Busto...

Well, not quite, but in the wake of the collapse of Anglo Irish with attendant hit to my personal liquidity, I am having to take a more measured and responsible approach to bankroll management and in particular major buyin live tournaments. So much as it pains me to even contemplate having to share any hard won (or luckboxed) major scores, I've started the selling process by letting my friend Al have 5% of me in the Irish Open. I've been offered a grand for a further 20% of me by an English player which I'll also have to consider. I guess once you start considering poker as your livelihood/main source of income, bankroll management is something everyone has to pay attention to. I just prefer the days when I could enter any tournament blissfully unconcerned about the buyin.

I'm also contemplating making my EPT debut in San Remo. I have two offers of 750 Euro for 10% which I think is particularly decent given my lack of EPT pedigree. If I do decide to go, I'll almost certainly take up those offers, and maybe try to hawk another few percents to bring the whole thing within my comfort zone. And I'm definitely going to be selling percentages of me in the WSOP this year. Anyone interested in taking a percentage of me as their horsey in San Remo can contact me at daraokearney@gmail.com. It's €40 for half a percent or €75 for one percent (or miltiples thereof).

Played my third Boards HU match, and got pwned 2-0 by Andrew Grimasson. First one was a good tussle that toed and froed until the blinds made a flip inevitable at some point, and I flipped badly on this occasion. Second one was short and brutal and coolerish (second nuts into nuts). Andrew played extremely well and posed me massive problems throughout and thoroughly deserved the victory.

Belated report: in the Bad Beat team live final in Birmingham a couple of weekends ago, I got off to a great start and was third in chips at the break. With half the field gone, things were looking good for our team as we were all still in and I was in the top 10 on chips but then it all went wrong. First we lost Dave Masters to a horrible suckout, then his Da Ray, then team captain Steve. I decided it was time to make a move but my timing was off and I ended up crippling myself and eventually went out in 29th.

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Frustration

Played the Jackpot team thing yesterday. Was in decent nick at the break and the whole team were still in, then I lost a big pot to Fintan where he bluffed on the end with 6 high and I declined to call him down with ace high. Fintan of course showed the bluff, which seems to be oblig if you're from the weshhhhht. Thereafter I was in that less than 20 bigs zone where you can't really be open folding, nor can you simply be folding for very long. A guy who had just moved to the table opened in early position. He had a huge stack, most of it chips of the smallest denomination, which usually screams "maniac". I look down at AQ and go with my read that it's ahead of his range and he may even call with worse and ship. He snaps with nines, ace on the flop, 9 on the river, thank you and good night. Afterwards I thought maybe the move was a little rash in a team event. I'd ship every time there in a solo tournament obv. Also, didn't realise that Cat had just been eliminated meaning I had to be one of our three scorers. In the event, KP fought an amazing rearguard action with a short stack to go out in 11th, Rob was 4th, but all to no avail.
Cat and I headed to the Fitz IO sat. I got the ideal start doubling up with aces against Pat Vickers' jacks, got to the FT in decent nick third or fourth in chips, but ultimately got dogged by one of the worst players I've ever seen, even in the Fitz. This guy arrived at the FT with enough chips to nail down a ticket but still couldn't help getting involved with any rag aces or suited cards. First he decided to defend against my utg+1 raise with Q8 (sooted), and to continue on an AQ4 flop (I had AK btw). I guess he smelt the queen on the river. I'm still struggling to
believe he defended against one of the few stacks that could serously dent him with Q8 though: clearly not a notion of satellite strategy. That left me crippled, but I rallied briefly before he got me again, limping A7 and calling my ship (AJ) a hitting a 7. Still, reassuring to think such genius will be in attendance at the IO.
Online, I'm back playing some turbo 6 seaters and although there's clearly some positive variance at work, I'm destroying them for now, having won 7 of my first 10! The HU practise is clearly standing to me: I've won all 7 HU battles. I seem to be hitting a bit of a brick wall in the superturbo headsup stts though, so I might take a break. There seem to be more decent regs about. After my best batch ever (68/32), I just had a losing batch (48/52).
Hearty congrats to Martin Silke for his GUKPT win. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy or a better player.
Plan for this week is probably another IO sat in the SE tomorrow and maybe the Bruce game in Mullingar on Friday. Was originally intending to head to Galway with Rob and Cat for the IO sat there, it used to be one of my favourite places to play, but there's only so many times you can be bluffed and shown it before it gets a bit tedious.

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Every time you think....

