You know you're running bad when...

Wednesday: Down in Galway for Jaye's celebration party/tourney in the Eglinton. Great atmosphere in the place where they had a presentation for Jaye. Dave Curtis (Legend, and best card room manager in the world) has succeeded in creating something very special down there as he swans around the place looking presidential, or like a benevolent mafioso making everyone offers they don't want to refuse.

Iain was there to record another Irish Poker Radio. Iain deserves an award himself for his contribution to Irish poker this year between the radio show and the rankings.

Tournament itself was very meh for me: hovered around starting stack until I got it in blind on blind with a pair and a flush draw versus an open ended straight draw. You know you're running bad when you expect to lose those 70/30s and sure enough a non flush completing straight card hit the turn and that was that.

Played a bit of live cash to no great effect for an hour before a two table 250 sit n go kicked off. At first it looked like a one table effort but as soon as they realised they needed a second table and volunteers for it, myself and Rob were out of the traps like a couple of Derby contending greyhounds, much to the a or be musement of Fintan Gavin who spent most of the rest of the night abusing us for cowardice. Given that the table we were fleeing from featured not only Fintan himself but also the other two points in the Claregalway triad (Jude Ainsworth and Derek Murray), cowardice was definitely the most plus Ev option at that point. Not that the new table was much easier including as it did Jaye and Matt Dobbins.

Anyway, it played out like a turbo online, Rob went out in 7th shipping A7, while I ended up bubbling with the same hand, priced in to calling and finding myself up against KK. Stayed in the Salthill hotel where we had breakfast with the Legend the following morning where he regaled us with some great stories

Thursday: Fitz EOM. Got off to a good start despite an early Chiefing (76o, gutshot, enough said) I got up to about 17K when average was still around 10k. Then at 200/400 Sean Prendiville raised an early limper to 1300 and I looked down at KK just behind. It's been a while since I played with Sean but one very exploitable tendency that sticks in my mind is he tends to go mental the second or third time you three bet him. Against a more cagey disciplined LAG like, say, John O'Shea or Chris Dowling, I'd often flat in this spot to disguise a strong made hand, but having already come over the top of a button raise from Sean I decided this was a good spot to reraise with a view to inducing a spastic ship. Sure enough, when it gets back round to him he instaships and my chips beat his into the pot. He asks nervously if I have a pair and turns over 7's. You know you're running bad when you see an 80/20 and immediately expect to lose it, and sure enough, a 7 hit the flop to end my night. Well done to Rob who ended up chopping it four ways. Rob's in tremendous form at the moment and is probably playing the best I've ever seen him play. Not that he ever plays badly, but when you're in form you tend to get all the marginal decisions right and Rob is certainly doing that right now. There was one very interesting hand between himself and the impressive Jason Tompkins which was great poker on both sides.

Friday: Carlow. Didn't play all that well. It's sometimes hard to keep the head when running bad and in particular to get the marginal decisions correct. I was left short after I played a hand sub optimally against Bops, betting only when I went behind to a flush on the turn and then making a crying call on the river with top pair when deep down I was pretty sure I wasn't good. Exit standard enough: shipped QJ on the button for 8 bigs and got called by the Carlow version of the Chief with 63o, which won the "race". Again, I never expected to win it.

Been grinding away online to no great effect: breakeven to slightly profitable week so far. After a poor connection interrupted October, I need a good November to get things back on keel.

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Always one doubleup away from true happiness

Met a certain name who is on the cover of the latest Card Player on Friday afternoon for a run around the golf course in Citywest. We have a sort of informal arrangement to swap running advice/coaching for PLO/HiLo lessons. Given yer man is one of the best players around in those two, I think it's a pretty sweet deal for me. It was certainly a privilege to watch him at work, plus he's good at communicating his thoughts.

As we were running around, we saw a number of poker players out golfing. Including Jude Ainsworth who hadn't lasted long in his LNSOP heat (he told me late he basically lost three standard sounding hands and that was that: such is the nature of these crapshoo....er, I mean, fast structures).

