BIGMICKG`S BLOG

Let the blogging resume!

2012-01-31T13:29:00.001Z

Decided to get this back up and running! No time for a proper post yet though, off to Deauville today for EPT. Playing 1b tomorrow, Stay tuned!

UKIPT Dublin

2010-09-09T15:07:00.002+01:00

No joy in Villamoura. Ran well in the €2k side event and made day 2 only to bust 12 from the money in a big pot with KK v A9 aipf so that was annoying. Played 2 of the nightly turbo tournaments and busted early in both of them.

WCOOP started this week and I intent on playing a good few of them. Played 6 so far and had 1 cash so looking to improve on that. Played 5 step 6/Gs in the past week and failed to cash in any so that sucked. 22/58 now for the year. In a rush now to the UKIPT. Ill do a quick report at the end of the day with my progress

Busto!

2010-08-30T00:59:00.002+01:00

Busted today unfortunately, never really got goin, didnt play too good and ran bad, so not a good combination. Just one of those days that your destined not to win no matter what you do. Got AA, KK twice and QQ and took down the blinds each time. Of course my raises with marginal hands got 3bet or called and I missed every flop. Liv Boeree finshed me off when I check raised all in on a flop with the nut flush draw she called with top pair and I missed. Really dissapointed about not getting a run cos Ive been running pretty bad live this year and I was hoping this might be the turning point. Unfortunately not. Although theres a great schedule of events over here so theres still plenty of time to show a profit for the trip. €2k tourney tomorrow at 4 so thatll be my next shot.

Playing a few mtts and steps online at the minute. Played a step 6 just there and won it so its not all doom and gloom. Anyway I better get back to it. Get my game sharp for tomorrows €2k

UKIPT Edinburgh and other stuff

2010-08-27T00:26:00.002+01:00

Long overdue an update but its been a busy last couple of weeks. Went over to Edinburgh last weekend for the 7th leg of the UKIPT hungry for my 3rd cash of the tour to keep me in contention for the leaderboard which I was lieing 5th in before the event. No joy unfortunately and I busted 30 minutes from the end of Day 1b when my JJ was no good against AK. Hadnt got much of a stack to be fair so cant really complain. Wasnt too happy with how I played in the tournament overall either so that was dissapointing. No side events interested me over there so I enjoyed Edinburgh for the rest of my stay with a few good nights out on the lash.

Online has continued to go very very well and I ended my recent bad run at the Step 6/Gs. Played 11 of them in total since my last blog. Seven step 6s and four step Gs. Managed to win six of them and cash in another two which was very nice. As I mentioned in my last blog I had planned on playing EPT Villamoura even if I didnt manage to win a package. But I was obviously determined to try my best to win one cos it breaks my heart handing over so much money to play in a poker tournament. I only played three step Gs in total for Villamoura because they simply dont fill very often unfortunately. Anyway I finished nowhere in one, 3rd in another for €3,300 and won the other one. Played a step G tonight for EPT London which Im also playing and won that too which was sweet. Nice to have the package wrapped up so eary and especially when its a big package! (just under €10k). The seven step 6s I played were all for a WCOOP main event seat ($5,200) Won four of them, cashed in another for $1200 and unplaced in the other two. Meaning Im 21/52 in step 6/Gs for the year which is pretty sick.
Mtts have gone ok too with several deep runs but no big cashes unfortunately. Managed to win another two WCOOP seats in those 3x turbo sats keepin me well in profit for mtts.

Heading to Villamoura on Saturday and Im playing Sunday which is Day 1b, so Ill do an update at the end of the day with my chipstack. Good few Irsh seem to be heading over and Im really looking forward to it. Still looking for my first cash in an EPT so hopefully this can be the one!

In non poker news I made the biggest purchase of my life on Monday and bought myself an apartment which Im delighted with! Ok so its not exactly a balla pad, and wont be appearing on cribs anytime soon but its a real feeling of achievement to buy your own place and be living mortgage free at 24. Something to fall back on at least if poker ever does go pear shaped. Not sure when Ill be moving in but hoping to asap!
Bankroll obviously took a massive hit from this and so I cant think of a better time for me to have a big score! Roll on Villamoura...................... : )

Galway

2010-08-07T17:57:00.002+01:00

Great craic down in Galway last weekend depite it bein another unsuccesful poker trip. Came 5th in the Irish Champions Challenge Cup when I shoved A 8 from the bb over Marty Smyths button raise who had JJ and held. Paul Carr was the eventual winner so welldone to him. Played the €250 tourney which got 59 players, alot less than I was expecting. But with €2500 added to the prize fund still great value. Never really got goin in this and busted after a few hours. Didnt bother with any poker after that and just enjoyed the weekend. Galway is probably the best place in Ireland for a weekend away imo.

