hand of day1 with J2, in the CO position if I remember correctly, and I called him in the blinds with AJ. I remember the hand itself, but I didn't realise it was him that I knocked out! For both of us, it was our first major tournaments and Dara has gone on leaps and bounds whereas I've just dithered at a slow rate of progression. From what I read on his blog, Dara has a knack of qualifying for tournaments via cheap satellites so I hope I'll be able to benefit from his coaching and qualify for the big tournaments myself. That would be tremendous. That's my big goal for the moment. Then I'll worry about winning the tournaments afterwards! =P

On a non-poker related front, recession has really hit home. Working in the civil services as a clerical officer, I was pissed off when it was proposed that an additional levy would be introduced into our wages to help the government save money in difficult times. I would be able to grin and bear it if I was a fresh-faced 18 year old, but christ sake I'm coming 25 years of age, an age where I'd want to be looking to buy a house or to be able to make significant savings for one. People say I should be grateful I still have a job but I've absolutely no prospect of promotion for the next several years, and if this levy was to come into effect, I wouldn't be earning that much more than someone who would be claiming the dole and rent allowance. If this recession were to be over in say 5 years time, I'd be 30 and on equal or less wages than I was when I was 20/21! It's fairly frustrating- taking one step forward, two steps backwards.

I don't think it's fair to impose this levy on civil servants who are on the lower end of the pay scale. This extract from an email sent by an angry member to our union is a sentiment I strongly agree with:

“We were the school leavers that were laughed at for joining the public service. While others were making 50 and 60k per year, we were the ones still taking home the meagre pay packets and now we have to pay for the high life the bankers, politicians, property developers etc lived for the past number of years! How is that fair?!”

As I said, with no promotional prospects ahead of me for the next few years I'm giving thought to the idea of taking a career break when I become eligible in August. It makes sense to go travelling and ride out the recession for a while. I just need someone to travel with as I'm not brave enough to go travelling the world on my own. But the thing holding me back is if I were to take a career break, due to financial difficulties I could be waiting up to 12 months to get my job back when I return. So my next move is critical. I can't risk spending 12 months unemployed with absolutely no income as I can't claim any benefits whilst I'm still an employee of the civil service. So I really don't know where I'm going here. I feel I'll probably stay and use what money I've put away for travelling to buy a car. Yes I've always wanted one, but I've coped so far without one so I'm not exactly overwhelmed with the desire to buy one. But recession is forcing my hand, and I may have to buy one because bus-services, which are adequate at the very best, are being cut nationwide. Recession is causing a lot of stress for everyone indeed.

Stressing aside, in such difficult times I'm trying to find ways of cut out unnecessary expenditure which is ironically in contrast with my fondness for playing poker. (I really ought to give it up). But anyways, I've come across the infamous “cousin” that is bandied about on the BBV thread on boards. It is truly a remarkable discovery for me. As a deaf person, I feel liberated with the freedom to watch a movie/tvshows of my choice with subtitles widely available, whenever I want all for a meagre sum. The cinema industry can stick the only one subtitled screening of their choice twice a week, (Early sat morning and Monday nights!! GFO!!!) of which we have to pay full whack for, up their fucking arse! The same goes for the bloody TV industry. I would just love it if I could sabotage the audio thingy in the RTE broadcasting station for a whole year putting out television broadcasts without sound and see RTE demand full payment from their license payers. ARGH!!! Ah they can all fuck off anyways, from now on I'm not giving a penny more for a service I can't fully utilise! The internet is truly my best friend from now on! (well until Eircom rat me out and I get prosecuted for illegal downloading! Lol!)

Anyway a bunch of us play futsal casually every Friday so a deaf futsal league was set up and I re-established St. Vincent's Deaf Futsal Club and entered a team. It's really good fun. I forgot how much fun it was to play amongst my deaf peers. Hopefully this league will go on to improve the standard of futsal and we'll be able to compete for international honours when the European Championships come around. As the first choice keeper for the Irish Deaf futsal team, I really am excited about our prospects. The talents shown by upcoming players like Kevin Dudley, Jason Maguire and Brian Daly coupled with the established stars like Stuart Foy, Joe Watson and Darren Dunne looks to make us a very good team and I think we have the potential to go all the way. I'll leave you with this goal I stumbled across on youtube the other day. It's simply the best goal I've seen in a long long time in both futsal and football!! Enjoy!

The LEPO

2009-01-02T15:40:00.003Z

Before I start, let me put my hand up and admit I've got the “I-only-blog-when-I'm winning” syndrome. November and December were the two toughest months I have had in my short time of playing poker. I was doubting my ability and desire to play the game. As I said I had previously played very little poker and was on a sabbatical, hence the lack of blog updates.

But after spending Christmas at home, playing happy families was just too much for me to handle so I spontaneously decided to play the LEPO to keep me occupied and to also keep boredom at bay. Paying €200 to play in a tournament would not be something I would do often, but since it was Christmas I wrote the money off as a Christmas present to myself. It was a careless attitude really, but thankfully on this occasion I reaped the dividends of my stupidity by coming 5^th out of 139 players, bringing home €1,750.

I'm not going to start rambling on about particular hands that cropped up during the tournament because that would be boring. My starting table was okay. I say okay because the players weren't great but there were 2 guys who knew what they were doing. I was particularly getting raped on the big blind by this bloke, TJ, who I had played once in Fitzpatricks. (I had played like a donkey that night). So this led to a bit of a battle which led to a big clash later in the tournament when I doubled up against him. I was relieved he got busted later cos if he had made it to the final table, I would imagine he would have been a headache to play with his constant aggression.

But anyways there was this lady playing and she had her daughter in tow. It turned out she (the daughter) was learning sign language, cue me thinking like a typically red-blooded male, that I might sweeten her up and follow it up if we crossed paths later in the bar. She was well fit, especially on day 2 when she was wearing a killer of a black dress. It was hard to concentrate on the poker when some stunner keeps asking you to show her the signs for random stuff. But of course, she had to have a boyfriend who happened to be dealing. So I kind of calmed down after that, but nonetheless it was hard not to keep my eyes off her especially on day 2 when she was in that dress.

Anyways poker-I thought the standard in general was poor. Ended day 1 on 75k when the average was 50k. Day 2 went okay too, my stack was wildly swinging up and down. Reached the final table and enjoyed the fuss made, with the table being held on a “stage” and being cordoned off and Mad Marty's commentary even if I couldn't understand it most of the time! I looked around at the faces at my table and there were two guys from my starting table. One was french and terrible. He also had the most ridiculous act every time he went all in, I was embarrassed for him every time he did it. The other player was Rob who I had played for the majority of the tournament and was glad to have position on him as I respected his game.

I put myself on tilt during the final table cos I felt I had played one hand badly. But I had my biggest fans (lol) to thank for telling me to calm down. Thanks susie and jules!! Got myself back on track when I doubled up against Rob but contributed to my own downfall in a rush of blood to the head, which saw me finally out in 5^th place.

Leaving the hotel, I was tilted because of the way I had fucked up my exit hand and I was gutted because I knew I could have won more. I've managed to calm down now but I can't help but feel envious of Rob and the other guy who chopped for 7k each. Fair play to them both.

Despite the poor turnout of 139 runners, I definitely would want to play this tournament again next year, the structure was fantastic. And the reg fee of 10% was fantastic as well, especially when it was held in a hotel which would usually see a 15% or 20% reg fee. So I think the organisers ran the show very well.

Enough waffling for me now, my gut instinct tells me it's time to stop going on. After making the wrong fold, I'm never going to ignore my instinct from now on!

See you at the tables and I'd like to wish you a happy new year!

Swearing off cash games...

2008-12-29T11:55:00.001Z

Not got much to say, poker has been deliberately put on the back burner while I figured out where I wanted to go. Decided to stick to tournaments only, it feels playing cash is having a detrimental effect to my game-whilst I feel I've improved my aggression in some spots, I've developed a robotic style playing cash. So that's one of my new year resolutions, play tournaments only and improve at them.

As I post, I'm just getting ready for Day 2 of the Leprechaun Open. I'm feeling a bit rusty, this being the only poker I've played (apart from drunken poker with my mates) for a long long time and at times I felt that I failed to recognise particular spots where a steal would have gone through. More live poker is needed to address that. But anyways, I've a moderately healthy stack of 75k, with 50k being the average. You can follow updates on boards, a new thread should be created somewhere here.

.

2008-12-14T23:40:00.002Z

“Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.” ~Edward Albee

Who said poker was a beautiful game?

2008-11-25T23:01:00.008Z

Right I haven't blogged in good while so since I'm in work, I suppose I might as well update this page with tales of sorry performances as of late. I hope by blogging about it, I'll banish them to the month of November and start December afresh. It's nearing the end of the month so I'll give a quick summary of how it went.

Online has been really pathetic. I'm not even going to blame the amount of sick beats and bad play that I have had to endure. The truth behind my lame performances this month is because of the attitude I developed. I have literally become independent on poker tracker and my cash game has suffered as a result of playing like a robot. I've stopped taking notes. I don't try to make any improvement. I've become lazy and never get around to reading poker theory and 2+2. I've slacked off big time and my bankroll has taken a massive whopping because of that. Last weekend I happened to come across an article written by a player who posts on boards. Reading it, I found myself guilty of what he had warned against, relying on stats. Afterwards I decided to take a break from playing cash and hopefully it'll serve to refresh my attitude and make me focused when I get back to playing them cos right now, I'm only gonna bust my roll if I continue playing cash games within my current frame of mind.

My tournament game is okay I think, online. I've only played a very small handful, probably around 7 cos I can't be arsed to play tournaments most of the time. But whenever I'm in the rare humour to play an online tournament, I like the MTT SnG on stars because the seats fill up so fast and the tournaments start pretty much instantly. I've either cashed or won in 5 of them and got knocked out really early in the other two. Last night I was dicking about on GJP and won a ticket for the grand final satellite into the European Deepstack. But if I'm not in the mood to play when it comes around, I might as well not bother cos I'm not gonna do well if I'm not focused.

I haven't played that much live. Only played deaf tournaments so far this month. My form reads like this

Played 5, Won 1, Lost 4

Two of these tournaments were took place in Stockholm, which was a beautiful city. Our hostel was top class, it was pratically a hotel! Defintely worth the money we paid. The night-life was okay but I think that was because we went to the wrong areas where it was too posh for us.

The first one was a €100+10 tournament in a private poker club on Friday night but in stereotypical fashion, us Irish visitors stood out like sore thumbs among our Scandinavian peers as we were already drunk when we got there. Rob lasted longest, coming 3rd out of 40-something players as we drunkenly railed him. The old guy with the tattoos was a great source of amusement on my starting table, he was so bad. Christer Markvelle went all in on a KQ74Q board and this guy made the call as if he had a monster hand and triumphantly tossed over absoulte shite J8 and duly gifted Christer the glut of his 10k starting stack. I couldn't hold it in, and had to stand up and turn away to laugh cos that's how funny it was.

