IWF part 2 (Satisfaction guaranteed AND money back)

Played the 550 side event in CityWest yesterday and ended up 22nd for one of those money back cashes I seem to be specialising in of late. Very happy with my play overall though. It was a strange tournament in that I never really got going even though I cashed. I took a number of hits early on that had me down to half stack before I finally won a hand, last hand before the break, to double back up to starting. Never really got beyond that until I almost doubled up with a blind stealgone right against Mick McCloskey. I raised a rag ace from the cutoff, he called in the SB with apparently a pair, I flop trips, checked behind and called on the turn when he fired, and then he made a crying call when I value bet the river. Strange tournament like I say: basically I had to play short stack poker for almost the entire duration, and luckily that's one area of my game that has improved a lot lately. Despite cashing, I never go more than starting stack times 3, and was well under half the average stack for 90% of it.

Standard was much higher than in the main event (as is often the case) which meant I got to play with lots of very good players (including Micky Mc, Rob Sherwood, Paul Coyle (who improves immensely every time I see him and now has really great game), Mark Muldoon, Neil Channing, James Akenhead, Dave Masters). Mr. Masters in particular put on another sterling display as table captain and his trademark talking people into bad calls or bad shoves.

Overall, a very enjoyable weekend and thumbs up to Paddy Power for another success. There was a great atmosphere around the place and ran into some of my favourite characters on the scene. Also, well done to Nicky "The Deise icon" Power, Kevin Fitz, Pete Murphy and all who cashed in the main event. I've maintained that Pete is one of the best and most underrated players around since I played with him in Drogheda and we have very similar games so it's great to see him getting the results, two big FTs in as many weekends.

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