Feeling very unmotivated about playing online the past few weeks or so especially since I decided I wont be chasing Elite this year. This really helped me put the hours in over the past two years cos you have to play x amount before the end of the year. Now I just play whenever Im in the humour. How many times have you got out of bed in the morning and wished you didnt have to go to work? Well poker is no exception and you dont have to go to work so sometimes I find myself lazing around just not bothered playing. Im sure Ill be back grinding as hard as ever soon enough just a little phase I guess.

Didnt have a great week online although I played very little. Played another 3 step 6s with no success so that sucks. 15/41 now for the year. Done good playing the lower steps and various other sngs so that helped ease the pain. UKIPT Edinburgh is my next live event so Ill just grind some online till then

Update

2010-07-29T09:12:00.002+01:00

Havent been updating much at all recently. No excuses really just bein very lazy since I got back from Vegas. The week before Vegas I played the Killarney UKIPT and eventually finished 16th. Lost 99% of my chips in a big pot just before I went out with AA v 10 10 so that sucked but what made it worse was that the player I was up against was Michael Hill. Who went on to overtake me on the UKIPT overall leaderboard and go top. Im currently 5th with 3 events to go so still well in contention and Ill be playing the remaining 3 events including EPT London. www.ukipt.com/leaderboards/

Vegas

No success in Vegas although it was probably the best Holiday Ive ever been on. UFC was even better than I expected and I eventually got round to going to the Grand Canyon. Few great nights out and a few shows kept me well away from poker. Didnt play any other poker over there live or online apart from the main event.

Online so far this year

Hard to believe the year is over half way through already. Really seems to have flew in. I just hope the 2nd half goes as good as the 1st half did. Done alot better than I expected too thanks to my success in the steps and mtts. At the beginning of the year I was slightly concerned about where the bread and butter was gonna come from this year cos I wasnt even sure what games I was gonna be playing. Sngs which I crushed before have become unbeatable for me without rakeback and so I had to look at other options. I always wanted to give the steps a real shot but was never willing to deal with the massive downswings involved in €2k sngs. Anyway at the beginning of the year I had 3 step 6 tickets in my account I decided that if I won anything from these I would leave it in the steps to mess around with. Luckily for me I ran good at them and won 2 out of the 3 getting a refund in the other. Havent looked back since in them and I now buy into any step 6/G which I feel has value in it. Only played 3 of them over the past month or so with no success making it 15/38 for the year in them. Mtts went very well too and I plan on playing more and more of these in the future.

Results for Jan-June

SNGS : -$15k

MTTS : +$75k

STEPS : +$105k

FPPS : +$43k

Live

Live has been a bit of a dissapointment unfortunately with no big cashes. Chopped the Fitz monthly back in Jan for €7k and my 16th in Killarney for €2750 thats about it. Not good considering I played 2 EPTS, 1 NAPT, WSOP m.e, Irish Open and a few other tournaments but hopefully things will improve in the 2nd half of the year. Ive decided not to play EPT talinn. I will however be playing Villamoura, London and at least 1 other probably Barcelona or Prague.
Off to Galway today for a few nights, goin to the races so should be good craic. Bit of poker planned too. Playing the ICCC tonight a €1k sng with 10 players winner takes all, Its made up of 9 invitational players and an online qualifier so looking forward to that. Its actually bein streamed on Irishpoker.tv tonight at 8pm GMT if anyone fancies watching me ship a handy €10k ; )

Busted

2010-07-10T21:38:00.002+01:00

Dreams over for another year unfortunately. Another rough day with a solid enough table. Didnt get JJ-AA all day when I picked up JJ in ep just before the dinner break. Raised it up, most agro player at the table put me all in from the bb and I called he had QQ. No suckout and so it was gg me. I could have folded but a combination of him bein the loosest player at the table, JJ bein the best hand Id got all day, and if I folded I only had 17k left made me call. Ah well! not the worse call Ive ever made but just hurts that bit more when its in the main event.

Francis Mccormack aka. Wally was at my table for the day and despite bein down to 4k at one point finished the day with 67k. So goodluck to him and any other remaining Irish.
Im gonna enjoy Vegas for the next week or so with no poker before I head home on Saturday

Day 1 done and dusted

2010-07-08T09:34:00.002+01:00

Not a great starting table. I only recognised 1 player on it who was Sammy Farha but it certainly wasnt a soft table. Everyone was playing fairly solid (with the exception of Sammy who played almost every hand) so there wasnt many easy chips to be had. We only lost 1 player the entire day which kinda sums up how the table played. My low point was 15k and high point 35k so happy to have finished on 33k. Grinded hard the last 3 hours of the day to go from 15k to 33k so that was good. Wasnt 100% happy with how I played overall. Spewed a few chips at times and missed value in some spots but nothing too awful. Day off tomorrow then back on Friday which is day 2a. Alot of Irish played today, most of whom survived. Best of luck to anyone playing tomorrow.