The second tournmanet was a €50+10 tournament in casino cosmopol the next day. It attracted 116 players, of whom the majority were just poor. When the field had narrowed to 30 players or so, I was the chip leader of the tournament and really fancied my chances of making serious cash. Until a short stack went all in against my pre flop raise with 5h6h to my AJo, and spiked a 5 on the river. I just went on tilt and cursed the poker gods, and from there on it was a slippery slope till I busted in 25^th place or so. After playing in Gothenburg and Stockholm, there's three things I don't like about Cosmopol.

1- Their starting stack of 3k

2- Their steep blind structure

3-The 20% registration fee

While I think it's great that the Swedish poker societies can attract 100+ players to their tournaments, I don't think there's any value in Cosmopol's tournaments so in future I'm just gonna stick to playing poker in the Swedish Deaf clubs on Friday night cos it's better value for money. I'm still gonna go to Gothenburg in May but am only gonna play PTIG tournaments, not Cosmopol's.

All in all, if it isn't already obvious from the tone of this post, I'm feeling really fed up of poker. It's annoying the hell out of me that I cant take a proper break from the game altogether cos I invariably end up playing it when I'm bored at home in evenings and have nothing else to do. But what buggers me most of all, is unless I TRY to constantly improve, I'm not going to get out of this rut and I don't even know if I have the desire to do that.

Poker. What a sick game.

My first royal flush!!

2008-11-11T00:59:00.001Z

Having a horrid time of late but just ran into this hand about 5 mins ago and had to post it up here!!

Green Joker Poker Manilla 0.25/0.50, hand converted by the iPoker Converter at Talking-Poker
Visit Hand HQ to purchase hand histories from a range of sites, game types and levels.

saw flop | saw showdown

Button ($171.87)
SB ($9.88)
BB BB ($51.60)
UTG Hero ($41.50)
UTG+1 UTG+1 ($39.99)
CO ($78.78)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K A
Hero raises to 2, UTG+1 calls 2, 3 folds, BB calls 1.50.

Flop (6.25) J K Q
BB checks, Hero bets 3.12, 1 fold, BB calls 3.12.

Turn (12.49) T
BB checks, Hero checks.

River (12.49) 6
BB bets 7, Hero raises to 33.49, BB moves all-in for 39.48, Hero moves all-in for 2.89

BB shows 6 8
Hero shows K A

Hero wins 95.35 with Straight (Diamonds) with Ace high

A good old ramble...

2008-10-28T18:16:00.007Z

Online Poker - Making the adjustment to 6-max 50NL

As of my last post, I have dropped from 100NL 8-max to 50NL and exclusively played 6-max online and have developed a style that is shaping to be boarding on the line of LAG/self-destructive. I have tried to work on reducing my passiveness pre-flop and my positional play, I think so far these aspects are certainly getting better but in I'm starting to get a bit risqué with the aggressiveness so I'm going to have to work on my reducing V$IP and using the the aggressiveness more selectively. Nonetheless it's far far too early, as I’ve played less than 1k of hands so it’ll take a bigger sample of my stats to analyse the weaknesses in my 6-max game

International Poker Open 17-19th October

Having slept for way too long, I woke up on the Saturday to realise it was almost 1pm and with the tournament due to kick off at 2pm. I rushed out of the house without any food but managed to arrive at the Regency hotel just a couple of minutes before the cards went up on the air. There were a few faces I recognised out of the 650 odd people that were playing Day 1b, but there were no familiar faces at my table.

The standard of play at my table was passive so I quickly got stuck in with the raises to accumulate chips as early as possible. The only player I felt that was capable of playing back at me was Martin, who I think was the only Irish person at my table as the French came over to Dublin in their droves. Fortunately for me, I had immediate position on him, which was a massive advantage. I liked one hand, which he set up a trap in which I dodged only because of something he had said beforehand. I had raised from all spots in position whenever it was limped around to me. Martin had previously limped several times into me only to get raised. He mutters something about the “others waiting for me” or something like that. So a few hands later, I'm on the button, blinds are 50-100 and I get dealt A10suited. Two people limp into the pot and Martin limps in from CO. I would have raised since I was raising with ATC in position but Martin limping in from that position after that comment I found his limp odd so I folded. As it turned out he flopped a set of nines but got no callers to his bet. Nothing very special about that hand I'm sure you'll agree, it was this hand and the way he played that made me rate him because he was the only one that was really observant and conscious of image. As it turned out I had 19k going into the first break when the average was about 11k. But I lost half of it after I had been dealt 99. EP raises 650, folded around to me in CO+1 I re-raised to 1,800 with 99. EP calls. Flop comes down J67. He checks and I pushed and he snap-called with KJ offsuit. We're both retarded here I think. Pre-flop him calling off 20% of his stack with KJo out of position, post flop I'm retarded for pushing with 99 when I think I should have just bet a wee bit over half the pot and get away from it when he calls or pushes. A couple of levels later, I get dealt 87d and a woman who has just been moved to our table makes it 1,000 to go from EP. I call from CO+1, as does the button and the BB. Pot is now worth 4k and I've only 8k behind. Flop comes down Jd9d4h. The woman bets out 4k and with a straight flush draw, I push and the rest fold and she calls with AA. I miss my 12 outs on the turn and river to see an end to my brief run in the International Poker Open.

I thoroughly enjoyed the tournament. My only gripe that the temperatures kept fluctuating to make me nauseous as the room was really hot but my table was by the door to the smoking area so a draught of coldness would sweep by every time someone went out for a smoke. But nonetheless, I thought that Pokerireland.ie had the tournament very well set up and it was great value with 20k added to the prizepool by the Boylepoker the sponsors. I'll probably play again next year barring unforeseen circumstances!

IDP deepstack weekend

Friday

After several months of planning and promoting our weekend, our deepstack weekend got underway on Friday evening. We had bought three tables but word was that there would be a good number of new Irish players turning up at the Deaf club so we ordered two more tables in desperation on the Friday morning and the website owner was able to deliver them by the evening before the poker night! Just as well as 5 tables proved to be not enough because we had to set up an extra two more as the Swedes, Finnish, British and of course the Irish arrived throughout the night. The games on offer were Sit & Go's that varied from €10 to €30. The IDP team didn't play in any of them as we were all very busy but as the night went on and things quietened down, we temporarily relived ourselves of our duties every now and again to indulge in Heads Up games. I only played the one game against Gerry Grehan for €40 and took it down within 5 mins when my JJ held up against his 55. I can't really recollect everything as it was busy for us all, but at the end of the night I felt extremely satisfied and pleased with how the night went without any hitches. It was a defining moment for the IDP team as we all worked in tandem and I felt that they were superb. After the poker, we all went to the pub afterwards and just got drunk in Quinn's pub! I just can't get enough of their cold bottles of Stella Artois!

Saturday

The following morning, with a hangover in tow I got out of bed and got the bus to meet the Swedes at their hotel only to arrive to find that they had already left to go to the Fitz. I get there to see a deaf cash game going so I sit down and make €90 before we all had to go upstairs to play the tournament. At my table I arrive to find that to my left was Niklas Wanjura and to my right was David Johnsson, both of whom I have played before in Gothenburg. (Niklas was at my first table and I later joined him at the final table with David). So I was sandwiched between two good players and the fact Niklas had immediate position on me was far from ideal.

Play began and it was as passive as I expected it to be, for Deaf people love to call and see the flop so I went into aggressive mode to try and get as many chips as quickly as possible to be absorb any sick beats that I thought I would receive at the later stages. Little did I know I wouldn't get remotely as far as I thought I would. David Johnsson made an early exit when he pushed with AJ on a Jxx board but Magnus had JJ for a set. So I felt a bit more comfortable with David gone but still had to contend with Niklas who counter-acted my raises successfully whenever he did. To cut a long story short, I got up to 13.5k before going down to 6k on a stone-cold bluff against a Swede holding a full house. Then I get back up to 13.5k again by being aggressive in position. Then during the 100/200 level (I think), I find AJ offsuit and make a raise of 875 and get called by Larry White in the SB. Flop comes out KQx and he check-calls my 1,200 bet. Turn is another X, and again he checks-calls my 2,450 bet. River is another blank and Larry again checks. I can't check here and give up the pot so I look at Larry's stack and he has only 5 or 6k behind so I bet out 4k. He calls and shows 44 to win a big pot. I regrettably ask him angrily “44?!” and go on tilt. About 5 minutes later with 7k behind, I find KJ and make the standard raise from MP. I get re-raised by Magnus who has proved very solid and has impressed with his play. I very reluctantly call his raise, basically blindly hoping there was a K or J on the flop, which was stupid now that I come to think of it. I miss the flop and I check and he bets out 2k. I really hate this spot I've gotten myself into. I go all in after thinking about it quickly and after a couple of seconds he calls, correctly putting me on picture cards. He has 88 so I’ve still got live cards, however the 8 on the turn seals my fate and I'm out.

At the time I was pissed off with the 44 hand, for it really put me on tilt and I never got over it, but now as I'm typing this I think I played the hand badly too. As impossible as it was to put a player like Larry on a hand, he could have had a K or Q so I can't go criticising his play before criticising mine. It was reckless and against a calling station, I should have slowed down on the turn and river instead of firing bets at every street. So I need to take a good long hard look at myself and stop going into cash-mode during tournaments.

Anyway Henry McDougall went on to take the tournament down, winning €1,300 which was a fantastic win for him as he had won his deepstack ticket in our private tournament when I gave away the ticket that I had won in our freeroll. On the other hand, the first person to exit the tournament, Stefan Weitmann went downstairs to the blackjack tables and played €1/2 PL and left the casino with a €1,500 profit so it goes to show that contrary to popular thinking amongst the deaf community, an early tournament exit doesn't necessarily make one a bad poker player,

My next live tournament will be in Stockholm. I'm really looking forward to the weekend away and catching up with the Swedes but the tournament will be as tough as it was in Gothenburg, not because of the standard of players but because of the blind structure and starting stack. So in order to do well, I need a lot of luck just like I had in Gothenburg but if I must get knocked out, I pray that it will be early and not late so that I can perform like Stefan Weitmann at the cash tables and make a nice profit!

What goes up, must go down

2008-10-17T17:08:00.001+01:00

I'm bored at work so I'd just thought I'd update my blog.. At least I've something to do.. Such is the life of a civil servant!

