LaDeborah, Staples v Perkins, Twitch, WSOP

On my last night in Brighton at the Unibet UK tour, Ian Simpson made the rather laughable (I thought at least) claim that while I might have more live cashes than him, he had more final tables. Of course, rather than just laughing off this outlandish claim like any sane person would, I immediately set about disproving it. Which I did by Hendon Mobbing us both on my phone, which revealed our respective live final table counts as 15 for Ian and 68 for me. So kinda  close then. The fact that Iany took this surprisingly well led me to suspect the whole point of the claim was to make me count 83 individual entries across our two Hendon mobs on my ancient Iphone.

LaDeborah

Our final table waving contest attracted the reasonable derision of Mad Harper and Deborah Worley Roberts. Debs, who had final tabled the Brighton event, then switched tack unexpectedly from how pathetic our discussion was to "why haven't you ever mentioned me in your blogs, unlike the rest of your honeys?"

Firstly I would like to register my approval of the idea that I have "honeys" in poker, irrespective of how ironically it was intended. Secondly this was definitely not a deliberate snub, even if the course of affairs between myself and LaDeborah has not always run smoothly. She first attracted my attention by berating me at length over bad beats I'd put on her online (I never have any memory of these bad beats but have no problem accepting responsibility for them as the type of thing I do). Next, she set fracked a friend of mine out of a tournament while I was at the table (drew to and hit a set on the river with half the stacks in after the turn). On the other hand, she does hang around with the wonderful Kelly Saxby, and the absence of a Saxby restraining order must mean something. She pointed out that her record (two UKIPT final tables and a deep run in WSOP Ladies event) was worthy of recognition. It was at that moment I recalled that she was on the final table of UKIPT Cork. The fact that that event was a double disappointment to me presumably meant I was less than magniminious in my blog of the event in handing out congrats. I took a particularly bad one early in the main to be crippled but recovered into contention only to bust three tables out, and Nick Newport (who was staked by myself and the other Firm lads at the time) dangled the prospect of a big score in front of us but was devastated to bust first from the final table. So devastated he not only endangered us all on the tilt drive home, but also took this awful photo of me passed out in the passenger seat (and made it his Stars avatar meaning I saw it nightly for the next few years).

If it's any consolation Debs, I seem to remember there was much discussion of you and your play in the car before I passed out, and hopefully this overdue shoutout on the blog makes amends.

Staples bros v Perkins

This prop bet has generated a lot of polarized opinions since it was announced that the Staples boys are going to try to get to the same weight (give or take a pound) in the next year. If they manage to do so, they will relieve Bill Perkins of a drop (150k) in the ocean of his wealth, while if they fail to do so they have to add a droplet (3k) to Perkins ocean. Most of the views I've heard are either "piece of cake" or "not a hope". I'm somewhere in the middle: I think it's going to be tough for Jaime to shed enough pounds to get within Matt's ballpark, and even tougher for weedy little Matt to gain enough weight to give Jamie a decent target to shoot for (there's a reason why lightweights in boxing don't bulk up to heavyweight in chase of the big dollars). Tough, but not impossible.

I'm particularly surprised to see numerous people suggest that the "within a pound" stipulation is the toughest part of the deal. The idea seems to be that even if the two lads manage to meet in the middle somewhere, manipulating their weights to within a pound or less would be the toughest part. I personally don't see it. Fighters make weight at weigh ins by dehydrating themselves. This means that on fight night boxers often weigh up to a stone heavier than they did at the weigh in the night before. So if the lads are within a stone or two of each other this time next year, then I humbly suggest it will be relatively easy to calibrate their weights by manipilating their liquid intake. Just dehydrate Jaime while Matt glugs down a gallon or two of water.

Feeling Twitchy

One of the questions I get asked most frequently is "When are you going to start Twitching?" Early this year I used to answer "Soon", because I expected to sign with Unibet and start Twitching for them as part of the deal. I did indeed sign as an ambassador, but unfortunately it turned out I couldn't start Twitching for legal licensing reasons (Unibet is not yet licensed in the Republic of Ireland). I'm hoping it will be sorted out later this year or early next year, but in the meantime I suggest you get yourself over and watch the streams of my Chip Race cohorts Ian Simpson and David Lappin. They work well as a duo as they love to take the piss out of each other, and Lappin's anti-Iany rants are the funniest things I've seen on Twitch.

I predicted in advance that Lappin would be perfect for Twitch, so if you want to watch someone who plays very similarly to me but is way more entertaining, tune in. It hasn't all been plain sailing though: his first stream was a memorable shambles as I explained to Jake Cody before we interviewed him for the Chip Race.

Me telling Jake about Lappin's first stream

In Brighton, David and Ian were kind enough to help me out on commentary on the Irish Open Online event. It's fair to say copious amounts of wine were consumed and we perhaps weren't taking our commentary duties as seriously as we generally do, but the fact that we still managed to get over 1000 hits on Youtube for an online event that attracted 48 runners suggests people may have enjoyed it more than they should have. On the night we struggled to maintain our meagre live viewership in the face of direct competition from the Hall-Dentale grudge match. Our cause wasn't helped by David constantly reminding people what was on on the other channel. Every time he did so our viewing figures dipped, but hopefully he learned a lesson from that. Not sure though: the last time I tuned in to his Twitch channel he was talking up the appeal of the DTD Million final table and recommending people go watch it.

Vegas plans

With my WSOP plans now finalised (I'll be there June 6 to July 17) the plan for May is to prepare as intensely as I can. Physically I feel I'm back in peak shape (this blog is being written after I completed a 30 mile long run), I've put a lot of work and study into my game this year, and the plan is to keep the foot on the gas on that front throughout May. Just fun live poker trips planned before Vegas: MPN Malta this weekend, and Unibet Open Copenhagen at the end of May. Then it's off to Vegas to try to give myself another shot at a bracelet. As in previous years, I will be selling some action to reduce my exposure and variance, so if you're interested in a Vegas sweat, watch this space (or rather Twitter) in the coming week or two.

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