You've identified the worst player in the land, another candidate crawls out from under a rock dragging his knuckles along the ground presenting a gap toothed smirk for consideration.

Exit hand from Cavan: KK v A4, all in for 80 bigs on a queen high flop.

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Things not to do at the poker table....

1. Attempt to (semi) bluff someone known as Fish.

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Fun days and Bundys

Got up at 8 so I could have the ordained 4 hour run out of the way before we headed to Galway. I thought it would take more out of me as it was the first long one in a while and I only had 90 minutes sleep but actually I was fine.Travelled down with Cat and Rob and met Rory and Paul shortly after we arrived. KP had reportedly been out exorcising the demons the night before and had not been sighted yet today, apart from when he inadvertently set off the fire alarm in his room taking a shower.We got something to eat and then headed over to the Eglinton which was already buzzing with anticipation. KP had been in negotiations with John O'Shea's team the Clear Favourites/Team Bundy for a price and we'd all decided that if we could get 5 to 4 we were all in, but despite the presence of a WSOP FTist, two IPC champions, the ECOOP ME champ and a bookie, it emerged they didn't rate themselves better than 50/50 to beat us so no side bet. We did however get 1200 on at evens with Pat O'Callaghan's Galway team.We got off to a ropey start collectively with nobody making progress in the early stages and just before the break we lost our first team member when Rory was coolered with AK on a K high board against strangely played aces. Things got no better after the break when Paul's ship was called very light by QT. Absolutely nothing was happening for me either: total card death and lack of situations meant that the ship or fold section came fast (my only criticism of what was otherwise a top class event was that the starting stack, 30 minute clock and quick introduction of antes didn't make for a lot of play). I managed to win my first called ship (people are still calling me quite light!) to double up, but never really escaped ship or fold mode. I managed to loiter around until over half the field had been dispatched. Had it not been a team event I'd probably have gambled earlier but with points accruing for every 5 places survived there was a strong motivation to loiter. With 36 left, I considered and rejected a marginal utg ship. By the time I shipped A8s four hands later into nines in the blinds, my exit hand, a further 7 players had bitten the dust.So not a particularly eventful tournament for me personally. The main excitement came courtesy of Paul Leckey. From the minute he sat down at the table, he set his sights on me as the target for his own acerbic brand of humour. Initially when he started by pointing out that my hat was too small for my head, I played along, agreeing that I had a freakishly large head. While I probably don't enjoy so called "banter" as much as most (in my view, very few people as are as funny as they like to think themselves), I have no problem with being the source of amusement up to a point, but that point was reached when it seemed there was nothing else worthy of discussion, and that was worthy of any amount of discussion. Having seen Paul do this to others before, I always interpreted it as a bit of an angleshoot to distract the target and others and help establish Paul as the table captain. I decided the best line was to just ignore it entirely. Once Paul realised I was ignoring him, he redoubled his efforts. His comments migrated onwards to question other aspects of my personal appearance and character, and my running career, aided and abetted in part by the Clamper in a sidekick role. The rest of the table seemed more embarrassed than anything by the standoff. Eventually Paul seemed to realise that any further goading was pointless and he let it drop. In his defense, he had clearly drunk a lot (at one point Fintan asked him if he needed another 4 bottles of wine), and he apologised to me in the bar afterwards, and at breakfast the next day.Early in the tournament things weren't looking good for our side bet with the Galway team. We had already lost 2 of ours while they seemed destined to win every allin they found themselves in, no matter how far behind, but in the end they all fell like skittles leaving us with no sweat. Things were also looking very good for Team Bundy until one by one they all threw themselves on their swords around the same time as my exit. Team captain John O'Shea showed great character to keep on going despite his obvious disappointment. He was a class act on the final table and thoroughly deserved the