A decent run of form with some bad beat stories and some good news :)

So again it’s been a while since i posted but I’ll try to bring people up to date and will make an effort to post more regularly as i go on. Last time i posted i had intended to play the ukipt Dublin/Macau classic and the Unibet tournament. As it turned out due to real life commitments i could not make all three but i did manage to make the UKIPT Dublin.


I headed to Dublin to play the super sat in which I’m glad to say i won my ticket. Throughout the 1st day i played a very patient game and managed to build up a nice stack for myself until late on day 2 I ended up in a hand with a well-known Waterford based player George Power. George raised from the button, I re-raised from SB with AQ, George put me all in and turned over A2, 2 on the flop and 2 on the turn gave George the pot almost gave me a heart attack. By nature I’m a placid person but for a brief moment in time thoughts of leaping the table at George were to the forefront of my mind. Thankfully this unusual feeling only lasted a second or 2 which is probably down to the fact that George is a top bloke and a great player. A quick trip to the bar for a double Jameson and i was back focused on trying to build up a stack again. That hand left me with 6 big blinds and luckily enough i managed to claw my way back into contention and arrived into day 3 with approx. a 100,000 stack. The average was at that stage around the 170k mark so i was still short stacked but happy to be there.

I ended up being seated at a table with fellow Clonmel man Noel O'Brien. Noel has a very aggressive style of play so it was of no benefit to me to have him on my left. Again i decided to take a patient approach and wait for a decent hand. During the 4000-8000 level Noel raises to 36,000 and i find aces and shove, noel calls with AJ and i get my much needed double up. I managed to take down the next hand as well holding AQ to a Q high board and that took me above the average for the 1st time.



I was subsequently moved to the TV table with 24 remaining, Noel was again on this table as was one of Irelands top players Dermot Blain. I lost a lot of my stack with AQ against JJ where the Jacks held up and lost another chunk of chips with KK after i 3 bet the opening raiser. With 200k left I shove all in with 66, I got called by A 10 and an Ace on the flop sealed my fate knocking me out in 21st place for cash out of €2050. Its great running so deep in a such a large field but as all players know its utterly soul destroying to be so close to final tabling a major event like UKipt.



One of my aims for next year is definitely to plan out my year with this tour in mind. As always the bloggers were on super form for Irish Poker Boards and it would be very remiss of me not to thank Danny for posting that wonderful 4am picture of me. It came as a bit of a shock to my wife as i had been claiming that the weekend was being conducted in full sobriety!! Needless to say it resulted in some interesting discussions once i arrived home:)) Seriously though hats off to Danny, it gave the family and my mates some serious lols when they were reading the updates and saw it, there’s a good chance it will be the Lucey family xmas card for 2011. You have to give a lot of credit to Danny & co for their efforts and commitment to the blogging. It’s a huge part for people connected to the players as friends or family and creates an overall interest in the game within people who might otherwise never see any part of it.



Next up after the UKipt was the Bruce Poker event in Maynooth. With a guaranteed prize fund of 50k for an entry of 120 this was a no brainer to attend, it was always going to be hard for the guys to make the guarantee , they fell a little short but hopefully they made up for this with the cash game action which was pretty good. I would hope they continue with this in the years to come as it should become an event which hits the guarantee every time.

I got no run in the main event and exited early; i entered the side event and ended up heads up with an inebriated Brian Loughran :). We got in it with AA for me against Brian’s 44, 4 on the flop gave Brian the trophy and second place for myself for a cash of 1100. Brian's a decent guy and i look forward to catching up with him at future tournaments.


After Maynooth came the Winamax 6 max in Ballsbridge, this had a large turnout due to the amount of foreign players they can bring to their events. I satted in again which was great as i seem to have worked out a good system of play in the super sats that for now at least is paying dividends. It’s a huge boost to the tournament budget to get in this way, I got to Day 2 where i was short stacked with approx 30,000. In the 1st level there is a raise to 3000, I re-raise to 7,800 with AK, Daragh Davey 4 bets to 15,000 with a big stack, I have a gut feeling i have walked into a serious hand here, i dwell for a bit and shove hoping that i might be up against QQ but unfortunately I run into AA and that’s the end of that. Congrats to Daragh who went on to have another deep run and congrats also to Eoin Starr who finished in a highly credible 12th place. Eoin was unlucky not to go further and i was lucky to have 5% of him.