Main Event time.

2010-07-07T08:01:00.002+01:00

Bein pretty hectic the past week or so and never got round to updating this. In Vegas so dont plan on bein on the laptop too often so Ill do a report of UKIPT Killarney and online progress when I get home. Playing in the main event tomorrow which is Day 1c so Ill do a quick update with my chipcount at the end of the day.

Easy Game

2010-06-23T19:36:00.002+01:00

Enjoyed the good weather over the weekend in Galway and a couple of days off. Got home Sunday evening and decided I was gonna play a few tourneys online after getting a taste of success with my $27k win last Sunday. Started at about 9pm and basically regd for any $50+ mtt that was starting in the next couple of hours. Played the million,2nd chance,Sunday 500 and a good few others. Played about 20 tourneys in total and was in for around $3k, before I knew it it was getting late and I only had 1 tourney left! Think I had 1 or 2 min cashes apart from this so needed a result from it. Also played a step 6 an failed to cash so 15/35 now for the year.
Anyway it was the $162 6 max and it got 982 players. I had a decent stack from about 100 out and was really happy with how I played. Went on to win it for a nice $25,778! Although I must admit I got very very lucky in the heads up battle.This was my favourite moment..
I was 2-1 down in chips at 1 stage and got it all in on a 9x 7x 4x board with Q 10 against 9 7. Not the best of shape Ive ever got it in and was typing gg wellplayed etc. when a 10 comes on the turn giving me a chance then BOOM 4 on the river!! WUHOO giving me the chip lead. Got lucky on the final hand too getting it in with 2nd pair against top pair but managed to suck out again. Nice to get really lucky for a change though and I have no problem admiting that I did.

Gave myself a day off Monday and enjoyed some more sun. Hard to motivate urself to grind away online when u won $26k the night before, didnt finish till 6am and its so nice outside. Chilled out most of the day but ended up playing a few hours Monday night. Played mostly steps but played a few tourneys too seen as Ive been running so well in them. Similar to Sunday before I knew it I only had 1 mtt left with no other cashes. This time it was the $50 rebuy. It got 340 players and again I went on to win it for $9,570. We actually done a chop heads up with me getting slightly more cos I had more chips. Another good nights work.

On a real heater atm and its totally taking my mind off missing Vegas. Ive been playing alot of mtts over the past few weeks to get my tournament game in tip top shape for the wsop. Up over $70k the past 3 weeks in mtts so must be doin something right. Heading down to Killarney tomorrow for the UKIPT so hopefully I can keep the form going and get a good run before Vegas

Tipping along nicely

2010-06-18T19:23:00.002+01:00

Bein putting in alot of hours over the past week or so to make up for missing Vegas and I got rewarded for it. Played alot of mtts because I was online a few evenings and finally had a decent score in them. Final tabled the $100 rebuy 3 times coming 2nd for $7.5k, 4th for $7k and 2nd again on Sunday for $27k which is actually my biggest ever single win in an online mtt. Would have bein nice to have won it at least once but hey I wont complain with over $40k for the week. Finally sorted out my online mtt record too which a couple of people had bein winding me up about over the past few months! Ive always felt I had a really strong mtt game but lets face it we all over rate ourselves and my results have said otherwise so the stick was much deserved. Also helps when your friends with some of the most successfull tournament players in the world and get to watch them in action. Learned alot this way over the past few months.
Played 2 step 6s and failed to cash in either of them but done very well in steps 3-5 and built up a few more step 6 and G tickets. 15/34 now for the year in step 6s.

Debating on whether or not to Play EPT Tallinn in August but I reckon I will if anyone I know is going over. Gonna take a couple of days off this weekend and head down to Galway with Helen for a couple of nights and drink as much of the Galway water as I can before Vegas.. : )

Quick Update

2010-06-09T17:13:00.002+01:00

Good steady week of grinding online since I got back from Alicante last Sunday. Actually was pretty dull until last night when I won a step 6 and came 2nd in the $100 1r1a turbo for $7.5k. So a nice $16k + day to cheer me up. Played 4 step 6s in total since my last update and won 1. So 15/32 for the year now which is sweet.