solo win. Our team did brilliantly to land three team members on the final table. Star of the show was Cat O'Neill, who recovered from making what would normally have been a great fold only to be shown a bluff by the Clamper about 5 tables out to deliver another flawless performance. KP too played brilliantly and would have been a real force on the final table had he not been crippled just before when a standard late position ship with a pair ran into a bigger pair behind. Rob played well too on the FT and 5 handed was effectively one card away from securing the win for our team when he had Jaye Renehan, the Eglinton team's last team member, all in with 87 against Rob's AQ which stayed ahead till an 8 on the river saved them. Jaye played brilliantly in a night watchman role nursing a short stack through apparent card death to guide his team home. After Rob exitted in 5th place (a KK into Johnny Weafer's AA cooler) our only hope lay in Jaye going out 4th and Cat winning. Despite his loud protestations that his main priority was to thwart Team Taylor, John O'Shea seized the opportunity to eliminate Jaye in 4th. Unfortunately it was not to be, with Cat being eliminated in one of those two monster hands that play themselves, leaving the two Johns (Weafer and O'Shea) to battle it out for individual honours and the third place prize behind us and Team Eglinton.We more or less jumped straight into the 200 side event. At one stage a massive overlay looked on the cards but Fintan must have gone around ringing a special bell in all the nearby pubs as a horde of well oiled punters arrived to swell the numbers just before late registration closed.I was happy with how I played. The two most interesting hands both saw me making calls I probably wouldn't have been capable of until recently. The first arose three tables out. I raised a mid position short stack limper with AKs. The SB and the limper both called. I missed the 962 flop and the original limper shipped. Getting 2 to 1 on the call it boiled down to estimating my equity against his shipping range. His most likely holding at that point was a single pair either on the board or in the hole so my two overs gave me 6 likely outs. I also had a runner runner nut flush draw which added a certain 6% to my equity, bringing me up to 30% if he had a pair. There was also some possibility I was actually ahead with ace high given his short stack desperation. That added "beating a bluff" equity tipped me past the 33% I needed to make it a call. As it turned out, I was ahead: he had T7 for no pair and a gutshot, and I held.The second most interesting hand arose on the second last table. With the blinds at 300/600, we had just come back from a break when Keith McFadden shipped for 9 bigs from the hijack. Looking down at QJ, ordinarily not a great hand to call a ship with (so easily dominated), I eventually decided it had the 40% equity it required against Keith's likely shipping range. In the event, he had 86o so I was well ahead, but he seemed genuinely surprised and annoyed by the call, particularly when I held. I tried to explain that I felt I was priced in and knew he was good enough to be shipping a fairly wide range, particularly into me, a player not known for an over attachment to either my blinds or the "two live cards" school of thought.That got me in reasonable shape to lose a race that would cripple me just shy of the FT. I stuck in a pot committing raise with AK over a Paul Leckey raise and found myself up against queens. Next hand, down to 3 bigs, I shipped 88 into Rob's KK and that was that. Rob went on to finish second, leapfrogging him to the top of the official Irish rankings, something I'm sure he's well chuffed about.I played a bit of cash and had some entertaining chat with Ken, Paul Coyle and John O'Shea, who said some very gracious things about me. I ground up a small profit in the cash which combined with my share of the team prize and our side bet brought my profit on the weekend to over 1K, which I'd settle for every weekend. All in all, a great weekend, and kudos to Dave and Fintan for pulling such an outstanding event together. The final table was one of the most gripping I've ever seen and would have made for great TV.
As further proof of my continuing descent to degeneracy, we raced back early on Sunday to play an IO sat in Dean's Grange. There weren't enough runners for a ticket so the tourney reverted to a standard cash prize structure, which was just as well as I ended up exiting in third (for €550). Straight from there to Malahide for a few hours of live 2/5 cash, where I ground out a staggering profit of €12 (plus a substantial tipping budget for Tanya). As I've noted before, I really really really hate live cash even if I tend to do pretty well at it.

