El Tren RIP?

No day 2 for me this time as my campaign ground to a halt late on day 1. I got off to a great start, moving from the 4500 starting stack up to 14k with no major incident (and not too many showdowns) a few hands before the dinner break. However, I made it to dinner with Nick (Newport) and my Aussie mate Theos (Rippis) with only 5500 of that left. First major incident: I raise AK in the hijack, button calls, a 15 big blind stack shoved from the BB, I reshoved, and was up against AJ. I relax when first card out is a king, but there's a jack behind it and another on the turn. Last hand before the break, I made a slightly loose raise with A8 in early position hoping nobody would want to get involved since it was the last hand. The button called and when the flop came T85, I decided to go the pot control/bluff induce line and check called. I stuck to the plan when another ten hit the turn and a low blank the river. Unfortunately he had the ten.

Nick was flying at that stage, playing very well. Theos was still in too (he was the only one of us to make the money: Nick getting done shortly after me after making a great gutsy call). Daragh Davey (who I insist on referring to as Other Dara) was early chipleader in the 2-7 Triple Draw, a source of considerable amusement given Ireland's status (not) as a hotbed of that game.

As we were walking back from dinner Nick joked if I notched up a third cash I'd be Irish player of the series (it hasn't been a great series for Team Ireland to date) unless Other Dara shipped the bracelet. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. Despite recovering to 12k, I was crippled when an Italian shipped in early position for 14 bbs, I reshipped my 20 bbs with AKs, and wasn't that surprised to see the Italian turn over QTo. After all, Italians are known more for the courage than their brains. And they're not particularly well known for their courage.

The board ran out J9x28 to cripple me. A few hands later I got the rest in with J9 in the small blind against the big blind's 87. Flop was T96 which my opponent remarked was a good flop for him.

No point in complaining though, that's the nature of these tournaments. The good thing is I feel I'm playing the early stages very well and building stacks so it hopefully augurs well for the main event, where you're deeper for much longer and the racing section starts later. I have a couple more shots at the side events before that. I feel like I'm back to my A game or close after a bit of a mid series dip.

After my latest exit, it was time for some ice cream therapy for tilt. I never get tilted after lost races or doggings where my opponent made a good play and was unlucky to run into a good hand, but one thing that does tilt me is to see bad play rewarded. But that's part of the game too and if it wasn't it would be obvious to bad players more quickly that the good players get the money in the end. I was also cheered up to find a message from Neil Channing inviting me to a barbeque. Neil's a funny guy and said while he hoped I wouldn't be able to make it because I was still chasing a bracelet in the 1500, if not, I should come round: "Hopefully you'll be busy winning a bracelet but if you don't come and be miserable with us."

On Monday evening I met former Sporting Emporium stalwart and all round good guy Mike "Oz" Osbourne for dinner. Oz lives here now and like most of us has been through a few career changes recently but he's always a fascinating guy to talk poker strategy with, and about the industry in general. He has fond memories of his time in Ireland and told me he hopes we won't see the kind of violence we're seeing in the streets of Greece now our economy has taken a nosedive. It was my first time eating Ethiopian food (it involves spongey bread).

My son Paddy gets here next Monday which should help me keep my spirits up as we get down to the most important part of all this: the main event. It'll be his first Vegas so hopefully he'll had a good time in between listening to the old man whining about beats.

Finally, some news which I'm afraid will be devastating to a lot of Irish Poker Boardsies. Cult favourite Spanish pro is here at the series. I almost didn't recognise him, because the mustache is gone and the hair has been sheared to a crew cut.

Read More

Hit me baby one more time

There's not much to be said about my fourth bracelet event, the midweek $1500. Didn't play particularly well and got unlucky pretty much sums it up. My default strategy of playing very loose when the blinds are low and targeting the weaker players wasn't working out for the simple reason that there were 2 good players behind who knew what I was at and 3 and 4 betting me willy nilly. It took me a little longer than it should have to work out that default wasn't going to get the job done this time.

Card death didn't exactly help my cause so I decided to batten down the hatches and avoid spew until I found a hand. I had 2200 at 50/100 when I finally found queens. Ali Eslami, playing every hand and 3 and 4 betting for pure devilment, limped under the gun. I made it 400, he flatted, and he called my shove on a 9x6d2d flop with 9d7d. He turned a flush. I had the queen of diamonds and therefore a redraw but didn't get there.

The weekend 1500 started quite brutally. I raised AcJc and Kevin O'Donnell and two others called. The Tc5c2x flop looked like a reasonable one for me to fire a cbet at. Kevin called, the other two folded. The 2c made my flush on the turn and Kevin called again. The 6c on the river seemed like overkill but hoping he was chasing with a one club hand I fired again and called his raise to find myself somehow looking at pocket sixes. That inauspicious start left me with 1500 but the table was one of the softer ones I've been at here and I was back up to 8k quickly enough. After a setback where I ran AKs into a short stack's aces, I moved between 4k and 8k for most of the day. Basically a long grind, the excitement mainly being provided by being drawn at the same table as Almira Skripchenko, chess queen turned Winamax poker pro. This was only Almira's second event so quite the coincidence as she pointed out, particularly since we were also next to each other at the Berlin EPT. Now that I've a sample size of three, I can say with authority that Almira is the most charming player I've ever been at the same table at, even if I was a little upset when she started laughing at my shoes :)

Almira has a rather concerting habit of swishing her hair around periodically (she may be a closet Willow Smith fan). Although the tables here are big there were a few big ol' boys at the table so there was a bit of a sardine effect, meaning I was generally in the trajectory of the hair swoosh. I don't think Almira was aware of this though. Probably just as well: in Vegas I believe women often charge for that sort of thing.

