San Sebastien I hate every inch of you

I went back to Day 2 of Estrellas San Sebastien in the Casino Kursaal optimistic that it might at least last a little longer than most of my day 2's to date in 2012. As my roommate for the week David Lappin (a master of the niggle school of encouragement) pointed out, most of the time I'm not even surviving an orbit. Reasons for optimism included not being short for once and the general standard of play. As Lappin pointed out in his blog it's fair to say that Spanish poker is in what could euphemistically be called the early stages of development.

Things looked even better when I won a big hand straight away. Unfortunately I then lost almost half my stack after opening kqs. Two flat calls juiced the pot to the point that the bb now figured it was too good a spot not to shove for 20 bigs. Given the obvious nature of the spot and the fact that he'd already shoved in three times in an orbit I figured my kqs was miles ahead of his range and the two flat callers both of whom seemed like the kind of guys who liked to see flops so long as everyone kept it cheap. Seemed like a good spot to stick the loot in so I did. After the flat callers had folded I found myself in good shape against j9o. Not for long though after a nine high flop. That left me with a shoving stack and set up my most bizarre exit hand ever.

By the time it was folded to me in the small blind the dealer had mistakenly mucked the big blind's cards. I therefore assumed his hand was dead and went through the formality of shoving to pick up the blinds. Or at least that's what I assumed would happen. What actually happened is the big blind was allowed to retrieve two cards from deep inside the muck. Presumably his original two but who can be certain? Having ascertained that both of those rescued cards were kings he made the call. As my mind reeled from what I was witnessing the dealer banged out a flop turn and river and was pushing my stack to him quicker than you can say Floor! At this point I finally did get round to expressing the opinion to the dealer that it might be a good idea for her to consult the floor on this one.  She either didn't understand (she provided no evidence at any point to suggest she either spoke or understood a word of English) or decided the best line here was to just ignore the confused looking foreigner, and ploughed on with dealing the next hand.

I did speak to tournament director Toby Stone (one of the best in the business) but obviously there was nothing he could do after the event which is fair enough. That's not to say I feel any less aggrieved though: I think Stars have a responsibility to protect foreign players by hiring dealers who understand the basic rules not to mention English. I also find it hard to believe I was the only player at the table who believed that cards in the muck are supposed to stay in the muck, but for whatever reason not one Spanish player at the table chose to break the ranks of silence.

Lappin expressed the view to me on the trudge back to the hotel that I should have handled the situation more forcefully (he's also an exponent of the niggle school of consoling your friends after they bust). That's fair enough and hopefully I won't make the same mistake if a similar situation arises in future. Although I might pull up a little shy of Lappin's suggested line of manhandling the player with one hand while screaming FLOOR at the top of my voice and restraining the dealer with the other hand to prevent her from doing anything until floor got there.

Maybe I'm just being crabby after the incident but for a number of reasons other than bad dealers, unfriendly locals and unpleasant playing conditions (the Casino Kursaal is not one of the nicer I've played in and they had us playing much of day one in an overheated unpleasantly cramped basement slash dungeon) I kinda feel like Spain is the nut low poker destination right now. They've just ring fenced their players off online all the better to gouge them for taxes which means foreign visiting players basically can't play online when they're there. All of which caused me to abandon my plans to go to the next Estrellas and EPT in Barcelona (one of the first things I did after getting back to the hotel was cancel my Barca flights). I wasn't feeling positive enough towards Spain in general or Casino Kursaal in particular to play any of the crapshoot side events so I had a fidgety few days spent mostly in the hotel room watching the Olympics in German and trying not to think about my multitude of mosquito bites.

There's more than a bit of hyperbole about the title I've gone with for this blog. San Sebastien is actually a very picturesque city with a lot of nice things to look at. Like a lot of people who live in these popular tourist spots the novelty of outsiders wore off a long time ago so the locals for the most part make no pretence of being happy to see you. So I don't feel too bad about not being able to resist adapting Johnny Cash for the title of this one.