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Live cash sucks....

Wedged between drunks at least one of whom thinks that an almost non stop slurred stream of barely consciousness interrupted only by the occasional pause to paw the unfortunate waitress makes him a "personality" getting in about 12 hands an hour for an hourly rate less than your average McDonald's employee.

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Negative karma

OK, so we're rushing, or rather snailing to Heuston, and the Friday traffic makes it touch and go as to whether I'm going to make the 16.50 to Galway. Throwing caution to the traffic fumes, Mireille makes a bold break for it, motoring up the bus/taxi lane with joyous illegality. About 50 metres shy of the station, we see a little old dear stranded in traffic after getting out of a car. We do the decent thing and stop to let her cross in safety, which she does at snail's pace.
5 minutes later, having clambered out of the car, stashing the laptop into the bag and lurching towards the Ticket Collection machine, I find myself standing behind the same old dear who has beaten me to it by a fraction of a second. It quickly becomes obvious she's all at sea in an ocean of onscreen instructions of swipage and removal of cards. My offers of assistance are greeted with annoyance at the sheer impertinence of it all and testy assurances that she can manage thank you very much, which she eventually does after several changes of credit cards and spectacles. All of which gives me a window of about 30 seconds to make a charge for the train. I do make it though, only to find that my prebooked seat with my name clearly on it has been pre-occupied by another little old dear. I lack requisite ruthlessness in these situations at the best of times and once it became apparent that she was the accompanying carer of the Down's Syndrome kid in the next seat, I decided this was not the best of times so let it slide. Apart from anything else, I didn't fancy the prospect of having to explain to the kid why I'd made his carer go away.
The negative karma seemed to keep on rolling into the tournament, where I never got going, and having shown the patience of a Buddhist monk only to shove queens into tens and a rivered ten, I was bounced into the cash game.
However, once there, I not only recouped my tournament buyin but left with a healthy profit on the night, all down to a series of successful confrontations with my old friend (nemesis), Christy Morkan. Karmic revenge for Skibbereen! (Or rather Killarney). Highlight was putting him on monkey tilt after I made what he deemed a donkey call with a pair of nines when he four bet shoved me with air, or rather 94, a move he may have learned from Nicky Power's groundbreaking training video: "4 Bet Shoving with Air and other advanced pro plays that work outside the Pale". It took repeated assurances from David Curtis that I had not only played the game before but had a few decent results to my name to bring things to a relative calm, and Christy kissed and made up in his own inimitable fashion. Once I mentioned I not only knew KP but was on his team, Christy decided I was all right, on the very reasonable grounds that KP is the nuts.

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Home thoughts from a bored

Went to Galway last weekend for their monthly tournament. No joy in the tourney but did well in cash so winning trip. More details in a post I typed up on the train home which I'll retrieve from the laptop later.

Played the team event in Molloy's on Sunday. Great craic. Played ok but ran pretty badly. Third in my first round heat which effectively swung on one big hand three handed all in pre with A8s and KTs (suits the same) for 90% of the chips.

Second round table was pretty sick with Pabloh, Marc McDonnell, and Joe the Donk (sorry, Dealer). I managed to lose my entire stack just about on the very first hand in a headsup pot with a flopped flush against a higher flopped flush. It turned out I had 150 left over, or one big blind, which I shipped two hands later with 88. Both callers had AQ and I held. Back up to 600, I shipped TT next hand and Joe made a very brave call in the BB with 62o to the obvious annoyance of Marc. Surprisingly, despite being chip leader early on, and great play like that, Joe was first (or maybe) second out. Meanwhile I worked my stack back up to 4K, then the blinds got big (300/600) and I stdshipped JTs from the SB into A7o to exit in 6th. Our team did well enough for fourth overall, with Paul Coyle winning round 1 and 5th in round 2, Damo 4th and 2nd (horrendously unlucky headsup getting it in with flush draw against lower flush for the win), Larry 2nd and 4th, and team captain the Clamper leading from the front with a win and a 3rd. Fourth prize meant we showed a profit of €20 each on the day. Woohoo.

Two more live outings since, both in Malahide. In their €100 game on Tuesday, I nursed a small stack through prolonged card death to the final table thanks mainly to one well timed move when I shipped AQ from the SB over a cutoff raise knowing I'd get called by weaker aces or queens which is exactly what happened. The card death continued onto the FT and with the prize pool unusually flat there was no point doing anything rash. I nursed the short stack into the money with standard push or fold poker, eventually exiting in 5th when I lost a blind on blind race against Larry. I got €250 (or rather a ticket to the following night's IO sat) for my trouble. Larry and two others chopped almost immediately for €700 so effectively it was a race for €450.

Following night's IO sat had a much stronger turnout than normal in Malahide with almost half the field effectively pros. I got a mare start when my well disguised pocket queens turned from overpair on the flop to second nut flush by the river losing me almost half my stack to Paul Fish's nut flush. I worked my way back from small to medium stack and briefly took the chiplead threehanded when I shipped AK from the BB after Paul raised in the SB and he called hoping to dog with QT. We played on a bit more by which time I was the shortest of the three (lost two pots to Rob, one when I folded to a ship after raising a small pocket on the button, and another with 44 v 66), at which point we agreed a chop, with Rob and Paul taking €1250 and me €1000. I played cash for a few minutes while waiting for Rob to finish up a pool match and added another small bit to the night's profit margin.

Online's been going ok to well too though I'm not putting in that high a volume. I'm splitting my time mostly between grinding superturbo headsup on Ipoker, and MTTs for variation on Full Tilt. I have a 79% ROI on Tilt so far which is decent enough.