She's also a very good player so I was relieved to have her to my immediate right (in Berlin, I was to her right). By the time the table broke thirty minutes from the end, only me and Almira remained from the starting lineup and I was still stuck on 6k. I doubled up quickly on my new table (tens holding verus ace 9) and then put the boot down as people locked up for the night to finish with 33k.

Coming back to day 2 wasn't a new experience, but having an above average stack was. Having navigated the bubble I got as high as 90k before losing a 100k flip. That meant slipping back to 20 bb territory rather than having a real stack. I battened down the hatches as there were aggro players behind and had 43k when I found a good spot at 1000/2000 (300 ante). I raised to 4700 in the hijack with jacks. A bad aggro player behind 3 bet to 14500 and tank called my shove reluctantly moaning "ok, I guess I got outs" with a2o. Indeed he had: the first card exposed was a 2 and then the dealer spread the flop to reveal two aces lurking behind. Just for good measure the fourth ace popped up on the turn. So another WSOP cash but a real feeling of what might have been. No point complaining though: I'm regularly building decent stacks in these events for the first time and if I keep getting myself into position with a couple of hundred left, I give myself every chance to run good when it matters to land a meaningful score.

I have two or three more bracelet shots before the main event (I'm also planning to play the Binion's main event). I've been keeping my eye in in stts and smaller mtts but not overdoing it either. I'm conscious that after 5 weeks it's easy to be jaded by the time the gruelling main event starts, so I'm also paying attention to what I eat, trying to get some exercise and apart from a few one night with Sean Prendiville, Dave Callaghan and Tom Kitt haven't been drinking either. Rest is important too: I'm sleeping longer than I normally do at home and taking "easy" days before bracelet events.

On my down time I'm reading my old running compatriot Michael Collins' latest novel, "Midnight In A Perfect Life". I can never decide whether Michael is a cynical romantic or a romantic cynic but his books always strike a deep chord with me, and the writing is always beautiful and insightful. In this book, one character points out "We all start with such high expectations", an observation that is particularly true for poker players. Where we differ from others is that most professions can survive the gradual erosion of innocent optimism, but to be a true poker pro, you have to be able to keep wiping the slate clean and reset your expectations to high.

Read More

You can keep your Liv Boerees

The trick in these WSOP side events seems to be to recognise in time that you're going to have to take a race. For those of us who are used to thinking of a 10k starting stack in a live event as ridiculously short and even 15k as "a bit of a pinch", that's a bit of an adjustment.

I got off to my usual good start in the latest 1k. Then card death and lack of spots saw me drift back towards starting stack as the antes started to bite. I had 4k and had just moved to a table where a good ol' boy had about 100k. He didn't get those by not playing every hand. His playbook was pretty simple: raise big with your big hands, bigger with your rag aces and kings, limp the rest. Cbet every flop, several times the pot. So when he limped utg at 150/300 with a 25 ante and I found AT just behind, it seemed like a decent spot to shove 4k into 1k where I fold out a lot of better hands behind (they were mostly terrified of the Louisiana chipmonster: talking about how they were folding big hands because he was just "too lucky") and get called by whatever garbage he might have this time. Unfortunately, the one player behind capable of calling lightish, a South American Stars Team Pro tanked for an age in the SB and eventually called (with just 1k behind). The good ol boy reshoved and I was afraid I was less than 20% against a bigger ace and a medium pair, or maybe even less than 10% against a bigger ace and tens plus. Actually it couldn't have been better for me: I was getting 9/4 on a 6/4 shot. The Team pro had 77 and the good ol boy 33. The ace obligingly popped up.

From there I coasted to 30k as the end of day and bubble approached. The field gradually winnowed down to more better online players and I got moved to a table with a few superstars who weren't going to let me smallball my way to riches without a hand. I ended with an acceptable 21k, relieved more than anything else to finally have a WSOP cash. I ran into Andy Grimasson at the break before the bubble burst, and he told me he'd now played 35 or 36 bracelet events in his life without a cash. Andy's a top notch tourney player so it proves no matter how good you are, variance is massive in these yokes. So I was happy to have that duck off my back before I hit the teens.

I came back for day 2 reasonably confident. With just over 20 bbs I was confident I knew what to do at least, but with that stack it's mostly about run good. 30 minutes in, I ran queens into kings and aces. It's probably the closest I'll ever come to folding queens pre with 20 bbs. A lady opened, another guy reraised and I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach but after some thought decided I couldn't be folding queens with this stack. I had no specific reads as my first table had just broke. I did notice the lady had a lot of small denomination chips, a sign perhaps that she wasn't a stereotypical female rock just playing big hands. The other lad looked like the type who'd play any pair for any amount to any action so even though it didn't work out for me, I'm happy enough with the shove here. Once the lady reshoved, I was pretty sure my goose was cooked though, and it was. Her aces held.

The payout process was pretty tilting (think A&E room) and I was still pretty distraught from my exit when I ran into Card Player's Rebecca McAdam in the corridor on my way back for a cry in the room. I only get that way after deep runs in Irish Opens, EPTs and WSOPs, everything else is easier to shrug off. But you're only going to get so many chances at the big ones in your life and that reality hits just after an exit. Rebecca's always good for a hug, and a Rebecca hug is always welcome, but particularly when you've just busted and have a month to go in the desert surrounded for the most part by ugly sweaty men in shorts.

