Fishy Engfish fish and the fishy fins they fish ffs

Oh you do need to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes in life and in this game in particular. And I was almost doubled up in self mockery as I pondered my position towards the end of level one in Dusk Till Dawn's 20K starting stack 2 hour clock 1K buyin £250K guaranteed £80K overlay mental value tournament.
After a sleepless night in Malahide, I grabbed about an hour's kip in my hotel before heading to DTD. Armed only with my Googlemap printout, I was confident of finding the place on foot. Overly confident, since it's in the middle of an industrial estate surrounded by other lookalike industrial estates by a motorway, and therefore like trying to find Unit 1B in a Sandyford Industrial Estate after some knackers have tampered with all the signage.
So, an hour late, and still quite knackered, the plan was to nit it up and lie pretty low while I evaluated the table. 45 minutes of patient folding and loving my table because there are no big names and a few really really really bad players and only two half decent ones, I'm in a 6 way unraised pot in the small blind with 8's. Flop is a lovely A84, checked to the cutoff who min bets 100. Button - worst player on the table by a few lengths - min raises. I know I have the nuts right now since AA is clearly not out there, so I make a begging for action reraise to 600. Folded to button who obligingly makes it 2200. Back to me, 6500. He calls looking annoyed. I figure he's either been coolered with bottom set, or possibly he just has a flush draw, because yes he is that bad, so the plan is to ship any non club turn. The jack of non clubs hits the turn safely and in they go. He tanks it before saying "I can't fold, I've put too much in" and calls with A5s, top pair nut flush draw. Before I have time to process just how bad that call is, boom, club on the river, and I'm down to 900.
There's three ways you can go when you take a big beat like that: I manage to take the middle path, stoic silence, and hold my tongue and counsel through the subsequent "Well, you've got to gamble to win tournaments" lecture on fishy poker strategy. The two good players at the table go opposite routes: the "don't tap the tank" school of sarcasm ("Of course you have to gamble. Getting your entire stack in on a 4 to 1 shot? Great call") and the "lecturer in fishology" approach ("God how can you call there? So horrific").
One minute before the end of level 1, I ship my remaining 900 with AK, and get looked up by tens which hold. So once again I manage to get myself effectively busted by the worst player at the table. Must be doing something wrong (seriously though, while I may sound like I'm whining, I do accept that this is poker and players like this are the ones who pay my wages over a decent sample size). So all the way to there to bust out of a 5 day deepstack after less than an hour by a lotto player. Quality.
Brief chat with John at the break who is down to 12500 after getting his aces busted by a fishy James Browning call as I ponder my options. Do I really want to hang around for that night's £75 freezeout and tomorrow's £250 side event? Resounding no.
Get Mireille to book me a flight for tomorrow (today). She manages to mess up and get me one for the day after (tomorrow), so now I'm booked on the same flight twice. Lovely. She comes through with another one for today (tomorrow yesterday) so here I am, sitting in East Midlands airport.
Last night in the hotel, I fired up Boyle's (the only Ipoker skin I can get to work with my dongle). Devore was online looking to play our Boards HU match (very enjoyable, I ran well to win 2-0). I figured while I was there I might as well play the $50K guaranteed. A few hours later I'm on the final table for the second time in a row. Ultimately I busted in 6th for $2K (another jack ace no good, this time sooted v K8o), some measure of consolation for an ultimately pointless trip to Notts.
Lovely illustration of how human stupidity will always find a way to triumph over technology. Getting to the airport early and remembering that in Newcastle they sent me back to the Ryanair desk because faxed boarding passes don't scan, I joined the back of the checkin queue. Only to be told about 30 minutes later that they didn't scan passes in East Midlands. By now a sizeable queue had formed at the gates (there was none when I had mistakenly joined the checkin queue). 30 minutes later, I'm looking at a security person unsuccessfully trying to scan my fax and telling me I have to go back to the Ryanair desk. 30 minutes later I'm at the front of that queue again being told I have to go to the ticket information desk. Which has a queue of people with faxes. So, whole morning wasted queueing, times 5.
Big congratulations to Cat O'Neill for winning her heat and final tabling the Ladies tournament. Only a matter of time before she gets a breakthrough gigantascore hopefully. I'd say definitely but we all know at least one top class player who has been around for years without getting the requisite luck needed at the right time.
Footnote: Obviously knackered when I got in to Dublin this morning and in dire need of a piss, I absentmindedly wandered in to the toilet, and looked around surprised to see nothing but women in the men's toilet. Took a second or two for the absence of wall urinals to register. Oh dear. Luckily as I swivelled in embarrassment and covered my eyes, all I heard was mucho femle giggling and other mirthful sounds. As opposed to "Security!".

