Fish and ships

Ah yes, that old familiar "Why do I bother with live poker" feeling is back after a few days in the Fitz.

Main event: one of those frustrating tourneys where you play very well for over a day only to lose a race near the bubble. It fell to James "Hawkeye" McManus to take me out by the roots. I raised to 4K at 800/1500 with AKs, he made it 11K on the button, I shipped for over 40K and after some thught he announced "I'm pretty sure we're racing" and called with 7s. My Las Vegas stripper of a hand (looks great, but ultimately gets you nothing but trouble) was no match for his sturdy pocket pair.

Jumped straight into the PLO, played well again but ultimately no avail. My exit (in 7th) was AA87 doublesuited, no match for Paul Fish (for once actually sitting at a final table rather than lurking around in the background waiting to tap the winner) with his QJT2 rainbow, all in pre.

Ah well, back on the horse I guess.

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Who's the donkey with the nines?

Well, it had to end some time, and the recent online heater has subsided. Back to a breakeven (before rakeback) week so far online. Getting repeatedly raped on the bubble or headsup in stts which makes all the difference between big winning weeks and the rest. At last I'm not actually losing. Roll on the next heater.

Got chatting to a local on Stars one night and agreed to give him a lesson on online play the following day. Turns out to be Mickey Nolan (JP Masters champion). I think I probably learned more than he did as he gave the full run down on his unorthodox theories on poker.

Thursday: played Fitz EOM, never really got going, exit was a bog standard reship with queens. Found myself up against nines and heading out the door on a 9 high flop. Recorded an IPR show with Iain: very good Rory Brown interview.

Friday: scalps game. Got going for once, was up to 45K before the inevitable donkeying. A player who had just been moved to the table that looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't remember having played with before opened for 4200 in mid position. I made it 14K just behind, back round to him who asked how much I had behind before he shipped for 26K. I obviously called and he turns over 99, standard enough for the Fitz where any pair is a monster, although the better players in there know I'm not showing up with twos (Smurph had folded 88 earlier when I had JJ in a similar spot). He's lucky that it's one of those occasions where he's racing rather than looking at an overpair (I had AK, which despite hitting two pair was no good as he setted up). Afterwards he made the rather bizarre statement that he wouldn't have pushed if he had realised it was a race but he thought he had the overpair. I assured him quite truthfully that he never has in that spot against me, that it's a race at best scenario, which he seemed dubious about but Rob and Smurph who were both at the table backed me up on that point. Rob pointed out rather truthfully too that it's a pretty retarded ship with no fold equity.

Anyway, that left me with a reshipping stack and I subsequently reshipped AQ over a raise from Rob. Marginal enough but I thought I was ahead often enough for it to be ok, which I was on this occasion. Rob folded his AJ but unfortunately Wally woke up with kings in the big blind.

As I was walking down the stairs with Smurph and Martin, I asked her who the donkey with the 9s was. I assumed it was some Fitz regular, I don't go there often enough these days to know the regulars as well as I used to. They were both very amused I didn't realise who it was: Mr. IPO himself Stephen McLean.

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Crapshoot king

Recent online upswing continues. After a bad night session where I seemed to have gone back to running bad, I had an amazing evening yesterday winning not one but both the nightly crapshoots on Stars for IPC packages. First one was a sick sweat headsup but felt like I was freerolling the second one (against DrJff, a young player I rate very highly, and felt very sorry for as it's a sick "flipping for $4K" bubble: Stars turned off the chat at that point, otherwise I'd have suggested some sort of business).

I wasn't even paying attention as I was watching the match and just clicking buttons whenever needed. Push/fold is no brain stuff and I was just checking the stack to blind ratios, deciding whether to get it in or not, and not even looking when I was all in. Mireille was a lot more excited than I was, going "You have a good stack now!" and "No ace, no king, no queen, no heart, no 6, no 5, no 3.....Yes!!!!". Rather surreally the first one ended around the time Henry was cheating us out of a World Cup spot meaning I got treated to the rather bizarre sight of Mireille simultaneously dancing to celebrate the package while swearing and spitting vile in French at Henry on the TV screen.

Busted last hand before the break of the second one, rebought much to Big Iain's a and bemusement insisting that even with 3 bigs it was a plus Ev prop for me at that point. So it proved as a serious of quality doggings including one where I called a multiway allin with 54o, found myself double dominated and still managed to prevail, motored me to the final table. One sick call there, where I called an allin for all my chips in the BB with the mighty J6o. I knew the SB was shipping any 2 and with 48% equity against that range it was a standard call, even if my MSN went berserk with people asking if I'd misclicked. Rather amusingly, my opponent's random holding turned out to be J5.

Overall I'm up somewhere close to $20K since last Friday making it easily my best online week ever. Apart from the tourney scores (I've had 2 wins and 3 cashes in last 5 attempts on Stars for over $10K profit), I've also been doing very well in the sit and gos. For a while early in the week I was winning at least half those I played. When I run good, I run good. Hoping the heater will continue obviously.

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Swingers

Seems like everyone I know has been downswinging of late: well, Big Mick and Dagunman at least, and I've been battling with my own. After last Sunday's bounce thanks to winning the Ipoker $4K gtd, it was normal service resumed at the start of the week. Not that I was doing my bollocks or anything, more a case of putting in a lot of hours for little or no profit and having sudden moments of panic around 3 AM every night asking myself where it all went wrong and why bother continuing just to break even every day.