Played a live game on Thursday night in a new casino in Swords, which is the nearest casino to where I live now. It was there 1st monthly game and it was €230 + €20 so I decided to check it out. Only got 29 runners unfortuantely and I eventually finished 5th for my money back. Nice club though and I enjoyed the game.
Kinda sucks not being over at the WSOP at the minute as its obviously the main topic of conversation among poker players. I had big plans for the WSOP this year and planned on playing alot of events. For one reason or another and despite my bankroll bein healthier than its ever been Ill jus be going over for the main event so a bit pissed off about that but hey the WSOP will be there every year. Also I plan on playing at least 2 EPTs before the end of the calender year to make up for missing Vegas.

No big wins as of yet for the Irish in Vegas but today Nick Heather, better known as Salamander is lieing 4th in chips at the final table of a $1500 nlhe event. So the very best of luck to him. Nick recently won a mini ftops for $165k so obviously in good form and confidence will be high so great chance of scooping a bracelet. The Irish camps spirits seemed to be high heading over and this will do them no harm. Im sure Nick will have plenty of support and encouragement from the rest of the lads.

On 368k vpps for the year and still undecided about going for Elite. Gonna continue to grind hard over the next few weeks and just see how it goes. Next live event I have planned is the UKIPT in Killarney on the 24th of this month. I expect numbers to be affected for this as pretty much ever decent poker player (except me!!!) in the country will be over in Vegas. Thatll be my last live event beore heading to Vegas on the 3rd July for the main even. Got my tickets last week for UFC 116 Brock Lesnar v Shane Carwin and I actually cant wait for this! Im more excited about that than the WSOP if Im to be honest. Not sure if thats a good or bad thing..........

Same old, Same old

2010-05-29T18:58:00.002+01:00

Very unenjoyable tournament for me. Completely card dead the whole day and surrounded by people speaking a different language which does my head in. Got AQ twice, lost both times. Got JJ, took down the blinds. Never got AA,KK or QQ the whole day. Eventually busted in level 6 when I got AK for the first time of the tournament blinds 150/300 25 ante, playing just over 10k, raised it up from utg +1 to 800 got reraised from a guy 3 to my left to 2300, I shipped, he dwelled for a while before calling with 77 and held. gg me. I really dont enjoy playing when English isnt the first language at the table. Havent a clue what people are talking about and constantly having to ask the dealer how much is the raise can be very annoying. So not gonna bother with anymore poker. Just gonna enjoy the sun and a few days off.

Off to Alicante

2010-05-26T14:35:00.003+01:00

Had a nightmare coming home from Nottingham last week. My flight was at 06:15 on Sunday morning so I decided to do an all nighter rather than going to bed and risk oversleeping. Everything was going fine, arrived at the airport with plenty of time to check in and that so Im standing in the queue 15 mins before take off waiting to get on the plane when CANCELLED!! appears on the screen. UUGGHH... Stressful stuff. Had to take a bus,three trains and a ferry before eventually arriving home at 8pm. Turned out doing an all nighter wasnt a great idea....

Had big expectations for the Dusk till Dawn club cos all Ive ever heard about it was good. Wasnt overly impressed by it tbh. A good club yes but plenty of room for improvement. The tables were a bit tight for a start. Not sure if its always this tight or they crammed a few extra tables in because of the UKIPT. Its in the middle of nowhere.£8 taxi journey from the nearest hotel. Soft drinks and tea arent free. Alot of people were complaining about the food service too over the weekend as it was very slow. And the rake in the cash games is 10%!! capped at £7. The £7 cap is great for anyone playing £2 £5+ but for the small stakes players playing £1 £2 it must be crippling. Not complaining about the club at all as I thought it was well run etc. just pointing out a few things.

Just being grinding away online the past week or so with no live play. Not a great week overall. Played 6 step 6s in total and won 1. Which isnt great but kinda expected as my results in them couldnt keep up. Still 14/28 for the year so far which isnt too shabby. Played a decent amount of mtts too with no real success. Alot of deep runs but no big scores unfortunately.

Off to Alicante now for the Estrellas Poker tour. Never been in Alicante so looking forward to a bit of sun and chilling out. Dont plan on playing any online over there. Playing tomorrow which is day 1a so Ill do a quick report tomorrow night with my progress.

Another one bites the dust

2010-05-15T15:10:00.002+01:00

No mircale comeback from me on day 2 despite getting up to 40k I was eliminated in the 3rd level of the day. Eventually getting my last few chips in with A8s which was in bad shape against 66 and A9. Didnt end up playing the £200 6 max event which I was looking forward to playing. Ended up hitting the town instead. Theres a £300 2 day event which starts today and Id imagine will get a big field but I dont think Ill be playing cos Im due to fly home at 8am tomorrow morning. Played a bit of £2/£5 cash the past couple of days and Im glad to say Im in profit. A whopping £200! Still profit though. Probably just play some cash later before I head home in the morning.