So up to today I’m just back from Killarney which as always was a super event both socially and poker wise. Killarney 2010 was my best finish to date in my poker career where i finished 2nd for €50,000, i headed to Killarney with high hopes of emulating this. Funnily enough I ended up staying in touch with Lars Tongren (last year’s winner) and john kalmer (4th last year) and i was very much looking forward to catching up with them again.

I won a ticket for Killarney through a satellite in the Macau in Cork, I don’t get there often but am very glad when i do as i always enjoy playing there and ken is second to none as a host. I also binked a ticket in the super sat in Killarney so that got me off to a good start. It was a tough tournament for me; i found that i was short stacked for 80% of the tournament. I ended up building a bit of a stack on day 2 when i got lucky with A5, 5 on the flop and 5 on the turn gave me a fighting chance. Things got progressively for me and QQ held up against AK and i ended up in day 3 with a low grinding stack. I was pretty pleased to make day 3 as it was a bit of a slog throughout.



Day 3 started with 27 players, with 22 left and 7 handed the blinds were 8000/15000 ante 2000. I’m UTG +1 and pick up 99 I shove and john kalmer picks up JJ in the big blinds. No suck out meant john’s jacks held up and i finished in 22nd for 1,750. John went on to do a deal three handed and Lars went out in 17th which i was pleased to see for the both of them.

Killarney is a really great event; it’s a hugely well organised event and full credit to all involved. Again the bloggers out did themselves and provided a great service.



Cash games have been funny for me in the past few tournaments, it’s something i need to put some more thought into, i may be better avoiding the cash games until my tournament run comes to an end as i have found i often end up blowing a huge part of my budget without even thinking about it. I’ll always play cash and usually end up in omaha 1/2 or texas 2/5 , i just think i may be better concentrating on the tournaments while still in and focusing on cash afterwards. That’s something I’ll come back to in my next post.

Online I’m averaging about 6/7 hours play per day and am just about breaking even; I’m mainly playing tournaments and am contemplating upping my time to include more cash game play.



Back to real life and I’m in the process of organising a regular weekly live cash game to be held in Clonmel. This will be a 2/5 game with a 300 buy in. I already have 7 players committed to the 1st game and will be finalising this this week. Anyone interested drop me a line on luceypaul@yahoo.co.uk or call /text to 086 0520350. I’m also organising a series of satellites for the WPT event being held in Dublin in Jan next year. This will be in conjunction with Celtic Poker and ill post more details on this after i meet with Celtic today.



On the home front my wife delivered an epic bad beat to rival George powers A2 when she hit with the news that we are now expecting our second child :) :) Obviously I’m joking!! Its great news and myself and Ruth couldn’t be happier and are looking forward to this child bringing us as much happiness as Danny has.

I’m making it a resolution to update this more regularly so be interacting with you all soon

Highs N Lows

So even though its later than intended ill try update you on whats been happening in my world lately.

When i last posted i had just exited the newcastle UKIPT event , the event was still in play at the time and i was very happy to see that Andrew O'Dwyer whom i shared a room with went deep into the main event . One great thing about the UKIPT is the group of Irish lads like Andrew, Richie Lalor, Fergal (MidniteKowboy) Nealon, Groggs, Chris Dowling etc etc who consistently follow the tour. Its great to know there is someone there to share a bite to eat or have a drink with. Its brillant to see Chris doing so well on the UKIPT leaderboard and i hope he scoops top place at the culmination. 

So lately whats been happening for me, ill start with the annual trip to Vegas. Vegas was a great experience as always even though it was not as crazy as as my past few visits. I stayed at Planet Hollywood as they gave me a 3 week complimentary stay due to my past history of roulette betting. Previous stays in Vegas for me pretty much revolved around table gaming and lots of drinking, this time i approached it a lot differently and my main aim was to stay off the the beer and focus on the poker. I played a small bit of roulette/blackjack between tournaments but all in all i pretty much spent 90% of my time playing poker.

I went deep in a couple of tournaments which threw up a couple of interesting situations one of which went completely wrong and cost me a shot at the main event which i would really love to have played. It was a $550 main event wsop satellite. It was down to 7 players left and 6 $10,000 tickets up for grabs. I'm 4th in chips and UTG , the small blind is almost all in with only 4 antes left behind. I look down at AA and unsure as to what to do I decide to flat call . It moves round to the button who shoves all in with a big stack. The small blind folds and I also fold and then realise i had miscounted my chip stack, next hand the blinds went up , im in the big blind and the following hand im small blind and automatically all in and obviously get knocked up. The original small blind survives with 2 chips. It was a total sickener and it took me a couple of days to get it out of my head and allow me to concentrate on playing again. Its a good lesson in the need for total concentration when playing. 

