Break through in the weshhht

In Galway for a short holiday with my better half. No rest for the wicked, of course, and the happy coincidence of the Eglinton's race week festival in full swing means the opportunity for some live poker. Drove down yesterday afternoon and straight in to the Eglinton. Good chat with Dave Curtis who is doing an amazing job promoting the place. As testimony to his success, a proposed interview I was to do with Ian and Nicky of Irish Poker Radio had to be rescheduled as all the tables in the place were needed for the tourney.

Tourney started very well for me, I had the bizarre experience of running well, even won a flip at one point. I have to admit when I first played in the Eglinton I formed the belief that Galway players were the worst in the country and that 99% of them fell into the Bad Hyperlag category but standards have clearly risen dramatically, presumably in response to better players playing there and the better structures Dave has introduced, and my first table was Solid Central (including eventual winner Aisling Ainsworth, Jude's better half).

There was a fair bit of play in the early stages but as you'd expect in any tournament that has to whittle down from 111 to 1 in 1 night, it became a crapshhot of online super turbo proportions as the bubble approached. On the second last table, average stack was 8 bigs, average M three, and there wasn't a lot of skilful post flop play left to be doing. Chris Dowling noted that with myself and Frances McCormack and Sylvester Geoghegan and himself on one table, and Jude Ainsworth and Keith McFadden on the other with about 14 left, one of the best ever final tables was shaping up. I pointed out that we'd all have about 6 big blinds. I found myself chronically short on the bubble with 4.5 big blinds, Vesty shipped utg, and when I saw the first card I looked at in the big blind was an ace, I was pretty sure I was calling. The second one wasn't pretty, a 6 of the same suit, a marginal enough call even this shallow against a lot of players but having seen Vesty ship anything resembling a hand in these spots before including baby suited connectors not against him, so I called quickly. Vesty turned over an ace saying he'd looked at only one card, not exactly good news for me as it meant I was more than likely dominated, but his second card was a 3. Better still, when the board ran out, the 6 still played.

Notwithstanding my earlier comments about rising standards in Galway, the final table included some of the strangest plays I've ever seen. First, the chipleader, the only player with significantly more than average, with almost a quarter of chips, exitted in half an orbit. First hand, Chris Dowling raised, chippie min reraised on the button and called the ship with A4s (Chris had queens). Then he limped KJo utg and got stacked by Chris' set on the flop. Next it was Keith McFadden's turn to shine: playing about 80K, with the blinds at 5k/10k/1k ante, he raised to 42K in late position, then folded to a ship for 59K (17K more), showing 95o.

My FT was relatively uneventful and completely standard: I lost a round of blinds and antes, then got them back shipping KQs on the button (uncalled). Next hand, Chris raises in early position, I ship again with AK, he calls with 87s. Flop misses both of us, but both turn and river are sevens as expected for the man who runs better than anyone else in Ireland :)

A lot of work for less than 200 in profit as Dave Curtis pointed out immediately afterwards, but taking the positives, nice to have a second final table in a week (in ranking events) and my first ever result in Galway. As Nicky Power is always saying, you're really nobody in the poker world till you cash in Galway.

Footnote: When I woke up this morning, the results were already up at the Eglinton's web site. Compared to these Galway lads, the Dublin casinos are in the dark ages in terms of online presence.

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Getting closer but still no Cuban

Headed down on Thursday afternoon with Cat and Rob. We all played the supersat and managed to scoop 0 tickets between us. I lasted the longest but ultimately went out reshipping jacks from the small blind over a late position loose raiser. This time he had the kings. Oops.

Had breakfast the next morning with Paul Smallwood, Keith McFadden, and the two young lads helping Paul who were great craic and well on their way to being great players: Ross and Wayne (one of whom had knocked me out the night before). Keith gave me some grief about my hair, my plan to grind online for the day and anything else that popped into his head. Keith's a guy I love to bits but he's definitely not a morning person. Went for a walk with them along the beach, weather was amazing. Then back to the hotel to grind online, punctuated by a run in the afternoon.