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Raking the ashes to ashes

As promised, this blog is my final review of my WSOP 2012/Vegas campaign. When I started this blog over 4 years, it was designed as a Dear Diary not intended to be of interest to or even read by anyone else. As such, this entry is a return to my roots, as it's quite possible it's of zero interest to anyone other than myself. So feel free to skip this one, or bail on it at any point: I won't hold it against you. If the fiscal report section doesn't have your interestometer flagging to zero, wait until you get to the bit where I start talking about HUDs. Oh yeah.

Fiscal report
I played a total of ten bracelet events, cashing in just one. Total buyins was $21500, and my only cash was for $2703, so on paper I made a loss of almost $19000. However, because I sold a chunk of my action for these events, my personal loss was approximately $9000.

Besides bracelet events, I played seven other tournaments: three Rio daily deepstacks ($235 buyin), one Venetian ($600), two Rio supersats ($550 each) and a Caesars megastack turbo ($130). Of these, I final tabled a Rio deepstack (for $4747), the Caesars turbo (for $713) and I also cashed in the Venetian (for $1412). So total buyins to non bracelet events was $2545, and cashes totalled $6872, for a profit of $4327.

My personal loss on tournaments (excluding expenses and robbery of my wallet) was therefore in the region $4700. Additionally, I lost another $3k on percentages bought of other players, and almost $8k on players I stake (these however are staking deals with makeup so it's not an actualised loss).

Not sure whether this should be included but I played 4 short online sessions in Vegas and won approximately $2500 net.

Performance review
In the bracelet events, I feel for the most part I played at or near the top of the game, and made very few mistakes. Because this was the first year I'd sold a significant chunk of action, I felt an obligation to go into the events fresh and well rested, so I tended not to play much on my other days. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake. Every other year I've gone, I've pretty much played a tournament every day (some days two or three), and if anything this has helped me. I find it easier to stay focussed "in the zone" when I play every day. As a runner, I found rest days problematic. I took them because other runners and books told me I had to, but it was only when I hooked up with a coach with an even more psychotic attitude to work and rest who had me running every day (his view of rest days was when you only did one four hour run, as opposed to two or three) that I achieved real success as a runner. It's kind of similar with poker: other players keep telling me I need to play less hours and take more days off, and I've tended to believe them, until now. Jason commented on how twitchy I was on my down time in Vegas, and that's probably an indicator that I should have been working harder. You would think that staying with two lads half my age I might have been the one with the least energy, but I was pretty much the first to rise every day, slept less than them, and walked all over Vegas trying to burn off excess energy. Everyone's need for rest and downtime is personal, and I'm clearly at the end of that spectrum. Given that I only made one day 2, that means I was involved in WSOP events 11 of the 30 days I was in Vegas. And I only played 7 other tournaments (two of them on days after I'd busted a bracelet event), and 4 online sessions (one on the day I busted the main) so it would appear I took at least 11 rest days where I didn't play at all. That's an unreal level of sloth by my standards: I've gone entire years when I took less days off.

4 cashes (and two final tables) in 17 tournaments is a pretty satisfactory return even if I chose the wrong tourneys in which to run well. However, I do note that not for the first year I made a profit on non bracelet events to partially offset my losses in the official WSOP events. It's clear my edge in these is bigger (and variance is lower) so next year I'll be keen to try to include more in my schedule.

Given how badly I ran in bracelet events, I don't think it would have turned out differently though had I gone for a different approach. I could possibly have squeaked another min cash or two in the side events where I built early stacks but I don't think it would have been optimal to try to do so given how top heavy the payout structures are.

