Waffle Waffle Waffle

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

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...

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.

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“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?

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!!

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...

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!