Friday, April 24, 2009

San Remo I hate every inch of you

Actually, it was quite nice but that heading was too good an opportunity to pass up.

It's fair to say though that Remo didn't exactly got to plan. Readers of Dagunman's blog will already know that the "villa" turned out to be a bedsit with one bed, which meant Donal Norton and John O'Shea sharing a double bed (hard to say which of them was more excited by that prospect), Rob and Hali on camp beds, and me on the couch.

To say the main event didn't go to plan is putting it mildly. I went out late on day 1, and by then only John remained of the five of us (including Marty, but not including Rob who decided to pass on the main event in favour of pwning the sit and go's) and he was short. He fought a valiant effort on day 2 and had a decentish stack at one point but got unlucky. I had a feeling it wasn't going to be my day when the not very random seat draw had me wedged between Patrik "Look at me everyone, how hot am I?" Antonius and Donal. Benjamin Chen and Patrik's other half Maya were also at the table, which thankfully broke pretty quickly, but not quickly enough (I lost almost half my stack to Patrik very last hand in a blind on blind top pair dubious kicker second pair nut kicker hand that probably played itself). Interesting confrontation with Tom McEvoy at my second table where he made a bewildering donk lead on the flop which ended with me winning the only really decent pot I won all tournament. I never got going in truth and treaded water around the 7K mark until the blinds got so big late in the day that it was ship or fold (and with savage antes, folding was not viable for very long). I got bumped around through 4 different tables which didn't help either, before finally deciding that my AJ in the small was far enough ahead of Marcel Luske's MP raising range to be a ship only for he BB to wake up with KK. Was never very confident of sucking out when I saw the hand as I was pretty sure Marcel had folded a rag with an ace kicker, and anyway, AJ always seems destined to be my exit hand.

The 2K side event was a similar washout for the Irish 5, with just me surviving to day 2, and with less than starting stack. I got lucky early on and doubled up and after that really felt in the groove and got up to 120K without too much bother by picking my spots well. I went for it on the bubble but after losing a few pots found myself back down on 45K. A few uncalled ships got me back to 70K at which point we were near enough to the bubble to make it sensible not to risk going broke with anything other than a premium. By the time the bubble burst, I was down to 55K and the 3000/6000/500 blinds and antes were about to hit me. An orbit of card death and lack of shove spots saw me down to 41K with the blinds about to hit again so I ended up shoving a decent suited connected picture hand from early position into the aces. No suckout, thank you and arrivederci. Mixed feelings about the result: relieved to cash obviously having been one of the shortest stack in the tournament about 10 from the bubble, but disappointed at not being able to kick on for anything other than the min cash. No mixed feelings about my play though: day 2 of the 2K tournament is probably as good a day of poker as I have ever played.

Despite the lack of other results, we managed to keep our spirits up for the trip and it was a good laugh. O'Shea in particular is a funny sicko. I did get some cameraphone shots of himself and Norton stretched out on the ground outside the casino trying to sleep before the 2K game that I may publicise at some point unless they gave me one million dollari. They do look cute though. And homeless.

The other three left early on Thursday and despite Rob driving them to the airport he managed to get lost that afternoon. A 30 kilometre drive in the wrong way on the motorway saw us loop back in the far side of San Remo where despite my frequent reminders to keep the sea on our left he managed to go wrong again at the first, second and third possible opportunities. By the time we got back to the motorway, he almost managed to get on in the wrong direction again. Had he succeeded, I might very well have killed him. We got to the airport with 5 or maybe 6 seconds to spare. Back in Dublin, we headed to the Fitz thinking it was end of month. It wasn't. I did manage to come third in the €100 FO to recoup about a quarter of my loss on the Remo trip. Exit hand? AJ, of course.

3 comments:

Unlucky Doke - preserve, that big cashdue to you is just around the corner!

You should try auctioning off that photograph to Bluff and Pokernews or PPP for their 'Best Caption' contest! ;-D

Just fold AJ. Period. Unlucky Dara, i'm sure you enjoyed the experience though.

LOL, Queenj, interesting idea.

I might just have to start folding AJ all right Thomas. Weird how certain hands just become your nemisis for a while. I've had QQ, AK (dogged every time by AQ), KK (always dogged by the underpair or the rag ace) and now it seems AJ.

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