Since my last post, I have practically lost almost all my profits from playing 100nl 8-max. Of all the leaks I have, tilt is the biggest I think. My biggest and last losing session was when I lost $350 in like the space of 45 minutes. I was playing three tables and I had AA cracked twice in the space of 5 minutes after getting it all in pre-flop, AK no good against Queens and the worse of all, even with steam coming out of my ears, I carried on at one table where I was down to $50 but got it up to $175 with a hyper-aggression mode (cos I was on tilt)... I had everyone covered except for one passive player who kept making these unbelievable suck-outs on everyone with shit like A-9, KJ... Anyway it's folded around to me in the SB and I've got 33. I raise to $3.50, wanting to steal his big blind.. He re-raises to $20, which is a really huge raise. I either was going to re-raise or fold cos I don't want to call. I thought about his re-raise, he seen me play aggro and thought he'd play back at me. The size of his raise looked like he wanted me to go away so I put him on A-J or some stupid hand cos of the way he had been playing at the table and his stats (54/16) so I quickly took the orthodoxy (I dunno if thats actually a word!) decision to go all-in in my tilted wisdom... He dwells so I'm starting to think my read is right. He leaves it till the very very very last possible second and then calls. With fucking Aces. Slow-rolling prick. The board doesn't help and I'm just reeling from the worse losing night I've had playing online. He taunts me in the chatbox and I rise to the bait and proceed to bombard the chatbox with abuse to vent my frustration before slamming my laptop shut and it takes all my willpower to stop myself from hurling it against the wall.

And I haven't played 100nl since. Lol! That night badly affected my bankroll. Of course as I write about the hand, I look back on it and I think what an idiot I was, but at the time the table dynamics and emotions clouded my judgement.

But anyway I've dropped to playing 50nl. I've decided to try and adjust to 6-max which was something I have wanted to do anyway. I haven't gotten that many hands in yet though but so far the sessions have been okay. I definitely don't feel out of my depth there so I hope to be back playing 100nl when my bankroll has been recovered.

I cant put up a graph cos I'm blogging from work which is just as well cos I'd be too embarrassed! =)

Anyway I played live the other weekend for the 1st time since CHL closed down. It was a €55 DC in Silks Casino where Luke is now managing the poker floor. With 1k guaranteed, there was an overlay of €300 as there were 14 players. I had a bit of difficulty re-adjusting to live play after having played almost exclusively online since CHL closed. I wasn't as conscious of stack and pot sizes as I once used to be as I had gotten into the bad habit of just glancing at my opponents balance and pot size online. I didn't play very well and busted out in 8th place or so. I'm not so sure about Silks, I have to go there again before I settle on my initial judgement. I'll say this though, I don't like the tables. Actually I don't like any tables where they have accumulated layer of layer of cloth on top of each other over the years to the point where the table is too soft and you can't stack your chips cos then they will just wobble.

Anyway I'm playing in the IPO tomorrow. Paid the buy in of €150 to play. I wasn't going to play in it after getting so close to winning a satellite ticket into it but changed my mind cos it'll be a shame to miss out on playing in the biggest tournament in Europe with 1,300 people playing! I'm slightly concerned about re-adjusting to live play but hopefully I'll run good cos luck will play a big part if anyone is going to cash from a field that big.

The following weekend is the IDP weekend. The main event is the deepstack tournament on Saturday so I really am looking forward to it. 10K stack for €70 game. Food and drink inclusive of €7 reg. 30 min blinds. I really think this has the best structure and value of all the deaf tournaments in Europe. The only thing is that the standard of play will be quite crap cos there are so many players that have just learnt how to play. But then again, I should be happy about that cos I reckon I have an edge over them.

I'll be back after the deepstack weekend to write about it, so until then good luck!

PokerTracker milestone

2008-09-15T23:08:00.012+01:00

Reading other people's blogs about their graphs and PT3 results, I always find them a bore. But I'm proud of what I have achieved after overcoming my own stupidity when it comes to computers and so I am posting a peice about my own PT3 stats because I never once thought I would get to this stage due to almost giving up on online poker altogether.

It has taken me almost a day's worth of playing two tables for a month to reach the mighty figure of 2k worth of hands. While lots of poker players are easily able to play 1k of hands in a single session, nonetheless I am kind of relieved and in some ways proud that I have been able to get my head around PokerTracker after frustrating myself with my illeratcy when it comes to computers and the like. I'm still in the learning process of using PT3, I've tried to use the tools available to the best of my ability. I'm enjoying it as I feel it is improving my cash game quite somewhat, after having to endure a long time having to play without any stats and getting beat at 20nl when I knew much to my frustration I was better than that. I felt trapped by my own inability to understand how to set up PT3 stats until I installed Holdem indicator and based the set-up of my PT3 stats on theirs. Once I got used to PT3, I added more stats and have never used Holdem Indicator since.

I didn't have a great month in August as I mentioned I had only just started using PT3 and it took some time to get used to. I know the profits shown is nothing special but it's not what I'm most pleased about. I'm more pleased with myself for getting used to PT3 more than anything. I don't really have any case for complaint anymore, gone are the days I complain that I'm on perma-tilt cos the players have edge over me simply cos they have stats and I don't. So if I'm losing, I no longer have anyone to look at but myself.

After the first 1k of hands played, I decided to import 250k worth of i-poker hand history 100nl full ring which I bought for $13. Althought they took like forever to import, they were invaluable! I had a lot more information on my opponents and was able to make decisions better based on their stats. After that, I enjoyed a wee upturn in my results in the second half of the 2k of hands played.

Like a mother showing off photos of her newborn baby, I've posted screen shots of my PT3 results.

I would have thought AA would be a winning hand, but out of every single hand I've been dealt, it's the biggest loser on my database. A few times I've gotten dogged and the other times I'm guilty of overplaying it and refusing to let go, so just looking at it now I'm gonna start playing it hard and aggro pre and post flop.

It's bizarre looking at the player vs player summary and to see I've lost $2,608.81.
In euros thats €1,828.90 that I have played with and lost. It's a bit frightening to think I've played with so much money within a month. (It's a lot of money to me anyway) That's another good thing about PT3, if I was a losing player I wouldn't be so conscious of how much I have had put on the line and would probably carry on playing, depositing money here and there until I woke up one day and realised I had no money left in my bank account. The only thing is that it's offset by a profit of $3,205 (€2,249), so for now I'm not just yet on the poverty line.

I still haven't played live poker since Cool Hand Lukes closed down. (Actually I've played IDP tournaments but they're totally different) I miss it terribly. The people and the feel of the building made it a special place. I don't like the other places. Admittedly I no longer find any appeal in playing live cash as it's too slow and the rake is too high. But I miss playing the tournaments of which CHL had a great schedule that suited me right down to a Tee. I just hope Dublin city centre will be blessed with a place like CHL again in the near future.

That said, I've registered for the Boylesport International Poker Open which will take place 17-19 October. It should be good with 1,200 players expected to play. But funnily enough I'm more looking forward to the following weekend, when we shall be having our Deepstack tournament in the Fitzwilliam card club on the Saturday. This will easily get 80 runners, maybe 90 if we can get 10 more, I am very proud of this tournament for the numbers have exceeded our expectations and going by other deaf tournaments in Europe, I like to think that we are setting a bench-mark in terms of value, starting stack and registration fee.

On a related note, we had an online freeroll satellite last monday on our sponsors site, Betway. With $100 in the prizepool courtesy of Betway and two tickets to the deepstack event for the top 2 up for grabs, this tournament was password protected. However somewhere along the line, it was leaked to a large number of Latvians who registered. There were a 70 players in total registered for the freeroll, and at a guess I would say 50 of them were not eligible for the tickets which was really disappointing because the point of the whole tournament was to promote the Deepstack tournament. Anyways, it was crazy at the start cos players kept going All-In with trash, but these lunatics committed suicide anyway and got busted. I still had to contend with a vast majority of Lativans as I was determined earn a ticket outright to protect the intergity of Deaf poker. However it was not to be, as the odds were stacked against the three deaf players that reached the final table. Cathy (Forever Late) got blinded out and when she did finally log in, she didn't have enough chips to do anything meaningful. It was left to myself and Christer Markevell (chrism1974) from Sweden to represent the Deaf against the pesky Latvians. I was short stacked than him going into the final table, but had to play aggressively cos that's the best way to play really. Christer got knocked out in 7th place, I tried to finish in the top 2 but it wasn't to be when my JJ was no good against KK and I was out in third place. However, I emailed our Betway representative to complain about the Lativans and he said that the 2 tickets could be awarded to the highest place eligible finishers which meant myself and Christer earned ourselves a ticket. I was glad to give the good news to Christer because he was unhappy just like all of us.

Even though I knew I had nothing to feel guilty about, I still felt a bit bad so being the good samaritan I am, I decided to run my own private freeroll and give away my ticket to the winner. The tournament took place tonight and I exited early when I ran my jacks into Susan's Aces which was bitter sweet revenge after I had busted her the previous week. Henry McDougall (PocketAces81) later went on to take it down. This time the feedback from the players was positive as there were no gate-crashers so that was the most pleasing thing I took from the tournament as I like that everybody enjoyed themselves.

Right I've waffled on far too long so I'm just going to stop here. Best of luck at the tables and be good! ;-)

What made him think Q poor kicker was winning?

2008-08-21T20:44:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I was lurking about on the boards.ie poker forum as you do, and the WSOP 2008 PLO champ, Marty Smyth, was down the well. It's been a really interesting read so far, lots of good questions but for me this simple yet thought probing answer stands out for my own personal reasons.

Question: Did you find that reading books and forums on poker helped your game. Or was it all down to your sheer experience of sitting down playing at a casino learning from your own mistakes?

Marty Smyth: I didn't read any books although i wish i had as it might have saved a bit of time. i learned from watching other good players and trying to work out what they were doing better than me and try to understand why those things made sense and understand what i was doing wrong and what i had to change. if i bluffed and someone called me with bottom pair i wouldn't just think - 'what a clown'... i'd think - what did i do in the way that i played the hand that made him think bottom pair was winning, then the next time a similar situation occurs i'd be better at navigating my way through the hand.

The reason why I like that answer is because I'm the guy that thinks "what a clown" when a bluff doesn't come off againt bottom pair. I never stop to think the way that Marty analyses his mistakes and learns from them.

Anyway after reading Marty's well, I found myself loading up the GJP client and sitting down at 2 tables. I hadn't been sat down for more than 5 mins when I clashed with a LAG, whose nut flush draw was no good against my full house. About half an hour later, I get dealt AKo. I lack confidence playing it because AKo is a big loser on my PT3 database . I basically get nervous at the sight of it, its potentially a big hand but that's all it is. Potentially a big hand. The thing is I'm guilty of over-playing it.

In this hand, the villian was really passive during the 47 hands he played: 44/14/5.3
So I decided to take the aggressive line with AKo and play it hard into such a passive player (on further analysis, my min-raise 3bet on the turn is not aggressive enough)

The following pot is the biggest pot I've won ever since I downloaded PT3 (admittedly I haven't played that much, only got 839 hands in),but instead of being happy, I can't help but think I played this hand badly. As Marty says, I must have been doing something to make him think his pair of queens with a weak kicker was winning. And it was! All the way until the river when one of my 12 outs came to my rescue. So the question has been bugging me all day when I think about this hand.

