345 scratch cards

If you run a poker event with a €345 buyin and attract almost a thousand players from all over the world, is that success? I'd certainly have assumed so, but apparently many disagree if you made some lofty predictions about getting 4000 runners. It's an expectations game I suppose.

The oddly named Super poker event in Citywest was essentially a souped up turbo. There's definitely a place for this sort of event on the calendar and I do like a good turbo myself. It's a bit like the IPO, but in a much nicer hotel, and without the bonus of a thousand or so drunks wandering round the place, some of them representing Boyles slurring "Well, aren't we all having great craic altogether" in your face every few minutes.

I never really got going and busted in time for a nice leisurely dinner at Lemongrass in the company of Nick Abou Risk and his friend Gary, the Drumlish lads (Smidge and Jaymo), Mick Mccloskey, Daragh Davey and David Lappin. Between the eight of us us we had ten starting stacks collectively. However, late regger Nick had nine of those. Nick's just turned full time pro so best of luck to him.

I did get a bit of a run in a side event, and could have done well if I didn't keep getting all in pre with kings against smaller pairs or Axs. A lady who shall remain nameless once told me she was so fed up of getting her kings cracked that she'd started open folding them. I can't see myself going down that road though, but it's certainly an interesting line.

David and I did the livestream commentary on the final table, ably produced by Iain Cheyne as ever. My friend and constant heckler Alan Mclean (father of tourney organiser Stephen) had a great run all the way to the final table and was unlucky not to go farther. Chatting to him at one of the breaks on the final table, he told me a story that made me laugh. His wife Patricia is also a very good player: in fact many (myself included) would rate her a better player than Alan. Numbered among these apparently is their daughter, who tried to buy a share in Patricia in the event and wasn't too happy being fobbed off into buying a percentage of her old man instead. However, as soon as she realised her grudging percentage was amounting to something, she was on the phone constantly to find out how much she was getting now.

Well done to Stephen for another successful addition to the domestic calendar. It's not an easy business climate at the moment and not everyone appreciates a good live turbo as much as I do. When I asked one young pro if he was going to play it, his pithy reply was "I'd rather buy 345 scratch cards".

Read More

In Fitz it starts

In June 2007, I walked into the Fitzwilliam card club to play live poker for the first time in my life. When I gave my name, Denise looked suspiciously at me and my brother and said "Brothers?". When I asked if it was obvious, she said "It's the hair". Fair comment, as both of us were sporting the wild bushy O'Kearney hair that no hairbrush could ever tame.

My brother had been playing a few years already. I'd been playing less than a month, and apart from a few online freerolls, nearly all my experience was Limit cash. The main thing I remember is that people seemed particularly unfriendly, at least by contrast with the running world I was still active in where people went out of their way to be welcoming to newcomers. That was certainly not the case here, where any sign of nervousness or inexperience was pounced on. I remember being rebuked by a dealer for a string bet, and other players for acting too slowly.

My brother was an accomplished player who was almost making a living from the game. He was almost making a living from a few other things too, so between everything it added up to making a living. To stop me scarpering off into the night as soon as I busted, he swapped 10% with me, making it clear it was a minus Ev act of charity in his case. He had yet to learn just how well his older brother would run. 9 hours later he was still loitering as his 10% was now headsup with one of the great characters of the Fitz, Colette "Smurph". Smurph described me on her blog at the time as a "nervous newcomer" (which I clearly was) that she felt she could read easily. That didn't stop her getting it in drawing to runner runner (and getting there). My brother was disappointed to see his equity disappear in this manner, but I was pretty thrilled with a second place finish in my first outing.

Over the next 6 months I was back in the Fitz two or three nights a week. I learned the live game there. It set me up for a breakout year in 2008 when I would be crowned European Deepstack champion, make a number of other final tables in Ireland and have two deep runs in GUKPTs.