Going forward
As mentioned above, the one thing I'd change about my campaign this year if I was doing it all over again is I'd play more. Not only do I think I find it easier to play better when I get into a groove, but also increased volume gives more of a chance for variance to work itself out. The people I admire most in poker and indeed all walks of life are the people who work the hardest to get good and stay good at what they're good at. One of the most inspiring characters I met in Vegas this year was a cash game grinder, Robbie Dore. Robbie didn't play a single tournament there, but instead grinded long winning cash sessions and was one of the few Irish players to leave with more dollars than he arrived with. From talking to him, it was obvious he was a man with a clear vision and plan who stuck to it and didn't allow himself to be distracted from it. Someone who had identified his niche and was sticking to it. I tend to spread myself a bit thin at the best of times trying to be a jack of all trades and can end up being more of a dilettante than a genuine generalist, so one of my New Year's resolutions (for me in poker, the year ends the day I bust the WSOP main event, and starts the following day) is to focus more singlemindedly on what I'm good at. This applies not just to the playing, but to all the other ancillary stuff. I'm tired of hearing friends tell me I waste too much time listening to enemies and false friends (and in poker, there are maybe more false friends than genuine ones, smiling to your face as they ask for a favour while they sneer at you behind your back) and I'm sure they're tired of telling me so perhaps it's time I took heed and devoted less of my time and energy to people and things which will only cause me grief in the long run. I need to stop going to every live event on the Irish calendar just because it's there. I need to stop agreeing to every request for assistance that comes my way. Or as my friend and business partner David Lappin would put it, I need to grow a pair and stop being a soft touch.

No more Mr. Nice Guy
I need to be more willing to tell people I think they're talking absolute rubbish when I think they are. One thing in particular that annoys me about the culture that surrounds Irish poker is what is often referred to as "banter". In almost no other country or area would it be acceptable to walk up to someone on the street that you don't even know and heap abuse on them in the name of "banter". A lot of what passes for banter is actually good old fashioned reconstructed bullying and attempted mental intimidation, with an added twist of victim blame that means that if the target doesn't just lie back and take it, they're accused of lacking humour and "not being able to take a bit of banter". In other areas of life, people don't stand for it when people who claim to be your friends choose to put the most negative spin imaginable on an achievement or a favour done in a manner designed specifically to humiliate you in public. But it's sadly endemic in Irish poker culture. There's a big difference in my book between a witty well intentioned jibe and much of what passes for banter in Irish poker circles which is neither well intentioned nor particularly witty. So another New Year's resolution is to be more selective in the people I give the time of day to: to restrict myself to people who treat others with respect and dignity. There are enough of those people around that nobody need ever feel lonely outside their company. On a related issue, I resolve to waste less time on the great timewaster of our age: the social networks. These are great for a flick through when you're stuck on a train or you've nothing better to be doing (but not when you have).

On a technical level, I need to put a lot of working into constructing correct 3,4, 5 and 6 betting ranges different types of opponents. I won't bore you further with the details, except to say I've been largely winging it to date, but now recognize the need to sit down and meticulously and mathematically analyse the construction of these ranges.

My online career has been largely based on what I would call "value hunting" but others have called bum hunting: restricting myself to the softest fields available at the bigger buyins. This is a good strategy to make money, but not a good one to stay ahead of the curve. One big positive I always take from Vegas every year is the experience of being forced to play with so many of the best players around and test myself against them sharpens me up and teaches me a few new tricks that always stand me in good stead when I get back home and online. I've therefore decided that rather than rely on Vegas as a once a year crash course on the latest elite metagame developments, I need to be testing myself more regularly online. Since I came home I've played Super Tuesday on Stars (where I was chipleader with 15 left) and final tabled a number of high roller events.

The live HUD

I also need to consider carefully what more I can take from my online game into the live arena. Online and live are different, but skills from one beyond the obvious ones can be translated to the other. The most remarkable things about me as an online player are my consistency, the fact that I've consistently maintained a much higher ROI across all sites than other top players, and the fact that I basically don't do big downswings. In the past I've attributed this mainly to game selection and discipline (and the fact that I don't mass multitable), but some of the people who have seen me at work have identified another factor: how well I interpret and use HUD data. It seems I do this better than almost everyone else they know, going well beyond the "high VPIP means he's loose, low means he's tight" level to deduce an exploitative opponent specific strategy across a wide range of stats across all the streets. At my best live when I click into the zone and I'm fully focussed I maintain a sort of live HUD, collating in my brain all the typical HUD stats in running based on observation to work out how to exploit my opponents and know how I'm going to play specific hands and situations against them even before they arise. I was a lot better at this in my early days as a player when I knew nobody at the table and therefore didn't have the distraction of having to interact with them on a social level. I was even able to recall all the major hands I'd observed an opponent play in the past. I need to try to get back to that level of attention to detail when I play live.

