Waiting for Godot

The dynamics of the table for my UKIPT Coventry main event seemed to suggest playing a much looser style than my normal live one was optimal. I ended up playing a styler closer to my normal online one, which made for a much swingier day than I'm used to. Although I initially drifted back from 15k to 9k I think I played fine (although some tweaks are still needed to adapt my online game to the live setting to take into account that live players just don't fold that much): I was just consistently outflopped or outdrawn. I lost a chunk with a flush versus a house. Then a rush saw me surge up to 30k, but it was all one way traffic after that. I lost half my stack with top pair versus a gutter that got there on the river to drift back to the shove or fold zone late in the day. I had a chance to get right back into it when I was in with queens versus tens but the board ran out AKKKA to chop the 25K pot. I then shoved jacks over a button raise and it turns out he had queens. No suckout and that was that. Well done to Fintan Gavin and Mike Lacey who both cashed.

The less said about the 100 side event the better. Sufficient to say it was one of those tournaments where I never got going and the first time I shipped and got called I was out. Despite hitting a house (my opponent only went and made quads).

I at least got a decent run in the 300 side event, getting through to day 2 with 75% of average. Card death at the wrong time and losing a flip left me very short on the final table bubble when I decided to make a stand with T9s in the BB when the SB shipped in. When I called he announced that he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but unfortunately for me he had a hand that dominated me, Q9o. Exitting just before the final table didn't do much to lift my mood already dampened by a week of struggling unmanfully with man flu and the fact that my roommate for the week, Phil "Godot" Baker, never made it across from Aintree where he was gallivanting for the week.

Shared a cab to the airport with Toby Stone and had a good natter about different events and trends in the poker world.

I booked my flight back late. My strategy when it comes to booking flights home is predicated on a fear of rushing, but I might have to rethink that as it invariably means having to hang around a freezing hangar masquerading as an airport for most of a day, something I hate. I think some famous philosopher once said that life is a choice between security and boredom, and I'm tipping away from a fear of rushing to a loathing of waiting. To relieve the boredom, I went for a Costa capuccino just now. Faced with a decision on size, out of the corner of my eye I saw an old lady struggling with an enormous cup and decided to play safe and order a medium. The cup I got was actually bigger than the old lady's. Not so much a cup as a small bucket. If I don't manage to make it through the cup before I finish this blog entry, I might go for a swim in it instead.

In any case, I just have one more trip planned before Vegas, the Nottingham leg of the UKIPT. I want to be fresh for Vegas and I'm starting to find these trips which I embark on feeling chipper looking dapper and return from feeling the effects of a week of bad eating, bad sleep and some foreign bug and looking like a homeless accountant about to be interrogated by West Midlands police quite draining. (I was actually stopped, briefly, by the West Midlands police. The policeman I was dealing with was a smiling affable sort who seemed a little embarrassed and intrigued when he learned my profession. He obviously knew a bit about the game judging by his knowledgeable questions about it and the fact that he knew that the G Casino in Coventry was in the football stadium).

Anyway, enough with the moaning already. As Chris Fitz reminds me every now and then, I'm living the dream making a living playing cards so there are no serious grounds for whining. The live plan for this week is the Westbury monthly game tomorrow, and possibly the Eglinton on Wednesday. The main focus between now and Vegas is to grind as much as possible online while getting myself into the best possible mental, physical and financial shape to give the WSOP as good a go as I can.

A very well done to my friend Feargal Nealon on his second place finish in the Ipoker Monthly Million for a very nice $110K score.

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