Green Joker Poker Boron 0.50/1, hand converted by the iPoker Converter at Talking-Poker

saw flop | saw showdown

Button NoRiskNoReward ($135.50)
SB xliy341 ($106.90)
BB Red Al ($15.50)
UTG ChiliHotDog ($115.97)
UTG+1 johnie5tits ($214)
MP rokmptl ($101.70)
CO-1 Hero ($188.90)
CO roro1982 ($217.10)

Preflop: Hero is in the CO-1 with A K
3 folds, Hero raises to 3.50, roro1982 calls 3.50, 3 folds.

Flop (8.50) 6 Q 2
Hero bets 4.75, roro1982 calls 4.75.

Turn (18.00) J
Hero bets 14.30, roro1982 raises to 28.60, Hero raises to 60, roro1982 calls 31.40.

River (152.30) A
Hero checks, roro1982 bets 148.85, Hero moves all-in for 120.65

Hero shows A K
roro1982 shows 4 Q

Hero wins 421.80 with One pair, Aces

Balls of steel..

2008-08-18T12:07:00.003+01:00

Was just reading the updates for the Macau Irish Poker Classic ME and came across across this hand between Annette Obrestad and this Irish poker player, Thomas "Bomber" Nolan, an apparently notorious LAG player...

"The battle between The Bomber Nolan and Annette has been decided. Annette raised to 400 with AK and Bomber called, flop came K 10 4 and Annette bet 1350 which was called, the turn came a 5 and Annette moved all-in for 10K, Bomber called and turned over 54, blank on the river and Annette is out."

I couldn't help but admire the balls of this guy, playing against one of the top players in the world. I really really like this hand simply because this guy clearly thinks in a way that is unorthodox to many players... Bomber Nolan (he even has a cool nickname) I salute you!

Theme: Hilarity

2008-08-15T12:33:00.003+01:00

I wrote a long post. Then I realised how fucking boring I sounded so I just deleted it and opted for the short but no-nonsense post.

Online poker: Blah blah blah. For a thick shit like me, after a year I've finally figured out how to set up PT3! Still didn’t stop me from losing $500! :) But I’ve clawed it back to $350. Still in black though, yay go me I’m like sooooooooooo great at this game!

Live poker: Pfft. None. Well unless you count the IDP game as a credible game of poker in which case I steamrolled the table and then donked away my chips to a big donkey, Julianne who went on to take it down with an even BIGGER donkey, David Bowers, taking 2nd place. Literally everybody at that table was a donkey. It’s just that I was the most talented donkey, with my elaborate bluffs, floats and hero calls. Go me for being so great! Y’all got nothing on me, d’ya hear me?! I recieved a very funny email at work yesterday. It made me guffaw so loudly my desk neighbour gave me a funny look so I called him over to look and then we started guffawing in harmony. We shared a special moment. It touched me deep inside my soul…

Quality! Non league footie fans at their finest! The goalie had just let in a soft goal
Wellington Utd v Maidstone

Anyway whatever. I’m bored. Send me some comments cos I’m just craving attention. I’m even thinking of buying my own domain for this blog just to highlight my own self-importance. Reckon I oughta call it sexy-as-fuck.org…. Oh god, its 12.30pm, 5 more hours to go... Time. Drags. On. Very. Slowly.

Title me silly

2008-07-28T14:58:00.001+01:00

Gonna summarise everything cos if I were to go into detail, it’d be way too long.

Live poker the last few weeks: Horrible. Went to CHL closing night. Played the 100e FO. Got busted on a bluff. The silver lining in a grey cloud? At least I went out early. Better than bubbling in my eyes. That’s the way I always see it. Played cash in the Fitz afterwards. Lost a big pot vs. a crazy and stupid Chinese gambler. Dropped around 800e that night. Felt burnt out. Suffered depression for a few days.. Tried to quit poker. Found it impossible. (online poker too much of a demon) But have quit live poker since. The appeal of the live poker scene will just never be the same without CHL.

Online poker: Shit. Just restricted myself to HU SnG during the dark days following the night mentioned above. Ran ok I guess. Lol. Almost successfully refrained from playing MTT, but I suffered a relapse and played an IPO rebuy sat for $5. 24 runners, only 1 prize (an IPO ticket). Didn’t bother purchasing an add on. Picked my spots, completely ran riot on the FT. Had a 3:1 chip lead HU. I choked. Hated myself so much afterwards. Again, tried to give up poker. Impossible. Suddenly woke up one day and thought if I’m going to spend my evenings playing poker, I might as well make an effort to improve and actually profit as opposed to dicking about just to kill time as I always do. So downloaded Holdem indicator cos its more basic and easy to understand than PT or Holdem Manager (still cant get my head around it). Deposited $100 and dived straight into the 100nl game, despite having been a losing player at 20nl loll! Spent a total of about 9/10 hours playing over three days. (not 9/10 hours per day!) Got $900 in my account now. The stats are invaluable whilst playing. But the cynic in me is just waiting for variance to come around and bite me in the arse. Will stick to playing cash games for now.

IDP: Fitzwilliam made a brilliant offer. We’ve organised a deep stack tournament for Oct. €63 + €7 reg freeze out. 10k stack with 30min blinds. Free food. Simply excellent value for money. Limited to 80 players but only 18 registered so far. Deaf ppl don’t realise how good they have it. If this was a normal tournament, it’ll be sold out by now.

Work: Supervisor signed the probationary review of my work the past year and recommend that I be offered a permanent position in the civil services. As soon as I receive official notification that I am going to get a permanent position, I’m gonna stick in a request for a year’s career break and go travelling after xmas. Sick of Ireland, sick of my job (already) and I’m 24 for christ sake, I’ve got all my life to go to waste in that shit job of mine so I might as well sample the world while I’m in the prime of my youth.

Footie: Got roped in into returning to footie with DCU last week. Went along to see how I feel. Have gone training three times so far. Still need more time to decide if I wanna change my mind about quitting.

Social life: God it sucks. Every weekend I try to get a few lads to go out for a session. I always get the same answer- Money problems. Ah I give up.

That’s it.. Cannot be bothered to ramble on and just as well cos I usually ramble on about nothing vaguely interesting.

Laters.

What a disaster

2008-06-25T11:12:00.002+01:00

On Monday night, I downloaded Full Tilt through an affilate that gives you the full version of PT3 once you reach 250 FT points. Plus Full Tilt were doing happy hours where they were doubling the points at cash tables so I figured I would be able to maximise my points if I multi-tabled at 50nl.
BAADDDD idea for two reasons:

1-Even playing one table, I still suck, so to even think of playing 4 tables was obscene!
2-I moved up to 50nl. Why I moved up when I cannot even beat 20nl playing one table- I cannot give any reasoning other than I am just plain f**king stupid.

Anyways I deposited $200 on Monday night and ended up with a $50 profit. Even though that's nothing, I thought it was great and was well chuffed I didn't lose money for once. Just as I was starting to think that maybe I'm not as bad as I think I am, the very next day, I multi-tabled 4 tables again and duly blew the lot.. Well done Ciarán, great thinking(!!!) Only plus was I managed to tally 200 FT points in that duration so I'm 50 points off gettin a free PT3. I was always going to lose money online anyway, so I might as well get free stuff for doing it! lol!! The only positive note of the night was that I took down the boardsie tournament on stars. Not too sure how much I won. It wasn't much but at least I won something online and gave me back some dignity after the FT farce.

Downloaded the ladbrokes poker client last night just to specifically satellite my way into the Killarney poker festival as I'm not paying €550 to play in the Main Event! Will play a satellite sometime this week, there's no real urgency anyways. I hope to see some deafies there so you guys better start trying to qualify as well! :)

Laters!

Brag: How to turn €20 into €1,200 in 12 hours

2008-06-22T16:00:00.009+01:00

Buy into a €20 satellite tournament at Cool Hand Lukes at 6.30pm
Win a ticket for the €115 Freezeout later that evening
Agree a 5-way deal in above tournament, taking €750 because you were the chip-leader
Bring winnings to Fitz and sit down with a little bit of it, €160
Cash out at 6.30am with €1,200 in your wallet

€100 per hour, hmmm.... I run good :)

APAT Madness

2008-06-18T22:36:00.011+01:00

Having sat down at the table and wished everybody luck (because I'm such a nice guy lol), I took it upon myself to liven up the play and started opening 90% of pots in the first level with trash. What possessed me to lose the plot, I just can't explain. It didn't help that I got dealt AK in the first hand. I showed some bluffs to establish a loose image, knowing I would get looked up more later. I kind of knew what I was doing but have to admit I nearly lost control on the following hand.

A couple of hours later, with blinds at 100-200, after two players limped in, I raised 600 with 74 off suit on the button with approx 10k stack. I was extremely restless at my table, it was so boring but nonetheless I acknowledge now just how careless it was to even play the hand! I get 2 callers and the flop comes down QJ8 two clubs, I bet out for half the pot (1,100) and get one caller. Turn is a Kh and he check raises me to 3,200. I call, knowing I can push him off the pot on the river. The pot is worth 10,700 now; we both have about 5k left. The river brings a Qc. He checks, I raise 3,400 with 1,200 behind to make him think I'm value betting. After a long dwell, he folds, I show him the 74offsuit, get a couple of laughs on the table and I can see he is tilted by this. I still can't figure out who's more retarded- Me for playing 74o in the way I did or him for folding on the river facing just a 3,400 bet into a 14k pot. Anyways a few hands later I take all his chips when I come over the top of his pre-flop raise and he pushes in the rest of his stack 5k, but his Jacks are no good against my Aces.

Peaking at 20k, this was unfortunately about as good as it ever got for me. I lost 8k when 83 beat my 99. I start making moves, some bluffs I show to the table as they are definitely playing back at me, re-raising my bets which is what I want them to do as I want to establish a loose image so I will be able to play my monster hands more aggressively and get maximum value out of them. My exit hand is just how I wanted it to be played. Blinds at 200-400, folded around to me on the button. I've 14k. I find QQ and raise to 1,300. This is a perfect situation; it looks like a steal when it really isn't. SB folds, BB is a solid player, he has caught me bluffing earlier. He's got about 16k. He re-raises to 5k. I think he thinks I’m at it so I’m more than happy to push here. His insta-call made me think he had either aces or kings. I was delighted to see AsKs, as my queens are a 55% favourite.

Flop: 2s5sJd Turn: 10s (BOLLOCKS!) River: Blank.

I’m sent tumbling out somewhere in the wilderness of 90^thish place out of 140 runners. I’m not too upset about my exit hand; I would gladly accept a race against AK with queens every time if my tournament life depended on it. At least I got the chips in good and that’s the very best I can do really.

I go downstairs to play Blackjack for a wee while, losing €60. Then I see a regular from my local game and he persuades me to play €20 rebuy Omaha/Hold’em ROE tournament. I am still getting to grips with Omaha but decide to play anyway for a laugh. I lose my starting stack and rebuy. I lose it again and I decide against another rebuy as I’m hopeless at Omaha. I see Julianne and Susan playing cash; I’ve €135 left so I put my name down on the waiting list for the 50NL game even though I know I struggle at cash games. I finally get a seat at around 11pm or so and lose half my money before doubling up with JJ.