This Vegas campaign has a very different feel to it. In the aftermath to the FBI's crackdown on Stars, Tilt and Ultimate Bet, the absence of logos has been very striking. Most of the time my Team Irish Eyes polo is the only logo at the table. The big sites have no lounges here this year, and no lavish parties. People are also approaching the poker much more seriously: less drinking and socialising, more early nights. I did score an invite to one of the few big parties here this year: Bill Chen's pool party next week. Bill wrote one of my favourite books on poker, "The Mathematics of Poker".

I've run into more Irish in the last 2 days than in the week before so I guess our numbers are swelling as the main looms. Wd to my fellow Wexfordman Nick Newport for cashing in his first ever WSOP event. I went to dinner with him and his roommate Daragh "Other Dara" Davey and heard how they did their own version of the Doke homeless trial. Only they waited til they got to Vegas: arriving on a Saturday to find the office of the place they were staying shut for the weekend and most hotels booked out. Wp lads. Also caught a glimpse of Seamus Cahill in what looked like the sickest 50/100 PLO cash game, and ran into Nick Heather, Reesy, Andy, Dave Callaghan and Barry Donovan. Andy Black came over to wish me luck before the 1k so maybe he deserves the credit for breaking my WSOP run bad. My Irish Eyes teammate Paul Lucey gets in tomorrow: epic times predicted.

Also ran into honorary Irishman Neil Channing a few times. I got a message from him Sunday inviting me to meet him for a coffee in the Rio. This made a pleasant change from the Black Belt spam I usually get from him :) (Only joking Neil: I'm the last man with a leg to stand on as far as Facebook spamming goes). Now Neil wouldn't be everyone's favourite poker date, there's a few superficial types who might prefer Liv Boeree, but I'm not one of them. As I've pointed out before, he's basically my hero in poker. There was something endearing about the fact that he immediately launched into a bad beat whine. Normally I barely tolerate a BBW but what can you say to a guy who has won all Neil's won and still gets tilted after some guy plays bad but gets lucky against him in a 1k event? I prefer passion to jadedness any day.

After I'd had some ice cream and a cry, I was back playing the nightly turbo. After that, I finished with a couple of stts, and chopped the last one. The important thing in this game and this town is to keep bouncing back and stay optimistic. As I was walking to Starbucks to meet Neil at the first break in the 1k, I passed an American about my age complaining into his cellphone "The best hand I've seen in 2 hours of poker preflop is just one pair". Now that's someone who knows the meaning of optimism, fully expecting to be dealt two pairs or better preflop any moment now.

Read More

Everything's bigger in Vegas (even birthdays)

When I came back to my room in the Gold Coast after busting on Thursday, I spent a while thanking people for a plethora of birthday wishes on my Facebook wall (credit my mother for making me write thank you notes as a kid). This felt a little strange as even though it was my birthday back home (hence the birthday wishes), it wasn't yet in Vegas where it was still the day before. The following day I got a text message from my poker soul bro Mark to let him know where I was that evening so we could celebrate my birthday. Now I'm not a person who places much significance on my birthday - I tend to the view that your life is defined by what you do on the other 364 days of the year rather than what you get up to on your birthday - but nevertheless I genuinely appreciated all the birthday wishes and Mark's invite. By the time Mark made it to the Gold Coast it was past midnight and therefore technically no longer my birthday in Vegas, but I still went for a birthday drink with Mark and Parky in TGI Fridays. So in a sense I didn't have a birthday but rather a birththreedays.

Both Mark and Parky were in ripping form. Parky had emerged unscathed through day 1 of the Seniors event, noting optimistically that while the bubble hadn't burst yet, he expected it to do so overnight as "there's a good chance at least half the field will die during the night".

I walked over to register for my third bracelet event before I retired for the night, and got up positively brimming with optimism. My first table featured Barry Donovan but broke within an orbit. My second table was mixed: I was to the immediate left of a very good and very affable guy from Edmonton, a high stakes cash player. So far in Vegas I've been maintaining a silent brooding table presence, saying more or less nothing, quite enjoying the fact that almost nobody knows who I am here so I don't have to talk. But there was good banter at the table and my neighbour was a particularly interesting guy with some great stories. It was also very interesting to observe his play. Like most high stakes cash players, he played way more hands than most tournament specialists, relying on superior post flop skills to compensate for any equity surrendered pre flop. So it was a real learning experience for me to watch how he played a wide variety of hands against different types of opponents. Like most tournament specialists, I think my preflop play is basically as good as it'll ever be, but there's still a lot of room for improvement post flop when the effective stacks are relatively deep.

I made a reasonably good start and was happy with how I played, apart from one hand where I flopped trips but lost value with the line I chose. I don't think I've played the perfect tournament here yet (that is, one devoid of mistakes). Maybe it's a bit unreasonable to expect to play an entire tournament without a single mistake when you're playing as loose as I generally do here (way looser than I do live back home), but it's still a goal worth striving for. By the time the table broke, I'd noodled up to about 6k from a 3k lowpoint.

