Doke done with donks of Deauville

I played the last two side events, a fast structured 550 event, and a "turbo" 330. JP joked that if I liked the turbo I should try some of his faster pub games at home, and it's fair to say that the structure made most pub crapshoots look like the main event of the World Series by comparison. 15 minute levels, which given how long your average Fronk takes to make a decision, meant 2 hands a level at times (3 if they were all calling clock on each other).

Anyway, no joy in either for me. In both I just withered into the push/fold stage, rallied a bit, before ultimately petering out. A lot of the Fronks don't really understand the whole push/fold nature of big blind play, which led to some amusing hands. My second last hand of the turbo, I shoved my 5 big blinds over 5 limpers and to my astonishment they all folded. The last guy showed KJ before he folded getting 2 to 1 on the call. I was tempted to show him my K2s but decided against it in the interests of international diplomacy. My final hand in Deauville had me shoving 8's for 8 big blinds over a limper, the big blind tanking it for about 2 levels before calling (leaving himself 2 bigs behind), and then tanking it for another level or so before making a crying call when the original limper reshipped. I think he seriously considered folding his pocket sixes getting 16 to 1 on the call.

Good fun though, and it was good to see that the French adhere to the international law that says that the biggest donkeys talk the biggest game at the table and berate the people they think are the fish the loudest. One guy at my table playing every hand (really badly) and doing donkey stuff like calling with Q2s out of position for big chunks of his stack went on monkey tilt every time he actually had a good hand and the likes of KJ sucked out on him.

Grinded online for a while and came close to another EPT Berlin ticket in the 3x, going out in 7th in the end for €500 consolation prize. Then we decided to go to eat and found a nice quiet pizzeria down a side street. JP and Toby appeared a bit later. Fair play to both of them for their work here: Toby was impressive as ever TDing and JP seemed to have a meteoric rise from dealing in his first EPT to TDing the main event in Thomas Kremser's absence. No better man. All the Irish based dealers working here were a cut above the locals (most of whom were useless beyond belief): it really illustrates how lucky we are in Ireland as far as competent TDs and dealers go.

Overall my second ever EPT was a positive experience for me. While you always hope this will be the one time you get a life changing result, another side event cash is not to be sniffed at either. The downsides were the rather brash and sometimes downright unfair local player culture (sufficeth to say that while etiquette may be a French word it doesn't seem to be in the vocabulary of the average French poker player), and the very high effective regs fees of the event. 4% of all prizepools here are withheld, so an event that is advertised as 500 plus 50 reg (10%) is actually 480 plus 70 (15%).

Thanks to everyone who sent messages of support either here, by email, text, Twitter or Facebook. It's always a huge boost to know your friends back home are genuinely rooting for you.

Next up for me in the Bruce colours is the Fitz End of Month on Thursday, and (if I can find a hotel that doesn't cost twice as much as the tournament entry) the Clonmel festival. Tonight I'll be playing my first three online tourneys sponsored by Bruce on Bruce:

19.30 $10K Gtd Rebuy/Addon
18:30 Daily $10K guaranteed
20:30 HS Daily: $2500 Gtd

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Allez les Fronks.....

Well, day 2 of the Main event didn't exactly go to plan, unless the plan was to provide a perfect demonstration of Murphy's Law. I got set over setted for half my stack almost straight away. When you lose a big hand, you always wonder if you could do better. After talking through the hand with a few players I respect and getting opinions ranging from "You should have gone broke" to "You might have folded the river", I'm reasonably ok with the line I took. To be honest I can't ever see myself folding the second nuts to anyone other than a nit, which this guy most certainly was not.

After that it was downhill all the way. None of my preflop raises or cbets were getting through, and that set over set cooler was the only flop I hit all day. Eventually I found myself back to starting stack, which was now a reshipping stack, and I reshipped JJ over a loose mid position raiser, he called with AJ, and hit the ace. Shane Schleger (shaniac on Stars) was sitting to my immediate right before my exit, very nice guy and great player. I've played quite a bit in him in the 3x turbos on Stars which he plays perfectly as you'd expect. He went very deep (26th), I was rooting for him to win after my exit.