I had meant to go home at 12pm but end up staying on, vowing to catch the next bus at 2.30am. But by that time I was still nursing a €135 stack but felt the game was so soft, it was only a matter of time before I could profit from it. There were some awful players who were spewing away money although there were a couple of players that I thought were handy so I avoided tangling with them unless it was necessary. So I abandon any plans to go home and make the most from a game in which I felt I had an edge. (That sounds egoistical but that’s not how I want to sound!) But anyway I eventually left at 7am cashing out with €810. I could have stayed on longer but I felt the tiredness kicking in as I had been in the casino since 2pm. It was a nice bit of a confidence booster but I'm not gonna fool myself into thinking that I’m suddenly shit hot at cash as I know there’s a lot of areas I need to work on!!

APAT here I come!

2008-06-13T11:30:00.003+01:00

Tomorrow I’m playing in a poker tournament organised by the Amateur Poker Association Tour. They are very well known and their tournaments are supposed to be very well organised. When they announced their tournament in Dublin, the seats were sold out very quickly and I was lucky enough to secure one. Even luckier were Julianne, Frank and Tim who managed to get a seat later through the seat exchange where people were unable to make it and were selling their tickets.

I haven’t played a tournament with such a good structure and clock since the PartyPoker Irish Poker Championship in Galway at the start of 2008. Most of the €100 tournaments in Dublin have a 25 minute clock with 8k starting stack so the main reason why I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s tournament is because we get a 10k starting stack with a 40minute clock which is superb for only €96!!! As always with every time I enter a tournament, I hope to go deep and cash! But if I get knocked out-may it be early and not close to the bubble!! That would just annoy me!

APAT will be doing updates so keep an eye out for one of us!!! Hope one of us takes it down!

I’ve been playing online the last few days. God I totally suck at online poker. I don’t have any reads on players and also I think online poker favours the mathematical players of which I certainly am not! I really have to do something about my online game- it sucks so much it embarrasses me.

I’ve been trying to organise a sponsorship package for IDP, I’ve been emailing a few companies but the best deal offered so far has been Betway. I was lucky to meet a Betway representative in Gothenburg and I asked him if they would sponsor us. He got his UK based colleague to contact me and they offered a very nice deal. I don’t think the other companies I emailed will come up with a better deal so I hope to have the Betway deal wrapped up over the next week or two.

Gonna play the usual €20 satellite in CHL later. My usual friday tournament!

And I finally managed to put up a SHORT post! No rambling for today!!! :-)

Sweden trip report

2008-06-09T12:01:00.015+01:00

FRIDAY:

Justin, Nico, Donal, Tim, Jason and myself flew out to Gothenburg for the weekend. We were going over there to play in a Deaf poker tournament as well as going for a massive drinking session. Upon touching down on the runway of Gothenburg airport, we remarked at how small the airport was! Then we stepped outside and it was really hot, we were all wearing jeans so we agreed that as soon as we arrived in the city, we would go shopping for shorts and t-shirts. After getting our shorts we arrived at the hostel, which was basic but very nice and clean. We then got changed into our shorts and t-shirts and went out walking through the city for a few drinks and dinner.

We meant to go back to get changed later for the night but we were enjoying drinking in the sun far too much. The streets of Gothenburg were full of beautiful women! There were so many of them!!! Later that evening we saw some Deaf people and went up to them. It figured that they were standing outside the Deaf club! We wanted to have a look inside at the poker tournament that was going on but were told we couldn’t, as it was full. But just as we were going to go to the pub next door, Richard from PTG told us that we could come in because we had flown all the way over from Ireland! Nice one! We went inside and it was packed! There must have been over 80

people in squeezed in one big room. I met Marcus and the other members of the PTG team who welcomed us. The Deaf club also sold beer, which was cheaper than in the pubs so we got a round in and started watching the tournament. The tournaments looked very good- every small detail was taken care of-the table numbers, the two decks of cards for each table and the poker clock program. They even had their own chips with their logo on it! They also had a casino table provided by their sponsors!

During the tournament the PTG team seemed very relaxed and experienced. Nothing seemed to faze them. We sat down on the couch behind the tables and watched the poker for a while. After about 15 minutes we agreed that the average PTG player is better than the average IDP player. PTG have been running since the last 3 years and have tournaments every 2 weeks so hopefully IDP will become like them! After a while it was proposed we play Omaha PL for 100SEK (€10) so we all played for a laugh. I of course got knocked out on the first hand when Tim got JJJJ!!

I then ordered a round of Jagemiester and couldn’t believe how cheap the shots were! €1.50 for a shot! CHEAPPPP!! Wooo hooo!!! All night long we started drinking Jago bombs (jagemiester with red bull) and it wasn’t long until we started to get drunk. After Richard had won the Omaha tournament, we said our goodbyes and went to the Dubliner pub. I don’t know how the bouncer let us all in, we were all wearing shorts and t-shirts. And we were all bloody drunk! Lol!! We started drinking more shots and beer. As the night went on, 4 of the boys wanted to go back to the hostel leaving Tim and me to carry on partying until closing time! Tim went back to the hostel at 6am; I didn’t get back till 9am. It was a very enjoyable day indeed!!! ;)

SATURDAY:

I woke up feeling like I was going to die of dehydration. I needed lucozade so badly. I have never ever had such a bad case of dehydration, felt so tired and thirsty! The boys were the same too but we forced ourselves to get dressed and walk down to the casino. The sun beating down on us didn’t help as we gasped for an energy drink. We finally arrived at the casino and it was really posh!!! Once we paid the 30SEK to enter, I just didn’t have the energy to gamble at blackjack so I just went straight to the poker room, got my seat number and sat down to rest myself. Each table had an interpreter sat beside the dealer, which was really good. I wondered how PTG could afford to pay them but I later found out that the government provided the interpreters! Pretty cool!!!

PTG OPEN:

The tournament kicked off with 117 runners, with a 30minute clock with a 3k starting stack. I emailed Marcus the week before to ask if they could change the blind structure and the starting stack but it was out of his hands as it was the casino that decided it. I realised it was going to be very important to accumulate chips as early as possible. Tim, Jason and Justin were at the same table as each other and Donal and Nico shared the same table as well! I was the only Irish player at my table thank god. At my table I had Marcus sat to my left. The rest of the table I didn’t have a clue who they were. Within 10 minutes, I recognised that the old man two seats to my right was a fish. He had no concept of position and bet sizing. The same went for the Norwegian man who didn’t know what he was doing. In seat 2, there was Niklas who was a LAG and the table captain. Marcus, Johnny and the blonde girl fell into the TAG category. The rest I didn’t really think much of.

DISASTROUS START

I got off to a terrible start when the blinds were 50/100. Nicolas raised 300 from UTG, folded around to me on the button with 99. I flat call because I think he has suited connectors like AJ, AQ. Flop comes down 5610 rainbow. Nicolas bets out 300, I think he missed the flop and so I raise to 750. He calls. We check down the turn and river, he shows 10d9d to take the pot and I’m left with 1950, which looks bad as the blinds are going up to 100/200 in 10minutes. I get a probe bet re-raised by Marcus and I am down to 1600! I look around at the Irish boys, Jason & Tim have got around 15k, Justin’s on 3k, Nico and Donal are on 4k! Shit!! I don’t want to be first out! Lol!!

LUCK OF THE IRISH

I decide I have only two moves- All In/Fold when this hand happens at 100/200. I’m on the BB with 103o, gets two limpers. Flop comes down 1026 with two clubs. I look at the pot, its 700. I’ve only got 1500. I push in the dark hoping that no one hit the flop. The UTG+1 pushes as well and Johnny in CO+1 calls. I’m gutted, as I know I have to be behind so I get up to leave. UTG+1 shows Qh10h, Johnny shows Ac9c for a nut flush draw. My heart sinks because I know I’m practically dead and buried. The turn brings a 10 but I’m still behind as the UTG+1 has a better kicker. The river brings a 2 to give us both a full house. I breathe a sigh of relief and tell myself “you lucky bollix”. I am now nursing a 2k stack and don’t really do much until after the break when I am moved to a different table. The blinds were really hard to beat so I kept playing “All-In” or “fold”. I was short-stacked for about 4 hours, never above 10BB when this hand happens on another table I got moved to.

I don’t remember what blind level it was at, but there were a lot of short stacks at this stage because the blinds levels were too harsh. I picked up A8o on the button as the cards were being dealt and thought to myself “crap hand, I’m gonna fold this”. UTG who was the chip leader raised 3xBB, MP pushed. Then MP+1 pushed as well. I looked at the size of the pot and suddenly I was overcome with a premonition that I was going to scoop it. I cannot explain the feeling; it was like an overwhelming hunch. Another short stack in LP pushed as well and the pot was massive and the premonition was really really strong so I just thought “ Fuck it, this is the kind of pot I am going to need to win if I am going to stay in the tournament. If I’m gonna get knocked out, I rather get knocked out now than on the bubble” and found myself pushing even though I knew my ace was already dominated. The UTG was clearly not expecting 4 shorties to push and started to dwell. It became clear that he had a monster. I didn’t want him to call so I started trash-talking him to put him off calling. He eventually folded KK!!!!!!!!!! Against 4 short stacks whose ranges are so wide, that fold beggars belief! The 3 guys flipped over Ad10d, 99, KJo. Flop comes down 1056, turn 9 (cue brief cries of joy from the 99guy) and the river brings a glorious 7 to give me a runner-runner straight. Even though there were still around 30 players left, I get really confident about my chances of cashing as I’ve finally got a playable stack after playing ninja poker for the last 4/5 hours. At this stage Jason, Donal and Nico had been busted and were railing me, Justin and Tim who were playing together at the other table. Tim got busted about 30 minutes later and Justin was still short-stacked but was playing well stealing blinds and pushing in profitable spots.