I got a pretty horrible table draw with the Bomber Nolan to my immediate right (he played extremely well as ever and was unlucky: the Bomber's game is possibly the most misunderstood in the country), Dom next to him, Paul Quinn next to him, and Stephen (ghostface_ste) further down. As Ciaran McConville remarked (very) loudly on another table, "What's Dara going to do there? Nothing, that's what". It certainly seemed that way early on as I drifted back to 11K. I was pretty card dead and the few speculative hands I did play like small pairs failed to mine the desired sets. Eventually my patience was rewarded and I picked up aces in mid to late position. I clearly hadn't switched back from Vegas mode as my initial reaction was "Crap, I'm not going to get any action here since this is the first hand I've played in hours". But hey, this is Ireland, no problem! Almost as soon as I've said raise, Paul's reraised behind me on the button and Stephen's shipped. Stephen had 99 (he was short and had to make a move), Paul folded (TT he claims) and the aces held. Shortly after I got moved to a more favourable table and finished day 1 in good shape and mood. A bit more grinding online before sleep, then up the next morning for a walk before breakfast. Met Gary Clarke and we had a good natter about Irish poker.

Day 2 went smoothly and reasonably uneventfully as my stack gradually grew without any major hiccups, and I came back for day 3 already in the money with slightly over average stack. I definitely got the rougher of the two table draws with chip monster Tom Kitt, Jaye Renehan (one of the best players in the country in my opinion and someone who's game is fundamentally misunderstood by most players), Paul Quinn, Marty Smyth and Richie Lawler all in my half of the tourney. I've been trying to cut down on the hand histories in the blog of late for a variety of reasons but just to be different have decided to take a leaf out of Gus Hansen's book and explain my thought processes in four significant hands to give an idea of the way I think at the poker table.

Hand 1: Paul Quinn is short stacked and ships from mid position. I look down at sevens in the BB. I used to hate making these "racing at best" calls to the point that I generally didn't, but recently I've been happier to let the math dictate, and they say that even if it is "racing at best", it's "usually racing", so you have to assess the equity of your small or medium pair against the shipper's range. Even if I ascribe a tight shipping range of top 10% of hands to Paul (and I think he ships a bit looser to be honest), 77 has 43% equity against that range. With the bubble already broken and the bigger pay rises still far off and the fact that I outchip Paul 4 to 1 means that my bubble factor here is low, under 1.1, so I only need about 6 to 4 if I have 43% equity. Once I determine that the pot is laying me better than 6 to 4, I call. Paul flips over AJ and wins the race. He asks how close the decision was: I reply truthfully that I always call there getting 6 to 4 or better.

The practical implication of losing the hand meant that instead of having a 160K stack with a bit of wriggle room (or a 200K stack if the sevens had held), I now have less room to manouvre with 120K. I have to tighten my opening requirements as open folding with this new stack is horrible, and I have some very active loose players behind me. So I batten down the hatches.

Eventually, patience is rewarded again. Tom Kitt (who is using the leeway his stack gives him to open 80% or more of pots) opens for std 3 bigs to 15K, a guy in a Kilkenny shirt also playing loose flats just behind hin, and I wake up with aces just behind him. A little bit of thought is required: do I want a headsup or multiway pot? What's best way way to get as much money in? With a smaller stack and no antes, I'd be happy enough to flat here and maximise my chip equity in a three way pot, but if I can get headsup, the dead money adds up to 30K, and that seems the preferable option. A ship here could scare the children away so I opt for a standard raise to 45K. This has the added bonus that I'm happy enough to take the risk that both Tom and the Kilkenny guy will call as if they do, the pot is bigger than what I have left behind and there's a 60% plus chance of a triple up (which from a pure chip point of view is better than an 80% chance of the double up).