I played a range of Venetian Deepstack tourneys from $360 buy in to $2,500 buy in. I often built up stacks early but ran cold at crucial times . A good example of this was in the $2,500 buy in event. I have 140k in chips , the average is approx 110k and i pick up AK hearts UTG +1 , I raise 3x and find a caller with UTG _+2 . The flop falls K 10 6 (2 spades) . I decide im giving away no free cards as we are only 8 off the money which would guarantee me a min cash out of $4,500 . I shove all in and my opponent goes into the tank and ultimatlely calls me with an Ace high flush draw and hits. This call really knocked me for 6 , he had me covered so had a lot to risk , i would have understood it if for example i had raised and he just called but im amazed that he was prepared to risk his tournament on a draw so close to the bubble. Obviously i pulled a bit of a Phil Hellmuth at the table :) This event really frustrated me I have to say as i know i played really well throughout despite not getting a good run of cards and i was seriously disappointed to go out the way i did. 

Luckily enough i had some great results in the 5/10 20 straddle PLO game in the Aria. This game was very soft and went a long way towards paying for my trip and my tournament buy ins. 

I had some good nights out , one in particular with my good friend Anu who is a casino host, we took in a Japanese restaurant which lead to a couple bottles of Sake and then a visit to an Irish bar, it took me nearly 2 days to recover from this during which time i played some events in the Wynn none resulting in any real success. Overall it was a good trip , i gained a lot from it, the cash games covered the bulk of my lay out and if i had managed to run a little deeper in some of the tournaments it would have been a profitable trip.

Even though i didnt party as much as in recent years it was still a great trip and I genuinely love meeting the other irish players out there , there is a great camaraderie amongst the Irish contingent and everybody is really rooting for each other to get a big result. Eoghan O 'Dea was clearly the big success story and id imagine a lot of Irish will head out this November to support his bid to claim the coveted title. Its already a magnificent achievement as it stands but there is a chance for him to make history and i really hope he does it.

Ukipt Brighton was my next port of call, it was really nice to have a full package for this as i can really see how much the expenses can eat into your bankroll. The Hilton was a really nice hotel with great wi fi and in between the live games it gave me a chance to get back to playing on line tournaments and cash games on Irish Eyes, 

In the main event in Brighton i had a pretty tough table with Willy Tran and another hyper agressive Chinese kid who eventually knocked me out. I made what turned out to be a very ill timed 5 bet all in for him to have an actual hand, My KJ was no use against his AQ. I managed a 3rd place in the charity £120 frreezeout which netted me £900 which offset some of my trip expenses and cash game play. It was great to see Richie Lalor do so well and i really felt either he or the extremely talented Derek Murray from Galway would take this down but alas it wasnt to be, My good friend Mick Rossiter from Wexford also managed to cash out. 

My next live event was the Waterford masters , i was very disappointed to finish 30th in this , i really thought I could go deeper, my exit hand was with QQ V 77 where we got it all in only for my opponent to river a 7. While i came away disappointed i have to say this was a really well run tournaments and there was seriously good banter at the tables. Big credits are due to the organisers for a top event. And big credit is also due to a good friend of mine Jason Tompkins (blaaah666) who went on to take this down. Jason is a top bloke and is without question one of Irelands most talented live and online pro's. he was unlucky to miss Vegas through illness but what a way to make your comeback. 

After this I spent some time with my family and got down to some serious online play again before the Irish leg of the Emop tour. This was an event i was really looking forward to due to my association with Steven Merrick and Irish Eyes Poker. I played the Super sat for Day 1b and manged to win one of the 3 tickets that were up for grabs, A good friend of mine from Germany also picked up a ticket which i was really pleased about too. 

I had a tough table which included Nicholas Newport and Tom Kitt and I eventually busted out with KK against AK where the dreaded ace appeared on the turn. Overall though i had a great weekend and i was absolutely delighted to see Doke take 2nd place. This was a great result for him especially in light of his role as Team Irish Eyes Captain, He is a really good guy and a great player and fully deserved his result. 