I was obviously pretty gutted after my exit after starting the day with such high hopes. However, I firmly believe that a big part of this job is to cope with the constant disappointments and recover emotionally to be able to play your best again as soon as possible. I went for a run to clear my head and then played a bit online. To add to the disappointment, I was third in an EPT Berlin 3x for the second night running (QT no match for Q3 for 70% of the chips) and went out on the cash bubble of the Manchester 3x (AK < J9).

I arrived in the casino just after the €2K event had started, which meant getting a table of death with a bunch of pros who had just busted from the main and bought in late too. 10K starting stack, and I did 3K first hand with TT versus a very well disguised JJ on an 8 high board. Second hand I found myself all in, not a spot Doke often finds himself in. The table loon raised the button to 200, I made it 700 from the SB with QQ, he called. I led at the J high flop, he raised, and after studying him for a while I decided I was good so I went with it and shoved. After a bit of a sweat, he folded. A few hands later, I raised his utg limp with QQ again, a Scandi kid repopped, I flatted. We both checked the ATT flop. I hit gin on the turn, Q, and led into him. He reraised and after a lot of thought I flatted for the simple reason that a ship folds out all his bluffs and only gets called by AA/TT or AT. I checked the river blank and after a lot of thought he shipped. I didn't snap as he can clearly have AA here, so I gave myself time to study him a while. He didn't look as comfortable as you'd expect someone with AA to look, and given that it's a Scandi I have to call, but I was far from certain I was good until he announced "Good call, king high". When I turned over the queens, an American wagon at the far side of the table accused me of slowrolling. Given that at least one good player I know would have considered folding the second nuts to someone in the blinds in my big hand earlier in the main, I don't think the third nuts is a snap call there by any means when everything about the way the guy played the hand represents the second nuts, so it certainly wasn't a slowroll. I figured there was no point arguing with her though: one of the advantages of being in France is you can just smile and pretend you don't understand someone irregardless of what language they're talking while muttering "wagon wagon wagon" under your breath.

My second table wasn't really any easier, illustrated by the fact that 4 of us ended up cashing (3 from my first table). Greg "Fossilman" Raymer was moved to the table late in the day: impressive table presence and interesting guy (obviously). Looking at my Bruce logo, he commented that every time he comes to Europe there's a new site he hasn't heard of before. We also chatted about the rather horrifying thud thud thud of club music that was leaking into the poker room through the walls. Greg reckons that if you have to put up with musical leaks of the sort, classic rock would be the nuts.

I held steady around 30K until I received another donation late in the evening. My raises were getting repopped but I kept my discipline and eventually one of the local donks (or fronks) decided to 5 bet ship QJo into my queens.

That left me in good shape going into day 2, and after a slow start I found myself on the right side of a cooler against Jens Kyllonen. He shipped over a fronk utg raise, I woke up with QQ in the BB and reshipped. Jens had JJ and I held while the Fronk beat himself for folding his ace rag (both hit). Bit of satisfying revenge for me over Jens after what he did to me in San Remo last year (even if it's just a cooler for him, his jacks were a standard ship with his stack).

I held steady around 60K for most of the day until I lost a 65K flip twenty from the bubble (88 < QJo). That left me short with 30K instead of having a perfect stack size to attack the bubble. No point crying over spilt milk or lost races though: time to readjust to my new stack size and try and navigate it through the bubble. If there's one thing I've learned from playing online turbos it's how to play push/fold optimally.

It got a bit hairy at times but my ships all got through and I was able to hang around without doubling up. I was still shortest by some margin on the bubble. The second shortest (who had over twice my stack) smiled in that peculiarly charming French way, asked in English where I was from and (more importantly) how much I had. When I told him he immediately switched to colluding in French with the French big stacks at the table. Three of them agreed to help their "compatriot" (a word you hear a lot here) by calling my eventual ship with any two and check it down. I pretended not to understand but decided if and when I did ship I was going to say in French "Go ahead and call, quadruple me up, I have aces" to let them know I knew the score. Collusion in French among the French was an unsavoury fact of life throughout the tournaments here in Deauville.