GETTING TO THE FINAL TABLE

Soon 30 became 20 and two tables were formed with Justin on the other one. I really start to go card-dead and resisting steals was hard to do as there was always a danger a shortie would push and leave me little room to manoeuvre. The casino’s blind structure was not great as everyone’s stacks were shallow. If it weren’t for the big pot I had scooped earlier, I probably would have struggled really badly here. But I allowed my stack to be blinded away as we quickly approached the bubble. Justin unfortunately went out in 12^th place, 2 places away from the money and the bubble burst soon after and the final table was formed. I was the shortest stack on it- I only had 7BB. I wanted to give myself the best chance of cashing as much as I could so I decided to steal the blinds every two orbits with air if necessary. They managed to get through to give me a lifeline, as 10 players quickly became 6. I noticed the blinds were doubling yet again and asked for the previous level to be repeated because the average stack at the table was less than 15BB but the language barrier meant that I was coming across wrong and got treated like I was moaning. It also didn’t help that I was the short stack, which made it looked like I was only trying to save my own skin. There were other guys who were spewing away their chips and looked like they would be knocked out by the bigger stacks if they didn’t play more tactically, but I was still really struggling and became a bit tighter because I wanted to hang in there and hope these guys would be knocked out to allow me to finish higher up the money. My stack dwindled desperately down to 4BB and then the most beautiful sight greeted me- AA. I pushed and got called by the SB with Jh8h. The aces held and I doubled up to 8BB, which was still not enough. The very next hand a guy pushes from EP and I find AKo and call. My AK is good over his KQo and I now have 12BB. Buoyed by this, I start making moves and get my stack up to 15BB with steals. Soon there were only 3 of us left. We take a break and I have a word with the casino staff about the clock, as the blinds were about to jump from 5,000/10,000 to 10,000/20,000 when the average stack was about 150,000!!! They agree to freeze the 5,000/10,000 level, which buys me some time, as I’m short stacked with 60k and in the BB. I push with 10s9c and take the pot. The two other players have way more than me. I push again the next hand with Jd8d and get no callers. Then I push again for the third time in a row with Qh9d and get called with QcJc and I’m dominated. I pray for a 9 to hit the flop. It doesn’t but the flop brings two diamonds, the turn another diamond. I’m on a runner-runner flush draw but I turn around and face the Irish guys, as I don’t want to look at the river while it’s being dealt. I know by the look on their faces the river was a blank and I’m sent tumbling out in 3^rd place for 7,000SEK, which was over €750. When I told some Swedish people I would like to give some of my winnings as a tip for the dealers, the general feedback I got was that it wasn’t common to tip the dealer in Sweden which I found a bit strange, as in Ireland you are expected to tip the dealer after getting a prize.Anyways the two guys later chop the prize even though the old guy had a 2:1 chip-lead. He was given the official finish of 1^st place. I was exhausted and still dehydrated but I was glad I managed to get as far as I did in 3rd place as I got off to a terrible start. I felt it was a pity that the blind structure was harsh which saw the luck factor increased and play a big part in this tournament but that’s a matter for the Casino. The PTG team put on a great weekend and provided a well-organised weekend. After the tournament we all went back to the Deaf club where there were poker tournaments going on. I didn’t play in them, as I preferred to chat with Deaf people. I met Kristain, the Deaf guy who won a pot against “rainman” Khan in the WSOP with KK. He was pretty cool. The four lads played poker while me and Tim stayed for about an hour or two before leaving to go to a nightclub. It was pretty quiet night compared to the night before!!

SUNDAY

We just spent the day walking around Gothenburg city, going into shops and pubs, and basically chilling out. The evening was pretty quiet because most people were back to work the next day. We drank until closing time and went back to our hostel to get a good night’s sleep as we had to be up early to catch the flight home. It was a weekend I really enjoyed, the Swedish people are really cool and easy to talk to. Poker was great fun; my weekend didn’t cost me anything as my winnings paid for everything! :-)

POKER THIS WEEKEND

Have got a ticket for the APAT championship in Dublin for €96. The blind structure and clock is really beautiful so I hope to go deep in this. I also might play a CHL satellite tournament tonight for the Waterford Open, which is taking place at the weekend too. So if I get a ticket for the Waterford Open, I’ll sell my APAT ticket and play in the Waterford Open, as it’s a bigger tournament.

Another long post.. 100% poker!

2008-06-03T20:41:00.005+01:00

Report 3rd May-I' m happy to report that the Irish Open Deaf Poker Championship was a great success!!! But the preparation and the aftermath of the Irish Open Deaf Poker Championship was stressful, sometimes I felt like banging my head off the wall especially when it came to arranging the return of equipment to Paddy Power. I felt it would be a better idea to have it in a casino the next time. Save more money that way anyways. The tournament itself was great fun, I was busy playing/worrying about everything but it was great to see everyone enjoy themselves. I wasn’t really looking forward to playing in the tournament itself but the usual bad standard was even worse because our players didn’t wanna get knocked out of the biggest tournament we have hosted to date. But I wasn’t complaining as I went into super-aggro style and hovered up the chips. I always wished I could understand the general banter in casinos/pubs as most of the time they seem to be having a good craic, so this time it was great having no communication issues with the table on this occasion and I made the most of it by trash talking most of the time which was pretty funny. Key hand for me was when I was chip leader at a table when I wake up and find KK, make a huge raise cos there were 4 limpers in the pot. Only one of them folds and the pot is now worth more than what I had behind. Flop comes down pretty shitty 599rainbow, gets checked to me and I push and get called by Nick O’Halloran with A9. I lose the head and tell him what a bad and risky pre-flop call it was to make when he had a comfortable chip count (he was 2^nd chip leader) and he rubs it in my face smirking “But I won the pot” without any concept for overall expected value. With 5 BB left, I push with k8 suited and get a call from Stuart who dominates me with k10 and I’m out of the championship that I organised when the I get no help from the board. But thankfully some donkey didn’t win the whole thing. While the final table consisted of some really dodgy players, thankfully the title was contested between two good players in Julianne and Keenan, with Keenan coming out on top to win €920.

Report-10th May &17th May:: The following Saturday I played in the €55 DC in CHL. Even though I got off to a great start when I flopped a full house and was stacked by someone holding trips, I spewed it all over the place like some donkey calling in bad spots and being too overly aggro. I had been meaning to go back to reading strats and theory but didn’t and after that night feeling disappointed in myself, I decided to go on an undefined break and spent every night of the week reading strats online. The break was going well until last Friday when after working late at work, I was walking to my bus-stop and went by CHL but found the temptation to play in the €20 satellite far too tempting and went inside and only found 5 players playing with three tickets guaranteed!! It was great value and I got off to a brilliant start when I managed to get it in with quads against a full house! Lol!! We got down to four players and then all of a sudden a heated exchange of words breaks out between Mick and Declan who were sitting shoulder to shoulder with each other. I dunno what exactly was said but Mick was obviously annoyed cos he invited Declan to step outside and sort it out lol. Eventually the others calmed them both down and Mick had the satisfaction of busting Declan when his AK was too good over A8. I was really pleased to get a ticket worth €115 for the handsome sum of €20!

The €115 freezeout was really enjoyable. I had two really good players at my table, Mick and Conor (Lazare on boards). Mick kept using the stop & go tactic against me while Conor had a good read on me, often 3betting my pre-flop raises. So I tried to stay out of their way and pick up the small pots but my stack wasn’t increasing fast enough in proportion with the blinds so I had to get into pots with these two. I had to counter-act them so I started 4-betting Conor and calling Mick’s flop bets and pushing him off on the turn, a lot of the time with air which was a bit hairy for me. There were two major hands in the tournament that were significant to me. I had about 9k with blinds at 300-600, folded around to me on the button, I find KQo and raise to 1.4k, happy to take down the pot there and then. But Conor on the small blind, re-raises to 3k-I don’t like this but then the BB pushes his short stack of 5k in. It’s obvious what the BB is at but I’m glad he pushed as it makes my hand looks stronger than it does and I go all in myself. Conor dwells up as calling would take a massive chunk out of his stack but eventually he does and tables 66 whilst the BB tables 55. I got a beautiful king on the flop and the turn and river is a blank for the boys and my chip lead is boosted to 23k. Three hands later I tangle with Mick who I have just about covered. I limp in from CO with K10 suited. Mick raises on the BB and I call. The flop brings AK5 rainbow. Mick insta-bets. I know instantly from the bet size that he doesn’t have the Ace but I cannot afford to raise with ten as my kicker so I flat call. Turn comes 5. This is a great card for me. Mick puts out a small bet, he doesn’t exactly look that confident so I ask how much he has behind “About 10k”. I figure if I come over the top, he’ll fold. I want him to go all in so I flat call again. River gives a harmless looking 2 but Mick pauses before going all in. I don’t like his body language now, he looks very assured and instead of insta-calling, I stopped to ask myself if he would be mad enough to raise with X5 preflop? Or would he really play Ace rag this way? I wrack my brains as to why his body language changed on the river, it takes me about 4 minutes to decide. The only two things that swayed my original plan was Mick’s body language and my gut instinct. I folded showing my king and said “if you’re bluffing, by god it’s an excellent bluff”. He tabled 43 offsuit, the cheeky bollix was betting with air and got lucky on the river to give him the straight. I never entertained the idea that he had 43. Folding on the river on a pot of that size is generally a mistake but trusting my instinct turned out to be the right move although I did feel tilted that the play didn’t turn out how I wanted it to. Just as well for him the river gave him the gutshot straight. I was immediately back to where I was three hands ago and with the blinds going up and the final table being formed, I was pretty much amongst shorties. I didn’t wanna play tight until the bubble burst so I just went into aggro mode and got busted when a steal went wrong and ran into a pair of aces. Win some, lose some I guess!!

23rd May: A week later I played in the €30 FO in the Fitzwilliam on the Sunday after watching Leeds lose their playoff final 1-0 to Doncaster which was sickening. The prospect of League one football next season is depressing! Anyway The Fitzwilliam really impressed me, the place is big and feels like a proper card club. There were over 60 runners there but the standard was woeful and I quickly amassed a very healthy chip lead and got to the final table with Tim. Long story cut short, I pushed with KK and got called by some fool with A10 who of course spiked an ace on the flop to leave me gasping for breath with 4BB, which I push on the next hand with KQo and get called with JJ. No help from the board and I’m out in 8^th place for €50. Lol donkaments!

3rd June: Am writing a report about Sweden-will post it up within the next few days.

Regaining normality!!

2008-04-21T21:38:00.005+01:00

I haven’t posted on this in a while so I’m probally gonna type up quite an update here. Recently I've feeling a bit fatigued when it comes to playing poker seriously so I've given it a break with the exception of playing the regular tournament in the local for the bit of craic and banter with lads. Online poker-I mess around a little bit on betfair, but will probably never be able to concentrate properly thus introducing the need for poker software which for sum reason my laptop doesn't agree with. I'm tempted to get a new laptop cos my laptop is shite anyway but I m not going to as I'm too lazy and besides if it prevents me from bleeding money online then its probably a good thing.

In the last few weeks I've come to realise just how much poker has consumed my social life ever since I took it up over a year ago so the break and loss of desire to play has meant I'm going out more and doing "normal" things. I've decided I'm definitely 120% quitting from Ashbourne Utd and so Paul & I had a meeting with some deaf lads, and basically we are going to get together every thurs for a training session until the end of may to see if we have the numbers of lads required to enter a team in the league for next season and reform officially as St. Vincents DFC. After the meeting, we went out to Quinns pub for a few scoops and I got caught up in the antics of drinking shots of whiskey throughout the nite as we moved onto Messrs Maguires. Met this really cute girl and I got her number. Next morning I woke up still half pissed and very jolly and proceeded to text her. It could have proved to be disastrous as I definitely appeared to be over-eager but thankfully she replied and from there on during the week I asked if she fancied meeting up for a few drinks. Naturally being the charmer I am, she said yes! lol!

Had the training session on the Thursday evening, there were 16 of us, 4 of which were schoolboys based in the wilderness of Ireland so they were deducted as potential players for next season. Glen McGrattan was also there lol! He's sound but as footballer I'd be embarrassed to be on the same team as him.. He can’t kick snow off a rope!! So realistically we had about 10 or so people that could be interested to commit properly to play club football next season. So we're gonna have to work hard on getting our old players back from their current clubs if we are to enter a team into the league next season.

