Sheep the teekets, ya

Pretty good start to the online year. Not playing as many STTs as per "the Plan" but still crushing them. Won an EPT package on Stars, final tabled the $100 rebuy, and won a tournament on Full Tilt all in one night. Last night won a couple of $500 sats (instacashed in for T$) and took down the first Irish Open ticket only satellite on Paddy. Good to get qualification for the IO out of the way early.

Recognised a few of the runners in the IO sat as some of the better players around. Luckily for me they all seemed to go out early. I went from shortie on the final table to chipleader with no big hands or showdowns: just min raising almost every time it was folded round to me, and either taking the blinds and antes, or the pot on the flop with a cbet, or retreating for the minimum loss if I ran into something. Tried to avoid showdowns and flips for as long as possible but there comes a point where you have to take them and after a few bad beats I found myself short three handed. Tried to wangle a deal at that point as the other two had expressed disinterest in the ticket but the chipleader changed his mind and decided he wanted it so we played on. I continued smallballing as long as I could but there comes a point where you just have to ship and hope, and a quality suckout got me right back in it. I shipped A6 from the SB into AT, and was getting my coat after a T53 flop, then a 2 on the turn for some gutterball hope, and bing the 4 on the river.

Headsup was pretty damn funny too. Just as I was telling all my MSN railers that with 35 bigs each this could go on a while, I flop a straight, and before I have time to decide what'd be a good amount to bet my opponent simplified the matter greatly by shipping the loot in with middle pair. Think he was a tad tilted from the constant nuisance min raises and the previous hand where an ill-advised free card on the turn with two pair allowed me to gutter him up something vicious on the river. Obviously I'm running good, Doke style, at the moment, and long may it continue.

Currently on the train to Galway to take part in the Eglinton Party and the IPR live final. Should be a great weekend. Big Mick and his posse are somewhere on the train too, presumably in a distant carriage as I can't hear the gun fire or clinking of bling from here. Speaking of which, congrats to Mick for pulling off the Supernova Elite thing again this year. Quality lad and player with huge talent, top class attitude, and tremendous work ethic.

OK, I'll leave you with a link to another blog: http://smurphspoker.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html. Scroll down to Friday June 22 2007 to see the First Lady of Irish poker unknowingly describing the live debut, tournament debut, and no limit holdem debut of Doke. And how he was sucked out on before I'd learned how to run good (or write about himself pretentiously in the third person).

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