Read More

Knackered in Knottingham

Maybe it wasn't the best of ideas to play the Malahide monthly the night before my trip to Nottingham, and I did cash for 1K in 6th. Busted out around 6 AM which gave me just enough time to get to the airport. Almost came an early cropper in an AA/KK/QQ late position cooler car crash. I had QQ, the AA flopped quads, but I turned a house to scoop a tiny 6 big blind side pot from KK and stay alive. I managed to nurse the tiny stack all the way to the final table and beyond: maybe I should open fold myself down to 6 big blinds in future.

So, now in Nottingham airport looking out at drizzle. Marvellous.

Read More

No rest for the wicked

Or very little at least. Suitably shattered after a night grinding on Stars in Newcastle airport because I'm too tight to spring for a hotel room when I have to be up at the crack of dawn anyway (in fact, I can only imagine how bad I must have looked when my beloved collected me at Dublin airport, as even before it Martin Silke had asked me the previous evening in his usual tactful fashion if I'd been out drinking all night "because Jaysus you look shit"), I spent most of the day asleep, getting up in time to open a new account on Dusk Till Dawn poker and lob forty quid on it. John (Eames) had recommended I give the final satellite for the WSOP copycat event they're running this week a lash. 15 seats guaranteed, and I managed to snag one, which means I'm off to Nottingham in 24 hours for the 20K starting stack 2 hour clock £250K gtd event.

Also played the Ipoker 50K gtd at the same time and final tabled it, ultimately going out in 9th. Exit was all the more annoying because it was a three way all in between me (button) with yet another jack ace, the SB with A7, and the BB with AK. The BB won the hand knocking us both out, but because the SB had a few chips more than me he got 8th. Still, not a bad night's work, and I'm extremely happy with my tourney game right now.

Read More

Slots and sluts

Nicky "Novelty Specialist" Power's suggestion as a title for this Newcastle trip report, which I'm quite happy to go with.

Up at the crack of dawn as ever for a redeye to Newcastle which got me there over 6 hours before kickoff which meant a long wait in the airport playing Steps on Stars, the only site that seems reliable on my dicky dongle laptop connection. 6 hours huched over a laptop in a garish airport bar, oh tis a glamourous life all the same.

Not the best table draw in the world for me with Nicky Power to my immediate left, and a number of other good players present including one final tableist from last year who I refuse to acknowledge by name as he told me he reads this blog and then followed up his wishes of good luck with "actually I don't give a shit whether you do well or not" from last year, and Thomas Dunwoodie. I got off to a decent start which picked up pace when I got moved to a much weaker table which Chris Dowling was running all over. Another table move to an even weaker table saw me finish the day with the biggest stack I've ever had at the end of day 1 in a GUKPT, just shy of 40K.

If Day 1 couldn't have gone much better, Day 2 couldn't have gone much worse and my fate was ultimately sealed by two blind battles between KQ and AK. After a decent start that got me close to 50K, I barely won another pot. After that I hardly won another pot, and managed to double down in a blind on blind confrontation. After raising with KQs in the small, I was priced in to call the big blind's shove. Unfortunately he had one of the hands I really didn't want to see: AK. He hit the ace for good measure.

My exit hand was along similar lines but this time I had AK. After a button limp, I stuck in a large raise of 40% of my stack pre to make it obvious (or so I thought) the rest was going in come what may (my stack size was really awkward as a normal small raise followed by a cbet on the flop would commit me in any case, so I decided it was better to commit while I almost certainly had the best hand). After some thought, my opponent (who seemed the worst player at the table and had already donked off a massive chip stack in instalments since arriving at the table) eventually made the call for 30% of his stack. The flop came JT9, in they went, and he flipped over KQ for the flopped nuts. No miracle queen and I was on my way.

