Trophy!

 On the plane over, I bumped into James O’Brien, one of the real gentlemen of Irish poker, and we shared an uber into town.  I always enjoy chatting with James because he’s not only a gent, but he has some interesting insights and opinions on live poker, as you’d expect from someone with his excellent track record in it. 

The first face I saw when I walked into the Alea to max late reg the Party Poker main event was one of my favourites in poker but also unexpected, as you don’t expect to see globetrotters like Jack Hardcastle in a 500 quid main event but there he was, just off his flight home from WSOP. The last time I saw Jack was only a few weeks previously in Vegas, when we were both wondering if the ineptitude of WSOP staff would prevent us from max late regging the main event in time. 

On this occasion I was a little early, and Jack persuaded me to take what I call the Dan Wilson strategy, as he was the first I heard segue that if late regging is good, regging a little bit before it closes is also good as if what often happens does happen (the snap bust out) you get a second equally profitable bite at the cherry. 

On this occasion my first bite of the cherry lasted one hand. I raised KT of diamonds in the lojack, Joel Baxter called in the small blind, and the big blind came along. The flop came T62 two spades one diamond, I bet small when checked to, and Joel now raised. After the big blind folded I had to decide what to make of the raise. As anyone who has purchased the Simplify Poker multiway course will know, when you’re the player in the sandwich (between an opener who has cbet and a third player who has checked their entire range) as Joel was in this case, you’re generally supposed to play few if any raises, as the top of your range wants to keep the third player in, and it’s difficult to protect two ranges (a call one and a raise one). My decision now whether to raise (which would be a shove) or a call comes down to how much equity I think Joel’s bluffs have (if he has a better hand it’s just a cooler at this SPR, and he likely doesn’t raise sets anyway). Joel is a good thinking aggressive player so I quickly decided he wouldn’t bluff total air here so his bluffs likely come from the many flush draws he can have, and gutshots. I can get the gutshots to fold away a decent amount of equity to my shove, and while he will call his flush draws, I don’t mind getting the money in as a favourite either. 

As it happens he had K9 spades and hit his flush. Joel, who I rate as one of the best of the rising generation in Ireland, put the chips to good effect by making the final table (and he stopped me for a few words of advice before going back on the last day), ultimately finishing fifth. One of the things I like about Joel is his temperament. Just after busting he told he was off to try to win the Last Chance side event. When I told him max late reg was still open on the high roller (I was about to avail of the option), he dismissed the idea of entering saying "I'm losing in that field". I don't think that's true (and told him so in the time) but the fact he did shows a realism most young players lack, and a focus on game selection most would benefit from. 

Take 2

The second bullet went better and I ended up bagging just over 2x starting. Afterwards, I went to eat with Jack to an excellent pizza place he told me Robbie Bull recommended. Jack had a fairly miserable WSOP this year but was still in good spirits,  happy to be home, and as good company as ever. 

Day 2

My day 2 of the main went well until it didn’t. I didn’t manage to make much progress on my starting stack or until a good chance to do so presented itself about 20 away from the money. I shoved AKs over a raise and a call but lost the flip to JJ. No regrets though. 

I fired a bullet each at both side events losing 80/20s to bust both before retiring to my hotel thinking there was a very good chance I was going to have my first brick trip in a while. 

Sunday Bloody Sunday 

I woke up to rain, and vacillated on where I was going to have breakfast. I wanted to repeat my breakfast from the previous day when I found an excellent egg place called Egg Daddy but didn’t fancy the one mile walk in the rain. I decided to try the breakfast in the Ibis Budget where I was staying, but it looked so grim and the rain had faded into drizzle so after checking if the casino do breakfast (they don't) I headed to Egg Daddy.

By now, I wasn't feeling too optimistic about avoiding the dreaded trip of bricks. I also wasn't too optimistic about how good the 1k High Roller would be, given the number of quality local players hanging around. This and the fact that I wanted to give myself as many bites at the cherry as possible (volume is king) meant I decided to enter the mystery bounty from the start. I ended up final tabling and busting in 5th (no bounties though, and not even a sweat for one despite having a healthy stack until near the end) just in time to late reg the high roller (which was better than I feared despite the presence of the local heavy hitters) after a trip to Mother Hubbard's for some sustenance.

High roller

I ran pretty well in this, and sensationally well on the final table, which is how you win tournaments, and I was thrilled to finish this one out. Something about the structure of this tournament (fast but not too fast) seems to really suit my game, and it was my fifth FT and fourth cash in it in the last year. I got 5th in Birmingham (when my good friend and Simplify Poker member Sid won), 4th in Madrid, before a tilting loss headsup to my friend and Simplify Poker member, the Power Path king himself, Matt Harniman, in London a few weeks ago.

Matt was on the rail for this one, and said graciously afterwards he was particularly delighted for me after he'd thwarted me in London. Simplify Poker member James Rooney was also on the final table (he ran badly but still managed fifth) and joined Matt on the rail. Before the final table started, my neighbour David Anderson asked for a selfie, explaining he'd gone from reading one of my books by the pool in Turkey 3 weeks ago to qualifying for this event online for £1. It was David I got headsup with, and needed an Ace on the river to seal the deal against and avoiding the stacks flipping to 2:1 against me. Special shoutout to Kye Hamilton who I identified as the danger on the table at the start of the FT, but ran very well against, cracking his aces 4 handed and then winning a massive flip.

I'm not an emotional person when it comes to poker, which helps me weather the storms and keep showing up when it's not going well, but also means I often end up taking little or no pleasure when it goes well. On this occasion though, the presence of a boisterous celebratory rail of Irish and Simplify members and seeing how happy they were for me did transfer to me, and I really enjoyed the few drinks we had afterwards. Massive thank you to everyone in this photo for making the win feel extra special.

Some more shoutouts

The contingent of travelling Irish to these Party stops continues to grow in number and strength, and several others got scores in addition to those already mentioned. Paul Leckey got 6th in the high roller (and also cashed the PLO Masters), one of the DCU crew Adam Green got tenth in the main and third in the 4/5/6 Double board (an event also cashed by another of the DCU crew Jack Reynolds as well as John Burke), another one of the same crew Alex Gleeson won the Faded Spade event (which Michael Breen also final tabled), and Mark Johnston final tabled both the mini main and the Red Rivers event/

It was also a very good festival for non-Irish Simplify members, including my neighbour on the Mystery Bounty final table Stephen Keay, and Glen Jones took down the Crazy Pineapple event. It was great to meet so many Simplify members and put faces to names I see every day on the Academy.

The locals

The general consensus among the Irish playing there for the first time is there's nowhere more fun to play than Glasgow, because of the unique banter of the locals. At one stage I was caught between locals Raymond Peacock and Stephen Milloy in the mystery bounty (which they ended up getting headsup in explains to me

“See, that’s the great thing about Glasgow, we don’t even know each other but we can say that to each other”

At one point Stephen told us about an industrial accent that cost him a leg, which made him indsult later to Raymond ("You two legged prick!") all the funnier. 

At one stage the masseuse was asked

“How much is the massage?”

“One pound fifty a minute”

“I’ll take thirty seconds”

The Irish poker tour will return to the same venue for the Glasgow Poker Festival November 3rd to 8th, and I'd heartily recommend it as an antidote to the November blues. Next up for me is Barcelona next Saturday (I plan to spend 12 days there but will extend if I go deep in the EPT), followed by the Limerick IPT stop on September 5th. And I've already booked my flights for the next Party poker tour stop in Castellon (October 5th to 11th). See you there!

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