Nice to see the Jets covering by one point at the weekend. Maybe that's a sign of things starting to go our way. I'll be looking at next weeks match ups throughout the week.
I've never blogged about poker before but a few people mentioned that I should give it a go so I figured why not start with the Boylesports International Poker Open.
SPOILER: It doesn't end well!
I had been to Dublin a month or so ago for the UKIPT where I had found the standard pretty awful, still I managed to fade the money by about 12 or 13 spots but thats fairly typical. I wasn't anywhere near as motivated for the IPO to be honest, Dublin is not my favourite place and with the Euro as strong as it is it becomes one of the most expensive cities in the world (or at least that i've visited).
I flew in from Alicante on Friday afternoon with Ryanair. I've been doing a fair bit of travelling lately and although far from the best, Ryanair has been doing the job ok at the lowest prices. This Friday afternoon flight was a bit different, it was full of vermin. Kids running around screaming, bogites getting drunk and yelling, just a real bunch of low lifes. In fact if ever a plane deserved to go down it was that one, wait..hold on - nah it deserved to go down.
I was staying in the Dublin Skylon Hotel as the Regency was full by the time I got round to booking anything. It was literally a 10 minute walk and for once the rain managed to hold off so it wasn't any bother.
I went out on the Friday night and in true Nutty style got tore into as much Guinness and Whisky as I could possibly handle and then some more.
Waking up for day 1b on Saturday wasn't any trouble however and after a decent breakfast I was at the Regency ready to roll. The main reason why my motivation had been lower for this tournament was because I (along with a small % of others) was to start the comp with 25% less chips than anyone who could be arsed to run off 1000ish hands on Boyles Poker. Pretty retarded if you ask me but it's one of the reasons why I won't be going back next year.
I started on Table 55 seat 7 which wasn't in the main room. In fact the table looked like it had been bought in from a local home game and trying to squeeze 10 players around it was pretty comical. Fortunately everything else about the table was to my liking.
I managed to grind my stack up from 8k to 12k pretty quickly by just opening in position and c-betting any flop when one of the blinds decided to defend. There were 2 decent players on my table, one local guy called Michael Coyne (who cashed in 60th) was directly to my right and then there was Dave Masters, directly to my left who was also a bounty. Dave arrived late and fortunately seemed to be card dead for the duration. Michael was giving me the most problems despite his position, but as my stack grew it became more awkward for him to do so.
At the first break I had 22k and was having a great deal of fun opening my full range. One hand that lead to some futher action was when I opened the HJ with A9cc making it 275 at (50/100) and the BB called. Flop came 9 7 3 rainbow and villain checked it to me. I c-bet for 400 and the BB flats. It really felt like a float, he just didn't seem to want to give it up against this serial raiser. I was sure he was going to lead the turn and I was going to raise pretty much any turn card.
The 10c fell on the turn and it looked like a blank to me. BB leads for 900 into a 1400 pot and I insta raise to 2300.
After a long time in the tank (where i figured I must be good) he folds the 10Jo face up. I showed my hand which probably ended up costing him his torunament life, as he 4 bet jammed into me after the break when I was holding pocket Kings.
At this point I started to run real good. It's not often I'm keen to get into race situations but I was winning them all and after running pocket Kings into Pocket Aces pre flop I said "I have outs" and right enough I turned top set to knock out another oppo.
I then took the bounty of Dave Masters who in his defence was absolutely card dead. Folded to my small blind I looked down at pocket fours and picked up a stack more than enough to put Dave all in. Dave calls with KQo and a 4 on the flop ends it quickly.
So at the 2nd break (100/200) I have circa 75k and feeling pretty good about how things have gone.
Then I start to take a bit of a nose dive. I'm still stacking chips from a previous pot when I see MP1 open for 3x, the CO flats and I come along for the ride on the button with J9cc.
The flop comes Kc 7s 10c which looks like a fairly good flop for me ;o). MP1 checks, CO leads for half the pot which was slightly strange as it represented almost half his stack. I figured he has a big hand here but I'm fairly happy that i've got 16 outs twice - if he has a hand like AK then i've got about 55% so I move all in to get it heads up, and as expected MP1 gets out of the way. CO then does his best Helmuth impression by pushing his chips in and jumping out of his seat while displaying pocket tens for 2nd set. I still have about 42%.... but hold on, i've mis-read my hand. While busy stacking chips i've not realised that I am holding Js9c. Marvellous.
In reality I have about 28% and to rub it in the Ac falls on the turn giving me what could or would have been the winning hand. Oh well, no more mistakes please.
I was very aware of the amount of short stacks on my table now, the tournament didn't take long before it became a crapshoot with the average stack never very much above 10-12 BBs. I had to avoid these stacks 3 bet jamming my opens and the slightly bigger ones re-stealing on any 3 bets I made.
There was one guy who let me continually pound on his BB from the CO. I saw him limp/fold 8bbs or less at least 3 times. Why do these people bother?
So my first major downfall happened soon after a bigger stack (40kish) moved to seat 4. Another local who seemed to be fairly ABC but was raising his fair share of hands. In fact he had c-bet 100% of his opening range and had double barrelled twice to take down the pots without showdown. I wanted to put this guy to the test with my position and because he was the next biggest stack I figured he would less likely want to tango with me.
I don't remember his name so for the purpose of this report I will now refer to him as Local Villain. So Local Villain opens for 4x in MP2 and I decide to peel the button with 78cc (it's the top of my range ;o)).
The flop comes 3c 5d 7s and Local Villain checks. I've bet a lot worse flops than this in my time so this one looks like the nuts to me. I lead with a 75% pot bet and he clicks it back almost instantly. Warning: the rest of this hand is pretty ugly.
I stick it in and he tanks for like 8 weeks before making the call with pocket Queens. Ty for the slow roll.
That takes me down to about 40k which in all honesty I never really recover from. I get a move into the main room and find a tight player opening for 3x UTG2, another tight player flatting in MP2 and I look down at AKo in the BB with about 11 BBs. It's a no brainer so I shove, UTG tank calls for a very similar stack (LOL) and MP2 folds. UTG has 88 and its good game me when the board bricks out.
People talk about how much fun the IPO is, yeah I had some good banter throughout the day - and a shout out goes to Michael Coyne who provided a lot of that banter and went on to cash in what was a solid display of grinding. Yet, tournament poker sucks if you don't win, thats the reality. The buy in is small because it is aiming to attract the most players every year but really the cost of the trip far out weighs any equity a £200 tournament offers, plus the structure left a lot to be desired. For anyone that lives locally its a great tournament to play but as for flying there next year, its odds against.
Next stop will likely be the 100k gtd at Dusk Till Dawn on 6/7th November, where I hope to improve on recent form.
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