Ace jack again

JP Irish Masters.....in a weird echo of my defence of my European Deepstack title ending when I crashed out in 15th pushing ace jack, my attempt to replicate final tabling the JP Irish Masters end with me......crashing out in 15th pushing ace jack. This time, the slightly surprising calling hand was 55.

Very strange tournament for me in that I never really got going yet somehow managed to go deep. Dreadful table draw with Martin Silke and Mick Muldoon and very few soft spots on table 1, and card death stretching into day 2 meant that my stack just shrunk all day 1 until about 20 minutes from the end of day 1 when my starting stack of 15K had dwindled to 4K. I did manage to come back on day 2 with 11k, but it was several levels before I even got back to starting stack. Survival was the name of the game for most of the day although I did briefly breach the 100K mark as the bubble loomed. Was fortunate (or unfortunate in terms of my tournament equity) enough to be sat beside my good mate John Eames for much of the latter part of day 2 and he remarked that the number of recognisably good players in at the business end was a testimony to the structure, which is a very good point. Great job as ever by JP, Christine and their crew.

There was a great buzz around the Red Cow. I'm always shocked (and a little alarmed) at evidence of the surprisingly large number of people who read this random brain dump blog, but the number of people who came up to commiserate or otherwise comment on my decision to end my (international) running career was heartening.

Ultimately it was a case of so near and yet so far disappointment but at least it was good to get another cash. My record in 15K+ starting stack tournaments is much better than in 10K ones, so hopefully this augurs well for Vegas.

Stayed at home today grinding online during the day and then in the evening I played the 1 million gtd on Boss. Another case of the nearlies: I ended up 50th (for €4k, only half of which I get to keep myself as I was staked in), but not bad for a night's work. I probably should play more online MTTs: given that they're my specialty live. Well done to dagunman who again proved he's the best online tourney player in the land by final tabling this.

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