As it was, this proved unnecessary as the very next hand a young Russian abusing the bubble by raising every hand did so again, the Fronk decided he'd had enough and reshipped his A8o, and to my secret glee the Russian snapped and flipped over the big lads. Pas de suckout au revoir monsieur et merci pour le poisson. I managed to restrain myself from doing a dance or fistpump, instead smiling and shaking his hand politely and saying (in French) "Unlucky sir, well played, you must be devastated to go out on the bubble just after getting your compatriots to agree to help bubble me".

When we got down to two tables, I finally won a race getting the double up that threatened to make me a real force in the tournament. The Russian commented that in his opinion there were only 4 of us who could actually win the tournament (him, me and two others) and I felt that another double up to near average and I was in with a great shout as the Fronks were imploding left right and centre, reshipping their underpairs and one overs and runner runner draws left right and centre. Unfortunately it wasn't to be: a standard suited king shove on the button ran into AJ to bust me out in 18th for €4100. Second last table is a horrible place to exit: you can taste the big one (there was €163K for the win) as they hand you less than twice your buyin back. But at the end of the day I think I went as far if not farther than I destined to, played as well as I could, and it was satisfying to maintain my 100% record of cashing in EPT festivals. All you can do is believe the big one will eventually come if you keep knocking on the door and putting yourself in position.

There are two tourneys left for me here, a 550 two day event starting in a few hours and (if I don't get through day one of that), a 330 turbo tomorrow. Time to go for a run and get ready for another go on the poker merry go round.

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So far so good....EPT Deauville day 1A

Well, the trip got off to an eventful start when our plane was diverted from Paris Beauvais to Lille. Big Mick G was on the same flight and we had a good old natter about poker which continued on a 2 hour bus trip to Beauvais. The bus must have either been for pre-school kids or circus midgets judging from the legroom...bmg was not at all impressed. The trip was completed when we picked up the rented car and Mireille drove two sleep-deprived poker players to Deauville.

Mick went off to play the supersat (and of course being the legend he is snagged a ticket). I was tempted to play it too as these yokes are always mental mental value (Mick confirmed this was no exception later) but decided a potential late night was not the best preparation for Day 1A so opted for an early night instead. The hotel is something else....our suite is almost the size of our house, with chandeliers, a king size bed etc. We also have a maid who seems to be on permanent standby because whenever we leave the room she's in to remake the beds, tidy our mess and leave more chocolate covered peanuts on the pillows. Mireille reckons it's a bit too much like living like royalty for her communist sensibilities but meh, I'll put up with it for a week I reckon. PokerStars allowed something ridiculous like €1600 for the hotel in the package so it should be good.

Mireille took some pictures but we haven't figured how to upload them yet.

Anyway, I had a good night's sleep and a light breakfast. My stomach didn't seem in the mood for my normal hearty horse sized portions, maybe a little jitters there.

I didn't recognise anyone at my first table but apart from a couple of local brayers they all seemed competent enough. One was a French TeamPro (ironically the first out when the table donk decided jacks was a cracking 5 bet shove hand and proceeded to bust yer man's aces), another ended the day as chipleader (ironically he had a hard time of it in the early going).

For whatever reason (maybe just that midday is a decidedly weird time to find yourself playing poker) I took a while to settle. I lost quarter of my stack with KQ on the button against the big blind's AQ. I didn't really like it and should probably have lost less, it just played out very weirdly. Flop was QTx, and he check called. Turn was a brick and assuming I was still good I fired again to charge KJ/J9 type draws. My bet was 1100 and he threw in 2000 with comment (does this sound familiar?). He claimed he hadn't meant to raise, but this was then ruled to be a min raise and for the second time in a few days I found myself wondering whether my opponent had really meant to raise or not. I don't think I can fold the turn for the extra 1100, but I should probably have folded when he led the river. Somehow I convinced myself it might be a busted draw.