I went straight into the £250 side event. It's always very hard to play a side event just after exiting a main, and I played very poorly at the start. I lost half my stack after an attempted blind steal on the button with JJ went wrong. The small blind clearly knew I was at it and called and took half my stack with T9o on a T9x flop. I eventually settled and recovered to almost double starting stack, but then we hit the ship or fold portion with three tables out. I doubled down losing another jack ace v baby pair race against Chris Dowling, and a few hands later shipped 9's into Chris' 10's.

I was undecided about whether to play the final side event or not, as it's always a pretty crapshooty affair with a 5K starting stack and 30 minute clock. In the event I played mainly on the grounds that Nicky Power and Paul Smallwood who I hung round with during the day were heading for the evening ferry so there was bugger all else to do. For once I got a stack together, moving from 5K to 40K smoothly. Most interesting pot was against the best player in England Martin Silke. I raised in the cutoff with ace king and Silkey chose to defend his big. He check raised me on an AA5 flop, which left me with an interesting decision whether to smooth call or reship. I decided to call on the grounds that if he had air he might ship the turn and if he had a worse ace he might find a fold to a flop ship but call a ship on the turn or river if I showed some apparent uncertainty on the flop. When I called his discomfort was clear and when he checked the turn blank I was 99% certain he had a worse ace. After a little thought I decided now was the time to stick the rest in and he made a crying "I have to call" with A7o. Talking through the hand with him later he confirmed he would have folded to a flop reship, so I was very happy with my thought processes during the hand.

With 14 left I was chipleader with almost 20% of the chips. That kind of position is nice but somewhat illusory in these fast structured tournaments where just about everyone is in ship or fold mode with the average stack 10 bigs and the chipleader only a little more than 20. Lose a couple of pots at this point and you can go from chipleader to out, which is precisely what happened. First I lost a race with ace queen v sevens, and then I shipped KQs into the big blinds AQ to reiterate the recurring theme of the weekend. Obviously disappointing to go out in 10th but the hands play themselves at that point and the cards ultimately decide.

So not a profitable weekend. The fact that I went deep in the main event actually ended up costing me money. I qualified too late to be able to snag a cheap flight back on Sunday, so I pessimistically booked for Saturday, so my survival necessitated missing that flight and booking a Monday morning one and a last minute hotel, both at ripoff prices. Going deepish in the other two events also prevented me from grinding back some of the weekend's outlay on the cash table (though it didn't stop me from putting in a few hours online each night - and the weekend finished as it started with me in the airport playing on Stars). None of the others lads cashed in anything either, and at least one managed to spunk off a few grand on the gaming tables. The lack of a novelty tournament in the programme probably doomed Nicky's campaigh from the outset. I think he's hoping for a 2-7 Badugi Limit event in clown costume in Luton.

Nevertheless an enjoyable one. The Irish lads were all good craic and there was much quality banter and moments of lightness. And in the end, isn't that more important than mere money. (Of course not, but still).

It has to be said though that the tour's numbers are clearly dwindling. Only 42 started day 1A, and day 1B dribbled us barely past the 150 mark overall. Blue Square don't seem to be putting the same degree of effort in and there seems to be less local value than last year. The tournament didn't exactly run smoothly either. Maybe we're spoiled in Ireland with good organisers, directors and dealers, but some of the organisation and dealing was shocking. Exempt from this criticism is the lovely Deena who was a rare island of competence, but to be perfectly honest some of the dealers were shocking. Apart from the fact that most of them seemed unable to do the basics like count chips, one incident illustrates the often slipshod way of things in GUKPTs. During a table move, a guy came and sat in the wrong seat. Whether this was by accident or design (it's hard to imagine how one confuses seat 9 with seat 5, and seat 5 was due to be big blind, a fact that may have proved unpalatable for his tiny stack), the fact is the dealer never asked him for the seat ticket, so he was allowed to sit in the wrong seat. This moved me in seat 6 into the big blind, and when I said "Surely someone is coming in in seat 5", I was ignored. Eventually, someone did turn up, not for seat 5 but for seat 9, and the error was discovered. However, by this time, the erroneously seated gentleman in seat 9 had raised, so the ruling was that since action had taken place, he had to stay in that seat, and the other guy came in to seat 5. Seat 9 profited further from the mixup by proceeding to double up with ace king in the hand.