Day 2... Wuhoo!!!!!

2010-05-13T16:39:00.003+01:00

Made Day 2 of a tournament for the 1st time since the NAPT in Vegas back in February. Ok so Ive a measily 12,300 with the average bein over 30k but anything could happen tomorrow. Started off on a really nice table which was broken after an hour unfortunately. Got moved to a much tougher table which included Jude and a number of other capable players, so I had to pick my spots wisely. Didnt go great for me but happy enough with how I played and glad to be still in. Jude busted in level 3 losing the majority of his chips in a sick cooler hand. He had As 8s on the bb with an ep raise and 3 callers so he calls. Flop comes Js Qs Ks. And he leads every street before getting it all in on the river up against 9s 10s. Ouch!

Played a few mtts online last night with a few decent runs. Had a sick misclick in the $50 1r1a with 12 players left. Guy goes all in, I snap call him as quickly as Ive called in my life with the old K4os. His A9 held and that was me done. Pretty sick but couldnt help but laugh after I got over the initial disapointment of it. No plans for today cos theres no side events worth playing until tomorrow night which Ill probably give a go if Im not still in the main event. Anyway goodluck to any Irish playing today

JP Masters

2010-05-11T23:44:00.002+01:00

Another bad festival for me and I yet again failed to make day 2. To make things worse I cant just blame running bad on this one cos I played pretty awful too. Played several hands poorly in the 1st few levels and so my stack was steadily dwindling. Exited in level 7 I think it was when I decided to 4bet shove the old A7. Ran into KK and so it was gg me. Silly move brought on by sheer impatience and dare I say it..... tilt! Was really dissapointed after my exit as I was determined to get back on track in this event with it bein such a good structure and having a decent amount of value. Drowned my sins afterwards and decided I was gonna try make the most of the weekend. Great bit of craic anyway to take my mind off the poker.

Decided to play the €300 side event the next day which started at 6. I gave the tourney my full attention and played really well. My stack increased from the word go and I picked up alot of chips early on. (It was a 10k starting stack and I got up to 40k with the average bein 20k. Found AK on the button, raised, the Dokester reraised from the sb, I shipped and he called with JJ which held. Just under 80k pot with the average bein 20k so that sucked. I was left with a couple of bbs after the hand but no miracle recovery and it was gg me a few hands later.

So another 2 tourneys with no cash. Ive lost count at this stage how many live games its been since my last cash but dread to imagine. Off to Nottingham tomorrow for the 4th leg of the UKIPT. Looking forward to playing in Dusk till Dawn as all Ive heard is good things about the club. Hopefully this will be the tourney where I finaaly bring to an end this awful live run.

Grinded a few hours online Sunday, pretty much the whole day yesterday and a few hours today in an atempt to recoop my live loses from the weekend which I done with ease. Makes me wonder why I bother with live donkaments. Had a couple of nice runs in mtts which is a needed confidence booster to prove to myself I have the game to crush mtts and Im not just a sng grinder. Only small buyins unfortunately but still feels great to come through decent sized fields. Won a $20 tourney with 360 players for $1,500 and came 2nd in a $30 one today with 500 players for $2,200. Also grinded hyper turbos steps and sngs. Passed the 300k vpps milestone today which is good for $3,600.

Quick congrats to Sean penderville on winning the Jp masters to follow on from his win in the cpt final last week. Sick run by him, back to back live tourneys for around €80k

And of course Thaddeus on chopping SCOOP event 19h for a nice $106k. Sick sick man just never stops

Back to normality

2010-05-06T21:54:00.002+01:00

Well Monte Carlo certainly didnt go as well as I might have hoped. Played 6 tourneys in total. The €10k main event, 2 €1k events and 3 €300 turbos. Didnt have a single cash! Oh! I also played the Supernova Elite freeroll and got beaten heads up. Which kinda sums up how Im running live lately. The freeroll had 45 players. Each player had a €100 bounty on them and if you made the final table you got a $215 or a $530 tourney ticket depending on if the eventual winner beat Barry Greenstein in a heads up match. The winner got $2.5k or $5k again depending on if they beat Barry Greenstein. So I got heads up and we were fairly even in chips so we done a bit of a deal. We gave $1k to whoever came 2nd. Anyway I ended up losing but still got $1k +$500 from bounties + a $530 tourney ticket because the guy who beat me beat Barry. So wasnt too bad for a couple of hours in a freeroll.