When I go into the Fitz these days once a month for their End of Month game, I still see Denise behind the desk. Several of the dealers and other staff remain the same. But very few of the regulars in whose company I learned to play remain. They've been replaced by new faces. It's a sad truth that in poker most players are losing players, and most losing players reach a point beyond which they are unwilling or unable to go on losing.

One of the few regulars that does remain is the legend that is Bob Battersby. Bob is one of those people it's possible to both love and hate at the same time. Talking to him is generally a surreal experience akin to dealing with a bot online. He asks you something, you respond, he misunderstands, you repeat, he goes off at a tangent based on one word in your sentence you said or at least he thinks you did, you respond again in confusion, and he generally ends the conversation pointing out you have no idea what you're talking about. Which of course you haven't, so you have to concede you've lost an argument you didn't even know you were having, and still have no idea what it was about. Despite this, and the fact that every time I see him he gives no indication of any memory of ever having seen or spoken to me before, I do enjoy running into Bob. I also enjoyed knocking him out on the second last table. Bob takes these things in his stride without rancour better than most of the other OAP regulars in there. As I came down the stairs bringing my chips to the final table, Bob caught my eye and said "Thanks for knocking me out.....again!" Sensing my shock at this rare acknowledgement that he even knew who I was, he pressed home his advantage. "I never see the brother with you any more. Does he not play?"

I don't think anyone else in the Fitz even remembers that I have a brother who used to play, but somehow the most seemingly forgetful man in the place does.

Read More

UKIPT Galway: another victory for the grinders

"Yeah but what's his biggest score?"

In poker, there's an eternal philosophical battle between two camps divided by their reaction to this question. On one side you have what I call the bink merchants, who judge a player purely by his biggest score or scores. On the other, the grinders, who prefer to measure success over statistically meaningful sample sizes of thousands of tournaments rather than the lucky strike.

After the recent IPPF which ended with two proper young online grinders facing each other and agreeing to chop, I wrote in my blog "The last few years have seen the online kids rise to dominate the international stage, and the next couple will see the same thing happen here in my opinion". UKIPT Galway continued that trend: winner Emmett Mullin is a proper online grinder who despite having a biggest P5's score of just over $20k has notched up lifetime online winnings (as tracked by PocketFives) of over $1 million.

Props also to defending champ Nick Abou Risk who mounted a Raymeresque defence of his crown all the way to the final table, and one of the most promising newcomers on the Irish scene John "jwillo" Willoughby who also final tabled. Nick's friend Max Silver also added a high roller crown to his main event crown.

My own UKIPT campaign ended rather miserably with an exact bubble in a side event. After seeing my stack almost disappear near the bubble when I shoved into aces, I'd recovered somewhat on the exact bubble only to lose a flip (queens v ace king). I then more or less replicated my live week on the Sunday grind online, building a few stacks only to see them combust near the bubble and ended up doing another couple of grand.

No point whining or moaning though: after 6 weeks mainly devoted to live poker, it's time to redress the balance and get back to clicking buttons for a living.

As I hung around Monday waiting for my train, I railed the final table for a short while. The one hand of note I witnessed saw Mully get two outered on the river after calling a check raise on the flop, betting the turn (and getting called), and checking behind on the river. I had to chuckle to myself when a cheer went up from the other player's rail as the pot was pushed towards their man, clearly unconcerned about the fact that at every point in the hand when chips went in, he was far behind, and then when he finally did hit a 20/1 shot on the river, not another chip went in. Mully took this temporary reverse without histrionics or even reaction and got on with the job of winning the war: as you'd expect from a man who has played millions of hands online and understands that poker is a game of luck in the short term, but skill in the long term.

Mully is one of the Omagh crew spear-headed by Steve "allinstevie" Devlin which features several top class online grinders and a great guy: when I switched from playing stts to mtts online he popped up a few times on the rail on some of my early Stars final tables to give me some advice on the regs which I greatly appreciated. So I was really thrilled to see him win. He's had a few deep runs and crossbars live before so it was great to see him get his just rewards this time. He has the talent and the dedication for this to be the first of many, but the great thing about being a grinder is that even if it doesn't happen, he'll still keep ticking along online on the way to his next million in lifetime winnings. In response to my tweet celebrating his victory, Mully replied, in his usual self deprecating manner, "thanks a million Dara, pretty unbelievable tbh, this ones for all us grinders out there".