Most of the day was about as frustrating a day as I've ever endured in a poker tournament. I was virtually card dead, and my raises and cbets kept getting snapped off. I dipped below 20K a few times but thankfully kept my discipline and never resorted to doing anything rash. Just before I flew out, I read Negreanu saying how there are times when it seems that you are getting 3 bet every time before the flop and check raised after it and you have to be able to stay patient and disciplined. Given the day I was having, I kept reminding myself of that.

One nice hand dealt by JP McCann (quite a few familar Dublin faces around the room dealing) got me back in it. After I raised with 77 and got 4 calls, the flop came 764 with two diamonds. The table donkey went for the check raise. Assuming he had some manner of draw I shipped the loot in. I had just about enough to price him out of the call, but of course the life and decisions of a donkey are never governed by pot odds so the fact that he folded suggests he was on a total move. In any case, after a couple of minutes hyperventilating while he decided (being all in early on in a deepstack slow structure is not usually part of the Doke plan), I was pretty relieved when he folded. Getting outdrawn with top set once in a week is bad enough but twice would have been sickening.

One other amusing moment: I raised utg. The table maniac in the BB looked at my shirt, asked if Bruce was just the site that I played on or was I sponsored. When I said "sponsored", he folded after some consideration. A few good blind on blind tussles with him got me back over starting stack just before the table broke.

My new table had another French TeamPro, have played with him a few times before, can't remember his name, he's the guy that looks like a youthful version of Uncle Duke in Doonesbury. The only other Irishman in day 1A, Brendan Ruane, was to my immediate right. The rest of the table was pretty bad local donks mostly which meant my ongoing card death was not as big a problem as at the first table. Unfortunately, the table broke pretty quickly and I managed to blow most of my "profits" from it on the last hand against Oncle Duc in a hand I probably had no business being in.

My final table was pretty much the nuts. Apart from one very good Russian, the rest seemed to be locals who seemed to think that all there is to poker is to play as many hands as possible and bluff at every possible opportunity. I worked up to 44K going into the last level when finally I got the right side of the cooler I'd been waiting for all day. With blinds at 500/1000/100, I raised to 2500 in mid position with KK. The very tight Russky repopped to 8K from the BB and I flatted on the basis that a reraise just folds out everything worse. Flop came AKx, he had already asked how much I had behind, and led for 10K. I stuck to the plan and flatted. Turn is a J, and he checked. After thinking for a while as to what this signified, I decided that whether he was trapping (or thought he was) or had given up, I had to bet for a variety of reasons. I bet enough to make it look like I was leaving just enough behind to have a workable shipping/reshipping stack if he shipped and I was floating and had to fold. He instantly shipped and while AA is obviously a huge part of his range, I'm obviously never folding getting almost 6 to 1. So I snap call but ask him nervously if it's aces. He says nothing and when the cards go over, I see the ace first and my heart sinks but the second card is a K so happy days, just have to duck an ace on the river. The hand was dealt by my pal Ken Ralph and I think he was more relieved than me when he turned over the river card and it was a blank.

That hand got me up to 95K and I was able to use my stack and the fact that everyone else was locking up for the night to steal another few chips to finish up at 102400, double the average and in the top 20. A pretty thrilling outcome given the uphill struggle for most of the day.

Mireille disappeared off today to visit one of her brothers. We decided a double car ride wasn't the best preparation for today's day 2 so I stayed here. Plan is to mainly just chill out and be well rested and ready for tomorrow. I went out for a run after breakfast, along the seafront. Got a bit lost on the way back which meant I got to see most of Deauville. As you'd expect from a place namechecked in the Great Gatsby, it's very pretty and conspicuously wealthy, with the definite feeling of a Winner's Circle to the whole place.