It also has to be said a lot of the English recreational players are either clueless or just lacking in basic poker etiquette. There were several incidences not only of onlookers actively chanting for the card their friends needed (or didn't need) and jeering fallen opponents, but actually coaching in mid hand (stuff like "You have to ship now"). Of course you see some bad behaviour along these lines in Ireland too and indeed everywhere, but it does seem more prevalent in England.

Read More

Theory post....ICM,Bubble factor (part 2)

Bubble factor
Bubble factor quantifies the degree to which ICM considerations involved in a stepped payout structure skews the pot odds needed to make a call correct.
In the previous example, Player B needs only 50% equity (odds of evens) to make the call correct in terms of chip pot odds (slightly less in actual fact taking blinds into account), but needs odds of 3 to 1 (75% equity) for it to be correct in tournament equity terms. This is because he loses 3 times as much equity if he calls and loses than he gains if he calls and wins. Bubble factor in this case is 3.
Once you know the bubble factor in a given situation, you can determine whether it is correct to call or not based on bubble factor and pot odds.
Pot odds required = odds of winning multiplied by bubble factor

In the example, if player B believes he is a 6 to 4 favourite (60% equity) against the shover’s range and is getting evens on the call
Pot odds required = 4/6 by 3
Here he would need pot odds of 2 to 1, so getting odds of only evens, folding is correct.

For the call to be correct, player B must be a 3 to 1 favourite (have 75% equity):
Pot odds required = 1/3 by 3
So calling getting odds of 1 (evens) is correct.

This illustrates the first key point of ICM:
In a tournament, it is never correct to call getting the bare pot odds required in chip terms. The true odds required are odds of winning multipled by bubble factor

A slightly more complicated example
Two package $6K satellite with 3 players left, but player A has twice as many chips (8000) as the other 2 (4000 each).
Similar logic as in the previous example tells us that if the three players were evely stacked, their tournament equity would be $4k (one third of the prize pool), and bubble factor is 2.
Does the fact that one player has half the chips mean he has half the equity?
Player A:
50% chance of winning. Equity $3k
If player A doesn’t win, either player B or C must. Since player A has twice as many chips as the other player in this case, it follows that he will be second twice as often as the other player in this scenario. So 50% of the time, player A doesn’t win, but in two thirds of these cases, he comes second and wins $6K. So one third of the time, he wins $6k, representing tournament equity of $2K.
The rest of the time (one sixth), he finishes third and wins nothing.
Total expectation: $5K
Player B:
25% chance of winning. Equity $1500
50% of the time, player A wins, and half of these times, player B comes second (25%)
25% of the time, player C wins, and only one third of the time does player B then come second (8.33%)
So overall player B comes second one third of the time. Equity $2K
Total expectation: $3500
Player C:
Same as for player B

This illustrates the second key point of ICM:
Chips in smaller stacks are worth proportionally more than chips in a bigger stack (in a stepped payout structure). Doubling your chips late in a tournament does not double your equity

In the above example, player A has 8K in chips and $5K in equity. So each chip in his stack is worth 62.5 cents.
Players B and C have 4K in chips and $3500 in equity. Each chip in their stack is currently worth 87.5 cents.

Now let’s look at bubble factor in this case.
If player B (or C) moves all in and the other shorter stack calls:
The winning player’s equity increases to $6K (gain of $2500)
The loser’s drops to $0 (loss of $3500)
Bubble factor in this case is 3500/2500 (1.4)

If Player A gets all in with either B or C:
If he wins, his equity increases to $6K (gain of $1K)
If he loses, his equity drops to $3500 (loss of $1500)
So player’s A bubble factor in this case is 1500/1000 (1.5)

When player B (or C) gets all in with A:
If he wins, his equity increases to $5K (gain of $1500)
If he loses, his equity drops to $0 (loss of $3500)
His bubble factor in this case is 3500/1500 (2.3333)

This illustrates a third key point of ICM:
When stacks are uneven, players have different bubble factors relative to each other


The following table summarises the situation:

Current chips 8000 4000 4000
8000 X 1.5 1.5
4000 2.3333 X 1.4
4000 2.3333 1.4 X

This illustrates a fourth key point:
Bubble factors of smaller stacks to bigger stacks > bigger stacks to smaller stacks > smaller stacks to other smaller stacks

