Ain't no party like a D4 party

While my overall record in tourneys run by Mike and Brian of D4 Events is second to none, closer examination reveals that while my record in their European Deepstack is sensational (I won the first one, cashed in the second, and final tabled the third), my record in their other major, the European Shorthanded, is atrocious (I've never made it out of day 1 alive). So I was hoping to put that to rights last week in the D4 Ballsbridge Inn.

I played the supersat the night before, primarily because I thought it would be a good idea to get some 6 max live practise in, and to see what type of bad the bad players were likely to be the following day. Things got off to a bad start: the supersat was actually played out 9 handed, and I was down to my last allowed rebuy early on when I raised AK on the button and got it in on a KT9 flop against the big blind's K7o. He obviously knew the 7 was coming on the turn when he called my rereraise shove on the flop. I managed to recover from there to bink a ticket, due in no small part to finding aces every time I really really needed them, and better yet, a customer willing to call my shove with something like 23 on the "two live cards" basis.

I played day 1A, made a reasonable start, but then it all went in 3 hands just before the first break. First I got set over setted, which is never fun. That accounted for half my stack. Half of what remained went a few hands later when I called the flop with a draw, barrelled when another draw got there on the turn and it was checked to me, and fired a second bullet on the river which failed to get through as my opponent had the flush I was trying to represent. Then just before the break, Joey Lovelady opened, I threebet AKs playing 50 bbs, the value at the table put in a massive 4 bet for more than my stack and I called it off. There are spots where I might fold AKs, but 50 bbs having already threebet against a French player playing every hand ain't one.

When you managed to incinerate 200 big blinds that fast, self doubt is inevitable, so I ran all three hands by the people I go to for line checks. The Doke Thinktank findings were that the first hand was fine (most thought there wouldn't have been a second and third hand as they'd have lost the lot right there), the second hand was split between people who thought I played it fine, too aggro (fold pre or flop), or not aggro enough (shove flop or turn), and nobody was ever folding in the third one. Sometimes it's just not your day.

Take 2
This being a re-entry, I was back on Friday for take 2. I got going this time but took a few hits late in the day and then went out in a fairly standard blind on blind cooler. Apart from that, the only highlight was running into and having a chat with the loveliest woman in poker, Rebecca McAdam, recently appointed deputy editor at Card Player.



Knowing and doing - two very different things
Before the 300 side game on Saturday, I ran into my Irish Eyes teammate Paul Lucey and my amigo Feargal "MidniteKowby" Nealon (who is crushing the turbos online at the moment). Feargal gave us a good pep talk about playing uber tight and avoiding marginal spots against French action junkies just itching to gift your their stacks if you showed a bit of patience. I agreed in principle but somehow found myself playing way too many hands early on and losing about half my stack in a series of marginal spots. At the next table, Feargal bluffed off half his stack first hand, and then when he did get a stack hero called it off! Right pair we are. Feargal busted in time to run off to the Betfair game in the Fitz and bust that to be back in time for dinner.

At a secret location
I knuckled down in the side and staged a mini recovery until I got it in in a fairly standard race just before dinner, my jacks losing to ak. I had an interest in my friend Daragh "Other Dara" Davey who was chipleader of the main at this point, so I arranged to meet him for dinner. What started as a Dara only event gradually mushroomed as I ran into other people or they phoned: I ran into Ger Harraghy, Albert Kenny and bops in the hotel, David Lappin materialised out of a cab, and Feargal arrived back from the Fitz. Bit of an ordeal getting everyone to the secret location as most of them knew me but none of the others, but after a few false starts and Other Dara leading Ger to the wrong place, we had a good dinner. It's always interesting to hear a bunch of top class players with widely divergent styles discussing and debating hands, and Lappin had some great non-poker stories from the film world (his Da produced the likes of My Left Foot, In The Name of the Father and The Boxer). Tempting as it is to steal them to spice up the blog at this point, you'll have to ask him in person :)

Wasted Sundays
My original plan was not to show my face in D4 on Sunday unless I was in the main event, but smarting from the events of the past three days, I was back the next day for the last event, the 200. I was hoping this would be a proper crapshoot where I could chip up or bust early, but they gave us way too many chips and too much time for that. Instead I chipped up and then bust just after the bubble, my A9 failing to hold against 89o. Another min cash on my Hendon mob.

