5 marathons in one day

Someone asked me in the Jackpot on Friday during the individual event if I'd ever done anything like Eddie Izzard's multi-marathon challenge and my answer was that while I never ran X marathons every day for X days in a row, I did once run 5 marathons in one day (becoming Irish 24 hour running champion in the process). These days my multi-marathon efforts are confined to the poker table, so it was perhaps appropriate I was asked this question as I faced into the poker equivalent of a multi marathon this weekend.

The first "marathon" was the individual event in the Jackpot. This had an incredibly good structure (some might say ridiculously good for a €100 event). I ended up bubbling after eight hours (std KJ shove on the button into the eventual winner's AJ, a young lad who played very well all night). Played a bit online when I got home to no great effect but finished up a few hundred so that was at least something to show for the night's poker.

On Saturday I headed out to Larry Santo and Peter Barable's new place, Bluff Club in Swords. As you'd expect with those two gentlemen at the helm, it's a fine club with a very welcoming atmosphere. The tournament itself ended up having a 1K overlay: hopefully the numbers will pick up as they get going. Larry has an idea to start a sort of poker school in the club and asked me if I'd be willing to give some lessons there and needless to say I would: watch this space.

No joy for me in the tournament itself: ended up going out on the second last table losing a 50/50 to Baz Hand that played itself on both sides. This at least meant I was home in time to play a bit more online and that turned out to be a very good thing: I cashed in the $17500 Gtd on Bruce and won the $10K for the second time (in two efforts) this week. My online mtt game seems to be in top form at the moment: my ROI on Stars is currently running at 181% according to OPR (it's actually a bit higher as they missed some big results) and 178% on Bruce.

Sunday I was back in the Jackpot for the team event. 27 teams turned out, and we ended up pipping the Pink Panthers (Rebecca McAdams, Jim Rock and his brother, Paul Smallwood) for third place. We actually finished level on points, so it went to which team had the highest fourth place finisher. My LNSOP conqueror Jim Rock was out early on, whereas our first bust out Phil "Dead Stack" Baker managed to survive longer by simple dint of turning up just after Jim had already been eliminated :)

It could actually have been even better for Team Bruce as the gap between us and the top spot taken by Damo Kent's team wasn't very big. I went out in the 35th (again, queens was my bogey hand, failing to hold against Ken Ralph's A9 in another of those "plays themselves" hands), just after Liz who put on a great performance to recover from some early setbacks which saw her drop to 2500 and then the loss of a 45K pot with, yup, queens against tens (all in pre). The villain in that hand turned up again to knock Wally out on the final table bubble (Wally shoved with ATs under the gun and got called by A6 in the SB), but in the end Wally's tenth place finish was enough to nail down third.

Well done to all who cashed and all involved in this great event for a great cause. There was a great atmosphere around the place and some good banter with the likes of Emmet Gough, Bomber Nolan, JP, KP, Rebecca, Paul Fox, Pete "Multiplier" Murphy, Jim and Christy Smith, Hali (Dave Callaghan), Smurph and many other great Irish poker characters. Goughy in particular was in high spirits but may wake up with a sore head tomorrow.

The latest edition of Bluff Europe has a very nice piece by Paul Fox on yours truly. They even found a way to make me considerably better looking.

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