This example illustrates a number of key strategic concepts:
In these cases, nobody wants to get all in. In this specific case, the shorter stacks need to be a 1.4 to 1 favourite to justify getting it all in against each other, and a 2.3333 to 1 favourite to get all in with the big stack
The big stack doesn’t want to get all in either. Sometimes in these spots bad players who don’t understand ICM make loose calls on the misguided idea that “I can afford to lose the chips and it’s a chance to knock someone out”. To call an all in correctly, the big stack needs to be a 1.5 to 1 favourite
Given a choice, the small stack would prefer to get all in with the other small stack. This suggests that correct short stack strategy is to attack the other short stack and stay out of the way of the big stack
Since players need to believe themselves to be a big favourite before they can correctly call an allin, and since hands that are big favourites are rare three handed, correct strategy is to shove light and call tight. These situations have been compared to “a game of chicken”.
In particular, the short stacks need to be a massive favourite to call a big stack shove, so the big stack can shove pretty liberally

Read More

Full tilt ahead

Online still going very well. Not so much on Ipoker where I've been swinging up and down without ever quite breaking single digit ROI, but I'm playing more and more on Full Tilt where I've achieved an ROI of a staggering 80% in SNGs over a decent enough sample size (200ish). It definitely feels like FT is softer. Don't get me wrong, still loads of bad players on Ipoker (most of them French or Italian) but they tend to be mad aggressives, which means there's not much you can do beyond wait for cards and hope that your plus Ev shoves run to expectation. And since they mostly play turbos at the higher stakes on Ipoker, you're never going to beat the games by a huge margin simply waiting for cards. The structures on Tilt are better and there are more bad weak tights which makes profitable exploitative play less card dependent.

I think I'm also learning to handle the swings of variance better. Losing days are hard to take of course, but by the very nature of variance you're always going to have at least 1 in 3. You also have to be able to deal with swings within a day: it's a lot easier to relax and play your A game if you get off to a good start and win your first STT, but you really do have to think of it as one long session with no one result having any real significance. A lot easier said than done though: start your day with 5 bubbles on the bounce and even a Zen monk might have trouble not feeling upset.

Yesterday, I had an appalling afternoon that saw me drop $1500, but followed it with a good evening where I won a ticket to the European Shorthanded on Ipoker and cashed in the $50K guaranteed, and then a great night session on Tilt that saw me swing my $1500 deficit around to a $2500 profit on the day. I think I'm very good at dealing with adversity and persevering (of course, there's a difference between persevering and chasing, but sin sceal eile), and perhaps less good at putting in the hours when things are going well. This afternoon I made over $1K on Tilt in my first hour and decided that was pretty much it for the day. Done and dusty. At least I'll be going into tomorrow's GUKPT in a very positive frame of mind.

I like the software on Tilt, it's infinitely better and prettier than the clunky Ipoker junk. I particularly like the fact that Notes are visible in the lobby before you sign up to a tournament (which makes game selection a lot simpler). The lack of rakeback is an annoyance, almost goes against my religion to play without it, but I suppose if you're hoovering up an ROI of 80% rakeback is less significant than if you're striggling in single digits. The other annoyance is how hard it is to get money off the site: it really is like trying to extract communion money from a Scotsman.

Read More

Mental toughness

Mental toughness is a big part of our game. You could be the best player technically in the world, but if you lack the mental toughness to perform to your ability, you'll never be a top class player. It's not good enough to merely be good: you have to actually play good.

This week I've been focussing on mental toughness. I've never had a problem with it live, but online it's too easy to fall into the traps of surfing while you play, or chatting to friends on MSN. It's too easy to tilt as you take your umpteenth bad beat of the day and go spew off in the other windows. It's too easy to forget that no, online poker is not rigged and no, you are not any unluckier than everyone else. It's too easy to selectively memorise the bad beats and conveniently forget your own suckouts. It's too easy to look at your Pokertracker graph or Sharkscope figures and think "Yes, but if I ran even half decent....". It's too easy to look at the graphs or results of others and think, oh well, they just run better than poor little me. It's easier to think it's luck, not that they might be better players than you, or play better more often. As Joe Beevers said at the final table in Drogheda, it's unlucky to believe in luck.