My new table was a more silent sullen affair. Card death and a few light opens that got snapped off saw me drifting back a bit to 5400 when I opened 77 utg for 400 at 100/200 with a 25 ante. A serial three bettor made his standard 2.3 threebet to 925 and it's back to me. I'd often just fold here but not against this guy with this stack: it seemed the perfect spot for a lightish 4 bet jam. I don't 4 bet light very often live, probably not as much as I should, but even by my conservative standards this seemed perfect. I usually have the best hand, he folds a fair chunk of his range that sevens are racing against, and I usually would be racing when called. As it happened, he snapped with AK and the board ran out TT2A6 to send me to the rail. No regrets about the exit though.

There's usually a law of diminishing returns with movie sequels and so far Doke In Vegas 4 is a pretty unsatisfactory rehash of Doke In Vegas 3, in which our intrepid hero went out near the bubble in his first bracelet event, went out earlier in each successive bracelet event, but saved his bacon in the stts and turbo tourist trapaments. Hopefully there's still time for a twist in the tale though. I do feel like I'm playing much better than last year. Thanks to my switch to online mtt specialisation, I now play 20 bbs or less very well, and I'm also playing better in the early stages of these events. I've made chips early doors in all the events whereas I used to blind down until I won a flip or was on the right side of a cooler.

Next up is my first 1k event in about 10 hours. With only a 3K starting stack, it's even more important in these to make a good start, and not spew early doors. Also important to get some shuteye before, so off I go.

Read More

U2, the Cranberries and Ian Paisley

I'm not convinced that whining about running bad is plus Ev, but after doing so in my last blog, things have definitely taken a turn for the better. I had decided to play Event 28 the next day, so took it easy on Wednesday. I got up late and played a couple of live stts, winning the second one to bank my first actual winning day here this year. Live stts are the only thing I've never managed to find a way losing money at over here, so I really should play more.

Event 28 was eventful to say the least. I won a decent pot first hand with AK but then dipped as low as 2k before catching a heater. I had 18k a couple of hands before the break, but one hero call gone wrong later I was down to 6k at dinner. Dipped down to 4k again before I found a good spot to triple up to 12k: maniac number one opened in early position, maniac number two 3 bet just behind, I find AQ in the small blind and shove with no fold equity. Maniac two had ATo and I held. A few hands later, maniac one opens again, I reship for 20 bbs with nines, but this time he has a hand, tens, and I'm on the rail.

The highlight of the event was a gangster from New York who popped up at my table. He really did look and sound like he'd walked off the set of the Sopranos ("I'm in construction, it's a legitimate business") and was most entertaining as he told us How The World Works According to Pauly ("I got three 21 year old goilfriends. I set em up in different condos in Manhattan. That's all it takes with the ladies") and reacted to a kid from Montreal who kept three betting him with muck ("Benny, this kid don't seem to understand, get the baseball bat!").

After I busted, I had dinner in the Poker Kitchen with Parky and Scott Gray. Both were in fine fettle as they had a couple of sweats in play, including Mike Sexton on the final table of the 7 Card Stud HiLo split. Parky was as hilarious as ever and had some great tales and gossip that I'd love to repeat here but won't as I'm pretty sure I'd be sued if I did.

It was just before midnight so I headed into the live stt room. There was nothing appealing on the immediate horizon so instead I jumped into the nightly turbo just before late reg closed. I do love a good turbo and as I pointed out to Parky and Scott, if turbos were main events, I'd now have an EPT, an Irish Open, a JP Masters and a few bracelets :)

That meant coming straight in with a shipping stack which suited me fine. Someone asked me recently what was the best thing about my game and I was forced to admit to him and myself that it's that I play 20 bbs or less more or less perfectly as far as the math goes. That's ok though: as flashy as the big bluffs and the hero calls and monster laydowns are, most tournaments at the business end come down to 20 bbs effective or less.

5 hours later I'm getting paid after shipping another turbo. I won this twice last year and it pretty much paid for the trip. In theory I'd probably be a lot better off if I just played this and the other tourist trapaments while I'm here but there's no glory in that so I prefer to play just enough to pay for the free shots at a bracelet. Speaking of which, next up is tomorrow's 1500, and if that doesn't work out, Sunday's 1000.

While I was playing my first final table in the nightly turbo, in another part of the Amazon room Elky was making a Lazarus style comeback to win a bracelet in front of a boisterous French rail. I like Elky: he looks like a rock star but without the ego. I like the discipline and seriousness and intensity with which he approaches the game. In the words of my favourite song, there's nothing "as ugly as a teenage millionaire pretending it's a whizkid world". In a world overpopulated by ugly teenage millionaires taking their behavioural cues from Hellmuth, Elky stands as a welcome reminder that to be the best, you don't have to shout "I'm the best" at every available opportunity.

At one point the Italian gangster asked me where the flag on my Irish Eyes shirt was from. When I said Ireland, the dealer said, "Ah, U2....the Cranberries....Ian Paisley". I wonder how Paisley feels about being the third best known entity from Ireland.

Read More

The Athy gypsy curse

Before heading back for day 2 of my first WSOP side event this year, I swapped a few texts with Jason. Jason jokingly wished me the same luck as he had last year (when he ran probably the worst of any Irish over here). Well, the joke hypothesis is one possibility. Another that has crossed my mind since is it was some sort of Athy gyspy curse, as it's difficult to describe how badly I've been running since I got here. Forget winning races: I can't even win the 80/20s most of the time, and no matter how tight I sit waiting for a good spot to ship, the first time I do I run into something, usually aces, or sixes, or king eight, it doesn't really matter since right now I'd put money on anyone else's K2o against my kings.