Met the cute girl, Amanda on Friday nite. I had vague recollections of what she looked like but being sober on this occasion, I proceeded to mentally pat myself on the back when she arrived. Lets just say I probably wudnt have had the confidence to approach her in Messers if I was sober cos realistically she was way out of my league! Date went well I think, she was easy going as well so that always helps!! ;)

Saturday played poker with the boys in Derek’s house. Pretty decent of him to ask me to come out even though we’re just friendly acquaintances. Played a €50 FO, came 3^rd to get my buy in back and €10 worth of scalp on top of it…. Ah it was all in the name of fun really, stayed on to watch the Calazghe fight-it wasn’t a great fight. Went home afterwards cos I had to get up early.

Got the 10am bus into finglas and then proceeded to get a taxi to the AUL complex, we were missing quite a handful of key players from the Irish team. I really came to get a bit of a workout in the warm-ups cos I was nowhere near match sharp and Damon duly worked us keepers out properly. Match was a disaster; we lost 3-1 and performed poorly. I got ten minutes under my belt. I was really rusty and it showed with my kicking. But at least it was nice to get a run out all the same. I enjoyed being with the team, it’s always good fun being with the lads in a competitive environment.

Tilted!

2008-04-08T22:48:00.003+01:00

Friday: Played a €20 satellite into the €100 game in CHL. Top 3 get a ticket. I bubbled which is happening too often lately. Go on a bit of a mini tilt and end up buying into the big game, which I had intended not to do. Run well at the start, 3 tables so it had about 27 runners. I reach FT, suffer massive dent when my QQ run into a lady’s KK. Push and the lady calls and gets a runner runner straight for the second time that night against me. I buy €120 chips upon exit and blow it all on the cash game of ohama/hold’em.

Saturday: Went to the Deaf club. EGM was a no-go because there weren’t enough people. Tournament got 18 runners. Standard was woeful. Play only two hands, TT and 99. Lost on both of them and I’m out in 15^th which I don’t really care about. Jay went on to win it.

Sunday: Ashbourne Utd away to Raheny-was an unused sub thank god. We had a bazillion chances to score but could only put the ball in the back of the net just the once. In typical fashion, Raheny don’t get a sniff until the dying minutes of the game where they equalise from a free kick. Only ourselves to blame for not taking our chances and killing the game off. Play the €100 FO in Coolquay later. Again 3 tables so it had about 27 runners. Standard was poorer than on Friday. Just before getting to the FT, I double up when I sucked out on the river against some messer with an awful hand J2 vs. AK. I apologise and he replies, “ah fuck off you deaf cunt”. I lose the head and go on uber tilt and spew my chips and butcher my exit hand horrifically-KK. A cock up with the tournament clock afterwards didn’t help and I leave the place feeling as frustrated as I have ever felt in a very long, long time.

Monday: Still not over what happened on Sunday. Can’t help as it keeps playing on my mind. I also am a bit frustrated with the fact I had it in me to win the thing if I had just ignored him. Certainly not going to play in the Coolquay again.

The long lonely walk home…

2008-04-04T16:47:00.002+01:00

I had football training beforehand, the first proper session since I got injured. It was so boring, in comparison to Fran Butler’s sessions with DCU. My shoulder is way too weak for me to fully participate in a match but the game against our relegation rivals this Sunday is a must win game for the club and is the most important game this season. After the session I told Damo I wasn’t ready and that I hoped Marcello will come out and play in goals. But he didn’t look that confident that Marcello would turn out so I am feeling the pressure to return prematurely. I have to wait and see what happens on Sunday but it would be a massive gamble for them to play me when I’m 70% fit and also it wouldn’t be fair on me to cope with the pressure in playing in a game that could make or break us.

But anyway after the training session, I went home and headed straight to the pub. After the disappointment of playing so badly in CHL on Saturday night, I was relying on the usual Thursday night game to re-instil my belief that I am not really that bad (?!) I arrived a bit late and it was a little disappointing to see only 14 runners. Anyway I managed to get my initial stack of 2.5k up to 11k at the break. Purchased the add-on of 5k and when play resumed I was 2nd chip leader. FT had 9 players. There were two hands that defined my tournament, one was a squeeze play- blinds were 400/800, I was in the SB. Everybody had limped in when the button made a min-raise. There was 7,600 in the pot so I decided to squeeze before I even looked at my cards. (J8o) Squeeze looked to be perfectly executed when one by one the whole table folded except the short stack. He turned over JJ and I was duly exposed with my hand in the cookie jar. But it was still a good strategy to deploy. Lose half my stack but get it back up to a healthy 14k when I pick up KJo in the SB with blinds at 500/1k. I complete the blind after a few limpers. BB checks and the flop is J45 rainbow. I bet out 2.5k and get called by the CL who is a very loose player in MP. I know then that he has the J but I’ve a better kicker since he would have raised p/f if he had AJ. I decide to push if the turn is harmless since I figure he will call me with a pair of Jacks anyway. Turn is 6s, I push and get called. I laugh in exasperation when he turns over J4!!!!! Limping in with J4o from MP… Just LOL!! River is a blank so I get up and walk home. It’s never nice walking home after being knocked out. When I first started out playing these tournaments, I would get knocked out and find myself walking home with questions and self doubt ravaging my mind every week. Then I started improving and start to cash. And then Bam (Michael) would drop me home afterwards. So my early exit last night meant that this time I had to embark on the walk home with the old insecure thoughts running through my head about my play. But this time I knew deep down, I couldn’t do anything about donkeys limping in from MP with J4. It was his play that was questionable more so than mine.

Right now I am in work, organising a sweepstake for the Grand National tomorrow. The horses cost €1 apiece. I drew Backbeat and Nadover outta the bag, priced at 159/1 and 499/1!! Lol!!! But sure, it’s only a bit of fun! :-) I doubt I’ll have a punt on the GN tomorrow in the bookies; the race springs up too many surprises to be able to pick a winner from the racing post. Am looking forward to the poker after work in CHL and tomorrow night in the Deaf club. Not going out for a session simply because I know I would be wasting my time texting the boys if they are up for it. But all the same, I don’t mind playing poker all weekend! It’s fun!!! :-)

The aftermath...

2008-04-02T20:25:00.004+01:00

Again it’s been a while since I’ve posted an entry so it looks like it’s gonna be another long one. I keep promising to post more regularly to make the posts shorter and more bearable to read but I can never muster the effort on a regular basis to do so.

Anyways this is what has happened within the last fortnight since I last posted.

Easter weekend:

As per tradition, I went to the inter-provincial championships which were being held in Galway this Easter. Once again, I was unavailable to play due to injury but I took up a new role, featuring as the assistant manager of the Munster team that was managed by Joey. It was a knockout format so we were drawn to face Leinster in the semi-final. It looked like as if the match would be going to penalties but our hopes of lifting the cup were dashed by a late goal that was headed in by Ross Byrne. The defeat meant we faced Connaught in the 3/4 playoffs. We trounced them 15-0, which was a bit embarrassing. The night beforehand was a bit of a disaster. Since it was good Friday and the pubs were closed, Donal, James and I were left twiddling our thumbs in boredom after all the players went to bed early because of their matches the next day. So we decided to head to the Eglington. But Donal and myself did not have any ID so we were turned away whilst James headed on inside by himself. We decided to go to the 4aces instead and arrived to find a cash game just starting...

It was a bit shambolic really, the chips were grimy and sticky. I didn't like the blinds-they were €1/€3. But all the same, we plumped ourselves down and bought in for €100 apiece. I quickly lost my stack on a pair of 9's with a flush draw. The villain called my pf raise OOP, called my flop bet and shoved the turn to show 42 for a straight. 42.. Jeez.. So I went on tilt and duly lost another €90 when I got it in with AK pre-flop only to come up against AA. Cue uber tilt and I cannot get out of there fast enough, leaving Donal to play on his own.

Thankfully I didn't play any more poker in Galway whilst I was there, never had the chance to really as went on the lash every night and duly paid the price for it when I came home. Recovery doesn't get any more easier and as I struggle to cope with the depression and loss of energy I promise myself that I would give up the sessioning for a good while.

Pick up a bout of flu over Easter but manage to shake it off to play the local pub game at the last min on Thursday night. 16 runners or so, pick up €200 for finishing 2nd to a total luckbox (he had 10 : 1 chiplead over me when we got to HU, I claw it back to 6:4 before losing the battle in the one hand). Saturday night- I try to organise a few drinks in town (so much for vowing to give up the sessioning) but get no takers so I head to CHL for the €55 DC with Frank. It got about 28 runners, I haven’t been playing too well but manage to get to the FT along with Frank who has about 6BB left. 8 players left, top 5 get paid. I bubble with a badly played QJ that I attempted to steal the blinds with from LP. So agonising finishing one place off the money but given the way I had played that night, I don't suppose I can feel aggrieved because I know my play that night didn’t deserve any reward. I recovered my buy-in on the blackjack tables later but still went home feeling pissed off with myself. Lesson learnt.

I've decided to go back to reading articles on strategy and theory for confidence if anything else as my confidence has been dented playing at cash tables and this has kind of carried over into tournaments (but not to the same degree thank god) Plus you can never have too much knowledge on these two elements! Right now, I'm reading Ryan Fee's Strategy guide, which makes the bus journeys home from work seem that little bit quicker.

On Saturday IDP are having their monthly tournament. We're also having an EGM to incorporate a new constitution and to elect a new committee in accord with the constitution. I'm up for staying on but I don't know which capacity-Secretary or Chairperson. Will decide closer to the day. Will probably play in the tournament afterwards as well... It'll be fun trying to put some guys on a range of hands anyway! It'll be a bit of fun; it's not the WSOP anyways. At least I dont have to worry about Donal sucking out on me cos he won't be there! :)

A verrry long entry!!

2008-03-21T12:32:00.000Z

Ok since I'm unable to connect to the internet right now and there's nowt to watch, I thought I'd might as well type up an entry for the blog so here goes:

On the social front things have been good the last few weeks. My shoulder injury which has had me sidelined from football since February has meant I am able to go out at weekends and not worry about my club commitments. I've actually enjoyed the improvement in that aspect of life and I no longer can feel like a recluse. I've come to concede that my enthusiasm for the game has finally waned after playing club football since I was 8. So right now I think I probably won't be playing club football next season because I want to enjoy life as much as I can, go away at weekends, go on the beer on Saturday nights and not have to worry about football commitments. To me, football has been a chore this season and when one starts to see it that way, then it's time for them to go a different way. For me, it is somewhat sad that my personal outlook on the game has gradually gone from being obsessed to half-arsed. Perhaps it's because subconsciously I am frustrated at getting injured all the time. Maybe when I recover from the shoulder injury, I might have a different perspective. Time will tell.