There was a good buzz around the place with the supersat and the LNSOP final being filmed. Saw the finalists "arrive" in a limo and have to say I felt a pang thinking what might have been. Mick McCloskey was staying with us for the weekend and didn't want to hang around, so we went to Luke's place in Tallaght. Luke was as welcoming as ever and I recognised a lot of players from when I started going to the Fitz (and later Cool Hand Luke's). Played the 50 euro freezeout there, ultimately bubbling the final table when I overshipped JJ over a late position raiser. I almost folded because it was Rita (tightest player I know). I should have: she had the aces.

Standardwise it was a real throwback to when I started going to the Fitz. A wide array of funny hands but I'll pick one. Playing 9K, slightly down on starting stack, there's an UTG raise to 300 (3 bigs) and two calls before it gets to me in the HJ. I look down at QQ and go for a very non standard line by flatting. Essentially this is a squeeze inducer as there were three loose cannons behind any one of whom was likely to pull the trigger. It's not a disaster if nobody does as if I hit a set in a multiway pot it will be a really well disguised one that could win a big pot, while if an ace (or king) flops I can get away cheap. As it happens, the button bumps it up to 1500, the SB calls, as does the BB, the intial raiser, and the last caller before me. Set mining for nearly 20% of my stack is not an attractive proposition so I now ship. The button folds, but I get called by the SB (99) and the last caller before me (87s, a value call as he was short).

Saturday I went to Citywest early to get the Paddy Power Last Longest gear and also I'd agreed to guest co-present the Irish Poker Radio show with Ian Cheyne in Nicky O'Donnell's absence. We interviewed Mick "The Cap" McCloskey, Jaye Renehan and Becks (or is it Posh?), Cat O'Neill. They all gave good interview.

I didn't last very long in the main event, drifting back to about 12K, then doubling down with top set against the Bomber Nolan's runner runner flush, and exitting almost immediately after with QQ on a J high board against Michael Trimby's KK. I wasn't at all happy with how I played. I don't think I played any onehand badly, certainly there were no gross blunders, but I did get most of the marginal decisions wrong and I put myself in too many marginal spots in the first place.

Citywest was starting to melt my head a bit at this stage so on Sunday I headed to Virginia for the Cavan Open instead. Mick runs a great show there and it was a real fun tournament and a sharp contrast to the more corporate affair in CityWest. The standard in Cavan seems to have improved immensely: certainly there were no outright weak spots at the table. Worked steadily up to 30K before losing an annoying hand with KK. I raise utg, the BB decided to defend (with A8o) as it happened, and hit not one but two aces. Defending against tight early position raisers with raggy aces is not a winning play in the long run, but it did win him a decent sized pot (most of which he spewed off a few hands later calling a reraise for 30% of the effective stack with pocket 2's) on this occasion. That knocked me back to starting stack (20K), where I tread water thanks to uncalled ships as the blinds rose steadily until eventually I shipped AK into KK. No out suckage.

Monday was back to Citywest for the Round of Each. I played really badly. I think I managed to get every single marginal decision wrong. Some decent banter at the table though: hardly surprising given the presence of Parky and Paul Marrow. Paul asked me at one point if I was still running, and the table talk turned to my ultra running exploits. Trying to put it in layman's terms when asked how far I ran, I said I once ran the distance from Dublin to Galway in one day. Parky remarked drily that the train is getting very expensive.

My exit was pretty standard, given who was involved. I'd donked myself down to 2500 when Paul Marrow raises to 400 in late position. I have KQ in the BB, miles ahead of his range, so I ship it in. He calls with 22 and holds. I know he's not folding much (any?) of his range but I also think he calls the ship with worse kings (and queens) so from my perspective it's a standard ship in that spot.

Since then I've put in two 12 hour online sessions that went reasonably well. Heading to Galway tomorrow for their party for Jaye and Cat, then Thursday is Fitz EOM, Friday Carlow, and Saturday Newbridge where Gerry has promised a special Halloween costume. So lots of live and hopefully I can recover my form which seemed to dip at the weekend. Wally's now passed me out at the top of the Irish Poker Rankings after a recent run of side event min cashes: can't be letting that scamp get too far ahead.

