The 'Turn' Is My Sworn Enemy

Played the IWF main event last week. Was really looking forward to this and after satting into it for a mere €70 I was practically free rolling.

The event turned out to be a pretty uneventful one. I had eventual winner Michael O'Sullivan at my table for most of day 1 and I had him pegged pretty quickly as a player. He was aggressive, allways pushing but knew when to back away. To his credit he was pretty short towards the end of day 1 but he recognised the excellent structure left him plenty of play & didn't panic.

Got moved table towards end of day 1 and was soon involved in a hand with eventual second place finisher Michael Murphy. I open QQ from EP an he flats from MP, no other callers. Flop comes 9 high and I CRAI leaving him a decision for the rest of his stack. He thought about if for AGES and eventually folded what he said was 55. Good fold keeping him alive and on the road to an €80k+ payday.

Last 2 levels at this new table on day 1 really killed me; I had lots of raises snapped off and any time I got to see the cards I was dominated/crushed. Glad to see day 1 over by the end and left with an 18BB stack.

Table draw for day 2 had Michael O'Sullivan seated to my direct left with a similar size stack to mine. No real big stacks at this table. Lasted less than 1 level, towards end of the 1st level I find TT in EP with about 17BB's, I raise to 2600 (1000/500/50) and MP chipleader re-raises to 5800. Folded back to me and I ship; he dwells briefly as the call was for more than 50% of his stack in total but makes the standard call with QQ which holds & I'm busto. Pretty standard spot here and I've no complaints.

Last few tournies have been crushing and went as follows:

Sporting last Sunday; 40+ runners, 14 left, call an AI for over 1/2 my stack, him A3o v me AhQh, 2 heart flop, 3c turn!! Eventually AIPF my AcKc v his TT which holds

Sporting last Thursday; 40+ runners, 13 left, raise AA from EP, button ships for about 1/2 my stack with AQ, Q turn, Q river!! Then call Vera's ship with 66 from EP with my AA from the BB, 6 on turn!!

Lukes Friday night, FT, 6 left, call an AI (have him covered, just!) on a Q high 2 heart flop holding KdQd & he has Th2h, heart on turn!!

Atari Poker tonight, FT, 8 left & I need to chip up, call an AI with AT v his T8 for a pot that would have left me with an average stack, QQK flop, 8 turn!! Then get it in with Kd8d v JTo and the J hits.... on the turn!!

Can't get a 70/30 or 80/20 to hold at the business end lately at all & it really really sucks. A bit demoralising TBH. As Mikey says 'There ain't no justice in poker'.

Anyhow, onwards & upwards. Will probably play Larry's sat for the IPC ticket on Wednesday night and the Sporting on Thursday.

I've gone deep every game since I've started playing back in the Sporting lately with no cashes (1 bubble, my AK v QJ) and some horrible coolers (see above) to date. I'm hoping this will change this week.

IWF Satellite Success For My Bro

Just spent the past few hours railing my brother in his last chance attempt to qualify for this weekends IWF ME.

He's had a few near misses including a bubble online and a close call in the Jackpot on Tuesday night so when he picked up one of the 6 tickets going tonight it was well deserved.

He played well, applied the correct strategy and recovered from an amazing all-in hand where both himself and the short stacked opponent both held AA on the bubble.

Eventually he delivered the knockout blow, when folded to the short stack he shoved KQ into Keith's AsKs and the call was automatic given the stacks. He held, much to everyone's delight bar 1, and so he's playing the ME this weekend.

Have to say some of the play & strategy applied in this sat was nothing short of shocking. There's great value in these type games as so many of the players don't understand the dynamic and the correct strategy involved and see it as a glorified pissing contest.

Delighted Keith qualified and it's great we are both gonna be there now this weekend.

IWF

A week and a half to go to the Paddy Power Winter Festival. I'm playing the main event and I am really looking forward to it. I'm playing this thing to win it; I'm not out to get 'big tournament experience' or to 'play with some pros'. When I show up I fully expect to win.

Have not been playing too much lately; had a win in Lukes Friday night deep stack last week but I want to show up at the IWF hungry so I've scaled back my poker over the last couple of weeks.