OK, I know how boring it is to hear a poker player whining about how bad he's running, so I'll try to leave it at that for now. Things at least took a slight turn for the better yesterday. After busting out in Caesar's (first ship called, lost race, yada yada), I played my first live stt this year in the Rio. I got headsup against a good Italian (they exist!) and lost a 60/40 (AT, my current bogey hand, against his K7) for nearly all the chips. We'd done a saver so at least I got some dirty ol' money from it. After that, I bought in late to the nightly turbo. I did very well in this last year but have been wondering about whether it's worth playing, given the reg is effectively 30% and there are far more pros playing it this year. On the other hand, there's still definite value: it's difficult to describe just how bad the tourists and recreational players are. One example: tight old guy opens for 1500 utg, two calls, I find aces in the BB and make it 4500 playing 30k (table chipleader), old guy shoves, and the second caller decides K8s might be good here and reshoves for 20k (I promised no more whining so I won't mention that he of course flopped 2 pair). Anyway, I ended up making the final table with a decent stack, but was first out for not much moolah but at least it was a confidence boost and stopped the rot as far as Vegas roll hemorrhage goes.

That meant a late night so I decided to take today off apart from maybe some more stts later on, as I'm playing my second side, a $1500 NLH, tomorrow.

The WSOP is a commercialised affair on every level. As you walk through the corridors of the Rio, you are assaulted on all sides by ads for stuff and you run the gauntlet of hucksters and hawkers of all types. Half way up the main corridor to the Amazon room, a young lady on heels so high they encroach on the high heels/stilts border and sporting a skirt so small it's almost a belt approaches thousands of men every day with the opening line "Can I show you something?" She looks like an accident waiting to happen, balancing on her heels/stilts on a shiny marble floor. So, in fairness, do most of the players currently buzzing round the corridors. This early in the Series, the overwhelming atmosphere is one of optimism and smiles. We all think this is going to be our year, but of course for the vast majority of us, it won't. Wind the clock forward a few weeks and we'll be the ones scowling around like a lost tribe looking like people's whose lives have gone badly wrong, getting sympathetic looks from passersby.

Read More

Dirty ol' money

As I walked away after exiting my first WSOP event this year, my initial thought was "I've seen this movie before". My exit, losing a 65/35 having outlasted 88% of the field but not the 90% needed to cash, was eerily similar to last year's start (when I lost a 70/30 to Durr even nearer the bubble). Let's hope the movie just started the same but turns out different this time.

It's much easier to get dragged down into despondency live than it is online. With the best will in the world, you get more emotionally invested live. Online it's possible to grind your way through a 200 buyin downswing in a week. Live, a 200 buyin downswing could take years. So it's important to try to take whatever positives you can. I was very happy with how I played: despite losing several big pots where I was a huge favourite I kept battling back. THe biggest worry is not how I'm running (there's no point worrying about that), but more how I'm feeling: tired and sore. My back injury is making sitting for long periods an uncomfortable experience.

I wasn't favoured with a good table draw. My starting table featured at least 7 pros (3-4 is the par for these events), and I was wedged between Josh "JJProdigy" Field and Bill Chen (author of The Math of Poker and one of my personal poker heroes). My most interesting hands were against Josh. Once I'd figured out who he was and noticed he was min opening a lot, I started three betting light every so often. Not that often, but often enough to establish a bit of history and make him wonder how come the old guy beside him seemed to only get hands when he'd opened. Initially he folded every time but I was sure that wouldn't last. Then I picked up my first hand (aces), three bet him again, and this time he peeled. He check raised me all in on a ten four two flop with eights and I held.

The chips went back the other way shortly after. He limped the small blind, I raised with eights from the big blind, he shoved for 23 bbs, and I called after some thought. Given the history, I think it's a pretty straightforward call. He had sevens, I hit a set on the river that gave him a spade flush draw, and a fourth spade fell on the river.

That table broke shortly afterwards. The rest of the day I bounced from table to table, and by the time we got to the last level of the day, I was up to 15k and on my fifth table. Blinds were escalating and I open shoves fives into ace jack. First card out was a 5 so I relaxed thinking I was home and hosed, but the other 2 flop cards, kq, gave the aj a gutter which he hit on the turn. That left me with a couple of big blinds but I won a race against Erica Schoenberg to get going again and ended with almost 12k. Shortish but workable.

My day 2 table looked handy enough apart from a German and as Asian who were looking to abuse the bubble. The Asian was opening everything from mid position which meant I wasn't getting any shoves from late position, and needed to either find a hand or shove from early position. I maintained my stack using the latter strategy until I finally picked up AK, which I duly reshoved over the Asian. He took a little while to work out he was getting 2 to 1 before calling with QTo. First card out was a ten and that was that.

The other half of Team Bro, Mark Dalimore, had showed up late on Saturday, and railed me Saturday night. We went for a quick drink in TGI Fridays and ran into Scott Gray who was in great form. Mark stayed in my room but disappeared Sunday morning to check into the Hilton. He re-appeared in the Rio after my exit and asked me what my plans were. I said I wanted to play the Megastack turbo in Caesars so he drove me there and we jumped in.

