3 burgers and a diet coke

Brought the recent outbreak of live grinding to a somewhat successful close by cashing in and final tabling the last two Fitz side events.

Monday: couple of early donations from Chris Dowling set me up nicely for a deep run. It's fair to say Chris, a player I do respect a lot when he's playing his A game, wasn't (playing his A game, or even his Y game). Went wrong for me pretty quickly on the final table when I got it in pre with AA v KK. Well done to Cat O'Neill who ended up in a 4 way chop, continuing a very nice run of form for the Nordy luckbox. Other point of note was presence of Downtown Rory Brown on my first table playing some mighty impressive stuff. It's pretty obvious I'm a big fan of Rory's play (did pick him as a teammate after all), he's a genuine thinking player rather than an autopilot "std" merchant who continues to add new elements to his game and has great natural instincts. I'm also impressed by the way he carries himself at the table, which is very important imo. Rory's consistently going deep now and I expect him to bing a big one before too long. Speaking of which, well done to Andy Grimasson, another brilliant player and great guy, for his ECOOP score. Andy was due a big one, and I'm delighted he got one.

Tuesday: Joan Vickers rebuy. I felt this tournament might suit me. For one thing I think my recent run on Stars indicates I've mastered the quick rebuy format. For another, apart from Rob Taylor, Marq O'Neill and one or two others, there were very few really good players in a sea of Fitz donkeys. Gambled in the right spots early only to get sucked out on, so the final tally was three rebuys and an addon. Motored on nicely after the break courtesy of several donkations. Was chipleader on the final table for most of it, several times. The pattern was move into a big chiplead, then lose a few flips and 60/40s, recover back to the chiplead without showdowns, then another batch of lost flips and 60/40s. Think there were at least 15 races or 60/40s and I managed to lose every last motherfucker. Then 4 handed I made a soul read check raise shove for 60% of the chips in play with K6 on a KQ8 board. My opponent made a soul read call with QT and rivered the T. I think if I win that hand I win the tourney. In fact, I think if I won even one or two of the flips/60-40s I win the tourney. Ended up third instead for 900. As is usual in the Fitz, there were too many paid (10 in a 60 runner field) and too much for top 2 (1600 for second and 2600 ftw, meaning 60% of prize pool for top 2, meaning the other places paid less than they should).

So despite final tabling 3 of the 5 Fitz festival events and notching up a third I managed to show a net loss for the festival, a mildly unsatisfactory outcome to a lot of (in my opinion) very good tournament poker. So it's fair to say I'm looking to taking a break from the live scene and getting back to some online grinding. We're getting to the end of the year and naturally the mind starts to reflect on the 12 months that have just been and planning for the next 12. It's been a year of finding my feet and proving I can make a good living for myself and my family from the game, and although the big score has eluded me, I'm happy to have at least done that. I genuinely believe I've run pretty badly live this year and but for that would have landed a big one. I'm happy that I've managed to keep grinding out smaller results in the circumstances and show consistency, which I feel is the real hallmark of the good tournament player. Anyone can luckbox one big score or go on a short lived heater, that's genuinely one of the beauties of tournament poker, but the best tournament players are the consistent ones in my opinion.

I did pick up some more ranking points for the last two results but that doesn't really make much odds now as Wally is I believe several million points ahead and uncatchable so I've stopped chasing. I'll talk more at some point about my big plans for next year, it's fair to say I'm going to make some sweeping changes in my approach to getting to the next level. One thing I can say at this point is I'll probably play less live events in Ireland (and aim for more big ones abroad). I'll also continue to move my focus more to online where I have a proven track record as a winning player. Liam Flood asked me once whether I'd prefer to do well live or online, and the truth is that I do see online now as the bread and butter and live more as the cream on top.

Next up outside the house is another Irish Poker Radio show this weekend and a chance to interview Neil Channing apparently.

Now, anyone want to hazard a guess as to how the title of this entry relates to the content? I'll post the answer on the next entry (assuming anyone's remotely interested) and there might even be a prize like a percentage of me in the IPC for any successful guessers.

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