Played a few hours online 2 of the nights over there and done much better luckily enough. Played 2 step 6s. The 1st of them was a 9 seater wsop. Got 1 outered on the river in a big pot when we were 6 handed which hurt real bad. Managed to grind my way back into it and eventually finished 3rd for $3k. Played another 9 seater wsop 1 and managed to ship it which felt great considering how shit I had bein doing over there. Putting in a decent amount of hours the past few days since returning home. Doing well across the board. Playing a real mix of games atm. Mtts, regular sngs, hyper turbos and steps. Played 2 step 6s since returning home, a 6 man scoop 1 which I finished 4th in and another 9 man WSOP one tonight which I won. Wuhoo! So thats 2 wsop seats so far. Hoping to win alot more though. And 13/22 for the year in step 6s which is soooooo sick! Especially considering that 16 of those 22 had only I package. I said earlier in the year when I wasnt planning on going for sne I was gonna hit the steps hard and theyd either make or break me. Well so far so good, Ive got off to a start that I couldnt have dreamed of. Not only in the step 6s but in all them. I seem to be constantly accumalating step 6s from step 3s. Hopefully this can continue

The SCOOP is in full flow atm but Ive only played 1 event, 03m. It was $50 rebuy 6 max. 4444 players. I finished 993rd with 660 paid. Planning on playing a few more though but dunno which 1s.
Ive 288k vpps for the year so far which is a fair bit of sne pace, so I need to start grinding more if Im to stay in contention.

Very busy few weeks ahead of live poker. Starting tomorrow with the JP Irish Masters which is being held in the Maldron hotel in Tallaght. Its a €750 buy in with 200-250 players expected. Ive played this event the past 2 years and its great. Excellent structure and alot of recreational players who wouldnt usually play a €750 game make it an excellent tournament. Funny memory from this game last year. Its 1 hour levels and were in level 3. Its a 3 day tournament btw. An old guy calls off his whole stack (which was just under what he started with) facing 2 all ins already with AQs. Needless to say he was in bad shape and was eliminated. When the cards were turned over he says "I havent had a hand all day"!! I thought it was a classic.
Anyway hope I can get back to winning ways on the live scene. Then Wednesday Im off to Nottingham for the 4th leg of the UKIPT. Thats it for now Ill do an update on my progress tomorrow night if Im still in

Busto

2010-04-26T10:59:00.002+01:00

Such an anti climax. Failed to make day 2 again! Been running shit in live tournaments since the start of the year but Ive tried to not let it bother me too much by trying to convince myself Id run like god when it mattered most. Unfortunatley that wasnt the case.Had a rough day and a tough table draw. Won the first hand of the tournament and it was a steady decline from then on. Had 11k in the last level of the night blinds 500/1k/100. Guy in mid position raises to 3k with Kc9c I ship with AQos and he calls. Flop comes Q high with two clubs, club on the turn and its gg me. Didnt play great tbh but I wasnt exactly spewing either, just one of those days when nothing seems to go your way. Two Irish made it through. Liam Flood on 78k and Derek Thorpe on 37k. Jude plays today so goodluck to him and any other Irish.

€1100 turbo at 2pm is my next tourney. Not the same buzz as the main event but still decent money at stake so plenty of time to make a profit for the trip.

Monte Carlo EPT Grand Final

2010-04-24T23:47:00.002+01:00

Well like I said before this is the tourney I most look forward to playing each year. I know for most people its the wsop main event but for me its this. Arrived today and took the bus from Nice airport. One of the most amusing bus journeys Ive ever been on. The sceneary on the way is amazing driving down along the windy mountain roads I had forgot how stunning looking this place is. Although unfortunately thats about all it has going for it is its amazing sceneary as its really a very dull and boring place once the novelty of looking at multi million euro yachts, cars, fancy restuarants, over priced shops and hotels wears off. Not the kind of place youd come to let your hair down and party. The Devilfish best described it to me last year as "Alcatraz for millionaires".

On my own atm but Mr Ainsworth arrives tomorrow to keep me company and help fly the Irish flag. Very few Irish usually play here but Im sure theres at least a handful of others that Im not aware of. I play tomorrow (1a) and so Ill have a day off before day 2. (Hopefully) Theres an excellent schedule of side events this year especially compared to last year which was really bad. I plan on playing as many as possible if the main event doesnt go as planned. I played the nightly €330 turbo tonight but had no success.

Speaking of flying the Irish flag the wpt final 6 gets underway shortly and John O Shea is still in. Unbelieveable stuff and really hope he takes it down. John seems determined to get that life changing score this year by playing as many big buy in events as possible. John is a truely dedicated professional with an excellent all round game and mental attitude, I cant think of a player in the country right now that deserves a result more than him for the time and effort he puts into the game.