Anyone who has met Mark will know he's a larger than life character. Although we're similar in many ways, we're polar opposites in others. I'm usually the quietest person in the poker room, and he's always the loudest. So I'm sitting there "in the zone" with my ipod, he's at another table with his back to me, and I CAN STILL HEAR THE FECKER :)

We'd jumped in just before the break. As I was standing up having played no hands, I saw all of Mark's chips being pushed to another player. He assured me the exit was standard, based on what he thought he had. He popped up at my table to put a bounty on my head so we could go get a Chinese. I made some headway with queens, then lost a chunk in a threeway all in (AJs v 64o and J9o).

A lot of the American kids table talk is about the different medicinal aids they're using to maintain focus at the table. The adderall or ritalin gives them an intensity that is a little unsettling at times. The guy who ended up knocking me out (his Q8 > my A7 blind on blind) was overfocusing not just on the game but also on the antes, constantly badgering tardy posters and getting other people to make change.

Mark railed me for a while and remarked how bored I looked at the table. I think this is a problem for most of us whose main income comes from playing multiple tables online. The lack of financial pressure on me to get results here probably doesn't help either but I need to find some way to maintain mental focus as there's no point showing up if I'm not going to do my best. Ritalin is a step too far imo though. Mark suggested more down time this trip and that may be worth a try. We've already agreed to a road trip to the Grand Canyon after my son Paddy gets here.

The Chinese turned out to be a Korean. I'm not the biggest fan on Korean cuisine but at least the company was top class. We swapped stories for a few hours. One of the many things I like about Mark is that unlike most people our age he doesn't pretend he knows everything and he freely admits to being a work in progress. He gave me the low down why he's no longer wearing the Ed Hardy bling and the cross around his neck that used to be his trademark.

In Caesars, at the next table from me, some young guy hyped up on Ritalin was lolling at some old guy he'd just "owned" (his words). The old guy reacted with a diatribe that went something like "Look kid, it's not important, it's not my life, my wife or my health, it's just dirty ol' money, and I've got more of it than I could ever spend unless I was very careless".

Read More

An ace up the sleeve...

A WSOP campaign is essentially a mini life. You go into it with a healthy dose of unfounded optimism. In the beginning, you flounder around a bit trying to figure out what's what and who's who, you don't seem to know anyone and your stomach is trying to get accustomed to a new diet. Then you start meeting the other Irish, slip into an easy routine of socialisation, and have to be careful not to let it overwhelm you or distract you from what you're there for. Then the faces disappear one by one as they bust the Main event, you bust the main event and you're left at the end of another WSOP mini life, looking forward to nothing other than the sweet release of the flight home.

At the moment, I'm again an infant in Vegas, albeit one with a fairly clear idea how its life is likely to pan out.

I've settled in pretty well into the Gold Coast. As KP pointed out on Facebook, one advantage of spending a night among homeless bums in Paddington is it can make the rather basic Gold Coast seem like the height of luxury. I haven't run into anyone I know yet (Mark Dalimore is arriving tomorrow though). Yesterday I headed to Caesars to play their megastack series. I was gifted an early doubleup but then lost a big flip and never recovered. First ship with my recent bogey hand AT ran into jacks in the small blind.

I bounced from there into the 4 PM tournament shortly before late reg closed. After marvelling at all the min raising going on from even the old codgers, so very 2011 Internet, it suddenly hit me: my God, this is a limit tournament. I made the second last table despite getting no cards and not winning many hands. No cash either though: they were only paying the final table.

I was back in the Rio in time for the nightly turbo. This was something of a cash cow for me last year, almost singlehandedly paying for the trip. No such joy on this occasion, and ominously there were far more obvious pros in the field. A sign of the apocalypse after Black Friday? The dearth of logos decking and walking the halls of the Rio also points to the party being over. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the talk around relates to fallout from the FBI pulling the carpet from under online poker in the US. Surprisingly, to me at least, are reports of droves of the best and the brightest US grinders who are "going straight". Maybe I shouldn't be that surprised: this generation of Internet whizkids were drawn into the game as one of the best ways to exploit an innate ability to make quickfire informed decisions based on calculating equity rather than any idealistic "love of the game". If they all go off and become equity traders, it may be a good thing for the rest of us trying to make our living from the game in the short term, undoing some of the "damage" done by the training sites making it too easy for anyone with a bit of natural aptitude and a lot of application to get good fast.

I do enjoy playing live here. Americans are fun: neither desperate nor afraid to be characters at the table. Poker has a broader appeal here than anywhere else (except maybe France) so you meet a much wider range of people. One Texan in his 50s at my table in Caesar's established himself as a front runner in the character stakes when he responded to a compliment from a dealer telling him he looked great for his age with "I know. I'm in great shape, I'm good looking, but I'm old, so...." Then someone at the table started talking about A8 being the "dead man's hand" because it was the hand Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot dead. I'd heard this countless times before so wasn't paying much attention until the Texan produced his tournament entry to reveal his surname: Hickok. It turns out Wild Bill was his great grand uncle. Not only that, but he went on to tell us he owns the bullet that killed his illustrious great grand uncle. The bullet entered Will Bill's skull, passed through his brain (zero marks to the guy at a table who asked, without a hint of irony, "did it kill him?"), exited through his cheek and lodged in the wrist of his neighbour at the table, one Jack McCaul. Not that's an unfortunate seat draw right there. Jack (who it turns out is the great grand uncle of Irish poker player Thomas McCaul!) carried it in his wrist for another 30 years or so until he died in St. Louis is 1903, as the doctors apparently didn't think it prudent to remove it. After his death, the bullet was given to Wild Bill's family, who passed it down to the current owner, the Texan.

