Running bad live, good online, better on Fintan's machine

Last Thursday I went to the Voodoo for the first time, to record an Irish Poker Radio show with Iain. Since we were there anyway, we decided to play the 25 rebuy. I ended up winning which was a timely confidence boost and reaffirmation that I can still crush in Dublin nightlies.

Friday decided to play the supersat for JP's game. Superfast structure obviously which meant it inevitably coming down to a race pretty quickly. I lost and that was that. Tough table draw in the main event with Dave Kinane, Danny Maxwell and Sean Prenderville all there. At least they were the right side of me. I managed to stay out of trouble for the most part and steadily accumulate to finish just over 40K.

Took a nasty hit early on day 2 when a big pair was apparently rivered by ace rag off, but recovered to 90K or so where the car wreck happened. A young guy who was playing reasonably solidly but seemed to be getting a bit frustrated at having his smallball raises snapped off made a big raise utg, to 8K, at 1200/2400. Folded to my aces in the BB and I reraised to 22K. After considerable thought where he seemed to be leaning towards the fold, he shipped for 54K with 99. Board ran out QQTJ8.

That left me with a reshipping stack and with significant antes not much time to find a good spot. Very next hand seemed to present one: Cue Club's Connie O'Sullivan raised to 7K in the CO. His range was clearly very wide as he'd already showed up with the likes of K6o so I reshipped KJs from the small blind. Unfortunately he had KK and that was that.

Played the PLO and barely won a pot, ultimately going out to eventual winner Wayne Condron, a very unorthodox but naturally talented young player. I shipped AAxx over a bunch of limps and he overshipped AQQx and hit a Q.

Played two side events on the Sunday and never really got going in either. Went out of the shootout shipping an open ender into the Bomber's set, and a mixture of card death and an aggressive table in the shorthanded meant I ended up having to ship 89s for eight bigs on the button. The SB woke up with 99 and the BB with AT.

Suitably dejected, I scooted upstairs to the hotel room in time to sign up for some of the small Ipoker nightlies. I ended up cashing in three and winning the nightly $4k. Fun final table where I was allowed to get away with hyper aggression. Only one player tried to play back until I reshipped 64s over his 3 bet and that put manners on the fecker. Then 4 handed the guy who had started with most chips blew up gloriously. I was playing 200K, he was playing 150K, the other two guys were short with 30-40K, I had direct position on him so he really should have been staying out of my way till the shorties got out or doubled up. He limped the SB, I bumped it up to 3600, he called. Flop came AJ5 rainbow and he now openshipped! This gave me a decision to make as I have AQ and I eventually got it right, calling to be shown 34o. No gutterball and he was duly dispatched and the tournament pretty much won.

Went back downstairs to find Cat continuing her amazing recent run, three handed in the shorthanded. She ended up chopping for another fine result. I think she was a little disappointed that the outright win eluded her again but it's only a matter of time before she gets one. Played on Fintan Gavin's headsup machine, beating first Tom Kitt and then Wayne Condron, which was the outright highlight of the weekend really. Was going to play Rory Brown but him and Tom's messy drunk shoutings and antics had security pulling the plug. Couple of clowns they are, but entertaining loveable ones if you can see past the arrogant surface veneer.

Also well done to my roommmate Mick McCloskey, my only swap for this event (trying to cut back on them recently), who came good yet again with another deep run and a cash. He was a bit dejected with the way his finish but he went with his read and even if it turned out to be wrong on this occasion, that's all you can really do.

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