As it happens, Tom asks how much I have left behind and ship. My chips almost beat his into the pot and he tabled fours. After a bit of a sweat (he picked up a flush draw on the turn) the aces hold and I more than double up and for the first time feel like a real force in the tournament. Talking to Tom at the break, he explained his move on the basis that he thought I might fold AK (a mistaken impression: I'm never folding AK once 40% of my chips have already gone in) and that I might be on a total move with air.

My stack gradually grew until I managed to lose half of it in another pot with Tom, last hand before the FT.

Hand 2: I raised to 23K (blinds 5k/10 ante 1k) with 77 in the cutoff. Marty considered his options on the buttons. I could see he was contemplating a ship. He was playing 125K at this point so while he thought about that I mentally did the arithmetic to see if I was priced in to a "have to call". I decided I wasn't so if Marty had shipped, I'd have folded. Marty seemed to be doing the math too and I figured he remembered my earlier comment that I'd always call with a medium pair getting 6 to 4, so he'd know too that if he shipped I'd fold a hand like that. In the end, Marty flatted, and Tom called in the small blind. Flop came 994, Tom checked, and I checked to see what Marty would do. I was very wary of Marty, mindful of his WSOP ME event exit hand. Like a lot of top players, Marty trap calls big pairs when he's shallow to maximise the chance of the doubleup, so I figured there was a very strong possibility he was on a bigger pair. In the event, he checked. The turn came a 6 and Tom made a tiny bet, 23K into 90K. I flatted, again prepared to get away if Marty came over the top. Marty folded (AJ apparently). The river brought an innocuous looking 8 and Tom bet 60K into 150K. At this stage I figure it's either a bluff or a slowplayed monster. Given the way Tom was playing, I figured the bluff had to be at least the 30% of his range that I needed to make the call, so I called. Tom flipped over T8 much to my disgust. In the immediate aftermath I was uncertain whether I'd misplayed the hand: Albert felt a tickler bet on the flop would have done the trick. Against these specific holdings it's obviously better but against the full range of Tom and Marty's hands I wasn't certain. I went through the hand with Rob Taylor over dinner and he felt I'd played it optimally so that took some of the sting of losing half my stack with a marginal holding. One thing I strongly believe is that if you're going to do line checks with players you respect, the player needs not only to be a good player but also at least as importantly to play a similar style of poker. If you ask someone who plays a very different game, you'll get an answer that may be right for their game but not yours. No hand can be taken in isolation: your game has to make holistic sense, so the way you play a draw, or middle pair, or whatever depends heavily on your overall style.

Went to dinner with Rob, Cat, Marty, Rory and Chubs. Marty and myself barely had time to wolf down a starter before it was time to leg it back.

Hand 3: I'd had time to readjust to my new stack size when I pick up kings under the gun and open for a standard raise. Tom flats immediately behind me and everyone folds. Many players would be wary of calling an utg raise from me but Tom wasn't one of them. He was still playing 80%+ of hands so I mentally assigned a fairly wide range to him here. The flop came 755 and I bet 45K into 80K, hoping to make it look like a cbet. Tom flatted. He wasn't folding much on the final table (he'd previously called a ship with fours on a QQ98 board against a pre flop raiser) so I figured he didn't necessarily have a hand here, but it was more than likely he had something like jacks or tens. The turn brought a 9 and I now quickly went through my options. Against a player playing as aggressively as Tom, my default play here would be to check to induce the bluff or the thin value bet, both of which Tom was doing in abundance. However, two things made me choose the alternative course (the ship): firstly I think Tom reads betting patterns well and would have seen my default play a lot in the past and been suspicious of the check. Against good players you need to mix your play and throw them off balance by playing some hands totally differently from the way you normally play them. Secondly my impression was Tom was looking to make hero folds or hero calls (he had remarked the previous day that he'd made lots of both), so I thought I was more likely to get all the chips in this way if he had, say, tens. Tom went into the tank for 12 minutes and eventually called and said "aces". At least that's what I thought he said: it was actually "eights" and I held. Tom told me after he thought my flop bet was a cbet and the ship a semibluff with something like AKs.