I play my first WSOP event, a $1500 NLH, tomorrow, so I decided to take today completely off. When I was running extreme races, I got very good at resting up in a hotel room for days on end before a race, barely moving a muscle so as not to expend any unnecessary energy before the starter's gun. The same extreme preparation probably isn't needed for poker, but it's no harm to take a day off now and then to recharge the batteries and prepare for the bigger events.

It's much harder to switch off a mind than it is to rest a body though. When you consciously try, it just finds new minutae to focus on, no matter how trivial. One thing I do more in this month than in the rest of the year put together is ride elevators. One pattern I noticed on my frequent ascents and descents from the 8th floor of the Gold Coast is it takes a lot less time going up than it does going down. On the way down you pick up more passengers. As such, it's the opposite to life. Another difference is on an elevator you always know whether you're going up or down (unless you're very drunk). In life, it's not always that obvious. In about 12 hours time my WSOP 2011 campaign kicks off. I'm full of optimism that my poker career is still in the ascendancy. But who really knows.

Read More

So I made it to Vegas anyway...

OK, so I made it to Vegas anyway. If that sounds like I'm announcing the mere fact of my arrival like it's some sort of accomplishment, that's because it feels as such after the little ordeal I had in London. After idling in terminal one of Heathrow for a while after my arrival and typing up my last blog entry, I headed for terminal three, which I was assured was the Virgin Atlantic terminal. Long walk, but sure didn't I have all night? I was greeted at terminal 3 by the sight of VA logos everywhere, which was encouraging. Less encouraging was the absence of any sign of my flight to Vegas on the screens. Hmmmm. Better check the old itinerary. A quick glance at aforementioned itinerary revealed the source of the problem here: my flight to Vegas from Heathrow was actually from Gatwick. Crumbs and jiminy cricket.

Having no notion of the most economical way of getting from Heathrow to Gatwick but harbouring a strong suspicion that the answer wasn't "taxi!", I decided to catch the last train to Paddington. That got me into Paddington around 1 AM, just in time to see every shop, food outlet and tube station in the joint slam its shutters shut. Hmmmm. After ascertaining that the best plan of action now was to tube it to Victoria and then catch the Gatwick Express, I was left with the minor problem of what to do for the next 4 hours until the tube station reopened.

The answer I came up with, and I acknowledge it right here right now to be laughably sub optimal, was to spend the night in Paddington shivering on a bench like a homeless bum, surrounded by actual homeless bums. And let me dispel any illusions you might have: spending a night shivering like a homeless bum surrounded by actual homeless bums in London's draughtiest and least attractive train station with no food and no toilet and just your overheating but running down laptop battery as your only heat source is not as much fun as you might think. A few hours into this I noticed one of my homeless bum compadres had skulked off somewhere. A little investigation revealed the destination of the skulk to be an inexplicably open but empty ticket office which afforded considerably more shelter and heat than the concourse benches. Better yet, it boasted a power outlet. As I reveled in the plush surroundings of the floor of the ticket office recharging my laptop and my spirits, I got all philosophical about how even the smallest things can become huge luxuries in the right light.

My reveling and revelation didn't last long though: a station security guy materialised to chase us homeless bums back out onto the concourse with shouts of "get out or you'll have me sacked". I wouldn't have thought his job security was a pressing concern to the homeless bum fraternity, but nobody argued. He shot me a particularly quizical look: I guess he'd never seen a homeless bum in a white Miami Vice jacket clutching a laptop before.

My partially regenerated battery got me through til 5 AM, opening time for everything. Hurray! The Circle Line tube ride to Victoria was rendered all the more surreal by the fact that I was the only human in the carriage, and my companion the only bird. Yes, an actual bird of the flying feathery variety was sat on the seat next to me, looking up at me like he'd never seen a homeless bum in a white Miami Vice jacket with a laptop before. I took a picture of him with my phone which I'll put up at some stage to prove I wasn't hallucinating. I also think it's just as well the ticket conductor didn't come til after the bird got off at Notting Hill to tell the other birds his "Hey, you'll never guess what I saw on the tube this morning..." story, as I'm reasonably certain that the bird was not in possession of a valid ticket.

The Gatwick Express entertainment was provided by the panicky American old lady determined to drive her silent and sullen husband round the twist with very public fretting over them missing their plane. "We have only 6 hours before takeoff! Are you sure that's enough time? How long does this train take to get to Gatwick?" I was tempted to up the ante by telling her "Ah, you'll be grand, it rarely takes more than 5 hours" but the husband looked like it wouldn't take much for him to actually snap, snap as in "American tourist on Gatwick Express snaps and shoots 7 passengers", so I left it. Instead, I focused on the positives of my night as a homeless bum. It probably surprises nobody that knows that I used to run for 24 hours non stop for no good reason other than to see how much it could mess me up that I like to put myself through some sort of pointless ordeal every so often in the view that it "builds character" and "puts things in perspective". Anyway, when you've endured a night like I just had for no good reason other than your own stupidity and lack of attention to detail, you kinda need to find some sort of silver lining.

So yeah, I made it to Vegas anyway.

Read More

The best things in life are threes...

There are some tournaments that certain players always seem to do well in, and others in which they seem destined never bother the scorers. The JP Masters is a good one for me (two final tables and three cashes in four attempts). I was hoping the CPT Grand final (where I came a morale and roll boosting fourth just before Vegas last year) would be one too, but the evidence of my latest display there suggests otherwise.

