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