This moved me into third in chips with 7 left, but I hadn't much time to celebrate this happy development before my exit hand.

Hand 4: I raise AKs utg to 40K at 8k/15k. The guy from Kilkenny who has raced and sucked his way to second in chips makes it 140K. Back round to me and it doesn't take me too long to announce all in. While it may seem a little rash to ship the loot into one of the two guys that covers you with ace high lying third in chips when the difference between seventh and top three is very significant, I have no regrets. Against a tighter player like Marty I'd definitely have to consider folding, but against a guy raising very light who had called Chubbs' 4 bet ship with ace 7, I figure I'm getting called by hands I'd love a call from (AQ, AJ etc.) and folding some small pairs I don't want to call. Since he had just moved into second in chips, I thought he'd be less willing than he had been to date to race for 75% of his big stack. As it was, he thought for a while, asked if I had kings, then reluctantly called with queens. The dealer turned over the three flop cards so that only the top one was showing, a king, and for one moment I thought I might be actually going to win a flip, but no, after an age, she spread the flop and a Q popped up from behind to send me to the rail. That unfortunately is tournament poker: more often than not, it comes down to a race.

I was obviously a little disappointed in the aftermath but happy with how I'd played. It's always important to take the positives (and learn from the negatives) and move on in this game. It was good to make my first multiday final table of 2009 having gone out on the penultimate tables in both the European Deepstack and the JP Masters. I joke after that I'm specialising in the 3K cashes this year and it'd be nice to push through to a bigger one, but so long as I keep playing well and getting into position, I have to believe I'll eventually win the flip that counts. It was also a privilege to play with Marty Smyth for so long and watch him give a perfect demonstration of the full range of his tournament skills. A great player and a gentleman too.

The tournament itself was top notch: great structure, great atmosphere, great staff. A big well done to all involved.

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Graphtastic

Never really been one for putting up graphs but never say never, here's my Full Tilt STT graph for the last three months.



Pretty happy with it since it's not even my main site (though fast becoming it). I've also picked up a silver star on Sharkscope as I'm now on the leaderboard for 4-6 table STTs with a buyin between $36 and $100.

One live outing this week, and a very short one in the Fitz. Blinded down to 5K last hand before the break looking down at AKs on the button. Early limp for 150, I make it 600, Ronan in the BB (competent regular, pro I think) makes it 1700. At these stacks I think it's a pretty std ship with both fold equity (I might fold out TT-) and call worse equity (AQ might call) and I figure to be racing at worst if called so in they went. He tanked it for a few minutes into the break before making the call with JJ and he held.

Off to Tramore today for the supersat tonight and main event tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

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Barely worth talking about

Lowkey week basically getting back into swing of things. Pottered away online to no great effect: a couple of $1K days, the rest breakevenish, so decent enough, especially as I think I'm running pretty horribly.

Team event in Westbury might be my dullest live tourney ever (not the tourney itself, just my part in it). Card dead, card dead, blind down, set mine a few small pairs without hitting, win a small pot with tens, lose a small one with queens when an ace flops and I give up, blind down, blind down, AQ ship for 10 bigs into AK, all over baby. Discussion afterwards about the ship and whether it was marginal in a team event but on reflection I'm happy enough with it. I'd have instashipped it in a normal tourney (AJ for that matter) but maybe marginal in a team event. Then again, I was gonna have to ship in the next orbit so folding AQ just seems wrong. Cat exited shortly after me and Rob tickled into the top half so by then our team goose was well cooked. It fell to KP to spare our blushes with a flawless performance all the way to the three way chop. Discussion with a couple of lads recently about the most underrated player in Ireland and I nommed KP as someone who hasn't yet got the attention or big score he so richly deserves. Most underrated is sometimes a bit of a euphemism, but actually KP's one of the best players in the country period and probably the most versatile.