Did, however, play JP's 30k WSOP main event structure deep stack game on Sunday and bubbled the final table. Was pretty card dead but enjoyed the game and will definitely play this again.

Lukes EOM

After Fridays debacle it was back to TAG for me with an immediate result.

Played Lukes EOM game in Fitzpatricks Tallaght for the first time last night, 15k starting stack, 20/25/30 min progressive blinds and all the levels including the 250/500 one. Only 17 runners which is the lowest turnout they have had so far, probably due to the other games on (JP's Molloys game & Larry's Dublin €100 in the Westbury) and also people holding onto their cash for Killarney next week.

Started well getting a double up early on when my flopped set of 2's holds v an overpair. This left me very comfortable especially with the excellent structure and I stayed comfortable the whole tourney until a crushing hand on the FT.

Only other hand of note before the FT was where I raised AJ got called in 1 spot. Flop came J3x, bet & a call. Turn came a J, I bet, he raised, I called. River came a magical J, he checks & I shove for about 50% of the pot hoping he has the hand he repped on the turn. He folds saying he had 33 (for a turned boat) and that I got lucky, what a horrible river card, blah, blah,.... He didn't show his hand so who knows & I quietly mucked my cards & claimed a good size pot.

Got to the FT 2nd in chips and almost immediately lost 1/2 of this to the same villain as above when he shoved AQ and I isolated with AK, Q on flop! Get it back up a bit and loose a massive 80k+ pot (250k chips in play) when I call an all-in with 99, he has AQ and hits the Ace on the river (guy who went on to win).

This left me crippled with 8BB

Got a double up when I shoved AK, was called by KK and spiked the Ace. This got me a stack that took me out of shoving mode and into re steal mode but still less than average.

Got back into the game when I shove AsKs UTG and the chipleader finally lost his patience and called on his BB with J10, flop came a J, turn a 10 but I hit broadway on the river to put me right back in it.

3 handed the chipleader and the other guy were going at it, bit of verbals between them and it spilled over into the calls they made. Eventually the other guy took out the initial FT big chipleader and we were HU.

He was quite aggressive but had been showing down less than average hands when 3 handed so I factored this into my calling/raising ranges when we went HU. He had me more than 2-1 when we started HU but I got it back to almost even with some 3-bets holding 77, Ax and KsQs.

Final hand (he had me slightly covered) was when I raise the button with A9, he shoved and I called. He turned over A5 and pinged the 5 on the flop.

2nd for €1,000 but that's 2 biggish tourneys on the bounce where I've been done when a large favourite and it turned a possible combined €2,800 scoop into a combined €1,550. A scoop nonetheless and given the 2 crippling beats I suffered at the FT last night and that I was short stacked for a long time I'm happy to have found the patience to wait & eventually turn it around.

"The quickest way to success is to posess infinite patience". It's so true.

LOL, Me A LAG!!

Played the Super Awesome Mega Satellite at the Poker Room Celbridge last Friday. A decent showing, 40'ish players, played my usual TAG game and went out first hand (9th) at the final table running a royal flush draw into flopped trips & a turned boat! Lost a decent size pot just before the FT calling a medium stack's all-in with AJ v his Q7, Q on flop! That would have left me nicely chipped for the FT, as it was I was one of the short stacks and had to make moves to get chipped up as the prizes were 1-3 tickets and 4th a small amount of cash.

Another great game but no result this time. The brother was also, technically, at the FT but he was involved in an all-in hand as the FT was being called; he shoved all-in over an 'Eddie the Eagle' raise with enough fold equity to get Eddie off the hand. Eddie calls with the monster A10 v the brothers AJ; Eddie pings a 10 on the turn for a sickening beat for the bro.

Anyhow, to the title of this post. Played the final Super Awesome Mega Satellite at the Poker Room Celbridge tonight and decided to divert from my normal TAG style and try to open my game a piece and accumulate chips early. Didn't exactly go according to plan, in fact I don't recall winning a single hand!!