Tuesday: took a break from online (well, only played 3 or 4 hours), ran the socks off a certain young poker legend, who then accompanied me to the Westbury monthly. Recorded another Irish Poker Radio there with Iain, which I think went very well, probably my favourite show so far. The sound of my own voice still tilts me like nothing else on earth (can only imagine how bad the Doke drone must be for the rest of you), but Rob rabbiting about the WSOP FT was quality and John's interview was really good.

Tournament itself was meh for moi. Played pretty well overall although the hand that crippled me on the cusp of the final table was marginal to say the least. Basically I shipped (or rather committed myself to calling my opponent's ship) with an overcard and an openender after he donk led from the blinds. He had shown himself to be an opposite bettor throughout the night, checking the goods and betting when unsure, so I interpreted the donk lead as a weakish one pair hand. Unfortunately he had two pair and just didn't like the draws, and he went with it. I also made a mistake relating to his stack size. Before I raised, I counted about 30K in his stack (I was playing 60K), but when he shipped, three 5K chips emerged from behind. I still had to call, but now it was for 75% of my stack rather than half.

Rest of the week was back to the grind and the corner was turned on the downswing. Friday was a good day and Saturday even better. In his interview, John pointed out these are always the best evenings to catch the weekender mackerel: something I figured out almost as soon as I started playing poker, but also something I'd somehow forgotten. Cleared almost $2K profit today, easily my best day in a long while online. I've been paying more attention to game selection. Rather than just blindly grinding $50 stts across the three sites, I've been jumping in when I see value. During the week, that sometimes means going down to the $20 or $30 games: today, there were a few $100s that were fishier than a convention of fishmongers.

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Running bad live, good online, better on Fintan's machine

Last Thursday I went to the Voodoo for the first time, to record an Irish Poker Radio show with Iain. Since we were there anyway, we decided to play the 25 rebuy. I ended up winning which was a timely confidence boost and reaffirmation that I can still crush in Dublin nightlies.

Friday decided to play the supersat for JP's game. Superfast structure obviously which meant it inevitably coming down to a race pretty quickly. I lost and that was that. Tough table draw in the main event with Dave Kinane, Danny Maxwell and Sean Prenderville all there. At least they were the right side of me. I managed to stay out of trouble for the most part and steadily accumulate to finish just over 40K.

Took a nasty hit early on day 2 when a big pair was apparently rivered by ace rag off, but recovered to 90K or so where the car wreck happened. A young guy who was playing reasonably solidly but seemed to be getting a bit frustrated at having his smallball raises snapped off made a big raise utg, to 8K, at 1200/2400. Folded to my aces in the BB and I reraised to 22K. After considerable thought where he seemed to be leaning towards the fold, he shipped for 54K with 99. Board ran out QQTJ8.

That left me with a reshipping stack and with significant antes not much time to find a good spot. Very next hand seemed to present one: Cue Club's Connie O'Sullivan raised to 7K in the CO. His range was clearly very wide as he'd already showed up with the likes of K6o so I reshipped KJs from the small blind. Unfortunately he had KK and that was that.

Played the PLO and barely won a pot, ultimately going out to eventual winner Wayne Condron, a very unorthodox but naturally talented young player. I shipped AAxx over a bunch of limps and he overshipped AQQx and hit a Q.

Played two side events on the Sunday and never really got going in either. Went out of the shootout shipping an open ender into the Bomber's set, and a mixture of card death and an aggressive table in the shorthanded meant I ended up having to ship 89s for eight bigs on the button. The SB woke up with 99 and the BB with AT.

Suitably dejected, I scooted upstairs to the hotel room in time to sign up for some of the small Ipoker nightlies. I ended up cashing in three and winning the nightly $4k. Fun final table where I was allowed to get away with hyper aggression. Only one player tried to play back until I reshipped 64s over his 3 bet and that put manners on the fecker. Then 4 handed the guy who had started with most chips blew up gloriously. I was playing 200K, he was playing 150K, the other two guys were short with 30-40K, I had direct position on him so he really should have been staying out of my way till the shorties got out or doubled up. He limped the SB, I bumped it up to 3600, he called. Flop came AJ5 rainbow and he now openshipped! This gave me a decision to make as I have AQ and I eventually got it right, calling to be shown 34o. No gutterball and he was duly dispatched and the tournament pretty much won.

Went back downstairs to find Cat continuing her amazing recent run, three handed in the shorthanded. She ended up chopping for another fine result. I think she was a little disappointed that the outright win eluded her again but it's only a matter of time before she gets one. Played on Fintan Gavin's headsup machine, beating first Tom Kitt and then Wayne Condron, which was the outright highlight of the weekend really. Was going to play Rory Brown but him and Tom's messy drunk shoutings and antics had security pulling the plug. Couple of clowns they are, but entertaining loveable ones if you can see past the arrogant surface veneer.

Also well done to my roommmate Mick McCloskey, my only swap for this event (trying to cut back on them recently), who came good yet again with another deep run and a cash. He was a bit dejected with the way his finish but he went with his read and even if it turned out to be wrong on this occasion, that's all you can really do.

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