Interesting discussion on Boards prompted by Gary Clarke's piece on whether Irish players are cutting it or not. My own personal opinion is that there are 90 or 100players here who could hold their own with anyone, below that there's a few hundred very decent players who would be well above average in any country, and below that you have a few thousand of the worst players you'll find anywhere and they never seem to get better. However, our bad players are at least harder to play against than most other countries, because they tend to be mad aggressive and illogical (and therefore unreadable). I do think that most Irish players focus a little too much on intangibles like "heart", "bottle" and "guts" and not enough on sound strategy, technique, application and math.

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Good to be back

No rest for the wicked....it was straight back into the online grind after Vegas. Online still going great, up over $1K on first day back.

The Fitz were adding 1K to their regular Monday freezeout. Mmmm.....added money. I find added money hard to resist so the 100 runners it would otherwise have attracted became 101.

Tourney started to my usual pattern of late...withering away from starting stack. I got past starting stack when my first few open shoves got respect, then I finally picked up a big hand, KK in the SB. Jim, a Fitz regular, raised utg, the button calls, I ships, Jim overships AQ and I hold. Shortly afterwards, I got my second big hand, the aces this time. Dinjo opens for 7K utg, Jim flats utg+1, round to me in the BB with the big lads. I don't really want a threeway pot and with a min raise being more than half my stack I figure it's either all in or all in. Dinjo instaoverships and Jim tanks it. Jim hates to fold but eventually found a fold with KQ. Dinjo had AQ and the aces held.

Also had the earlier pleasure of knocking The General Out. First I got lucky when he called my JTs shove with QJ and I sucked out (running good a week too late). Then he shipped J8o and I made a std priced in in the blinds call with 33 and held. He took it as well as ever.

Final table featured some familiar faces: Jim, Ken (Tiltmeup from Boards), Kevin Fitz, and Sean Gregory. I was flying until I called a shorty CO ship in the SB with my nemesis hand of late, A9s. I figured it was definitely ahead of his shipping range in that spot, but as it turned out was well behind his specific holding, my old nemesis hand, KK. In the battle of my exit hand from this year's WSOP Main event versus last year's, last year's held. Sean Gregory went out in 5th, and I was shortest of the 4 left. Ken suggested we all take third place (€1300) and flip on for the remaining €700, and the deal was done. I was crippled down to 1 BB after shipping 44 utg into 99 in the BB. I won the next hand to stay alive, then next UTG I pick up the big lads again and shippety ship. To my horror, getting about 7/2 on the call, the big blind seriously considers folding. Eventually he calls, I hold, and I'm back in the game. He exited shortly afterwards, and after we agreed to chop the remainder equally three ways. Fun tournament and good to be back in the swing of things so soon after Vegas.

Next up: the Westbury team event on Sunday where I'll be joined by Rob Taylor, Cat O'Neill and Lazarus himself, KP. Also looking forward to Waterford, my favourite place for poker.

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Las week in Las Vegas

Followed pretty much the same pattern as that which went before - online profits balancing out live losses.

Monday: Played the Stars 6 man STT thing. Actually 5 man as 1 guy didn't show. Since the win included entry to an $800K freeroll expected to have only 100 qualifiers, it was well worth taking seriously, which I did. Unfortunately, Stars understandably didn't want them to last very long, so it played out like an online turbo. As might be expected, the standard was high, with everyone playing more or less perfectly optimal STT poker: supertight till the blinds were significant, then shove or fold. I played one hand in the first portion and unfortunately lost just over one quarter of my stack with a baby pair that flopped an open ender. Another quarter went in blinds before I shipped AT from the SB and the BB called with J4. By the river I was drawing to a gutter which didn't arrive.

Tuesday: Day 2A of the main event was a short one for me. First hand I look down at A9s and ship it into JJ in the BB. He flops a house and that's it for me this year. I walked over to Caesars and jumped into Day 1B of their main event. Tough enough table with some Internet hotshots to my left. I gradually accumulated chips and then one nice hand that I'd been setting up. An utg raise, a call, and I look down at AKs in mid position and decided to go for a squeeze inducer, figuring if I just flatted, one of the Internet guys would be able to resist all the seemingly dead money in the middle. Even if they just flatted behind, AKs plays well multiway and would be well disguised. As it happened, internet kids A and B flatted with their presumably atc, and C went for the squeeze with AJ only to find to his horror that I was waiting to snap reshove my AK.