I won't bore you with individual hand histories. The summary is I never really had a stack, and didn't really deserve one getting too many of the marginal decisions wrong. I hung around (as I do) for longer than was decent in the circumstances before deciding the time to gamble was upon me. First time I shoved I ran into something that was 60/40 over my favourite shoving hand, and I was on the rail about a dozen from the bubble. While it would have been nice to go deeper (and even nicer to play better), it's fair to say my mind was elsewhere. Half of it was already halfway across the Atlantic to Vegas, and the other half was thinking about a triple crown (more on that later).

Someone told me at the weekend that CPT regulars don't like to see the likes of me ("the pros") who parachute in once a year for the Grand final doing well, and they'd prefer to see one of their own take the title. That's fair enough I suppose, human nature and all that, but even if they got their wish as far as me personally, you'd have to say that overall the tournament was a triumph of the pros (or parachutists, or whatever you want to call them). Congrats to Smurph, Alan McEntire, my roommate Mick Mccloskey, Tommy Walsh and Tom Kitt all of whom final tabled. Tom and Tommy were in the three way chop, with Tom also claiming the title. It's fair to say that Tom's has been knocking on the door and on many people's "most likely to" lists for a few years now, so it was great to see him claim a major title at last. Mick also deserves a special mention: he's remarkably consistent in these events, and every time I talk through hands with him he impresses me with the sophistication of his thought processes. He admits himself he's not a "math guy" but intuitively he gets there. There's a rather ageist assumption among some of the younger guns that players past a certain age can't possibly be capable of playing at their level or that the game has "somehow passed them by", but Mick is a strong argument to the contrary. I don't think it's a matter of (physical) age but rather a mental attitude of continuing to question yourself and look to learn how to be better. I can certainly think of a few players still in their 20s who were crushing a couple of years ago but no longer who are much stronger candidates for the "games has passed them by" charge.

Part of the reason I was a little distracted in Carlow was I was having a very good week online, so good that I was in line for a Triple Crown (a purely notional Crown awarded by Pocket Fives to any mtter who wins three tournaments with more than 100 runners and a 10k plus prize pool on three different sites or networks). Having won the 30 rebuy on Ipoker on Monday and the 15k turbo on Merge on Thursday, I needed one more win in a qualifying event to claim my first Triple Crown. In between, I'd also chopped my favourite nightly tournament, the 10k on Irish Eyes. I don't normally agree to chops online but was happy enough to chop 4 ways on this occasion for a number of reasons. The remaining players were all pretty decent (which is unusual on Entraction), so I felt I had little real edge over them and it was likely to come down to flips and coolers. I had the most aggro player on the table threebetting and raising me every time I put chips into the pot, so I was either going to have to wait for a hand or make a big move without one and risk bad timing and finding him with a hand. The decisive factor though was Mrs. Doke was shouting at me for dinner :) It's a testament to how good the structure is that this was my only tourney still in play, so I was quite relieved to be able to end it there and then.

After my exit in Carlow I hauled myself back to Dublin for the Sunday grind, stopping only to join Breifne on Dublin City FM's "On The Ball". We had a good old natter about this and that (mainly Vegas and the WSOP).

The grind got going in earnest around 6 PM. The plan was to sign up to as many 100-200 runner fields with a sufficient buyin to qualify on various sites, to give myself the best possible chance of binking the all important third win. So I ruled out all the Sunday majors as too much of a longshot. Ironically, the one "major" I did play, the Bodog 100k, was the one I ended up binking. I only ended up playing it for a couple of reasons: first there was a significant 25k overlay (I can't resist an overlay), and also I'd just busted my Stars account and couldn't get more money on so I couldn't sign up for any more Stars games.

Early on, my best shots looked like the 25k on Cake and the 100k high roller on Party, and I was massive chipleader in both a few tables out. Both went south pretty fast to a number of lost races and 70/30s. By 1 AM I was down to my last two shots, the 55r on Stars and the Bodog 100k. Neither were looking too healthy but a timely race won against Jude Ainsworth kickstarted me on Stars, while on Bodog the standard was so predictably awful I wasn't having to do anything fancy to hang in there. I ended up on the final table of both. The Bodog 100k came to a conclusion first. I was rather lucky to get headsup with the player I did on Bodog. The term over aggro monkey could have been invented for this guy so even with a 3/1 chiplead at the start of the headsup I felt a strong favourite to prevail as the strategy was fairly straightforward (find a hand and let him triple barrel the loots). I was happy to let him win 90% of the hands because of his aggression, but I won the big two that decided things. Suitably elated at having clinched the Triple Crown (and the small matter of the 25k I got for winning the Bodog one), I ended up coming 5th on Stars. All in all, my best online day (or night) ever with about 30k in profit between everything, and a very timely boost running into Vegas.

This blog is being typed in Heathrow airport as I wait for my flight to Vegas. Although I'm still suffering a bit from injuries sustained in my fall in Cork, I'm looking forward to giving my fourth WSOP campaign as good a shot as I can. I'm under no real financial pressure to succeed and I think it's easier to succeed in those circumstances. The plan is to play all the lower buyin nlh events and the main event. Whatever happens happens, and so long as I feel afterwards I genuinely gave it my best shot, I'll be happy. I'm also planning to do short blog updates every day or two from Vegas. This will probably give the blog more of a Dear Diary feel than normal, but hopefully it'll be of interest to at least a few Iranians.

Read More