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WBCOOP entry

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 728223

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Off to a flyer

Killarney was the location for my first outing in Bruce gear. Always a great spot to play poker, and this weekend was no exception. Numbers were down a little on last year, obviously due to weather (or fear of weather: it was actually quite nice there for most of the weekend).

The main event kicked off on Friday and after a reasonably good start I was knocked back in a few big pots. My aces were busted by Kx (board ran out KT4KK: I folded the river obviously to a shove), then a set was apparently outdrawn (I folded again on the river with 4 to a straight shrinking my set down to third pair effectively).

I continued to struggle on in day 2 until a change of tables saw me picking up aces twice in quick succession to get me up to 45K. Then a very interesting hand against Jimmy McSweeny: he raised on the button (as he does), I repopped (the exact same amount I'd done with the aces), he went again effectively putting me all in if I decided to call and I folded (I was near the bottom of my range). Obviously I know Jimmy's well capable of being totally at it but I didn't have a hand I wanted to play for all my chips at that point. Jimmy showed J3o: fair play, brave move as I snap at least 50% of the time there and when I do he's usually crushed.

Jimmy was involved in my exit: Trevor Dinneen raised in late position, Jimmy flatted on the button, I called from the small blind with a pocket pair and the big blind came along for the ride too. I flopped a set and check raised all in when Trevor cbet and Jimmy flatted. Jimmy was priced in to call with a queen high flush draw and duly hit the river. It was an 80K pot which would have put me in a great spot but alas, it was not to be on this occasion.

I bought in late to the side event. Pretty sick table with eventual runner up Chris Dowling, Big Mick G, Conor Ainsworth, Wes and another good young local lad I played with in TeamCOP. Nothing really happened for me, I don't think I won a single pot, and eventually decided AT on the button was ahead of Dowling's raising range and therefore good enough to reship. He snapped with QJo. I think we all know how well Chris runs: Big Mick certainly does as he said "Good luck Dara, you're gonna need it". Sure enough, Chris flops not one but two queens to send me to the rail.

On Sunday I got up and took advantage of the unusually nice weather to go for a run to and around Muckross. Came back to play the headsup tournament, which attracted 8 runners. I drew Paul Lucey in the first round, but he was indisposed. Paul McIntyre from Liverpool stepped in in his place. Paul had the better of things in the early going and I needed to get lucky when we got it in with his top pair versus my bottom pair and a flush draw. After that I never looked back and advanced to a semi final against Dermot Jacob (Jakey), who had beaten Fintan Gavin. The other semi was contested between Roy Brindley (who had prevailed against Rob Taylor) and Tommy Walsh(who beat Ken Corkery). My semi was a real marathon affair, with Jakey having the better of the early going. He had a 17k to 3k lead at one stage but I clung on and eventually the match swung my way. While it was still in progress, Tommy (who had despatched Roy in just three hands) suggested that if I got through we chop the money equally and I take the trophy (this turned out to be moot: there was no trophy).

Which we duly did and I was delighted to get off to a winning start with Bruce's.

Next up for me is the Deauville EPT which I've satellited into. I'm really looking forward to it and here's hoping the Bruce gear continues to bring me luck!

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Good day Bruce

Good weekend in Galway, and successful one.

No joy in the Eglinton IPC Party event. Worked up to 30K in early going until Big Mick's buddy took a chunk out of me with a well disguised gutshot. Got back up to 26K a 1/2 when I reshipped AJs over a late position raise. Standard enough reship, and after a lot of thought my opponent found the call with A8o, and was rewarded with an 8 on the flop.

We also did an Irish Poker Radio show from the Eglinton. Ignore the boring brag section from the co-host (yours truly) up front and skip ahead to some quality interviews with Big Mick G and Paul Marrow imo.

Next up was the IPR final table. Normal "running good" service was resumed: I picked up aces first hand, and also last hand. The standard was very high as you'd expect given the high quality of the field and nobody was making major mistakes so it was always going to come down to who ran best at crucial points, and thankfully that was me. Las hand was pretty funny: Graham Masters had gone low and decided to ship blind. I looked at one card, ace, and knew I was calling. The other card matched it. The board ran out A33xx and that was that.