Congrats to James Waldron for winning that game. Also well done to Other Dara in the main (he got horrendously unlucky in the end), and to "best of the Irish Eoin "starrbar" Starr who followed up his recent UKIPT side event win with a 12th here, and "best of the Irish based" Ivan Tononi. When I went over to check on Other Dara at one point I was rather dismayed to see ViperEyeIRL Ivan to Daragh's immediate left. But once Daragh was out I'd have loved to see Ivan win this: he's not only a really great player but also a perfect gentleman He's one of those guys who always seems to get very unlucky when it really matters (here he couldn't have got it in much better, aces v j8o on an 8 high flop) but hopefully it's just a matter of time before he has his day.

Also, well done Albert Kenny, who got 7th in the WCOOP Omaha HiLO AND busted Negreanu. The two Daras were railing him at 6 AM and he was desperately unlucky not to take it down.

Away trip
This week I'm on my first away trip since Vegas. This blog is being written on the place to Barcelona, where I play 1B of the EMOP tomorrow. I just ran into Brian "Fox" O'Keeffe and a few of the other Waterford lads. Brian's apparently an even more nervous flyer than fellow Deise legend Nicky Power: must be a Waterford thing. Hoping for a good run at this one but if not, Barcelona's a nice city to spend time with your better half (Mrs. Doke is along for this trip, currently giving me an earful on how boring it is to fly). Yes dear.

On Monday I head to London for the EPT. I'll play one or two sides before the Country of the Year freeroll on Thursday. Good luck to everyone playing in London and Killarney at the weekend: I have a few horses in both so hoping for a good weekend on the sweat front.

Terminal poker
Something new and fun on Irish Eyes is Terminal Poker. The basic idea is similar to rush poker. At the moment it has a growing number but still small. If anyone wants a freebie to try it out, sign up here at my blog (link on the side), and then email me your username and we'll give you a 10 euro free money voucher to get started.

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The latest fad: re-entries

I played the 50K guaranteed 100s festival in Maynooth, largely because I was intrigued to see how the novel idea of 4 day ones with re-entries would work. I played day 1c and got through with one bullet (no re-entry), mainly because I got off to a great start. Or should I say a lucky start: the first major hand of note I got it in with the schnuts (second nuts) against the nuts on the flop and still managed to win the hand. My opponent, a friend of the legendary Bomber Nolan, took it in good spirits. I guess any friend of the Bomber gets used to outrageous doggings of the sort.



Day 2 didn't exactly go to plan though: I was definitely on the toughest table in the room. I was struggling to get anything going and ended up reshipping queens from the blinds over an early position raiser. He was a foreign lad with a huge stack and seemed very spewy so I reshipped knowing full well I could get called very light, but it was still a surprise to see him call fairly quickly with A8. He hit the ace on the turn. I can't really complain though: I'm always happy when an opponent calls it off as a 9/4 dog getting only 6/4. Professional poker players and bookies have one thing in common: in the long run our money all comes from people making bad bets against us at insufficient odds. And I've been known to make a few bad ones in my day too (see the first paragraph).

I had a pretty good week online with lots of final tables and better yet a few wins. I won the €10r on Eyes one night, and the $22r on Stars twice this week. Most recently tonight. At the start of the final table, I realised I needed to win the tournament to break even on the day, the Sunday grind having been something of an epic fail to that point. Somebody asked me at a tournament recently how much I'd be down in an average night if I didn't cash in anything. The answer is a couple of grand most week nights and up to double that of a Sunday.

The new Player Ireland has a piece from me on EMOP Dublin. I'm playing the European Shorthanded on Thursday (day 1A). This is also a re-entry tournament so if I do bust 1A I'll probably be back for more punishment on 1b. I think re-entry tournaments are a great idea overall, but I hope organisers follow the example of the Macau in charging reg fee only once per player (not per entry).