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Leaving Paradise

I first came to Vegas in the summer of 2008. I'd only been playing poker for a year but I was already a "pro" (in the sense that it was my sole  source of income). An online winner from the start, I'd already won a major event (European Deepstack) and after a deep run in a GUKPT and a final table at the JP Masters) decided to go for it full time.

That summer in Vegas was my first serious downswing in poker. Looking back, it wasn't really a downswing: I still had a lot to learn. I think I even knew that at the time. I was staking my brother who had taught me the game and was my first poker mentor. What disappointed me the most was not my lack of cashes in the bracelet events but also a lack of true success in the softer nightly tournaments we were grinding. Most nights started with us entering the nightly in the Rio, and ended with us walking up Industrial Road, the road that runs parallel to the strip and pretty much nobody walks, on our way back to our room in Circus Circus. One night we had a raging argument that lasted the length of the walk. I had become convinced that we were doing something intrinsically wrong. My brother disagreed: his assessment was simply that we weren't getting cards at the crucial time. I pointed out that a select few players seemed to be deep most nights, and they were playing a style very different from us. The argument proved inconclusive: we agreed to disagree.

Over the next few months, I started to realise where the problem lay. While my basic TAG game was effective and maybe even optimal early in tournaments where stacks were deep, I was not playing 20 big blinds and less correctly. This deficiency became all the more glaring as my online focus moved from cash to sit n goes. I worked out a push/fold chart for different stack sizes from first principles.

Wind forward a few years and what was my biggest weakness is now seen by many as my primary strength. When good players ask me about hands, it's pretty much always a "20 bigs or less" spot.

The end of every WSOP campaign since has sparked a period of reflection where I gaze inwards at my game and try to identify where I need to improve. This year is no exception. I believe all winning poker players must remain a work in progress if they wish to remain winning. My task now is to identify what my biggest weaknesses are, and how to address them so that if or when I return to Vegas in 11 months, I'll be a better player.

When I was a runner, I knew a lot of guys who were happy to finish in the middle or back of the pack. I was never one of these people. It mystified me how training partners who would run the legs off me in training would, come race day, settle into a steady mid pack pace, while I battled it out at the front. What mystified me even more was how happy these people always were after the race. It seemed to me they were too comfortable with mediocrity and unwilling to step outside their comfort zone to test just how good they could really be. My coach, a proponent of the psychotic Scottish school of straight talking, used to say "Show me a good loser....and I'll show you a loser". His point was losing is supposed to hurt. Pain is Nature's way of telling us that we should avoid something.

As a runner, it took me a decade of intense training and disturbing levels of commitment to get to a level where I could be world class, and it meant moving up through the distances all the way to the insanity of 24 hour races. As a poker player, I'll never be happy to look at Vegas as an annual work outing, I'll never be content to go there to make up the numbers. I returned from Vegas annoyed, frustrated, upset and a number of other negative emotions that once again I'd done essentially that: made up the numbers. The point is now to use that as motivation to keep working and preparing for next year. I have weaknesses both at the table and away from it that I need to identify and address. In my next blog I hope to have organised my thoughts into an honest assessment of what I did right and wrong in Vegas this year.

I started this blog with a lie, saying I first came to Vegas in the summer of 2008. I thought it was true at the time, but it turns out I was misinformed. The strip, the Rio and all the other Vegas places I've been are not actually in Las Vegas: they're in an unincorporated town outside it called Paradise. Every June I've gone to Paradise filled with optimism that this will be my year, and every July I've left it feeling like I did after all those races I thought I was going to win but didn't. Hopefully, one year I'll go there and feel the poker equivalent of what it felt like to win the New York ultra marathon in Central Park. Til then, to borrow a phrase from a discredited political leader, much work done, but much still to do.

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The worst day of the year

They say that if you're a poker player, the day you bust the WSOP main event is the worst day of the year. This blog is being written two hours after today became the worst day of my year.