This was an excellently run festival and credit must go in particular to Steven Merrick and Connie O'Sullivan , they really put in a huge amount of work to prior to this event. Also on a different note I'd like to thank the bloggers from Irish Poker Boards, these guys put in so much work and give up so much of their time for free to bring live coverage of these events to the Irish Poker Community, its a huge undertaking and i know its one that all the poker players really appreciate. Their coverage is in a class of its own and i hope that as we move on it becomes a standard for all major tournament organisers within Ireland to build in complimentary rooms etc for the bloggers from this excellent site.

In the next few weeks im going to focus on settling into a regular rhythm of online play. With all the travelling recently i have struggled to build up a proper structured schedule of play. This i can now do and ill be focusing big time on Irish Eyes cash games alongside my regular weekly tournament play. 

As for live events i intend to play the Macau Irish Classic Poker Festival, UKIPT Dublin and the upcoming Unibet tournament. 

Now that things are a little bit more settlled ill post more regularly here as well.

vegas to brighton

just a quick update , back from vegas , i approached vegas a lot differently than i had in previous years and really focused on the poker side of things. I played a lot of tournaments with varying results.

Im in Brighton for the latest leg of the UKIPT , hopefully i run well here , im happy with how im playing at the moment and picked up some nice online cashes this week. Good luck to all the Irish that are here.

Once im back from Uk ill put a detailed report up on both Vegas and Brighton, hand histories etc etc

So since i last posted my first couple of weeks playing professionally have had their ups and downs but overall it has been good. The hardest thing has been to tie myself down to a proper scedule of playing that takes into account time spend with family etc.

I focused on mtt's and with the primary goal of winning tickets/packages to both the ukipt tournament in newcastle and the forthcoming EMOP in Dublin.

The EMOP in Dublin is something I definitely intend to play but it would be nice to pick up a package. Irish eyes are running some great sats each week. Check out this thread started by Connie on Irish Poker Boards

http://www.irishpokerboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9385

it lists what you need to know and some of the regular irish people playing update their progress most nights which adds to the fun!

My two attempts at picking up a package to date  ended up with me going out in 6th place both times. Each time there was three packages on offer plus cash for 4th so these results were a bit of a sickener. This hand in particular stuck with me, I was 2 of 6
& had AA with A of Hearts on a 4 8 10 of hearts board, we end up getting it all in and my opponet has 88. Still i was pretty happy with how i played and i hope to improve on this and pick up a package. Its an event that is very important to me due to the involvement of my sponsor Irish Eyes Poker.

I picked up a ticket to newcastle at my first attempt which was great and added a second which added some money to the budget for the week. Sadly my involement in Newcastle ended on Day 1a, I raised pre flop with AQ, one caller, flop comes A 3 K, we end up getting it all in on this flop . My AQ was no good against my opponents A3 :)

Once back from newcastle i picked up a full package for UKIPT Brighton and bubbled a second one on the same night. On monday 20th I made 3 final tables where i placed

1st - $22 rebuy omaha for $1124
2nd- $50 freezeout for $779
7th - $33 omaha for $320

I'm playing all my cash on Irish Eyes in omaha 6 max and im glad to say im holding my own at the moment.


So overall it has been an interesing couple weeks and im happy with how things have started, it was good to get to newcastle and it gave me some valuable table time before I head to Vegas tomorrow.

Life as a Professional Gambler

While ive always been a gambler!! this is my first week playing poker professionally without the backing & security of a full time income. I'm happy to say that last week i completed the sale of Atlantis Casino Carlow to Liam & Fionn of the Celtic Poker Tour. Best wishes to the guys, i hope they have as many good times as i have had with the casino for the last 5 years.

Gambling for me became an obession rather than a hobby while i worked on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines for 7 years. On days off while my friends aboard the ship would head to the nearest beach I would always find my to the nearest blackjack or roulette table with a whiskey & coke in hand. On my final week I ended my ship career with pure luck, while on a break from work, i ventured over to the Atlantis Casino , Paradise Island Nassau in the Bahamas where i won a small fortune playing caribbean stud poker when i picked up a royal flush.

Happily my good luck streak has continued and I am delighted to be representing Irish Eyes as a full time sponsored pro.

I will be updating this blog on a weekly basis where I'll be reporting on my poker experiences from both online with Irish Eyes & live Events.

Check back here for special Irish Eyes Promotions on rakeback , site deals etc