You may notice ads for various stuff on the new look blog. Not to plug everything, but one worth paying attention to as I genuinely get asked about it a lot (or more generally the best way to get money on and offline). I personally use Neteller and an associated Net+ Cash On Cash Off card which works as a debit card (meaning no credit card fees) against your Neteller account. This also means no fees when booking flights etc. (Ryanair for example charge you extra for using a credit card), and I can use the card to withdraw cash from ATMs. So click on the Cash On Cash Off banner at the side for more details.

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UKIPT Dublin

Well, it was time to give the old blog a bit of a makeover so hope you like the new look. When I started this blog it was basically a sort of Dear Diary: I didn't even tell anyone about it for months. I still see it primarily as a sort of diary I'll have to look back on when it's all over.

Anyway, winning Super Wednesday on Party and the Ipoker 60K on Friday gave me a shot at a second PocketFives Triple Crown if I could win another qualifying tourney over the next few days, but despite a string of final tables on Stars and Merge, I didn't manage to convert any. So not to be on this occasion.

I took Wednesday off as my friend Mark Smyth had been selected for the "Team Pro plays a home game" segment on the TV coverage for UKIPT Dublin. He invited me, Phil Baker and Larry Santo (and Larry's friend Tyler) along. You're guaranteed entertainment with that crew and hopefully it'll translate to the coverage. Larry in particular looked awesome fresh from the tanning salon: Phil tagged the show as Hungarian Jersey Shore, a line I told him I was stealing.

After the shoot, I headed to D4 with Phil and got there in time to see Lappin amass a ridiculously big stack in the 6 max side event. He ultimately finished third: another online monkey appears to be making the transition to live poker successfully.

The following day I was back for day 1A of the main. My first table was about as bad as it gets: only 6 handed, and the other 5 were Jon Spinks, 2 other very good English lads, Richie Lawlor and Danny McHugh! I decided to buckle up my seat belt and do nothing fancy, and thankfully the table was one of the first to break. I won a lot of small pots there to get off to a good steady start, the most interesting of which was against Spinksy who elected to defend his big blind against my standard small raise. I flopped top pair and went for a pot control/bluff induce line. Spinksy did fire once (on the turn after I checked behind on the flop) but great players don't let you win much in those spots and he rightly gave up on the river.

My second table was very different: in fact it looked like a Sporting Emporium reunion! When I started playing there a few years ago, Eamon O'Reilly, Jane Topkin and Ektor were regular faces.



I switched my play a bit and played much looser at this table. For the most part it worked well for me, except for one mistake against the lovely and talented Jane (who you may remember was second in the JP Mini WSOP a couple of years ago). She defended her blinds and check raised me on a 864 board. I had tens and my first instinct was there was a good chance she was bluffing here as it doesn't look like an early position raiser's board. She didn't look too comfortable as I tanked but I couldn't quite convince myself to commit so in the end I let it go as I felt I didn't need to take a big risk on a misread at this point. Jane looked really relieved when I did let it go and confirmed to me later she was semi-bluffing with an open-ender, so very well played by her. Great spot and great bet as it forced me to decide there and then if my hand was good knowing it was nearly all my stack if I was wrong.