First stack (4k): down to about 2,800, raise with AQ, get called in 2 spots, flop Q66, get it all in to be shown 6 4! Busto...

Second stack (6k): call Yultired's raise with 6s7s, flop an open ender, bet the flop & called, blank turn bet & called, blank river large bet & called by his AK (owned!!). Remainder of that stack went re-raising all-in with AQ v a MP opener, LP guy moves all-in and MP opener calls all-in (oops!!). MP guy has JJ, LP guy has KK. Flop is raggy but 3 clubs & I have the Ac, no club or Ace comes. Busto...

Third Stack (6k): blinds are now 200/400/25 ante and I've only 4,850 so when Yultired opens UTG for 1,200 and gets flatted by UTG+1 I find 77 and decide to squeeze. Willie wastes no time calling with his AA and the UTG+1 guy calls saying he's priced in with his 7h8h. Didn't want or expect to see him with a 7 in his hand so I'm drawing to 1 out which fails to arrive & I'm proper busto...

Played a lot of speculative hands and caught nothing with them & just bled some chips away putting myself under pressure a lot earlier than I normally would be.

The LAG style is not for me, tried it, didn't get rewarded in any way and just felt like a fish out of water playing a style so different to my normal game.

All-in-all a very frustrating night.

Willie was catching some cards tonight; his AA held up in a 3 way all-in pot, he cracked AA with AQ (flopped the nut straight) and he made some great calls (the one with AK v me as outlined above and another for a large pot holding an underpair to a dangerous board where the other guy held a smaller underpair and kept betting it). Good luck to him & hope he takes it down; he's been unlucky with sats for big tourneys recently.

Back to my normal TAG for me, experiment a big failure!!

The Sporting Dilema

The Sporting Emporium (SE) was the first place I ever played poker. I can still remember the day I joined and registered to play my first tournament; I think it was the Thursday night €50 DC when they used to get 70-80 runners.

My first cash in a tournament was in the SE either the Thursday or Sunday €50 tournament; I finished 3rd behind Mick Stephens & some other guy who I still occasionally see in there.

My first tournament win was in the SE in the Thursday €50 DC tournament. I remember dogging Kev Corr with TT v his QQ in an otherwise pretty smooth run to victory for me.

The SE has fallen on hard times, poker wise, in the last while but they have been making efforts to turn things around and get the poker players back playing. I have played a good few tournaments there over the past couple of months and things have and are getting better; guaranteed prize pools, better starting stacks, numbers slowly increasing & much better quality food at the breaks.

I played the €50 DC tournament last night (Thur) and despite long periods of being card dead and getting short (too short in fact) I really really enjoyed the game. There is something special about the atmosphere in the SE which I don't find anywhere else. Alex was back on the floor tonight and the quality off the field for a €50 tournament was superb (Mick Stephens, Kev Corr, Danny Maxwell, Sherman, Vera, Tom Kitt to name only a few).

42 players so 5 tables. I went out 11th just before the FT extremely short stacked. Probably (actually definitely) should have made a move earlier but I really had garbage and couldn't find a decent spot to get it in. Cash table was flying as I was leaving.

Great to see the SE getting back to where it used to be. Who knows, if the numbers keep creeping up we might even see the return of the Chief......

Foot On The Mend

Title says it all. Was really worried about it for a few days but eventually it settled down and I can walk on it again. Lesson learned with regards to posture at the poker table.

Played a couple of tournies this week (a) Satellite for Killarney on Sunday in Lukes where I'm all-in with AK (me) v A7 v Q9 (very short) to take a massive chip lead heads-up, 7 on the river!! Get it in short with K10 and run into AK (no reversal this time) (b) Tourney league final in Lukes on Monday night where I start with less than 1/2 average stack, get short, get it right back to above average with less than 1/2 the field left & piss it all away with a dumb-ass call of a 3-bet all-in with my AJs. I don't like AJ as a hand period & think I'm gonna stop playing it from EP. Left me short and eventually all-in blind on the BB & ran into AJ!

Probably going to play the Super Awesome Mega Satellite in Celbridge again this Friday. Will be hoping for a similar result to the last time.