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Stop and go

Internet connection is still in bits, so I'm still reduced to playing limit cash (and only before about 4 PM when my connection goes into meltdown), ugh. It's not really possible to beat limit by very much during the daytime hours when by and large it's mostly nitty regs, so essentially only the rakeback makes it worthwile. Barely.

Hence, last night I scooted off to play live, even though I was feeling a bit burned out after the weekend on that front. Came down to a straight choice between the 110 game in Malahide and the Winter Festival sat in the SE. In the end plumped for Malahide for a number of reasons. The SE didn't come back with an answer to my query as to whether there was a cash alternative for those of us already with tickets in time, and from Boards it looked like a high proportion of the quality players in Dublin were heading to the SE. Structures are better in Malahide too. Unfortunately, another good reason to visit Malahide is no more: the ever lovely and vivacious Tanya has moved on. Best of luck to her in her new job.

Anyway, the game got thirty runners, I flipped well until my exit (not strictly a flip: I didn't have enough to get a button raise to fold to a preflop ship so decided to stop and go instead with KQs. The flop J22 looked good but unfortunately he had the jack. Still, third for 500 represented a reasonable return/night's work.

Put up a thread on Boards asking other full timers for recommendations on most reliable ISP and the thread was immediately yoinked into the Bad Beat thread to my mild annoyance. I didn't really see how it was more off topic than the Monty Hall problem or a few other threads allowed an independent life, but I suppose it's their playground their rules, and human nature being what it is once you have moderators they have to something to occupy their time/justify their existence. Was told to move it to the Broadband forum if I wanted but as one friend immediately pointed out, they'd just be on about speeds and bandwidth and the like, whereas as a poker player what you really want from your connection is for it to not dip ever ever. Which was exactly my reason for asking poker players rather than random nerds.

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2 bubbles and a min cash

Purely results based thinking: played a lot of very good poker for very little profit this weekend (net profit about 200 Euro). Overall it was yet another weekend of frustrating nearlies the sort I've been specialising in of late. No point moaning though: the nature of tournament poker is that the nearlies will always outnumber the big scores in the long run, and it's all about keeping the head and staying in the game between the big scores.

Friday: IPO main event day 1. Tough table draw with at least four very good players. Very happy with how I played, moved fairly comfortably from 10K to 70K until a few setbacks at the hands of Paul Smallwood knocked me back to 35K. Recovered to 90K at the end of the day. A much bigger proportion of my chips came from pots that never got to showdown, something I was very happy with as it's something I've been trying to work more into my game. My traditional approach to tournaments has adhered fairly closely to the so called double up theory, looking to get all or as many of my chips in at possible where I'm as strong a favourite as possible (early on, ideally 80/20s, late on when patience is less of a virtue, 55/45s quite acceptable). Recently I've started thinking that showdowns are risky invitations to getting sucked out on and a better approach to stack building if possible is one that cuts them out.

Saturday: Played the side event bingo. No point complaining about the structure, it is what it is, something that has to whittle 200 starters down to a single winner in a single night. Bingoed with the best of them playing stack appropriately at all times before going out losing a 50/50 when a four big blind just below average stack push got called. Otherwise, the highlight was when one of those obnoxious bores that we Irish specialise in, you know, the kind who believe themselves to be phenomenal wits and "great characters all the same" arrived at the table determined to show off his razor wit and slow the game down to a snail's pace. After initially ignoring his attempts to engage in "banter" with me over the suit (always a source of raw material to these "wits") but faced with his insistence in perseverance, I decided to pull a McFadden and said to him "Je parle pas anglais", much to the amusement of the other Irish at the table who know I was not really a Frenchy. The other highlight was Derek Murray and Christy Morkan staggering in to take the piss out of j.thaddeus for playing a side event, with Derek Murray exhorting him to "grind it out now Jude, don't do anything stupid".