But anyway back to the social aspect- Went out to Carlow for Joey's birthday with the lads at the end of February. It was some mad weekend. Drank on the way up to Carlow on the train Friday night, got hammered. And then woke up just in time to grab breakfast before breakfast was no longer served after 10.30am.. Ate a delicious breakfast and duly obliged to throw up on the way back to the hotel room. Thank god for the fire-exit, otherwise the corridor would have been splattered with half digested sausages and bacon! Lol! Then Tim, Joey and myself thought it was an excellent idea to have one pint as hair of the dog. That one pint turned out to be the first of many as we did not stop drinking till the early hours of the following morning with the rest of the lads joining in throughout the day. Needless to say, I was once again hammered as early as 3pm but managed to solider on with the best of them! When we returned from the nightclub that night, Eoin made us all laugh so much when he thieved some drink from the hotel bar (which was closed after 4am) and was later caught red-handed when he was pulling a pint of carlsberg for me behind the bar! Amazingly he was let off by the security staff, who ushered us to our rooms as we were being a bit raucous for their liking!! Oops!!

Following week I jetted off to London to catch up with my mates. I have to use up my annual leave before the end of March and with Ryanair flights totalling at €10, it was far too good an opportunity to pass up. Crashed at Greg's late Thursday evening and headed immediately to Camden Town for a few jars with the lads. Actually to think of it, the whole weekend was one big session but nonetheless it was good to catch up with the crew in London. Managed to squeeze in a game of poker, but the standard was so awful I found myself not wanting to play and got busted early when I went all in blind, prompting some silly remarks from one or two guys who had supposedly expected a lot more from me! Lol! Even though I had enjoyed my break, I was glad to be going home on the monday. London is far too big and expensive for me. I must have squandered about €400 which is quite a lot considering accommodation was free. But the fact it's massive makes me appreciate Dublin all the more, despite its many faults. In London, there's so many people at the one time, I can't help but feel I'm just merely existing like I'm literally an ant in a swarming and overpopulated ant colony. In Dublin, I just feel like I'm someone, and there's a more friendlier vibe in the city. Although I must say for some strange reason, I feel more confident chatting up randomers in London-something I would never have the guts to do here! Probably cos I know I won't ever see them again if I get shot down!

I was out in town last Monday, celebrating Paddy's day at an IDYA party in the porterhouse. I'm not the biggest fan of the drinks in porterhouse, but the pub crawl I was trying to organise beforehand never materialised as the boys never got back to me about it so I just went directly to porterhouse upon arrival in the city centre. Bouncer at the door asked me for ID, before asking me where I was coming from. When I said I had just arrived in town from my house, he refused to believe me and said he was pretty convinced I was drunk! Lol!!! But in the end, I managed to talk my way in and started my paddy's day celebrations in earnest. The party turned out to be decent despite feeling a little out of place at the start cos none of my peeps were there!

As for the poker I managed to play another two live tournaments in succession to the one I had played in last Thursday in the local. After picking up the €350 the night before, I decided to play the €100 FO in Winners on the Friday. With 3.5k guaranteed, it was good value with 30 runners. I got good run of cards in the first level which I dislike, as I like to be able to fold marginal hands and get an early insight of my opponents play whilst the value of the blinds are generally irrelevant to your stack. Anyway I suffered a dent to my stack when I had to fold AJ and AK on the river after the same guy had betted heavily into them. I was not that convinced the guy had me beat but as I said, the blinds were still really low and I wasn't short stacked by any means. But I doubled up anyways about ten minutes later when my pocket Aces came up against pocket Kings. I went on to reach the FT without having to go to showdown in the process, so I think my image was that of a rock. My stack dwindled to 8BB so it was a case of picking my spots and pushing to steal the blinds/pot. Doubled up with A8 v A7 and my normal game strategy resumed. Picked up the Aces again in UTG, made the standard raise to be re-raised by a shortie who flipped Queens and duly absorbed half my stack when he spiked a Q on the river. About 5 hands later with 7BB, I found Queens and was called by AdKd. Flop gave him two pair, turn and river were blank and I found myself in 8^th place. I was disheartened not to cash, but happy overall as I knew the hands I went to showdown with couldn't have been played any better. But overall, I'll be making an appearance there again cos the atmosphere was really friendly and it was excellent value for €100.

The next day, after much humming and ahh-ing, I played in the €50 DC in CHL. In hindsight it was a mistake as I wasn't as eager to play as I had been the previous night. I preferred to go out on the booze, but the rain and financial situations of my mates meant I had the choice of either staying in or playing poker in town. When I sat down at the table, for no reason I can explain- I was full of restless energy and played like a possessed maniac as I entered every single pot bar one in the first level! I can't explain why I played so incredibly loose. All I know was I was far too restless to sit tight and play my normal game. Granted I didn't feel all that comfortable with the style but one thing I noticed was that the other players didn't too. It was an education in a way to adopt a style that totally contradicted the style I had played the previous night. I got looked up more, people were checking expecting me to raise. The irony I suppose was that even though my stack went up and down a lot, by the time the add ons were given out, I still had more chips than those who had been playing tight. It was a style I do not envisage permanently adopting in the future, (I later got busted with 88 v JJ preflop after the break-Even to think of it, I'm cringing at how reckless that was) I realised I could take something from that style and incorporate it into my present style as I can't expect to win €100+ tournaments playing super tight. But all in all, despite an €150 outlay for the two tournaments, I had managed to reduce the deficit to €20 when I won €90 at blackjack over the weekend and pick up €42 in the cash game in Chris house after the tournament in Winners.

I've still not played any online poker since the problems with my laptop. So I've been forced carry out drastic measures on the advice of my sister's boyfriend, Conan who reformatted the laptop or something like that. I've lost everything I had but on the flipside, at least it's like new now and running a lot faster. So when I get the WEP key for the internet at home, I'll download ipoker first thing after connecting to the internet to see if it works perfectly! It better cos I'm dying to play online poker!

I'll be off to Galway later today for the Easter weekend to serve as assistant manager to Joey and/or to get hammered.. Something tells me it's gonna be a weekend of madness either way!! :-)

Till next time!!!

My head is melted... (High Poker Content!)

2008-03-14T01:05:00.000Z

I dont get this pokertracker or HoldemManager malarky.. Its just way too much information at once.. Everytime I attempt to use it, my brain melts..

Myself being so dumb, I didnt test it using the trial version as I should have.. Cos I stupidly deleted my entire PPP hand history as it went back as far as the days I was using play money so the stats wouldnt be a true reflection of myself (i wanted to see my own stats as well).. So when I downloaded the trial version of HM (which is free up to 1k hands), I had no hand history to import. So i went out and bought a bundle of hand history for $6. But it was 50k worth of hands so when I imported it into the HM it wouldnt work unless I bought the full version, which I then forked out the $55 for.. So i imported the hands and was overwhelmed with stats, I dont even know what I m doing or looking for now... I yearn for the simplicity of the free PPP odds calculator which kept stats on your opponents, as I felt that particular function helped my online game a lot. But I'm gona have to force myself to learn how to use HM as its supposedly superior by a long mile!! I m not gonna play online poker without some sort of program that keeps stats cos based on the experience of using PPP odds calculator, stats are really useful and helps you make decisions better..

As for the live poker, I haven't played that much lately. I've only played two tournaments in the last two weeks. Both were down in the local. Played a €60 DC freezeout, got €200 for coming 2nd. Bit of a shit return but at least it went towards the beer money for following weekend with the lads in Carlow. Then again tonight it was a €30 buy in with a limit of 2 rebuys or 1 rebuy & 1 top-up for €20 apiece. It got about 2o runners. Standard wasnt the best. In thinking that, it makes me realise how much I've gained in confidence. When I first started out playing these games, I was so bad and at the time feared some particular players who I thought were really good. These day-as cringeworthy egosistical this may sound- I feel I certainly can hold my own comfortably at that standard... Anyway to get to the gist of the story, I was massive chip leader at the FT, probally had about 50% chips in play. One particular hand when we were on the bubble with the top 3 getting paid- I got 55 in UTG, blinds were 800/1.5k, so I raised to 5k. Folded around to the BB who pushed his 15k in the middle. I called he showed KJ but my 55 held up. And as I was scoping up the pot he remarked that "I was brave" to call his push with 55... I took that to mean "How can you call with 55, ya bloody fish?!" LOL!! There was logic to my decision to call but no point in waffling about it here!! But anyway, I went on to go heads up with Michael, the guy that runs the tournament. (Really sound bloke btw) The heads up only lasted 3 hands. The final hand when I had 99. He raised into me, I pushed (i had him covered) he called with KJ and duly spiked the J on the river. He doubled up and was around 15k ahead but then we chopped the prizepool which saw bring home 345e home.

I like to think pre-flop analysis is one of my strengths, but once again the need to improve my post-flop analysis was apparent. I know it myself.., but when people slowplay premium hands preflop, I tend to get trapped on the flop if I've caught a peice of it. I got caught out once tonight but got away with murder when I sucked out on KK with Q9 which gave me two pair. It's a leak I need to plug otherwise I'm gonna be the value at levels better than pub poker.

Even though I now have a few bob in my pocket, I'm careful not to make a big deal of it (or at least I try not to!), just as with every tournament I do well in. Having an ego is a massive flaw in anybody's game, so as hard as it is at times, I try to play that kind of stuff down and retain an realistic and harsh outlook on my game. I have no misconceptions about myself, I certainly dont think I'm great or whatsoever. I certainly think theres a whole lot I need to improve on, but playing in pubs is not really good for my game anymore. Its good for the craic and convenience of walking down the road for a game. But I have weaknesses that can only be improved by playing at levels I am not so comfortable with. I strive to improve as much as my potential (if I can call it that) allows me to, because I do not want to become the pub poker player who is percieved as a shark but in the harsh truth of the day is actually sub-standard.

Anyway enuff blogging for tonite.. I always keep meaning to do it on a more regular basis, as so to make it shorter, fresher and easier to unload my thoughts. I keep thinking of stuff and saying "oh i ll write about that on my blog when i get home or whatever" but i never get around to doing it.. I'm so lazy!! Next time I'll not type about poker! However much I love playing the game, I do have a life!!!

I bet tmw when I wake up, half this stuff wont make any sense!!

Till then, adios!!!

My first post

2008-02-29T12:46:00.000Z

Hey!
I have just started a blog which I hope to keep updated with poker and general stuff..

Today I took the decision to take online poker seriously. No more messing about-no more donking my money away online just cos I feel compelled to gamble in ridicilous spots where I know I'm behind. I have downloaded pokertracker which I still havent gotten my head around and havent even gotten any use out of it as it's too complicated. So I downloaded Hold'em manager which is supposedly just as good, if not even better. I havent tried it out yet but I will do in the next couple of days as I am just getting ready to go away for the weekend. It is my mate, Joey's birthday and there are a load of lads gettin together in Carlow for a weekend of madness!!! Let the madness begin!!

I ll b back on this thing soon hopefully...

Ciarán