Read More

Dick from Nottingham

Most of last week was devoted to the European Deepstack. I played the main event and a few side events, and kept running into aces, except in one of the side events where I had the aces. Sadly, they were no match for KTo on that occasion, the only time the aces didn't hold.

I had a spell on the feature table late on day 1A. I'd gone for dinner with Jason Tompkins (who had just won the High Roller - well done lad!) and his lovely girlfriend Joy, Daragh Davey, Nick Newport and David Lappin. I'd stated my intention if I did find myself in the last hour with a 20K stack to get it in a lot lighter than I normally would in the hopes of either doubling up or busting (so I could re-enter 1B). There was general agreement that this was the soundest strategy in a deepstack event where you think you have a fairly big edge over the field: any loss in equity taking sub optimal gambles being compensated by gained equity from giving yourself a second full run at amassing a stack. In the event, my shoves all got through (I had a very good image at the table), which at least saw me move from under 20k to over 30k.

After busting the main event and the turbo side on Saurday, I played a few online games in the room. I late regged for the nightly Night on Stars on French Stars and ended up winning it for just over 10K, so once again it was a case of online to the rescue. The French at my table in the side the following day had heard of my win and were suitably impressed. Humble as ever, I pointed out that I'd actually won this tourney three times in the past few weeks, even though I've only played it about half a dozen times. One of French commented wrily: "You must like French fish". The win moves ne to my highest ever P5 rankings just outside the top 200 in the world. It would be cool to break into the top 100 this year (but I probably need to play a lot less live and more online to get there).

This blog is being written just after busting the main event at UKIPT Galway. After a ropey start I got up to 35k near the end of the day, comfortably above average. I then lost with tens versus jto when I called a 15 bb shove, and kjs v Aj when I'd opened and was priced in to call the reshove. AJ is this week's bogey hand: I was crippled today when I shoved qjs into it, and busted the 6 max side with it versus king 7.

The UKIPT itself seems to go from strength to strength with the number of runners way up this year despite the increased buyin. On Thursday Quentin (one of the Stars managers in the UK) invited the serial online qualifiers out to dinner and was interested to hear our thoughts on what appealed to us about the online sats and what improvements could be made. I think there's quite a widespread view of Stars as an arrogant market leader, so it's always good to see that they are willing to listen and maybe learn.

 I don't normally sell my action in live events any more but my German friend Max Heinzelmann asked if he could buy a "lucky 1%". Max won EPT Player of the Year last year for his achievement of getting headsup in back to back EPTs (Berlin and San Remo) so I figure his lucky 1% could be very lucky indeed. Unfortunately it wasn't to be though.

I still have a few sweats with horses in the main so hopefully one of them binks or else  I'll just have to try to win another online tournament to get out.

At the Deepstack, David Lappin pointed to a tall young guy and simply said "Dick from Nottingham". Finding myself standing beside him later as we filed out to a break, I asked "How are you getting on Dick?" The reaction to this polite enquiry was somewhat unexpected. Mainly because his name wasn't Dick. Turns out Lappin meant dick from Nottingham.

Read More

Madrid and Prague

It seems that every year I start with my main New Year's resolution being *more online, less live". This year's good intentions haven't amounted to any more than previous attempts, with practically all of January being devoted primarily to live poker. And February's not looking much better.

I targeted the first leg of the Spanish Estrellas tour primarily as an easy supply of tournament dollars. The online sats are particularly soft so after multiple binks I was effectively better than freerolling in the tournament itself. Just as well, as despite a late rush on day 1 that saw me up in the top 10 in chips, it went south faster than a Ryanair flight to Madrid on day 2. Still, Madrid's not an unpleasant place to find yourself having to pass a few days in January, so with Mrs. Doke in tow for once, I diverged from my normal routine of playing side events and just chilled for a few days. Mrs. Doke is a very gifted linguist who is fluent in four languages and can get by in several others, but sadly Spanish isn't one of them. It was striking to watch how fast someone like her can learn though: by the end of the trip she was gabbing away in Espanol.