Online hasnt seen much of an improvement. Went on a nice little upswing in the hyper turbos but quickly came back down again. Played another 2 step 6s with no success making it 11/18 for the year. Last few days went well in steps 3-5 though and Ive a nice amount of tickets built up. The wsop sats have started on stars and I plan on winning a few packages Also won a package to the Estrellas poker tour in Alicante which is on the end of May so its not all bad. Anyway main focus for the next week is on the Live scene obv, Ill do an update after each day with my progress.

UKIPT Coventry

2010-04-14T16:43:00.002+01:00

Another disspointing tourney for me unfortunately. Played on Day 1a which was Thursday. Got off to a steady enough start before losing a big flip in the 4th level. Got it all in on the flop with my 10c8c on a 6c 9c 3h against AA. turn and river bricked leaving me short. Then ran KK into AA in the 5th level for my last 6k. Kinda glad I didnt have a bigger stack at that point as I probably would have lost it all anyway. Played 8 live mtts so far this year and 5 of them I ran KK into AA. LOL

Online has been pretty shit over the past week or so too. Been playing almost only hyper turbos and have been doing awful. On a $15k+ downswing in them at the moment and its starting to look a lot less likely that its just variance and a lot more likely that I simply dont have an edge in them. Only managed to play 1 step 6 since my last update which I came nowhere in. But still 11/16 for the year so cant complain. Id like to play alot more steps but the problem is I play during the day mostly and the steps rarely fill. April is looking like its gonna be my 1st losing month of the year which sucks but March was my most profitable month ever so not too bad.

Next up is Monte Carlo. I considered going to San Remo but it would have meant I was playing a live mtt every weekend in the month of April so decided against it. Monte Carlo is the biggest tournament for me each year and I look forward to it even more than the WSOP main event. Such a big buy in and a relatively small field make winning it seem achieveable. Where as the WSOP is kinda like winning the lottery imo.

Hoping things will turn around online if not Ill just have to take down Monte Carlo I guess!

No joy

2010-04-04T20:38:00.002+01:00

No joy in Irish Open for me this year, busted 2nd last level of Day 1. Never managed to get a stack together despite getting a lot of big hands and having a relatively soft table draw. Peaked at around 14k and it was all downhill from there. Didnt bother with the €1500 side event, gonna go on the lash tonight instead. Best of luck to all the Irish still in. Although theres very few people I know still in. Needs an Irish winner this year after last years massive dissappointment of no Irish on the final table. Hopefully this wont be repeated.......

That time of year again

2010-04-02T12:19:00.002+01:00

Wow I honestly cant believe the year is a quarter over already. March was another great month for me meaning I havent had a losing month yet. Wont speak too soon though. Hyper turbos went bad in March and I managed to lose over $6k in them which is worrying. Until now I have been comfortably crushing them so not sure if its variance or if I no longer have an edge in them or whatever. Only time will tell I guess so Im gonna stick with them for now anyway.Main goal for March was to grind at least 100k vpps which I did so was happy about that, managed to get 108k meaning I played more in March than January and February combined. Currently on 216k vpps which is just behind current SNE pace of 249k. Got a nice $3,400 bonus for reaching the 200k milestone meaning I got well over $10k rakeback in March which was sweet. Majority of my profits for the month came from step 6s again. Havent played any more since my last update but plan on playing as many as I can over the coming weeks.

Well its that time of year again, Easter weekend meaning the highlight of the Irish poker calender is upon us. The Paddy Power Irish Open. The buy in is the same as last year €3,500 which I like. Not too big not too small. Expecting around 600-700 players meaning a prize pool in the region of €2 milliuon. This is only my 2nd year playing the Irish Open and Im 100% up for it. Got my %s swapped and Im ready to go. Not gonna stay in the hotel cos Ill only end up on the beer. Cards in the air at 3.30 so Im gonna go get ready. Ill do a very short update at the end of the day with my chipstack (hopefully)

March so far

2010-03-23T12:47:00.002Z

Ill really have to start trying to update this more often. The weeks just seem to be flying by lately. Havent played a whole lot the past week cos I headed over to Amsterdam on Wednesday for four nights on a non poker break. One of the few places Ive always wanted to visit but hadnt managed to get too until now. Amazing place and well worth a visit as I expected.

Still havent had a live outing since Vegas but Ive a hectic April coming up with the Irish Open, Coventry UKIPT and of course Monte Carlo. Im still undecided wheter or not to play the satelitte the night before the Irsh Open, probably just see how I feel when it comes round I guess.