I had a pretty uneventful day 1. The best hand I got all day was either 88 or aq depending on how you view these things. I lost both times with aq but won a decent pot with the eights so I guess the eights shade it. My table was a mix of a couple of really good players and more than a couple truly terrible ones. In situations like that when you're card dead it's not unusual to win all your chips from the better players. These are the ones who notice how tight you are apparently playing and will give you credit when you do show some strength. The three biggest pots I won all day were bluff catchers, and the rest were all bluffs. In the circumstances, surviving the day having increased my stack to just over 34k felt like an acceptable result.

Day 2 put me beside my friend and roommate Daragh Davey. Daragh seemed a lot more concerned about having me to his right, but actually won almost all the pots we ended up in together. Apart from one misstep with jacks though I don't think I made any real mistakes though: Daragh simply kept making the better hand and apart from the aforementioned jacks in the bb versus his kings in the sb I think I lost the minimum.

Those jacks were the best hand I'd seen all tourney until I picked up aces. I flatted a raise from Daragh as I felt a 3 bet was in danger of getting too much respect given how tight I appeared to be playing. There was a reshove stack behind and a guy who overrated hands, two other reasons to flat I felt. I bet a ten high flop when checked to me and took it down. Next hand I pick up aces again! This time I open when to 1275 it gets to me, my standard open at 300/600. Button calls and the guy who overrates hands threebet huge from the small blind, to 6900. There hadn't been a lot of 3 betting at the table, so feeling he had a hand I clicked it back to 12925, trying to induce a 5 bet. He obliged, making it 26k at which point I shove for 40k. After a little thought he called. I was expecting to see kings but hoping to see AK. He actually had queens. We both missed the flop, but the queen arrived on the turn to the exuberant cheers of his friends on the rail. I left the scene in a daze, trying to come to terms with the fact that for the second year running, I'd hung tough through a day of card death only to been done in a massive pot with aces versus an underpair. Obviously I'm aware of variance and that you're supposed to lose at least 18% of those: it just hurts a lot more when it's in the biggest tournament of the year for about $30k in equity. But that's poker as they say, and there's no point in complaining. My "job" as a professional player is to get the money in good. After that, it's out of my hands.

As I wandered the halls of the Rio in my post bust-out daze, I was consoled by a number of players who had heard of my demise. Neil Channing just looked at me, looked down, and announced simply "Sad face". That got a smile, at least. In a world where we're basically trying to deceive each other for money, it's touching when peers show a softer side and commiserate. I'm also very grateful for all the messages of support from people back home. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to send them. At times like these, you find out who the good people are.

Although I still have an interest in a number of players still in running, most notably Daragh Davey, my bust out today effectively marks the end of this year's Vegas campaign for me. To be honest, I'm looking forward to getting back home, and getting back to my daily online grind. For the past five years, I've come to Vegas, I've seen it, but I've failed to conquer it. At the moment I'm feeling pretty defeated, but I read recently that defeat is not the worst form of failure: not trying is. So I'll go home, lick my wounds for a while, try to identify areas where I need to improve, and begin a year long preparation for next year. And then I'll be back again next year, same time, same place, trying for the sixth time to conquer it.

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OMG It's Jason Tompkins!

The announcer introduced the players at the final table of Event 54 at WSOP 2012. For the most part, it was dull formulaic stuff. Name, birth place, occupation, number of WSOP cashes to date. After each announcement, there was polite applause from the rail. Until my friend, business partner and condo-mate Jason Tompkins in seat 5 was announced, at which point Nick Newport stood and roared "Oh my God, it's Jason Tompkins!" so loudly and clearly it was heard round the world (thanks to the livestream).

This cry has been a running joke in our circle since we got to Vegas and I started using it as the default morning greeting. The phrase originated in the Fitzwilliam Card Club. A young player whose blushes I shall spare for now by not naming him here found himself sitting in the same cash game as Jason Tompkins. So overwhelmed was he by the sight of the player many (myself included) consider to be the best all round holdem player of his generation in Ireland that before he could stop himself he had exclaimed "Oh my God it's Jason Tompkins!"