My travelling companion to EMOP Prague was the less linguistically accomplished Daragh "Mongoose" Davey, fresh from a number of recent online triumphs. With a very strong travelling Irish contingent that included Connie O'Sullivan, Kieran Walsh, Jason Arthur, Richie Lawlor, Daragh Davey, brother Noel and Duncan Keane, Damien Collins, Rebecca McAdam and her boyfriend Niall, Francis "Wally" McCormack, Kevin Spillane, Gary Clarke, and Mick Rossiter, there were sound reasons to be optimistic that at least one of us would make the final table. In the event, we got two on, my Irish Eyes teammate Connie O'Sullivan, and Kevin Spillane. Connie, one of the most popular figures in Irish poker, played brilliant disciplined poker with a short stack for most of the tournament and was unlucky not to go further than 8th. Kevin, who went deep last year in EMOP Lisbon, also got unlucky on the final table after making a brilliant call with sixes on a 98x flop against two overcards. Unfortunately, one of the overcards hit the river, but it was a great performance by the very likeable Kevin to finish fourth.

I never got going in the main event but did at least have the consolation of cashing twice (11th in the Leaderboard final, and third in a turbo side event) to come home with more money than I left with, which is always nice. Daragh bricked everything, despite playing very well, but did have the consolation of hustling me into my first ever degen bet on a sport I know nothing about. After offering me the pick of the teams in the Superbowl, I plumped for the Patriots purely on the grounds that I seemed to recall hearing someone say they were favourites. If the pain of having to part with hard currency wasn't enough to dissuade me from relapsing into such degeneracy in the future, a very strong desire to avoid ever having to witness the Mongoose Celebration Dance which made Madonna's half time show almost palatable by comparison surely will.

This was my first ever trip rooming with Daragh, and you never really know how you're going to get on with someone in that context til you try, but from my end it was a very enjoyable experience. Daragh's good company with a sly sense of humour and a good sport. He even endured having to walk round the same sights of Prague twice to show me around on my day off (we played different day 1's so he'd already done the tourist thing the night before). Better still, and I don't want anyone to think this comment is directed at them personally (even though it is: hello Mick Mccloskey!) Daragh is a very silent and sound sleeper. Maybe a little too sound: getting him up in the mornings was something I felt might challenge a nuclear bomb. But as he pointed out himself, it's a well known fact that the mongoose likes his sleep.

Next few weeks are very busy on the live poker front with the European Deepstack championships being followed by Galway UKIPT. Galway's always great craic and will be a chance to catch up with lots of people. My good friend Keith McFadden who has been off doing other things is making a comeback for this. Keith has a great record in Galway and will be lodds on for a deep run.

Read More

Why I'm not David Bowie

I didn't play last year's IPPF so when I said to Mick Mccloskey I'd go with him to this year's version, in my mind I thought I was going to a game with 100 or so runners. So it was a pleasant surprise to learn it'd be more like 400. On the drive down, I made various business calls and found other ways to play with my new smartphone, all the time trying to drown out Mick's complaints about dereliction of navigation duties.

Day 1 went pretty well. I chipped up throughout without any major incident. My table did get progressively tougher as the evening wore on with the arrival of Colin Hammond, John Keown and Ciaran "Tag" Taggart. Otherwise, the highlight of the day was one of the great characters on the Irish poker scene Nicky Power mugging it up for the cameras to take the piss out of my Twitter parody account (choke_doke).