I played my first two matches in Serie A of the Boards HU league and got off to a dream start. First I was very fortunate to beat John O'Shea in what he correctly described as an epic match that seeed and sawed and could have gone either way before I shaded it 2-1. Anybody who knows anything about poker doesn't need to be told John's world class, and more than anything I just wanted to give the two time ECOOP winner/WSOP final tableist a decent match. John's something of a controversial figure, his sense of humour is not to everyone's liking, but most people say they started out hating him and ended up liking him. Not me though, I found him instantly likeable, a great character and personality with a wicked sense of humour. A real entertainer.

Second match was against Niall O'Callaghan, who posed problems of his own. Another great match, which I was lucky enough to win as well.

Next up is this weekend's team event in Galway. My teammates are KP, Rob, Cat, Paul Coyle and Rory Brown. I think we have every chance of doing well if we run half decent.

Speaking of running, I'm back in hard training again. The old body is aching and starting to creak. I seemed to have shin splints to the point where I considered calling off yesterday's speed session of 20 200 metre sprints. In the end I pressed on and as always seems to happen, the splints disappeared miraculously. As someone once said, they say you should listen to your body, but if I listened to mine, I'd be at home on the couch stuffing my face with junk food. The Irish team for this year's World Championships in May in Italy is greatly strengthened by the addition of Irish record holder Eoin Keith and the legend himself Richard Donovan. All 5 of us are capable of delivering performances on the day and if three of us do on the day we could be in the hunt for a team medal. I'm approaching the race as make or break: I initially decided to retire after the disappointment in this year's race but had a change of heart, but I'll definitely retire from competitive running if I don't do better this year. It's just getting harder to juggle everything.

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Get in my son

Or something like that. My celebratory macho posturings are a bit rusty to say the least.

But anyway, tonight the long search for an IO ticket on Paddy Power came to a successful end. Having qualified through last night's feeder, I got off to a flyer, was chipleader early, then short two tables out, before two timely doubleups restored the chiplead and after that it was a fairly easy passage. Easy when you get Aces 17 times in 2 orbits.

High quality field including John Eames at my table early on.

Apart from that, Malahide as usual on Tuesday. No good in the tournament, never got going, and managed to do three buyins in the cash. First one leaked away, second one came a cropper against the ever entertaining Sligo John (KK v T5s, 90% in pre), third one went with the same hand against GJP's Brian's AK. A trip to the cash machine for an infusion allowed me to win about half of it back. Oh, and Rob won the tournament, as he usually does.

In other news, I've been selected to represent Ireland in this year's World 24 Hour championships in Bergamo in May. Which means I need to buckle down to some serious training. Last week was a disaster on that front. I picked up a cold in Walsall so sat on my lazy fat behind for most of the week.

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Defending the crown....European Deepstack 2

