Summer in Dublin

Summer in Dublin is always good fun, ever since it first appeared on the poker scene. This year the fun started before the first card was even dealt. When I renewed my deal as an ambassador to the Irish Poker Tour, one of the things we decided could be fun was for me to name three players as Ones To Watch before each stop I attended. One unanticipated response after I chose my first three before The Monster was I heard that various people were disappointed or even annoyed I’d chosen the three I chose over them. 

This time round, I’d no sooner nominated Darren Harbinson, June Jenkins and Michael Breen as my three to watch this time than I had Ray Wheatley on to me:

“Shocked I wasn’t top pick. A few live degens and June. I’ve crushed online for 3 months solid. No respect in the game. 

Plus Ger Keenan, killing the sats. Definitely a dark horse this week.

Robbie Bryant is the hottest man in Irish poker. Let’s have my 3 picks versus your team of donks”

Before I knew it, Ray had hustled me into a bet, which I publicised on social media for the banter. Ray is pretty much unparalleled in the banter department, but crucially I was also certain our friendship would survive anything said in the heat of the moment, which hasn’t always been the case with others when I’ve gone into bets like this in the past. 

That escalated fast…

As the festival kicked off, Paul Carr sent me a message saying he wanted to get involved. He nominated himself, Ray Bryant and Mark Johnston as the three to take on my picks and Ray’s Tullamore Thirds. It was agreed €100 would be the buyin each player chipped in, and the €900 would be split three ways by the winning trio. Two of my three didn’t fancy it so I put up their €100, which worked out well for me given we won so I trebled my money without even being on a team. As it happened, we won in a canter with Darren Harbinson as our MVP getting us off to a good start winning the PLO, and the best possible finish by winning the main event too! The two Rays offered some token resistance by going deep in the 400 side event (Wheatley chopping it headsup). 

Killarney Team competition 

Ray suggested we expand this to all comers for Killarney, and increase the buyin to €500 per team. Here’s how it’ll work

(1) I will name my three to watch. They’ll be given the opportunity to join the bet if they want. If they decline I’ll put the money up

(2) Ray will nominate a team, and accept entries from other teams of three (Ray is going to administer the whole thing)

(3) No player can be on more than one team. In the case a player is named on more than one team, the first one submitted counts, and that player will have to be replaced by another player on the other team(s)

Form and tournament poker

Two things are true of tournament poker, yet seem on the surface self contradictory. It is all one session, but you also want to live in the moment, one decision at a time. You want to be able to zoom out, and in. What you don’t want is to focus on the recent past and the near future: yet it is precisely this humans find easiest to do and hardest not to do. We recency bias the bejaysus out of tournament results, and focus too much on what we would like to happen in our next few tournaments. 

In the video I put out announcing my three to watch, I said that form shouldn’t really be a thing in poker, yet seems to be. Confidence helps most players make clearer better decisions, and also instils fear in opponents who believe in the rush and momentum. 

David Lappin and I discussed this recently on a Chip Race. Contrary to the popular belief that we are basically the same person, there are very clear differences between our world views. David tends to see the world in narratives (hardly surprising given his screenwriting narratives) while I see the world in probabilistic terms and view narratives as patterns we impose on random data after the event. This manifests it in many ways: David pays more attention to whether he’s up or down on any given day online or festival live, whereas I don’t even track it. When he asks me “how was your Sunday?” I have to suppress my annoyance at what I see as an irrelevant question (but is well intentioned on his part), and when he tells me he’s more willing to take a shot at the end of a festival because “he’s up already for the festival so kinda free rolling” I have to resist the temptation to eye roll. 

All this is a long winded way of saying while I was glad to final table my first event of the festival, it wasn’t because I place any special significance on “getting off to a good start” at a festival, or “keeping the momentum going” (after my two seconds in London). It’s just nice to final table any event, in and of itself. I ended up finishing 6th. 

My main event

For once, I got through on one bullet, with a comfortably above average stack. That buries the lead slightly, because I was short for most of the day, to the point I had exactly half a starting stack when late registration closed. Afterwards I made reels for the three most important hands. 