There's always been a bit of a banter culture around Irish poker and I seem to be attracting it a lot lately. I also had to endure a piss take blog from my friend Lappin (see later), and Daragh Davey and Nicholas Newport bowing down every time I entered the room at the weekend. I don't mind a bit of banter though and I guess if you're going to get it, having a couple of young ballas bowing down is a nicer form than anonymous Twitter death threats :)

I was happy to bag up comfortably above average having almost doubled my starting stack. By contrast, Day 2 couldn't have gone much worse. I missed the opportunity to triple up when Jamie Flynn opened for the umpteenth time. I was about to threebet light with T7s when I noticed the guy beside me was almost wetting himself with excitement, leading me to suspect he had a hand. So I let the hand go. My read was spot on as my neighbour threebet Jamie. After Jamie peeled, they got it in with 88 and 99 on a J98 board! The board didn't pair so my T7 would have scooped.

My favoured strategy in softish live events with a good structure is to try to chip up steadily using a smallball approach, rather than making any premature big moves. However, there inevitably comes a time when you have to kick on as blinds and antes escalate. After Gavin Flynn opened to 1700 utg at 400/800 with a 100 ante, I elected to flat call with AK in the small blind. I prefer flatting in these spots out of position against a good player when the effective stack is 40 to 55 bbs, as the threebet just inflates the pot and makes it likely that if we do get it all in pre, I'm going to be flipping at best. I think the threebet also folds out most of the hands in Gav's range that I dominate, while the flatcall disguises my hand. It allows me to get away cheaply if I miss the flop, but potentially win a big pot if I hit. The big blind came along. The flop was 8 high all hearts (I had the ace of hearts). In my mind, I now have enough equity that I'm happy to get it all in, and did after the big blind potted it, Gav folded, and I check raised. I assumed I was flipping nearly always with two overs and a flush draw, but wasn't in this case. I was up against a queen high made flush and didn't get there.

I didn't really think too much about the hand until a good player at the table told me later he didn't like how I played it, preferring the 3 bet pre, and the check call on the flop. I strongly disagree though (I don't like putting in a chunk of my stack when I'm going to have to fold most turns and can add about 30% to my stack without showdown if the check raise gets through), but I ran the hand by Lappin and Rob Taylor (who both play it same as me).

I was back later for the side event. I made a strong start doubling my stack early on without any major showdowns. There was one funny hand with Ciaran Cooney. Ciaran 4xed the button to 200 over a limper, I threebet to 550 from the big blind with queens, the limper flatted, Ciaran 4 bet, and after a little deliberation I decided the fold was most prudent here. Ciaran showed 93o. He told me later he'd done it because in his very first live event a few years ago he'd 6 bet me with 23o and got me to fold, so I guess Ciaran's timing is good in that he finds me with the one hand I'd be 3 bet folding here (everything weaker gets flatted at this point, and everything stronger is not getting folded). I'm fine with the fold though, there's nothing wrong with folding the best hand from time to time (it certainly beats calling with the worst every time), and a couple of top players told me they'd make what Lappin calls a "boxy" fold in this spot.

I ruined my good start the next time I got queens. Having raised in late position and got called by both blinds, I chet when checked to on a 542 flop. Smurph called and the big blind now shoved. My instant read on him was that he wasn't strong, he seemed just to be fed up of my constant raising, so I figured he was either overplaying something marginal, or making a spazzy move assuming I couldn't have hit that flop. So I called. Smurph now reshoved and my gut was I was now beaten. However, I only needed to be good about 35% of the time to call, and convinced myself I could be up against a smaller overpair or a pair and a draw hand involving a three. However, on reflection I don't think I'm good here often enough, so not exactly my finest hour. The big blind had 94o, and Smurph a set of 4s. I never recovered from this, being forced to wait for a decent spot to shove. A7 over a couple of limps looked like one but ran into AJ behind. That ended my weekend on the playing front.