It was back to running bad for the Eglinton side event. My exit hand was one of the funniest I've seen in a while. A local limping 95% of hands limped the cutoff, I raised to isolate on the button with QJs, and we saw a Q53 flop. He potted it, and I decided to call and re-evaluate on the turn. The turn was an ace of hearts giving me the flush draw. He again donk led for pot which now made it a big pot, and I decided this was a good spot to rep the ace and went for the semi-bluff shove. He called pretty fast, fast enough to indicate that second pair was no good and I needed to hit the flush, but no, he flipped over Q8o, drawing to two outs. Needless to say, he hit a non heart 8 on the river and that was that.

Great weekend overall, with some quality carousing in McSwiggan's. When Dave "The Phenomenon" Curtis is MC, you know it's gonna rock and rule. Any conversation immediately becomes 1000 times more interesting once The Phenomenon enters it. Thanks to all the well wishers who congratulated me on my success including Wally, Chris Dowling, The Phenomenon, Cat and Rob, Keith McFadden, Big Mick G, Nicky Power, Paul Marrow and Parky himself. Heard Parky was giving Nicky and Marty some stick over their golf habit. Fair play that man: about time someone did.

Haven't put in as much hours online this week as normal, but it's still going swimmingly. Played a couple of afternoon 45 mans on Full Tilt on Monday and got headsup in both, chopping one and finishing second in the other. Yesterday I played just one tournament, the 18.30 $8.08 rebuy on Stars and scooped my fifth Manchester package. $2076 profit for 2 hours "work" while I booked planes and trains and did email: sweeeeet.

Today I went in to Bruce to sign the sponsorship deal. It was a very positive meeting with Thomas and Chris and I'm really looking forward to representing Bruce to the best of my ability and contributing in any way I can. My first outing is this weekend in Killarney, always a great place to play thanks to Connie and Matt. There will also be an online component to the deal which fits in very nicely with my plan to concentrate more on MTTs this year as the MTTs on Bruce are very sweet. Bruce are organising an online "Welcome" tourney for me at some point: more on that later and I'm hoping all my poker friends will support it.

I'm probably going to take it easy pokerwise until I head to Killarney on the train on Friday morning. First I've decided to treat Mireille to a celebratory night out tomorrow. Being married to me is an awful ordeal at times but somebody has to do it and she does it brilliantly. She was my main supporter and number one fan through my running career and this has carried on into my poker career.

Also, happy birthday to my eldest son, Paddy (Poke). He never fails to make me proud and the fact that being his Dad has been way way easier than it should is all down to him.

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Sheep the teekets, ya

Pretty good start to the online year. Not playing as many STTs as per "the Plan" but still crushing them. Won an EPT package on Stars, final tabled the $100 rebuy, and won a tournament on Full Tilt all in one night. Last night won a couple of $500 sats (instacashed in for T$) and took down the first Irish Open ticket only satellite on Paddy. Good to get qualification for the IO out of the way early.

Recognised a few of the runners in the IO sat as some of the better players around. Luckily for me they all seemed to go out early. I went from shortie on the final table to chipleader with no big hands or showdowns: just min raising almost every time it was folded round to me, and either taking the blinds and antes, or the pot on the flop with a cbet, or retreating for the minimum loss if I ran into something. Tried to avoid showdowns and flips for as long as possible but there comes a point where you have to take them and after a few bad beats I found myself short three handed. Tried to wangle a deal at that point as the other two had expressed disinterest in the ticket but the chipleader changed his mind and decided he wanted it so we played on. I continued smallballing as long as I could but there comes a point where you just have to ship and hope, and a quality suckout got me right back in it. I shipped A6 from the SB into AT, and was getting my coat after a T53 flop, then a 2 on the turn for some gutterball hope, and bing the 4 on the river.