Hand 1

I’ve had a miserable start to the tournament, barely winning a pit, and we are playing the last hand before the break after which late reg (and reentry) will close. This is relevant because I felt a strong temptation to put my chips in knowing I could exercise my right to reenter if I didn’t double. The spot wasn’t the worst: a loose late position open, a 3 bet on the button by the excellent Gavonater so not necessarily a nutted hand, and I have QJo in the small blind. The big blind is tight and unlikely to get involved if I shove. I have no fold equity against Gavin but if the opener folds I only need about 40%, and as I said I can exercise my reentry option if I find myself in the other 60% of universes. 

In the end though, I stayed disciplined and folded. I’m behind Gav’s entire range even the bluffs so it’s dubious I have 40%, and I can’t always count on the other two folding in which case QJo is a spectacularly bad hand multiway. Half a stack is still worth half a buyin and shouldn’t just be punted away because you want a full stack. 

Results: Gavin got it in with AK, which would have held against my hand. 

The river check raise: they always have it, right?

I open KJo from UTG1 8 handed playing 40 bbs. The button (standard rec who likes seeing flops) calls, as does the bb (retired online pro Stephen Malone who plays recreationally now). Both cover me

Flop

T64r xxx

Turn J (still badugi)

x I b33

Button fold

BB calls

River K

Check, I b66, and he shoves.

Were he a rec I'd at least seriously consider folding, but I know he's very capable of finding bluffs here, the obvious candidates being QJ and QT.

Surprising thing to me when I ran it is if he's balanced, then the call is indifferent and I'm supposed to mostly call but fold sometimes to be unexploitable. However, nobody is ever truly balanced, and I think he's more likely unbalanced towards bluffs (it's a lot easier to have QJ QT or another bluff other than the one realistic combo I lose to)

Results: I called and he had QT

Everyone loves Jacks

Dickie Whiteside limps under the gun playing just over 30 bbs. Pretty much the whole table limped along and I find jacks in the big blind. Obviously I'm miles ahead of everyone's range so I have to raise. I'm playing 32 bbs so I make it 8 bbs, and Dickie now jams. I've not loving the spot now as he can have AA/KK/QQ and probably doesn't have underpairs. He also has AK obviously, and maybe AQ at some frequency so I start doing the maths in my head as to how much equity JJ has against his perceived ranne, but then the button (an English recreational who had lost most of his stack and the chiplead on the table in the last two hands and seemed to me quite tilted) jammed also. I now have the clearest call ever as he just never has a better hand than mine so I aborted the maths subroutine running in my head.

Dickie had AQ, the recreational 77, and I held for a treble up that basically got me a big stack to bring into day 2.

Day 2

I went in to day 2 in an aggressive mindset, not looking to lock up the cash but rather push on. I made a fast start, then lost flips versus shortie, then correctly hero called Mark Doyle, but basically yo-yoed around the stack I started with until I got AKs in for the lot against AQ and got rivered, busting in 69th (“a fun position” as Ramona drily noted as she handed me the place card to go get my cash out). 

I’ll finish with a few shoutouts: Darren again for continuing his phenomenal run of results this year. 

My friend Conal who chopped the main with him for over 30k, and Simplify Poker member Mark McKinney who fted the main (sadly just outside the chop). June Jenkins gave me the spare bed in my room, and Ray Wheatley who kept the banter levels high and supplied not only the photo of Conal above but also this photo of himself, which he pointed out is what the fans really want to see. 

I also ran into Michael Nolan who was literally the first person I ever coached over 15 years ago. We used to play satellites back in the day on Stars when chat boxes were still a thing, and some chat box banter led to a request from him for coaching and him turning up at my house a few days later. My memory isn't what it used to be but Metal Mickey as I used to call him back then is such a larger than life character I recognised before I saw him (I heard his voice from the next table). He hasn't changed or aged a day in 15 years, and is still as Metal as ever (the n in Metal is silent). He had a deep run in the main, and has been on a tear in the Dublin Poker Club recently since he returned to poker.

Next up for me is the Party tour stop in Glasgow this weekend, then Barcelona EPT and then most likely Limerick IPT. I also want to prioritise getting back in shape, after too many people in the Green Isle pointed out I'm a fat bastard now.

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