My next table was another nightmare, with a chipped up Dermot Blain (a super player that I don't ever remember seeing make a mistake) and nobody else over the age of 25 apart from a guy I've played with a few times called George. It wasn't the kind off table where smallball LAG was going to work so I switched gears again and played about 4 hands in an hour. Despite or I guess because of this I chipped up quite a lot at the table. The two most interesting hands:
Hand 1: Derm opens in late position. I have aces and just under 30 bbs on the button. Because I've been so tight I think a 3 bet folds out 95%+ of Derm's range (my stack size makes it obvious I'm not 3 bet folding) so I elected to flat because of this and the fact the two blinds behind were a young aggro guy who was squeezing a lot, and George who rarely folds his blinds. Flop came 985, George led for almost pot, Derm gets out of the way, I raise for almost half my stack, and George tank folds a nine. I think I probably got the maximum here.
Hand 2: A few hands later I raise A3s in late position. George flats the button and the English kid defends the small blind. Flop was T62 with two of my suit. When it was checked to me, I prepared to make a standard cbet when I realised that if I did so and got raised, I couldn't get it in with fold equity against anything legit. I therefore adjusted my bet size down to 25% of pot, and after I got check raised stuck it in. The kid tank folded so I believe he had something. The other upside to my flop sizing is it makes the shove look super strong (my tiny cbet looks like an action inducer in retrospect when I follow it up with the shove).

I escaped from that table with 50k. My last table of the day looked promising but unfortunately I had a very good aggro Russian to my immediate left who wouldn't let me away with anything. I was card dead for the last session so I drifted back to 38K which was fine: decent day's work I thought.

Tournaments like this are as much social occasions for me as anything else, so I took up Mick Mccloskey's offer of a spare bed and hung round the hotel on Friday. I played the triathlon side event and never really got going. I was put at the same table as two of my friends, wee Bridie Gribben and not so wee Steven Byrne (Mark was there briefly before a double dogging). Steven knocked me out of this event in Cork but this time it was Bridie who did most of the damage, living up to her promise to my friends who were watching to make me her bitch :) The craic at the table was mighty, Bridie was trying to get me drunk with red wine and it was a shame we broke. I didn't last very long at the new table, after which I wandered around a bit seeing how my friends who were playing 1B were getting on.



On day 2, I had breakfast with Breifne Earley (who is heading off to New Zealand this week). Breifne was one of the overnight chipleaders and asked me for some tips. I ran through some stuff on effective stacks, shoving stacks, reshoving stacks and associated ranges, only to discover to my horror when we got back that we were at the same table so I was one of the reshoving stacks I'd just told him to watch out for!

Unfortunately I didn't play as well as I had the previous day, one hero call against Bops did a fair bit of damage. I was down to 26k aka 13 bbs when Oscar Fred opened on the button for a min raise. This was the first time he'd min raised. I had a legitimate reshoving hand in the small blind, JTs, but spent a little while pondering what the first time use of the min raise meant. In the end, I decided one of three things, in order of most to least likely:
(1) A total steal. Here the min raise loses the minimum
(2) A marginal type hand that he's prepared to call a 13 bb reshove from me but not a bigger reshove from the bb
(3) A monster. Here the min raise is an action inducer

Eventually I decided to go for it and shoved. Another factor was the guy who had just moved into the seat to my left looked very competent and I couldn't expect him to make mistakes if I started shoving light, and bops was lurking just behind, so rather than shrivelling any further to a pure shoving stack, I figured I had to go for it. If the shove gets through I add over 30% of my stack, and I think JTs has 40-50% equity against most of Oscar's calling range. Unfortunately, the BB woke up with one of the worst hands he could have for me, AJ, the ace being my suit for good measure, and reshoved. Oscar folded and there was no miracle.

Well done to all who cashed, especially IPB supremo Dom Hever (who I had a share of), and my friends Max Silver (amazing Fossilmanesque defence of the crown he won last year) and Jason Tompkins. Jason's phenomenally consistent in tourneys in Ireland which is the real hallmark of class and it's surely only a matter of time before he wins a really big one.

On Sunday I appeared on Dublin City FM's "On The Ball" with Breifne Earley to talk about the success of Team Irish Eyes players at EMOP Dublin and other recent Irish tournaments. This week also saw the appearance of my first blog for the Star at their website: http://starbets.ie/poker-blog/grinding-and-an-afternoon-with-roy-06092011/ It's aimed at more general readers than this one.

Next live outings for me are the 100s festival in Maynooth this week, and the European Shorthanded next week.