Headsup was pretty damn funny too. Just as I was telling all my MSN railers that with 35 bigs each this could go on a while, I flop a straight, and before I have time to decide what'd be a good amount to bet my opponent simplified the matter greatly by shipping the loot in with middle pair. Think he was a tad tilted from the constant nuisance min raises and the previous hand where an ill-advised free card on the turn with two pair allowed me to gutter him up something vicious on the river. Obviously I'm running good, Doke style, at the moment, and long may it continue.

Currently on the train to Galway to take part in the Eglinton Party and the IPR live final. Should be a great weekend. Big Mick and his posse are somewhere on the train too, presumably in a distant carriage as I can't hear the gun fire or clinking of bling from here. Speaking of which, congrats to Mick for pulling off the Supernova Elite thing again this year. Quality lad and player with huge talent, top class attitude, and tremendous work ethic.

OK, I'll leave you with a link to another blog: http://smurphspoker.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html. Scroll down to Friday June 22 2007 to see the First Lady of Irish poker unknowingly describing the live debut, tournament debut, and no limit holdem debut of Doke. And how he was sucked out on before I'd learned how to run good (or write about himself pretentiously in the third person).

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State of the notion

When I was running competitively, I got into the habit of setting two goals every time I started preparing for a race: a base goal (which if not achieved would lead me to consider that I had failed) and a stretch goal (which if achieved signified undoubted success). I suppose my goals going into 2010 are more or less the same as they were at the start of this year: the base goal is to continue to earn enough income to comfortably provide for my family, while the stretch goal is to get the sort of life-changing score that allows me to play everything I want to play.

Live, my year was characterised by consistency but lacking in the kind of major score I landed last year at the European Deepstack. I cashed in more ranking tournaments (19) than any other player in the country, and made more final tables (15). I won or chopped six rankings tournaments (as well as seven non ranking ones). This year I also made my EPT debut, cashing in San Remo. Unfortunately, my bigger results this year came in side events: it was a year of nearlies in main event. I went out on the second last table of both the European Deepstack and the JP Masters, five tables out in the IPO, and near the bubble of the Irish Open. I finished second in the official Irish rankings (and also second in the voting for Player of the Year behind Jude Ainsworth). I also finished second in my TV poker debut, qualifying for Late Night Stars of Poker but losing out headsup to Jim Rock in my heat. I also finished the year with a heartening run of form, final tabling 10 of my last 13 tournaments, and chopping two of them.

Online, it's been a good year, again characterised by consistency rather than one big score. About 80% of my effort has been grinding sit n goes, but only about 20% of my profit. The rest has come mainly from mtts, where I've notched up wins on Ipoker, Full Tilt and Poker Stars. I cashed in a WCOOP and an ECOOP.

I also got involved with co-hosting Irish Poker Radio, which I've greatly enjoyed. I also coached a number of players to success (some more than my own!).

The plan for next year is, well, more of the same, but hopefully bigger and better. I'm now bankrolled to play bigger online MTTs and intend to turn the focus to there. The lesson of this year has been that that's where my biggest edge lies. It's generally accepted that stts have gotten harder: some of the biggest winners in the world in previous years failed to beat them last year, so the fact I continued to beat them by a reasonably comfortable margin is heartening. But there's no point beating your head against a rock wall when there's a much softer mtt cushion nearby.

Live, I hope to play more big events overseas. I hope to play most of the UKIPTs, a few GUKPTs, and more than one EPT. I'd also like to break my WSOP duck. However, I'm also looking forward to playing as many Irish events as I can. One of the real perks of this "job" is the number of great people you meet at poker events, particularly Irish ones. Thanks to all those who supported me during the year or took the trouble to tell me either online or in person how much they enjoyed this blog. May you all have a great 2010, at the tables and elsewhere.

UPDATE: Plan to play more big foreign events off to a good start, I snagged an EPT Deauville package on Stars. Not really rolled for a 5K event so have already offloaded some. Also, if anyone wants me to wear a patch or be their human billboard for the event, give me a shout :)

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