Jason is something of an enigma in Irish poker. One of a select number who turn up deep in Irish tournaments way more often than should be possible, he crushes live holdem cash to such a degree that many regard him as the best holdem cash player in the land. He's a winner in all types of tournaments including online, and has a High Roller title on his Hendon Mob. He has cashed in a WSOP event that featured limit holdem, a game that just isn't played in Ireland. In terms of overall consistency and versatility across the holdem spectrum, he has no real peers in Irish poker. He is simply the best.

I'm pretty sure I've spent more time sitting at a table trying how to figure out how to play against him than any other player in Ireland. This has not been to my advantage. Jason was the first to get an accurate read on my live game in Ireland, and to figure out how to exploit it. So when I sit at a table with him, I'm forced to re-adjust and re-calibrate. Even as I do so, I know Jason won't take very long to work out my adjustments and re-adjust. It's an endless process I expect to continue until the day one of us quits poker.

Guarded by nature, Jason doesn't like to give much away. This has led some to misread him as unapproachable and aloof, but the truth is he picks his friends carefully and once you get to know him, he's one of the funniest and warmest guys you'll ever meet. Some people just don't suffer fools gladly. Jason is not one of these people: he simply doesn't suffer fools period. He has an integrity and a dignity which is sadly rare in the poker world. Since I went into the staking business with him, I've discovered that he's as shrewd and sharp in business as he is in poker.

Jason navigated the final table with his customary brilliance patience and discipline, and his exit was a setup where he went in slightly ahead and had he managed to hold I feel the bracelet was his for the taking. Supported by a boisterous rail, we were making busy dinner plans (an advance party had been dispatched to book a table for twelve at Buzios) when the hammer fell. I'm not going to pretend that other people's exits ever upset me more than my own, but there are a few I have witnessed that have come close (Rob Taylor's exit from the Irish Open final table, Smidge's exit from UKIPT Dublin). When I came down from the stage and saw Jason walk across to us, my instinctive reaction was I just wanted to cry. Jason is young and there will be other opportunities, but the number of times you come so close to a bracelet in a holdem event are so rare that when it comes down to a lost flip, it hurts.

At some future point, Jason will see this result for what it is (a brilliant performance rewarded by a hefty score) rather than what it could have been. But in the immediate aftermath, he just wanted to flee the scene, and who could blame him? Winners are only happy when they win: everything else stings. Dinner plans were rerouted from the Rio to the Aria, where a congradolence party of 12 helped him come to terms with what had happened, and the night ended with some beers, ice cream and Chinese poker back at the condo. Unsurprisingly, Jason was the biggest winner in this game too. Just too good.

When I left for Vegas with Daragh Davey and Jason, I was filled with an uncharacteristic optimism that at least one of us would make a WSOP final table out here. I kept it to myself as such hunches that fly in the face of probability are rare for me (since we are all holdem specialists playing a handful of events with thousands of players, the actual odds of us doing so were quite slim). Ironically, of the three of us, Jason went into this event the least buoyant. Whereas Daragh was ahead on the trip thanks to two cashes in bracelet events already and I was only slightly behind thanks to a final table in a Rio deepstack and a cash in a Venetian, Jason was well down. He admitted himself he ran very well (until his exit) in this event and that's all it takes: you can't choose the the time or the place where you'll get this run good, but if you stay patient and disciplined as Jason did, and you're as good as he is, when it arrives you will get the big result.

I have one more side to play, the final 1K, in about 12 hours, and I'd love to get a run at this one. It's disappointing and annoying to be 0/8 in bracelet events at this stage of series, particularly since I have built a number of stacks but failed to cash or make a day 2. However, I'm realistic enough to recognise that the structure of these 3k starting stack tourneys just ups the variance. I'm happy with how I've played overall and my two results in non-bracelet events are grounds for optimism. If I don't cash, I'll have a few days off to get myself ready for the main event.