I hung round on day 3 as a couple of my friends were still in and going well. Unfortunately it went pear shaped fairly quickly for both Daragh Davey and Padraig "Smudge" O'Neill so it was time to get clane out of dodge, or to dodge out of Clane, and back home for a Sunday grind. I had a bad one, but had the consolation of ending my night railing Daragh and Lappin deep in some majors. Lappin, playing his first major in ages, romped into the last 100 of the Milly like the classic thoroughbred he is, and just as we were both getting excited about the 200k plus up top, unfortunately ran tens into kings with 67 left. Great show by the talented Mr Lappin though, who has also made me the subject of his latest entertaining blog which explains among other things why I'm not David Bowie. He assures me the entry became his most read ever within 24 hours.

Daragh Davey, who bunked on the couch in the suite myself and Mick shared and got a lift back from Clane with us demonstrated his true grit within a few hours. Shaking off the disappointment of playing brilliantly for 3 days to just double his money, he ended headsup in the Ipoker 200K, and was unlucky not to win when his AT was outdrawn by KQ. I'm on record as an admirer of "other" Daragh, and my admiration is based at least as much on his temperament, discipline and attitude as it is on his poker skills (which are considerable). In a world where people often confuse flamboyance with talent, and arrogance with accomplishment, Daragh prefers to just get on with the business quietly and with class. I'm pretty sure this is the first of many big results.

Well done to Danny Maxwell for his great blogging and photographs this weekend (including those that adorn this blog). Danny's blogging for IPB of Irish live events really adds to the occasion. I also ran into Breifne at the weekend, promoting his new venture, SharkRankings.com. The basic idea is to have a ranking list for live and online events. Irish Eyes are running a number of qualifying events at quarter past eight 5 nights a week. I've been hitting these up when I can with spectacularly unsuccessful results (I've yet to cash!).

This blog is being typed up on the plane to Madrid, where later today I play 1a of Estrellas. Then next week I'm off to Prague (with Daragh Davey) for EMOP (and the live final for last year's leaderboard). With the deepstack following that and then Galway UKIPT, it's going to be a very busy month on the live front, making it harder to keep ticking away online. I rose to an all time high on the PocketFives rankings list after my recent rush of results (in the top 300 hundred in the world, and number 3 in Ireland, although I slipped down to number 4 at the weekend as Jude tore up Stars to move back ahead of me). With more and more top class Irish online players emerging, it gets harder and harder to stay near the top of the Irish list. When I broke into the top 10, I wasn't even in the top 1000 worldwide: now you need to be around 500 or so worldwide to make top 10 in Ireland.

Finally, speaking of top class online players, a big well done to two of the Dungarvan gang, Mark O'Connor and Gavin Flynn, for chopping the main event in Clane. Both lads are part of the Dungarvan group of players that seem to feed off each other's success, and you'll be hearing a lot more of these lads in future. I heard that two of Ireland's "live pros" were taking the piss out of what they called internet players on their table on day one. While it used to be the case that many online players struggled to transition to live, I think it was noteworthy that when the dust cleared at the weekend, it was two young online players who had risen to the top. The last few years have seen the online kids rise to dominate the international stage, and the next couple will see the same thing happen here in my opinion.

Having viewed my latest career change with a mixture of shock and disdain initially, my daughter Fiona seems to be coming round to the view that there may be something to this poker lark. When she was home for Christmas, she asked me to give her a crash course so she could play with her housemates.  It took only 15 minutes or so as she's a very quick learner (it's clear that whatever talent for the game I possess she has inherited). She's still a novice though, and I got the following amusing text from her this weekend:

"If you're playing holdem and you accidentally say straight instead of flush before you show your hand, do you lose the pot because of it? Or is it just a stupid rule the lads just made up?"

As I texted back to her that they'd made it up, I regretted that we never had that Daddy-daughter talk where I explain that lads are sneaky. Limerick lads especially.