So this week I've been trying to maintain total focus on the poker when I'm playing online: in essence give it the same concentration as live. It seems to be paying dividends: last Sunday's cash in the 1K game on Boss was followed by 4 1k+ profit days.

Or maybe I'm just running good at the moment.

It also has to be said I'm putting in long hours for those 1K days. Typical day this week consisted of an hour or two grinding before breakfast, then a couple more hours in the afternoon, followed by a couple more in the evening, and finishing with the 5 or 6 hour shift starting at midnight.

Only live outing since the weekend was last night's scalps in the Fitz. I think I managed a new feat of going the entire tournament without actually winning a pot, and by the time the ship or fold stages was reached, my first ship, a suited ace, ran straight into AK in the BB and there was no suckout. Live poker is rigged.

In truth, I didn't give too much of a rat's ass. The early night meant I could hightail home for another 1K+ nightly online session despite donking out of tonight's FTOPs in glorious fashion.

On Tuesday I got 4 handed in the European Short Handed sat. There were 2 packages but it was not to be: I overshipped a decent ace over an Andy Grimason raise to find he had an even decenter ace. Well done to Andy who went on to land one of the packages.

The following night I got headsup with Dewi James in the ticket only satellite. It was winner takes all and I went into the HU battle with a 2:1 deficit. Any time I looked like I might be about to turn the tables, Dewi seemed to river a gutshot. Not to be.

Simultaneously I was on the final table of the GUKPT satellite. Highlight was making probably the best call of my career: an allin on the river with ten high. The river ship made no sense, and when I worked back through the hand I was well over 50% certain he could only have a busted openender, which meant 9 high. Which is precisely what the thieving little monkey had. From there I was golden and nailed down one of the packages, so next week I'm off to Newcastle. Last year's Newcastle GUKPT was a special tournament for me: my first result outside Ireland. I ended up going out on the second last table in particularly sick fashion hitting an unwanted unneeded and totally uncalled for set on the river that made a gutshot straight for the other guy (who went on to win the tournament outright), so hopefully I can go at last one table better this year.

Read More

Ace jack again

JP Irish Masters.....in a weird echo of my defence of my European Deepstack title ending when I crashed out in 15th pushing ace jack, my attempt to replicate final tabling the JP Irish Masters end with me......crashing out in 15th pushing ace jack. This time, the slightly surprising calling hand was 55.

Very strange tournament for me in that I never really got going yet somehow managed to go deep. Dreadful table draw with Martin Silke and Mick Muldoon and very few soft spots on table 1, and card death stretching into day 2 meant that my stack just shrunk all day 1 until about 20 minutes from the end of day 1 when my starting stack of 15K had dwindled to 4K. I did manage to come back on day 2 with 11k, but it was several levels before I even got back to starting stack. Survival was the name of the game for most of the day although I did briefly breach the 100K mark as the bubble loomed. Was fortunate (or unfortunate in terms of my tournament equity) enough to be sat beside my good mate John Eames for much of the latter part of day 2 and he remarked that the number of recognisably good players in at the business end was a testimony to the structure, which is a very good point. Great job as ever by JP, Christine and their crew.

There was a great buzz around the Red Cow. I'm always shocked (and a little alarmed) at evidence of the surprisingly large number of people who read this random brain dump blog, but the number of people who came up to commiserate or otherwise comment on my decision to end my (international) running career was heartening.

Ultimately it was a case of so near and yet so far disappointment but at least it was good to get another cash. My record in 15K+ starting stack tournaments is much better than in 10K ones, so hopefully this augurs well for Vegas.

Stayed at home today grinding online during the day and then in the evening I played the 1 million gtd on Boss. Another case of the nearlies: I ended up 50th (for €4k, only half of which I get to keep myself as I was staked in), but not bad for a night's work. I probably should play more online MTTs: given that they're my specialty live. Well done to dagunman who again proved he's the best online tourney player in the land by final tabling this.

Read More

Running good again

Had a nice last day in Bergamo, Mireille and I, just the two of us, something we rarely seem to do any more. I'd already told the Irish ultrarunning body of my decision to retire from international competition, and I felt no regret so I believe it to be the right decision. I intend to continue training and perhaps still compete as an individual in whatever races take my fancy. Mireille said one to me during the day that suggested the way forward: that she missed the trips away we took together for races when it was just the two of us.