Sunday: Back for day 2, roared up to 300K but it all went wrong in one big hand. With the blinds 8k/15k/1k, having drifted back to 240, I opened QQ utg for my standard 38K raise. Round to the BB who decided to defend. This guy had been on my starting table on day 1 and was playing ubertight. Range seemed to be only big pairs and ace king when he had no chips in the pot. However, I'd noticed when he had chips in (from the blinds), he tended to defend marginal enough holdings like QT. From talking to him he told me he was a very occasiona player who played mainly in his local and had only ventured into a casino he couldn't name (from the description, it sounded like The Jackpot) once or twice, so it's fair to say my read of him was fairly standard ABC, and very tight. It's possible he had change gears in the mean time but he did still seem to be playing very tight.

Anyway, flop comes T82 with a flush draw which looks pretty good to a pair of queens so I fired in a standard cbet of 40K when he checked, which he called with apparent reluctance, feigned or otherwise. It looked more feigned to me so alarm bells went off and when a blank 6 hit the turn I decided to check behind partly for pot control and partly on the basis that I wasn't getting called by many worse hands or folding out any better ones, but if I held my fire I might get a small value bet on the river from a lower pair (99 or whatever). River is a ten, he checks quickly, I fire in a 40K value bet and to my horror after a bit of Hollywood get reraised to 150K. In my experience against this type of opponent. that's a bluff 0% of the time, so much as I hate folding an overpair having put half my stack in already, I eventually got there.

That left me with 8.4 big blinds which became 6 almost immediately when the blinds went up, 4.5 when the blinds went through, meaning the next half decent hand was getting shipped. That hand was pocket 2's, called by AJ, and a J high flop sent me packing. Obviously disappointed but the nature of a tourney like this is you have to run well at the death and once again I failed on that score. I've noted in past blogs how much Irish people suck as consolers: thankfully Poles are much better my immediate company after bust out was the always lovely Kasia who said all the right thing to sooth my aching soul. Every tournament organiser in the country should hire this woman.

Jumped straight and late into the PLO side event, had a rollercoaster ride to a good stack until my QQxx got done by QQxx blind on blind. I hung around for as long as I could on the short stack before finally biting the bullet on the bubble, my AQT9 double suited no match for JJ43. It's fair to say I'm something of a PLO tourney novice, I wasn't always sure how to play stack appropriately, but on the plus side I've now played two live PLO tourneys and built stacks and gone deep in both (albeit both bubbles). Amusing moment of the day: Neil Channing taking the plaudits and admiration of all in his stride until a Scottish player (The Mole) pointed out that he was his most despised player. After asking rather bemusedly why he despised him, The Mole helpfully elaborated: "Because you're a cock".

Great weekend all round, hats off to all the Boyle poker team. The new gay pin up icon of Irish poker, John O'Shea, fresh from his vanity piece on the cover of Vanity Fair, er, I mean Card Player (does anyone else think that pout on the cover is pure Zoolander? Blue Steel I think it's called), even sailed in at the end tanned from Marrakech to sneer at the little people as only he can. Rob (Taylor) was running around like a frenzied ferret as his better half did the business (well done Cat, another great performance), Nicky Power was around the place spreading bonhomie, Noel Magner was off doing a Heads Up for Boyle that should be a classic, and Jay Renihan was final tabling yet again. Jay deserves recognition as the most consistent live tournament player in Ireland right now. I wasn't feeling particularly sociable after my second bubble in as many days and the fact that John seemed to have me pinned as the designated target for his "banter" didn't encourage me to stick around to see if my mood lifted.

But great weekend over all, and now I'll just have to win the Winter Festival instead.

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Looking in the mirror

I have to admit I watched the broadcast of my Late Night Stars of Poker heat with a mixture of trepidation nd curiosity. The trepidation was down to the fact that having been on TV before (though not for poker) I fully understand that the power of editting can make a man look like a monk or a monkey. While I couldn't remember any glaring errors, I did realise that a few of the marginal decisions could easily be spun one way or the other in the commentary. Luckily, I think both the editor and the commentary were by and large kind.