Despite having already snagged a ticket online, I played the supersat the night before. Partly to familiarise myself with the room and some of my competition (first impression: madder and more French than last year), but mainly because these things always represent major value if you're any way proficient in ICM and general satellite concepts. Nothing really went right until the crapshoot started, but once it did, nothing went wrong. First I ended the dreams of one of last year's choppers when my AQ outraced Baz Hand's TT, and then a succession of big hands that held put me in great shape. With 17 left and 16 tickets, and no really big or small stacks, a deal was done whereby everyone chipped in 100 euro for an extra ticket (or those prequalified like me took 100 less as cash alternative). So a good morale boosting start to the weekend meaning I'd be in profit no matter what.Before kickoff the next day, I chatted with Rob, Rory Brown, Paul Coyle (in whom I took a 10% stake Paul's someone I believe is going to be a superstar and who I'd happily take a stake in in any field), and KP. People were asking me how I was going to approach it this year and the truth is that while I'd put a lot of thought into it, I had no rigid predefined strategy as it always depends on what the other guys are doing. I did say that it would be tougher for me this year as more people knew my basic game.Last year, I doubled up in the first level, and I managed to repeat the same feat again this year, albeit in very different situations. I made what my brother would have called a "fruity" utg raise with JTs, and got 2 callers, the very capable Benjamin Gallen and a Czech guy apparently tilting from the previous hand. The KQ9 flop gave me the current nuts. I led at it for 500, Benjamin flatted, and the Czech made it 1600. I decided to flat to keep Benjamin in but being a colour blind fool I threw a 10K chip in instead of a 1K one, effectively raising to 10600. Benjamin folded (bottom set reportedly), and the Czech called. I led at the turn as there was a flush draw on board, the Czech shipped, and seemed genuinely surprised that his KQ wasn't ahead when the hands flipped over. 5 minutes in and I'm now sweating no king no queen. No king no queen and I doubled up.I then got moved to what looked like a dream table but unfortunately it was a flying visit. My third table featured James McManus (Hawkeye), eventual winner Francis McCormack, John Weafer and later last year's runner up Gary Clarke. As bad as that sounds, the real nightmare was two uber maniacs, a French $25/$50 online cash game player, and a Scot who I freely admitted to afterwards was the hardest guy I've ever had to play against opening every pot. A typical pot at 100/200 went one of them opened to 1500, the other one raised to 6K, so you were having to put in a huge chunk of your stack just to see a flop. Deepstack me arse, basically. I went card dead and the two hands I did play lost me chunks. One I had perfectly disguised tens in the blind and stuck in a big check raise on a 9 high. The Scot instaflatted (he never seemed to fold once he had a chip in the pot which was pretty much every pot, presumably because folding is a sign of weakness), and when the turn completed both a flush and a straight, I decided discretion was the better part of valour and check folded to the inevitable 25K bet which coulda been a flush, a straight, random two pair, bottom pair, or air. Next one I raised the Scot with AKs on the button only to get reraised to 12K by the French maniac in the blinds. After considering all three options (fold, call, ship), I decided to just call on the basis that I had position. Or thought I did: the French guy shipped another 20K into the pot in the dark (a very frequent occurence on the table: in fact often maniac number 1 would make a big bet in the dark and maniac number 2 would call, also in the dark). I missed a queen high flop and had to fold again.In the end, I "escaped" from the table with just 40K of my 100K intact. My fourth table was a short lived affair (I don't think I played a hand), meaning I was coming back the next day with less than starting stack looking to hit the ground running.I managed to do so in one of the most talked about hands of the whole tournament. Steve Basri, an old school English pro that I've played with a lot online on Ipoker, limped in late position. I've seen him fold a lot in those spots to raises (in fact, he'd done it the previous hand, folding his limped button when Ghostface Ste raised from the SB) so decided this was a good spot to raise atc from the small blind. Paul Jackson was BB and not overly attached to his blinds, and would have quite a rocky image of me, as would Steve, so I figured this was a clear plus Ev spot. In the event, Steve called