Wednesday: Went back for day 2 with a very healthy stack of just over 100K. First hand I play, I raise to 8K with AA. An English maniac ships for 85K from the SB, with Q8s, flops a gutter, rivers a straight, ouch. Crippled down to 15K, I recover back to 50K after a loose utg limp, utg+1 raises, and I ponder my options with 88. Given the average Americans penchant for raising any pair, I figure 88 plays better against an early position raise than it would back home, and with only 5 bigs I may not get a better spot, so into the middle sails my remaining 15K. The raiser calls with 66 and I hold.

With about 55K, I call a shorty shove for 25K with AQ on the button. He has 23 and flops trips. It's not that I run bad: merely that my opponents run well. Ship back up to 60K only to lose to another shorty ship, this time AK < A4. My exit saw me check shipping AQ on a Q73 rainbow flop and getting two callers, one with TT, the other with AJs. Pretty good shape and I even hit trips on the river only for it to complete a runner runner flush for the AJs. Funniest moment of the trip: as the beats piled up in quick succession, I was reduced to laughing (well, it was that or crying), which prompted a conversation between my English nemesis and my Canadian neighbour about what a good sport I was and how Americans in particular could take lessons from me on how to take beats. 5 minutes later, the Canadian gets it in with AQ v KJ and a K on the river does for him. Cue a chip-spraying pound to the table, a kick of the chair, a jumping up and down in rage "How can you call with KJ" hissy fit before security hauls the erstwhile champion of Sportsmanlike Conduct kicking and screaming from the poker room.

That was it for me and Vegas this year. I railed some of the boys who were still in. A big well done to Nicky Power in particular who produced a textbook performance of how to grind out a result.

Left Vegas with a strange feeling of disillusionment with live poker. I actually played a lot less of it than last year. I think last year I played 23 live tourneys in 14 days. This year I stayed 10 days longer but played 15 tourneys less. An MTT result would have been nice, but the small profit garnered from live cash, coupled with the bigger ones from live STTs and online meant it wasn't a total disaster.

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Frustrating day

Barely got through day 1c alive. Terrible table draw that included two ME final tableists, 5 internet hotshots comparing how many millions they'd made online, and an EPT final tableist. To make matters worse, the tight guy were all to my right and the loose guys to my left. There was only one obvious donkey at the table and I think early on the loose players targeted me as the only other unknown.

Card death for the entire day apart from KK once (more on that later) didn't help either.

On the positive side, I made maybe the best ever fold and the best ever call in one day and overall played about as well as I can. There were a few decisions I made that if I'd gone the other way I'd already be out so at least I've given myself every possible chance.

Most of the day was dull stuff: either folding, or raising in position when it was folded round to me, missing the flop, cbetting, and either taking the pot or having to fold. Really only three big hands.

First, the fold. Really tight guy who had played only two hands in first three hours not much more min raised to 525 utg. I make it 1600 utg. After some Hollywood, he reraised to 5100. After a bit of a think and a soul read on how comfortable he looked underneath the acting, I decided his range was just three hands: red aces, black aces, or one of each, and for the first and probably only time in my life I folded the kings. He showed one of each in disgust. Ironic I found this fold as I've been telling people recently I think it's a theoretical mistakes to fold kings and didn't think I ever would. But poker is situational and actually this was a pretty easy fold once I'd thought it through.