Again, I'm unusually optimistic about the prospects of the Jockey Club three. My brain tells me that in most universes we'll brick, but my heart is saying that in this one, at least one of us runs deep. Jason goes into it full of confidence with a WSOP final table under his belt, and Daragh Davey has made more day twos than any other Irish player this series and is 3/7 in cashes in bracelet events. And I feel ridiculously optimistic about my own prospects for a man who is 0/8 at this point. I have a history of saving myself at the last possible opportunity. This would be a good time to do it again.

Our Vegas campaign is scheduled to end Saturday week when we fly home. But I'd love to have to extend my stay because either Daragh or Jason are still in the mix. But of course, I'd love it even more if I put Daragh or Jason to the inconvenience of staying to rail me.

In the mean time, remember.....

OH MY GOD IT'S JASON TOMPKINS!

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Different in Vegas

If you walk out of the Rio in Vegas and turn left, you're on a bridge across the railway tracks. Once you cross that, you're straight onto another bridge, this one across the interstate (that's what they call motorways over here). Cross that and you're now at the back of Caesars Palace and therefore just one block from the Strip. Back home if you suggested that a journey requiring you to walk one block and two bridges requires a taxi, most people would look at you like you had 2 heads. Over here, you get that reaction when you suggest it not only can but possibly should be walked.

Yes, things are very different over here in Vegas. In my last blog I pointed out how important it is to be surrounded by positive people who can help keep your spirits up when things aren't quite gong to plan yet, given that anyone in poker for the long haul is going to have to deal with a lot more heartbreak than triumph. As an extension of that, messages of support from home are also a great help. The social media allows people back home to follow the progress of the Irish at the WSOP in a way that was never possible before. Knowing you have people back home rooting for you and ready to chime in with an ul when you bust is great.

As immediate as the social media is, it can of course only give a flavour of what it feels like to be over here. People back home are inevitably going to have a very different perspective on things. This came into sharp focus this weekend when one of the few Irish pros not at the WSOP tweeted his view that players should not be referring to amateur players that misplay hands but suck out on them using derogatory terms such as spastic, retard, clown or idiot and called for a bit of decorum. One of the pros who is here reacted to this drawing a distinction between doing this on Twitter where you can presume with a reasonable degree of certainty that the target of your ire will never read it, and doing it to their face.



I think this is a perfectly reasonable distinction to make. I can never remember myself or any player I have any respect for calling someone a spastic or a retard to their face (other than as a very obvious joke) but I think virtually every player has thought it and even said it in private. I see this as no harm no foul: if muttering something under your breath after you've walked away from the table or calling the guy who busted you an unflattering name when describing a hand to your friends later or on the social media makes you feel better and helps you recover and get over a beat, and the object of your tirade remains blissfully unaware and unconcerned, then where is the harm?

While I intend and hope to get through the rest of my poker career without berating a weak player to their face I can assure you that if my dog could talk she'd tell you I let quite a few insults fly at my screen in the course of a typical session. The point of this is not to belittle my opponents: if I wanted to do that I'd be doing it in the chat box (and I have a rule that if I ever find myself doing that I take it as an indicator of tilt and encouragement to log out ASAP). I know my opponents can't hear me and that's the point: the purpose of the tirade is to allow me to blow off steam so that I can get over the beat more quickly and move on: something which is vital when you're playing ten tables at once. I guess that's one of the things about online I feel that makes it so much easier than live poker.

A few hours ago I suffered a rollercoaster of a hand. I shoved 16 bbs with ak over an utg limper because I felt he was bad enough to call with many worse hands. He proved me right when he called with j7o. I flopped the nut flush while he flopped a 7. I turned the king leaving him drawing to a non club 7 or jack. When he duly did this on the river, he punched the air and whooped. I know I'm supposed to smile and shake his hand and congratulate him on eliminating me and remind myself that it's his willingness to play like this that gives me and my fellow pros our edge and pays our wages. Online I might be able to manage this, or I might not even notice (once I've made my decision on one table I generally turn my attention to the next that requires a decision), but live is tougher since you're always one tabling so it has your full attention (and you have to look at the face of the guy who just butchered a hand but won smiling smugly and whooping like great poker just happened). But I'm human and not Gandhi so the best I can manage is a tap on the table, a Nice Hand through gritted teeth followed by sullen silence as I pack up and leave. And if you're unlucky enough to be a friend of mine and catch me in the 5 to 10 minutes it takes to recover mentally, you're most likely to have to hear me start a sentence with the words "Wait til you hear about this retard..."