this time, and the flop came 865 with two hearts. I had 93 of hearts so that's a pretty good flop for me. I led, Steve raised, I assumed he thought I was on two high cards so I shipped, and he snap called with top set. Ouch. I sucked out a flush on the river.I then got moved to a new table that featured Padraig Parkinson, Scott Gray, John Eams, Mick McCool, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Ken Corkery and a French guy Vannak Tok who was the chipleader. Mick was good company as ever playfully taking the piss referring to me as "the champ" and was destined to be in my first big pot at the table. Padraig raised utg, Mick shipped, I reshipped QQ, Padraig folded (JJ he said), and I won a race against Mick's AK. A short while later I moved into second in chips in the tournament when I got it all in pre with AA v a French guy's KK and held, and with position on Tok was in a truly great spot. Till now he'd bee running over the table opening nearly every pot, but he folded to my first few reraises, showing AQ on one occasion and remarking ruefully I was the one stack he couldn't tangle with.Unfortunately, it didn't last two long. First I lost a 150K pot to Ken when I raised on the button with ATs. Ken shipped and getting almost 2 to 1 on the call I felt I had to eventually. John Eams immediately remarked that it was the correct decision even if you never like it, and usually I think it would be, but there I think the call was actually a mistake. Ken's so tight I'm pretty much always playing one card there so 2 to 1 ain't enough. Furthermore, it would have been better to preserve the extra 60K all the better to get some more steals and resteals through rather than lose a significant chunk of my stack and steal effectiveness.Shortly afterwards, I misplayed a hand against Kevin Fitz. I raised on the button with QJs. I saw him counting out the chips to see if he had any fold equity before deciding he didn't and just calling. I decided he was clearly going to pull a stop and go on any raggy flop and mentally committed to calling. The flop came raggy and he confused me by checking. I should just ship here every time but his check made me suspect he'd hit so I checked behind. Another rag on the turn, and now when he ships I don't have as easy a call with one card to come. Those chips I gifted him to keep him alive came to haunt me as I lost a 100K+ pot shortly afterwards when he apparently cracked my KK with Ax.A disastrous final session saw my chips dwindle to under 200K from their 500K high point, and with 23 coming back and 15 get paid, I was in the nervy 16th position overnight.That morniong I put some thought into it and discussed with Mireille whether I should play cautiously to ensure the cash or really go for it. She agreed with the go for it option, and early on I increased my stack by about 50% thanks to some uncalled shippage. That saw me through the bubble but with 15 left and an M of less than 5 I was still very much in ship mode, and eventually ran AJ into KK and didn't suck out. The old French guy (who incidentally ended up coming fourth - uber rocks took 3 of the first 4 positions which really makes you think that's the way to play this event) took an eternity before making the call, so long that I wondered if I might actually be ahead or at least racing and Eams suspected him of slowrolling (I don't think it was - having played with him throughout the tournament I think he was genuinely unsure of whether his KK was ahead there).Overall, I was happy to have made what Padraig Parkinson immediately described generously as a credible defence of the title. I jumped straight into the side event and went reasonably deep into the crapshoot portion until I shipped AJs from the SB after a series of limps only to get called by one limper with AQ. AJ is a hand I seem to exit at least half of my tournament shipping: maybe I should just take it off the list.I'd gotten friendly with JOhn Eams so hung around a while to rail him. John's a class player and human being who got very unlucky in the end. The final table effectively swung on one big hand that played itself where Francis flopped a straight, the French guy TPTK, and John two overs and a flush draw. Afterwards myself and Alan drank some of his champagne with two of his friends, one of whom had taken down the 500 side event (which Rob final tabled and Cat got desperately unlucky not to). One young local who haS a better record in raffles than he does in poker tournaments asked me if I was reliving old glories. Harsh. In the end, you're always disappointed when you go deep and don't win, but ultimately I was happy I'd given it my best shot and played as well as I could for the most part and that's all you can ever do. And any profitable weekend is a good weekend in poker.