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Tanks and minis

After a week of largely treading water online, it was good to get out of the house. I opted for day 1B of the Unibet Open so that I could play my favourite monthly game, the Fitz end of month. As I walked in, I ran into a few other lads who had made the same decision. They were worrying about how late it might run, but I pointed out that if you were there at the end, the ten grand richer you'd be would more than compensate for any tiredness in Citywest. Worst case scenario though would be to bust on the bubble at about 4 in the morning. Needless to say, this is exactly what happened.

I was short throughout most of it (watching from a cash table after he busted in classic Lappin fashion - 35 bigs all in pre with 5 high, I heard Lappin only half-jokingly tell someone "Doke spends almost his entire life between a third and half the average") before going on a rush two tables out to move close to the chiplead. I then lost a massive threeway flip on the bubble. Holding AK, I initially outdrew Marc Brody's tens who barely covered me when a king appeared atop the flop. The dealer spread the flop to reveal a ten lurking beneath to more or less kill me. The shortie's AJ pulled ahead when a queen appeared on the turn, and the king of the river did nothing for me but housed up Marc's set of tens.

As I was standing up chatting to Lappin, there was a loud discussion going on among the Fitz regs remaining about my call with the AK, with Fitz stalwart and Irish poker rankings number one Stuey Samuels offering the opinion that it was a terrible call because of the bubble. Stuey gets through more bubbles than anyone else in the Fitz thanks to some very cautious play on the bubble (earlier, he opened AQ on the button for 4 big blinds and folded to my 16 big blind reshove with sevens from the small blind) so fair play to him, but I had no regrets about the manner of my exit as I was more interested in playing for the win and the 11k up top rather than locking up the 400 min cash. In an almost identical spot a few orbits earlier, Marc had tabled A7o, so AK is far too big against the range for me to even consider folding. My chips went to a good home for once as Marc who was clearly the best player left on the table in my view told me he went on to win when I ran into him in Citywest. He made a point of coming over to me at the table to tell me how impressed he had been by my play in the Fitz which was a very nice gesture.

Out in Citywest, there was a lot of talk about how only five Irish had played 1A, and only one (Daragh Davey) had made it through to day 2. Turnout was better on 1b (over 30 Irish played) but we were still outnumbered about 6 to 1 overall. I guess it's just the way things are right now: the number of Irish players willing or able to stump up a four figure buyin has dwindled so events in this price range including possibly even January's Dublin WPT will basically be poker tournaments in Ireland rather than Irish poker tournaments.

My tournament was similar to my Fitz EOM in that I was short until near the bubble. On day 1 I had the pleasure of playing with current Irish Open champion Niall Smyth for the first time, and he's a very impressive and pleasant table presence. Overnight it emerged that the only other person still in the IPB Last Longer was Other Dara (Daragh Davey) so we agreed to chop it (which means I've now chopped the last three IPB Last Longers I was involved in). We both had less than 20 big blinds so the last thing either of us needed was to have to think about a Last Longer before sticking the loot in. As it happened, Other Dara bust a few minutes into the day, while I doubled up. We got moved to the TV table where I was pretty card dead and had a very active neighbour to my left Jimmi Bastian. Jimmi had no qualms about three betting me any time I opened from mid to late position so I had little choice but to stop opening light for now.

By dinner time we were three from the bubble. Other Dara suggested we go to the restaurant round the corner rather than the one in the main body of the hotel where they were charging all non-Unibet qualifiers 12 euro for slop (and an extra 4 euro if you wanted dessert with your slop). This was a great suggestion as for not much more we actually got decent food. Roy the Boy Brindley was there on his own so he came over to chat and ask if I'd do some commentary if I busted soon. I'm always up for a bit of commentating so I agreed.

Just after dinner and still before the bubble, I was on the right side of a cooler. Kings on the button and two guys all in before it even got to me. They had queen and jacks and I held. I now had a well above average stack for the first time, but unfortunately it didn't last long.