The curiosity arose from the chance to see myself for the first time ever at a poker table as I appear to others. I think one of my strengths as a poker player from the start has having an acute sense of my table image at any particular point or with a specific opponent, but of course it's always been a fairly macro "He thinks I'm a rock who only plays big cards" or "He saw me shove Q4o down in Waterford with this kind of stack" view and I've never had the chance to stare myself down and see what others can see. It was something of a relief to be able to confirm that there are no obvious tells. The one surprise to me was how obvious it was that I watch my opponents carefully when I'm in a hand. I mean, I obviously know that I do this, it's a conscious decision, but I was perhaps not aware of how obvious it would be to other observant players at the table. One of the advantages of sunglasses is you can stare at people more discreetly, so maybe I should start wearing them again.

In other news, my connection is in bits at the moment, rendering online play -Ev. Eircom are sending out a technician: a neighbour had a look and could see the problem but not the solution.

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O'Shea and his bloody man flu

Not much to report from Killarney. Got off to a decent start in the first side event but it went pear-shaped pretty fast. I was down to about 6K when I got moved to a sick table with Nicky Power, Derek Murray, Trevor Dinneen and zuroph and managed to lose half my stack with KK when I raised it utg and half the table called. Flop came ace high and it gets checked around. Another ace on the turn and I made a non-believers call on the river. I couldn't see how an ace wouldn't bet earlier. I was right that he didn't have the ace but was behind to a runner runner flush. Dodgy enough call really, maybe still a little tilted from the RTE heat. Exitted a short while later pushing into JJ.

Hotel (the Brehon) was great and I'm delighted to report that Mick McCloskey has his snoring problems well under control. Potted a little online to little effect: I ended up a whopping $10.

Played Sunday's side event, and played much better. Ended up cashing with an above average stack, but then went card dead and eventually overshipped JJ and got looked up by AA. J high flop, A on turn, and to make matters worse I knew I was now drawing dead as Annette O'Carroll had announced she folded a jack. So 21st for 300 euros.

Great atmosphere down there, kudos to all involved. Was asked at one point on the last day who I thought would win. As I struggled to come up with a name, someone said Tom Kitt would be almost impossible to stop with his commanding chip lead. Tom was indeed playing a stormer but I reminded that Tom had a similar stack in Tramore. A few minutes later, my words proved prescient as Tom got in most of his stack with a flush draw and didn't suck out. To my mind, Tom's the most improved player in Ireland this year even if he's still a work in progress. What a completed work he has the potential to be though: he could be one of those players that just crushes fields periodically if he can learn when to take the foot off the gas. Tom's one of the best characters and nicest people on the scene and I'm sure he'll come through this latest disappointment a better player for it.

Well done to all who cashed, especially Emmet Gough, one of the many very fine players to have come through JP's ranks. Goughy's a great character and an excellent player. I remember my brother asked me who was the best player left when we were down to 6 or 7 in the Irish Masters last year and I said it was Goughy.

Trying to put in more hours online at the moment to build my bankroll back to where I can comfortably play the bigger online games. Since the bank share collapse, I've more or less been treading water, with whatever I make online having to be taken offline to pay the life rake. Obviously I'm not the only one in this boat: I just won a $50 STT on Ipoker that included at least 5 pros, including Tim Blake and Rory Liffey (who I beat headsup). Apart from that, the highlights included having a big stack in Tuesday's $45K on Ipoker near the bubble but still bubbling (three 70/30 reverses in quick succession) and having satted in to two ECOOPs (1 snd 7). Will try to sat in to some more ECOOPs.

Recorded a phone interview with Ian Cheyne from Irish Poker Radio yesterday which will be used at some point I think. Part of it is being used as intro to the IPO show. I'm currently dying with a cold, which is not doing much for my mood, particularly since I can't run. Convinced I caught it from John O'Shea in CityWest. The bounder.

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Sucker punched

The short version: finished second in my Late Night Stars of Poker heat, losing headsup to Jim Rock. Effectively it came down to a 70/30 all in pre, my ATs losing to his K8o which he limp called a shove with. Flop missed us both but gave me the nut flush draw meaning he lost a couple of outs and I moved to almost 90%, but he managed to hit not one but two of them. If he'd hit that good when he was a boxer he'd have been world champ.