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The unhappiest place in the world

I arrived in Walsall, officially the unhappiest place in the world (according to Wikipedia), on Thursday. The Clamper was on the same flight and kept me awake with colourful stories of his life as a serial entrepreneur.
That evening, I played a £100 side event, a freezeout that pretty quickly descended into a crapshoot. The pre crapshoot portion was fairly uneventful, and the crapshoot segment started poorly when I shipped queens over a raise into kings behind. That left me with a meagre 900 at a time when blinds were already 300/600 (and an ante of 50). Luckily I picked up AK next hand, my ship was called by the button and then protected by an overship from the blinds. The button folded JJ, the blind had AQ, I held, so back in the game. Shortly afterwards, I shipped JJ utg into AT in the blinds and held, and was right back in it now. Three tables out I had motored, or rather shipped, my way up to average stack, but still less than 10 bbs. The table was collectively getting noisy about my frequency of shipping, and when I eventually shipped A7s from the cutoff, there was almost a communal fist pump when I got called by 99 and didn't suck out. I got bad news even before my own main event campaign kicked off when Mick McCloskey told me that my 10% of him was busto.
When I came back the next day for the Main Event, I was horrified to discover that instead of the hoped for soft table full of nervous internet qualifiers who had never played live before, I had two maniacs to my immediate left (Paul Marrow and Kyran something who final tabled the last leg in Brighton), an EPT winner (Fintan Gavin), a friend of John Eams who was also a very good player (and went on to cash), a wild Scandi and a few other respected pros. Maybe (bad) luck of the draw, or maybe these fields are just getting tougher as the recession bites. I knew that having Marrow to my immediate left was a bad beat in itself, and so it proved. He effectively destroyed me in the early part of the tournament where I'm looking to steadily build my stack with minimal risk and marginal decisions. Paul tends to make every pot you play with him a big one, and played every pot I entered. Three times I had to decide whether top pair top kicker type hands were good against him or not and I managed to get all three decisions wrong, at least by the end. In the first two I check called all the way only to find out I'd been rivered by an improbable two pair. The final hand was the worst: playing AQs, I decided to flat on the button when the Scandi raised from mid position, and Paul called in the SB. The flop came A23 with two spades (not my suit), and when the Scandi cbet, I again flatted, as did Paul. The turn was a non spade 6 seemingly changing nothing and when it was checked to me I fired in a 2/3rds pot bet as Paul's most likely holding here was the flush draw, and the Scandi would call with a worse ace based on past performance. In the event, Paul called quickly and the Scandi folded. The river unfortunately brought the ten of spades, Paul potted it effectively putting me all in if I called. Normally it's an easy fold here as I'm now only beating a bluff, but against the likes of Paul you have to be prepared to call pretty light. I worked back through the betting action and rescrutinised the board, but with no missed straight draws out there, it was difficult to see anything legitimate I was beating any more. Either he had a monster which he'd been slowplaying, or he'd again hit two pair on the river, or the flush. When he saw I was considering making the call, he said "Unless you have the flush you're beaten". It doesn't generally pay to take speechplay at face value but on the other hand on every other occasion I'd heard him use that kind of speechplay he had been telling the truth, so that made it an easier fold. At least until he showed 44. Ugh. Well played, sir. As a player Paul's a nightmare but as a human being he's a king.
By the time Paul was moved, he had about 55K (which he proceeded to bluff away in about half an hour: in the words of one English pro at his new table, "If he's gonna try and pull 30K bluffs at the 75/150 level, he probably shouldn't wear loon pants and a coat of many colours") and I had less than 2K. I managed to get a bit of a recovery going, starting when John's friend tried to take advantage of my frail stack by shipping J3 from the SB only to find me with AK, and had recovered to 9K when one of the few weak links, a guy who had been moved to Paul's seat recently and was clearly tilted from the previous hand against me open shipped for 5K (17 bbs) utg and I called in the BB with AJ. He had 97s and flopped a flush. I had a redraw to a higher flush but missed. With the blinds gone up and antes already kicking in, I couldn't hang around waiting for a monster and a short while later shipped QJs into AJ and didn't suck out.
Mick McCool and James Browning both arrived at my table while I was still there and there was some good banter. Mick's always a pleasure as company and he was passing around Roy Brindley's book which Francis had given him, "Life's a gamble". Someone asked James when he was going to write his: "No it isn't".
There were a good few Irish over and I hung around for a while with Fran and his lovely wife, his Dad, Sean Gregory, Francis McCormack, The Clamper, Chris Dowling (who seemed to be clearing up in the 6 card Omaha) and Fintan Gavin. Unfortunately only Fran made the second day: not a great showing for the Irish contingent. We keep talking about how soft these fields are, so it's about time we started backing it up with some more results.
I played a few hours of cash and ground out a meagre profit to at least partly affray the trip expenses, before returning the next day to play the £250 side event. This time I did get off to a flyer, getting a double up early with aces versus tens where I managed to get all the money in across 4 streets on a board that finished up 73332. I then went card dead for a long while until three tables out, I picked up AK on the button. Utg made a bizarre pot committing overbet raise to 9 bbs and after a bit of thought I decided that probably wasn't a monster but more likely something like ace queen so I shipped. It turned out to be ace jack and I held. Now in a good spot, I worked up to 45K until I lost a big pot which would probably have given me the chiplead, certainly final table chips, with about 16 left. An old school English pro raised in the cutoff, for the umpteenth time a sneeringly arrogant young English internet kid called Nick sometwit or other who was bizarrely alternating between fawningly begging James Browning to get him a deal with William Hill and doing a cartoonish impression of the original poker brat showing as much contempt for his opponents as he could shipped, and I reshipped 99 in the BB. In a hand eerily reminiscent of my exit on the second last table of the main event in Newcastle last year, he flipped over 76s and I'm temporarily in about as good a shape as you can ever be pre. Unfortunately, first two cards on the flop are both 7's, and no miracle 9 comes to save me.
With 14 left and my stack now down to 12 bbs, the cartoon character shipped from the sb, I called with 77 knowing tons of his range would be one overcard (and some would be none). Unfortunately it was worst case scenario of a straight race against KJ, which I managed to stay ahead in until a king on the river. Another case of close but no cigar.
Sunday was given over to the laptop followed by another 100 FO scrapshoot, this one with scalps. Never really got going and eventually went out reshoving ace king sooted for 15 BBs over a king queen which felt compelled to call because he was "priced in". Whatever about increasing standards in the main events, the side events are still atrocious. The English pros obviously know what they are doing, but the average English recreational player really hasn't a clue and would give the Americans a good run for Worst in the World title. Also, anyone ever tempted to complain about side events getting the short end of the organisational stick in Ireland should try one of these GUKPT events sometimes. Shocking stuff: at one point our table was playing at higher blinds than everyone else in the tournament as the dealer incorrectly believed there was no 150/300 level. Having just paid a 400 big blind, I was moved to a new table just in time to pay a 300 big blind, and the guy who had button raised my 400 blind was given a chance for an immediate action replay as he moved into the dealer seat on my new table. For a while, my second last table was five (yes five!) handed while every other table in the place seemed to have 10 players.

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