The very aggro chipleader got moved onto my table, button to my big blind. We played a few pots and then the big one: he opened on the button, a shortie shoved 10 bbs from the small blind, and I found AQ in the big blind. Standard reshove as far as I'm concerned: AQ is way ahead of both ranges and I can't call without committing my stack so I might as well shove. Unfortunately the chipleader had a very nice hand this time: kings, and held. All in all a strange mixed feeling of disappointment and pride at another deep run as I was led away to collect my min cash which seemed particularly min given there was over 100 grand for first.

The Unibet girl came scampering over to make sure I didn't sulk off, and chaperoned me to the commentary box, where I passed a pleasant few hours with Roy the Boy. Roy told me afterwards he felt we worked well together because unlike some other commentators I wasn't fazed by the fact that he does his own thing and doesn't look at you when he's talking to you. I thought we made a pretty good team too, with contrasting styles approaches and opinions. Roy's a consummate pro when it comes to commentary.

The one big upside to Saturday exits live is it frees up Sunday for the Sunday (online) grind. I built a few stacks in the majors but unfortunately failed to convert to a final table, the closest being a second last table exit in the Party 200K. I've been struggling a little to find my A game online since Vegas and the 6 week layoff from online that it entailed. I feel it's very important to be honest with yourself about how you're playing and be ever vigilant for mistakes and areas to improve. I generally don't make many big mistakes (like nearly everyone else who multitables I make a lot of small ones) but since Vegas I've been slipping up on that front. For example, this week, 4 handed in the Bodog turbo deepstack, I was approximately level with 2 other stacks, and the other guy had twice as much. Button shoved for 9 bigs, the big stack flatted in the small blind, and instead of sticking my chips in with AQs, I folded, hoping the big stack had a monster and eliminated the other guy (the pay jump from 4th to 3rd was unusually significant). Of course they both had hands I dominated, A9 and KQ, and to make matters worse an ace flop and they flip flopped stacks instead of me eliminating one and crippling the other. Maybe my exit in a similar spot in the Unibet main was too fresh in my mind, but AQ is always a reship there. I paid the price being eliminated in 4th a short while later.

One area of the game that has given me most trouble online is my light 4 and 5 betting ranges and spots. I used to not do it enough: recently I've been doing it too much in bad spots. It varies from site to site: your ranges have to be very different somewhere like Stars or Party where there's a lot of it going on than some of the more sedate networks where there's almost no light 4 betting and 5 betting (on those sites, 4 betting light is very profitable, but 5 betting light is just burning money because the other guy always has a hand, always). So I've been putting a lot of thought and work recently into assessing the relevant variables such as opponent type, stack sizes, tournament situation (bubbles etc.), position, history, and game flow.

Anyway, I feel like I'm getting back to my A game online. I did at least bink another UKIPT satellite, and one for the IWF. The IWF satellite was a 20r which unfortunately only had one ticket. I say unfortunately because I got headsup with my friend DPablo on Boards and Ipoker, but no friends at the table as they say, especially when it's winner takes all. Final hand was basically a cooler given the way the headsup was playing out: I got it in dominating with AK against a worse ace. I played the headsup very aggro as I tend to so DPablo was justified in thinking any ace was pretty massive against me and just unlucky I had a bigger one (and held).

EDIT: I typed this blog up before last night's grind but didn't get to post it til now. At least my feeling that I was getting back to top form online was justified by the nights results: a string of final tables (three on Irish Eyes) and best of all a win in the Super Wednesday 30K guaranteed on Party for my first 5 figure online score since Vegas. Also, I had some quality rail, including EPT Player of the Year and all round German wunderkind legend Maximilian Heinzelmann, and Milly winner Danloulou (who deserves congrats for his final table at the weekend in the Microgaming 500k).

Finally, congrats to Alan McIntyre, the only Irish player to cash at the latest EPT. I've said before how much I admire and am impressed by Alan, not just in terms of his play but also his attitude and temperament. Study and technique are all very important, but there's no replacement for natural talent and temperament. Alan managed to cash despite being down to 4 big blinds at one point on day 2, a terrific grinding performance. It's not always about driving the big tank in this game: the great players know how to navigate a mini through a minefield when needed too.

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