Straight back into the poker when we got home. Perhaps not the wisest move ever: I played Daithio in the Boards HU league minutes after arrival after a largely sleepless night. He'd been touted as a lead contender by both Rob Taylor and Marty Smyth and so it proved. I pretty much had my ass handed to me. I have four tough games left this week and will be looking to take at least two points to stay in the hunt.

Otherwise I'm running very well online at the moment. The day before we left for Bergamo I had one of my best ever days online (up $1500), and since returning have followed it up with two more four figure winning days.

Played tonight's cash game final in Malahide and scraped into the money. Greatly enjoyed playing live again. Rooting for Sligo John to take it down after my exit as he played extremely well in my opinion, the best I've ever seen him play.

Hopefully it augurs well for this weekend's JP Irish Masters. This was a big landmark tournament for me last year as it was my second major final table and as such the result where I started to shake off the Jamie Gold of Irish poker tag as a one lucky score merchant. JP's tournaments are always great.

Read More

Finito capito

Like political careers, athletic ones tend to end in miserable humiliating failure, and mine just did in the ultrarunning equivalent of getting it all in with pocket 2s in the first hand of the WSOP main event because you thought the other guy was at it but actually he had aces.

Three hours into this year's World 24 hour championships in Bergamo I was already in trouble, and three hours later accepted the pointlessness of flogging a dead horse any further and limped back to my hotel for a good kip. No excuses: the simple fact is that the desire and tolerance for extreme discomfort and pain that is essential to being a top class ultra runner is no longer there. I never managed to convince myself that running for 24 hours yesterday represented anything other than supreme pointless folly. In fact, my overwhelming feeling from the moment the race started was what a horribly boring thing it was going to be to run for 24 hours. I have nothing but respect for those who dedicate themselves to it, particularly my teammates Eoin Keith (who broke his own national record and in coming 5th achieved by far the highest ever finishing position of an Irishman) and Eddie Gallen who delivered another sterling performance.

Congratulations also to the Italian organisers who put on the best race I've ever been part of. I wish the same could be said about the Irish end of things but it was the usual shambles featuring runners in ancient gear because the national federation had not provided new stuff, and an incompetent "team manager". More on that another time perhaps.

In the mean time, it suffices to draw a line under an ultra running career that started as an unexpected bonus at the end of my marathon career, provided me with many happy memories including what it feels like to win a 60K race in central Park in the greatest city on earth, a 50K in the only hills in Holland, a 6 hour indoor race on a roller skate rink in the Czech republic, and a 24 hour national championship in 35 degree heat and 90% humidity, and probably ended effectively as soon as I captured my first major poker title.

Finally: the agony and the ecstacy of ultra running finds no better summation than the Frenchwoman who ran for 24 hours to claim the world championship only to find she had failed by a mere 11 metres to capture the world record too.

Read More

Beautiful Bergamo

Another weekend, another trip to Italy....this time for the World 24 hour running championships. Bergamo is agreeing with us greatly so far....a little hotter than I'd like but a beautiful civilised place and the organisers seem to be on top of everything. Just walked the course and they seem to be carpetting the concrete and brick portions which is a very nice touch.

We're staying in the Hotel Mercure which is also a major improvement on the other "athlete villages" I've experienced. The Irish delegation is 6: four athletes and two officials. The other athletes are new national record holder Eoin Keith who is capable of pushing through the 240 km barrier and be an actual medal contender, Thomas Maguire (national 100 Km record holder and highest ever Irish finisher in the world championships when he was 6th in the World 100K in Seoul a couple of years ago: if Thomas clicks, he is also capable of 240+) and Eddie Gallen (current national champion, and in the form of his life having set two PBs in a month late last year). The legend that is Richard Donovan unfortunately cried off due to injuries apparently inflicted in his recent 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 continents lunacy.

The officials are the other legend of Irish ultrarunning, Tony Mangan (current world record holder for 48 hours indoor, and 48 hours treadmill) and Mireille, the only Italian speaker in the group.

Live updates from the race which starts at 10 AM local time tomorrow can be had at http://www.iau-ultramarathon.org/mediacenter.php and http://www.runnersbg.eu/

Read More