Second, where it all went wrong. Despite my card death, I finally managed to get above starting stack with 34K, mainly because I had a brilliant table image. Playing so few hands because of card death and the weird table dynamic with everyone trying to isolate the one donkey at the table meant that when I did play, I didn't need a hand other than the left raising/reraising one. I purposely let the small pots go early so I'd have a nittish weak tight image so when I did put in a big bet later in the big pots it got respect. Last hand before second break, I raise AK in MP to 600. One of the "I can outplay you after the flop" Internet LAGs flatted behind. The table donkey with a huge stack (fed to him by the Internet guys who played him so badly: they kept trying sophisticated bluffs despite the fact he couldn't fold bottom pair) made it 1800 in the BB. His range for raises/reraises appeared to be any pair, any ace, any two pictures. I elected to call as did the Dutch kid. Flop came J42 all hearts. I had the ace of hearts. Donkey led 5100 into 5500. Against a better player with fold equity I'd happily get it in knowing it's probably a flip if I get called, but knowing I had zero fold equity against this guy so I need to hit to win (but will get paid off if I do), and with the tantalising prospect of winning a monster pot if the Dutch guy has a high heart and stays in, I just flatted. The Dutch kid folded and the river was a non heart 5, giving me a few more outs. The donkey now made a horrible sized bet: 5K into 16K. Getting 4 to 1 I can't fold, and I can't ship either as I still have no fold equity. River is a 2, he checks, I briefly consider the house-representing ship but know I'm getting a reluctant call even from TT so I let it go. He has QQ with no heart. That hand essentially defined my day 1: had I hit I'd have been on 65K and set up. Had I shipped I'd be out.

Third hand, the hero call. Now playing 17K, I raise to 1050 utg with TT. The donkey flats on the button. Flop is a truly horrible KQJ so I check hoping for a free card and a 9 or an ace. He checks behind, turn is a 3, second diamond. Check check. River 2 of diamonds. I check and he now overbets the pot. Std fold obviously but in poker it's a mistake to play too standardly. He splashed the chips in which seemed to indicate weakness in the past. I couldn't put him on a hand that made any sense other than two low diamonds, but even that seemed unlikely because he seemed to bet his draws and would probably have bet the turn. The betting sequence of check to the river and then bet big looks either like a slowplayed monster or a bluff. I just couldn't find a monster he wouldn't reraise preflop: a set was unlikely, as were two pairs and AT, so after a long hard think I made the call. He had 8 high and there was general bemusement at the table when I turned over my hand. Internet kid beside me called over his entourage to tell them "Dude made sickest call ever with fourth pair. Wow".

After that it was revenge of the donk (who finished with 100k). I reraised him from the blinds with AKs, cbet a t high uncoordinated rainbow flop and folded to a ship. That left me short and only a number of uncalled ships late in the day kept me alive. I finished the day with 5475, which is just under 11 bigs when we go back on Wednesday.

Today I play the free Stars STT thing and maybe a bit online.

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Set

Was feeling a bit burned out live so I took most of the week off and just grinded online. Online continues to go well: up almost $5k since I got here, which more or less balances out my live losses.

Thursday: gave megastack in Caesars a final try. Never got going and fizzled out shortly before dinner break. Std exit, lost race. It's fair to say live hasn't gone exactly to plan but on the posirive side I'm happy with how I'm playing and it's always all about the main event in any case.

Friday: played some more online, then walked over to the Rio to rail the first batch of Irish in action. They all did us proud: no reported casualties. Went for dinner with Dagunman and then walked over to the Palms to pick up my PokerStars gear. Came back and ate again (gluttonous swine that I am) with Albert, Paul, Reese, Andy and Pete. Then some drinks at the bar where a fair Irish crowd had gatheredv including most of the lads in action from day one. Highlight of the night was when the legend that is Padraig Parkinson came over to shake my hand and Paul Leckey jokingly asked him why he was shaking my hand and not his and Padraig said "Because I respect him". Good fun with big Paul who is trying to set up a prop bet twith Devilfish hat would involve me running 40 miles in 5 and a half hours in the desert heat.

Left early enough as the plan was to go into lockdown mode and prepare mentally for my day one tomorrow. So I'm staying in all day today, and pretty much just chilling apart from some online.

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