Some very bizarre hands along the way: one hand he called big bets on the flop and turn for a gutshot, then checked behind when he hit the nuts on the river. In another, he checked the second nuts, a K high flush, telling us afterwards he didn't realise he had a flush as he only had one spade in his hand. In fairness, he admitted to us to having played the game for the first time the previous Sunday and not really knowing the hand rankings so he did very well in the circumstances.

Was obviously disappointed to lose in the end, and also disappointed for Big Mick, a quality player and guy and the one I felt was by far the biggest threat. I was hoping he'd win if I didn't tbh, and when we were three handed with roughly equal stacks I thought it was long odds on one of us would win, but it wasn't to be.

Will be interesting to see what hands make the cut and how they're presented. I'll write a longer report on the game itself and surrounding hoopla after the show airs and I've had time to digest what was actually shown and commented on.

Also, Irish people make the world's worst consolers. I hadn't even exitted the room before John O'Shea tells me "At least you played every hand. Only difference between you and Rock is he is in the final" and barely made it down the stairs when Parkinson offers the opinion that it's better for RTE and poker that Rock won. Probably true but not really what you want to hear while you're still processing a 6K in equity bad beat.

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Calling with the worst calling hand

Relatively low key week so far. Haven't put in much volume online this week as I want to be relatively fresh for tomorrow's Late Night Stars of Poker heat. Ian and Mags came on Monday to film my "before" interview, joining me on one of my runs in the Phoenix Park.

The pros in my heat at Big Mick G and Scott Gray. Big Mick is more or less the stt king and Scott is of course a WSOP main event final tabeist. I've played with both on a few occasions. I think Big Mick has knocked me out of at least 3 tournaments either on the final table or the penultimate one, so I'm obviously hoping for a reversal of fortune. The celebs are boxer Jim Rock and rugby player Frankie Sheehan: I'm told both can play.

Most of my online efforts this week has been aimed at 6 max STTs in preparation for Friday. I've done very well in them so that's a confidence boost.

I also managed to win the last of the Bruce online IPR series. This also turned out to be a 6 seater! Albeit a much tougher one than normal, with Wally, Chris Dowling, Nicky O'D and Ian Cheyne in attendance. In the event, I got headsup with the only player I didn't know. Because of the rather bizarre payout structure (half the field paid), I couldn't actually catch Wally even if I won and he didn't cash (which happened) so from the point of view of the series the most important thing was for me to outlast Nicky O'D. Wasn't looking good early on as he aggroed his way to a giant stack and I rocked along more sedately but the balance shifted later when I won a number of all ins with dominating hands.

A couple of interesting hands along the way: one big one with AK v Chris' JJ early on, and then another when we were three handed. I'd been raising Nicky's blind a lot as I saw him as the big danger and didn't want to give him an easy ride to headsup where anything could happen. Blinds 200/400, I made it 1K with 22 on the button and he shoved for 5K. Getting just over 6 to 4 makes it a call because:
(1) I think Nicky's range is very wide given I've been button raising so frequently: not just any pair but almost any ace, two cards over 10, suited cons and a few random air bluffs. Against that range 22 has around 42% equity
(2) I had 4 times his stack so my bubble factor was very low (and his very high)
(3) It's a chance to knock out a very dangerous opponent, a more active approach that simply surrendering over 6K in chips without a fight
(4) If I win, I'm headsup with a massive lead
(5) If I lose, I still have the chiplead

Normally I call getting 6 to 4 in those spots but because of factors 3 to 5, I would probably have called even lighter (5 to 4ish).

As it happens, Nicky had a hand I was happy to see, KTo, and the 2's held.

The headsup swayed a bit, my opponent was playing very tightly so the pattern was he'd blind down, then catch a hand and double up, blind down again, double up again and so on until I won an all in eventually.

Anyhoosers, looking forward to tomorrow, and Killarney this weekend.

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