Read More

Jesus W(e)PT

I went in to my first WPT confident about how I was playing and optimistic I could get a result. Maybe I should aim to go into tourneys pessimistic and jittery, because I managed to butcher my first hand of note. After three betting a German who seemed to be playing very aggro with aces and getting flatted, I then got check called on a JT7 board with two clubs and a low diamond. A low diamond on turn made the board even more draw heavy so instead of checking behind for pot control like I normally would this early, I fired again. That's actually ok I think given the drawy nature of the board but once he raised I should have just gone away. Instead I called to see what he did on the river. All the draws missed so when he fired for about a third of pot I levelled myself into thinking it might be a cheap stab with a missed draw or a blocker with a hand like kings. It wasn't: just top set. So my 30k starting stack was now 20k.

Not to be too results based but it probably made no difference as no matter how many chips I had I think I was always destined to be felted when I got set over setted later on. That left me with 10 bbs and there was no recovery. I shipped in with AKs, got called in two spots, then Dermot Blaine squeezed button for almost half his stack. The first flatter now went away, but the second one, Bodog sponsored pro Tatiana flatted again. The board ran out 7 high with no further betting and when Dermot announced ace high I was suddenly optimistic I might be chopping or even winning, but Tatiana somehow had kings.

I was back day for the IPC. Last year I got a number of monkeys off my back like never having cashed in an EPT main event or a WSOP, so 2012 would be a good year to start cashing in the biggest events on the Irish calendar (never having cashed in an IPC, IO or IWF). My tournament started slowly as I struggled with card death and having Nik Persaud to my left. Things picked up when Padraig Parkinson arrived. Parky was clearly enjoying the festivities too much to be overly fussed about the poker, and having bluffed off half his stack to Nik first hand, did likewise with the other half to me next hand. That got me through to day 2, although a period of card death near the bubble meant I drifted back from being well above average after I made a hero call v Marc McDonnell that prompted some banter on Twitter. This whole business of people tweeting at the table makes things interesting (it also means people at home can follow the banter and get hand and chip updates). When I came back on day 2, Jason was sat directly behind me but I learned of his exit via Twitter!

I flipped well on day 2 to get right into the mix, then lost a big one with kings v ace jack all in pre that would really have put me right in the hunt. That left me in 20 bbs mode again and after finding aces I played them in a way designed to try to extract maximum value and a full double up. It didn't really work out on this occasion as my opponent hit a set on the turn, so it was another second final table exit. Good at least to get the year going with a live cash, although to be honest between my own buyins and those of my stable it barely made a dent on my losses for the weekend.

I was home in time for a Sunday grind and thankfully that went well enough to more than wipe out the live poker losses, as I got a second on French Stars. I followed it with a win a few days later in their main nightly which I bought into late. I was intending to have a night off and had gone into town for dinner with an old friend, then caught a movie with Lappin, and some more food with Lappin, Mongoose and Triona, but when I got home the itch was there so I late regged just in time. Pretty glad I did as I ended up binking for for €8300. So as ever, online rule, live drools.

Right before the WPT I had a long interesting chat with Andy Black. He'd been reading up on ultrarunning so was 20 questions, and was telling me about a one week retreat he was just back from which was invigorating. By the end of my few days in Citywest I was feeling (and looking: there's a rather horrible photo on IPB courtesy of Danny) anything but invigorated. My ongoing health problems are probably something I need to start paying more attention to and factoring in when scheduling. I had been thinking of doing the full WSOP this year but unless the health issue has completely cleared by then (which is possible but unlikely) I might need to look at a 2 to 3 week raiding visit instead. I'm also going to have to maybe look at curtailing my domestic schedule too rather than simply playing everything on the calendar.

Tomorrow I'm appearing with Breifne on his Dublin City FM Sunday sports show On The Ball. Think I'm scheduled for arpound 4.30. Breifne is currently launching a rankings site for Irish poker and there's a nightly €33 freezeout on Irish Eyes that I play most nights that counts for points. Irish Eyes Poker have also put a bounty on my head on the night I do play (whoever knocks me out gets entry to a freeroll for the monthly 100K game on Irish Eyes worth €200) so hopefully I'll see you there at some point. Also, I recently did an interview for PocketFives on the occasion of my second triple crown

Read More