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.
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