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Man I almost had her Facebook

Arrived in Vegas last Friday. Very uneventful trip compared to last years trek. I travelled with Jason and Daragh but we weren't able to score adjacent seats on the British Airways flight from London. As I took my seat the guy beside me informed me he'd been separated from his wife. I quickly agreed to swap with her on the basis that it didn't really matter which stranger I was beside (in fact a randomer seemed preferable to someone antagonised by separation from his wife). This was a little rash as it turned out the wife was at a section front wedged between two obese people. Not my most comfortable transAtlantic flight ever.


We're staying in the Jockey Club for the next 5 weeks. We got a very good deal on it with the location being so good (it's stuck between the Bellagio and The Cosmopolitan in the heart of the strip). 

My first event was Saturday's 1500.  After a semi decent start to get up past 5k I went card and spot dead at the wrong time. Unfortunately the first spot that did present itself was my exit. I squeezed an ace over a loose opener and two station callers. Unfortunately the opener had a hand on this occasion and his bigger ace held up. Right move at the wrong time.

Last year I seemed to build stacks effortlessly in nearly every event I played and early on it seemed to be going that way again in Sunday's 1k event I played a big hand to effectively cripple Max Silver that anyone following either of us on Twitter may have heard about. After Max busted Nick Heather took his seat and we played a few interesting small pots. I'd chipped up to 15k without any major setbacks when I raised aks. A short stack reshoved and an aggro kid isolated. There are some players I might consider folding aks to but this kid wasn't one. He had jacks and flopped a jack. I turned a flush draw and a gutshot but missed. It would have been a nice 40k flip to win at a time when the average stack was less than 10k (and even when the bubble burst a few hours later it was still only 27k).

My third event event was a bit like a Joe Pesci character: short and nasty. Got nothing much for 90 minutes and had slid back to 3200 when I picked up queens. The table CAG (clown aggro) who had played every single hand 4xed to 200 utg and called out of position when I 3 bet to 525. He check raised all in on a 9 high flop with j2hh and rivered the flush. Particularly annoying as it was a very soft table I felt I could have run over with any sort of a stack.

Next up is 1500 on Saturday. I feel I'm playing well enough to get a decent run at one of these. Not much consolation to those who have percentages of me in my bracelet events but I did get a bit of a result on my own dime in the Rio Deepstack yesterday when I was 8th in a 1300 runner field. At least it shows I can get through a big field if I run anyway half decent, and also puts me up a bit overall so far on the trip.


Aside from the poker, things have been going very well here. When you room with people on these trips away, it's pretty important to be able to get along without annoying each other, but I've actually had a ball with the lads so far. We're all pretty easygoing and our sense of humours gel. It's pretty much been a laugh a minute. Given that there's far more heartache in poker than jubilation, particularly for those of us sticking to the high variance several thousand runner NLH events, it's important to be able to keep your spirits up, so it's great to be surrounded by people who can help with that.


Given that the three of us are all proven mtt winners both online and live I'm very optimistic that one of us will get into position to make a real run at least one event this summer. So far the star of the house is Daragh Davey. Just after virtually bubbling the first event we played, he late regged for the 1k and ran deep, busting with just over 70 left. He then built another stack in Wednesday's event, before bubbling in sick (but standard) fashion.


When Nick Heather and I were at the same table, an attractive female player was moved into the seat beside Nick. When you're spending 12 hours a day sitting at a table full of men, this is always a welcome development. Nick therefore incurred the collective wrath of the rest of the table when he proceeded to knock her out. A while later, another pretty lady arrived. After Nick had despatched her to the rail, her neighbour who had been flirting ferociously with her whined "Aw man, why did you have to do that? I almost had her Facebook!"

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