Managed to play two step 6s in the past week. The 1st of which was last Monday and it was a 6 max with one scoop package and $1,700 for 2nd. Played awful in this tbh and finished last! Another step 6 with no cash! I was gutted! It was the second step 6 I failed to cash in so far this year. Really have to get my act together. Played another one on Sunday night after returning from Amsterdam. This time it was a 10 seater with two scoop packages. Managed to keep focused in this one, no acting the bollox and so it was ship ship.... making it 11 out of 15 for the year so far and 2 bubbles/refunds gotta be happy with that.

Hyper turbos havent been gone great for me lately but Im hoping variance is just to blame as they are quite high variance stuff.
Ive 176k vpps so far this year which Im fairly happy with. Not exactly on pace for SNE atm but considering the amount of time Ive taking off its alot. Earning over 5k vpps a day atm. So Im just gonna grind hard for a few weeks before making any rash decisions.

Big welldone to Andrew Grimasson aka Chubbs. on his 3rd place finish in Barcelona in an ecpt. €65k very nice payday. Great player and cool guy long overdue a live result. Another congrats to Jorj95 on becoming the latest member of Team Pokerstars. Welldeserved and one of the names I expected to see as an online Team pro when they were 1st announced. George has probably been the most profitable sng player on the planet the past couple of years. And while everyone is complaining about how tough the games are getting hes just looking for any kind of sng he can 20+ table, pay a sick amount of rake and destroy continuing to make insane amounts of money from sngs. So best of luck to him

Lesson learnt

2010-03-13T14:12:00.003Z

Well everything has being going so smoothly lately I shoulda know I was due a change of luck. Followed Wednesday up by another great day on Thursday scooping another 2/2 step 6s. A Monte Carlo one and a SCOOP one. For back to back $25k+ days. Something Ive never done before. Yesterday I put in a solid days grinding playing mostly hyper turbos and a few steps, but no step 6s. This afternoon I decided to put in a couple of hours before I headed out for the day. Was hammering away at the hyper turbos when this happened.....

Basically I got disconnected and was blinded away in any game I was playing or was registered for. This is something I have always feared happening but was always well prepared for. In my old house I used a fixed internet connection but had a wireless modem on stanby incase my main internet connection went down. Even had a laptop ready just incase the electricity were to go.

In my new apartment I was caught with my guard down and wasnt so well prepared unfortuantely. Ive just bein using a wireless broadband modem cos I havent got round to getting a fixed internet connection. It has being working fine until today when I was disconnected for about half an hour or so. Which seems like about 3 weeks when your 15 tabling hyper turbos. Managed to finish 3rd in 2 of the games that I was blinded out in. Which is pretty lol. Finished 3rd in 5 games just after getting disconnected but I was doin well in these games and more than likely woulda won them had I not bein disconnected.

Cost me around $2k I guess. Costly lesson but no use crying over spilt milk. Needless to say Ill be getting broadband sorted asap to avoid this happening again.

No news is good enough

2010-03-10T18:29:00.002Z

Didnt realise its been over two weeks since my last update. Ive just been settling into the new apartment and grinding online since I got back from Vegas. Havent had any live games. Next live game Ill play will probably be the Irish Open which is on the 2nd of April.

Bein grinding a decent volume the past week or so and Ive got 38k vpps so far this month which Im happy with. Bein sticking to the hyper turbos and steps as my main games. Hadnt played any step 6s in about 4 weeks until Sunday when there was alot of traffic and I noticed them filling so I jumped in obviously. 1st one I played was a 6 max step 6 with one ticket to a $10,300 scoop event and 2nd place got $1,700. Finished a dissapointing 4th for no cash! My 1st no cash in a step 6 of the year. A step G filled up in the mean time with 1 Monte Carlo Package for 1st and €2,250 for 2nd and 3rd so I gave that a go. Managed to scoop the package to take my mind off not cashing in the other step 6. Another step G for Monte Carlo filled soon after and sure enough I gave it a go. Unfortunatley finished 2nd in this one and felt really hard done by. Really felt like I outplayed my opponent heads up and he just got lucky. Main hand we got it aipf with my A 10 versus his A 6 and he manged to river a straight, leaving me crippled and didnt recover.€13.5k for 1st and €2,250 for 2nd is a huge jump but I wasnt too dissapointed as Id already won 1.

Tonight the steps were filling again and I took full advantage. Played 1 step 6 6 max for a $10,300 scoop ticket which I took down, no messing about and quickly followed it with success in another step G Monte Carlo sat for a nice $25k day. So my step 6 record for the year so far is as follows.
Played 11
Won 8
Bubbled 2 (which I got my money back in)
Lost 1!

Over $50k profit from 11 sngs which is very nice. Not sure exactly how far above ev Im actually running at these atm or how long this run can keep up but Im not gonna think about it too much and just enjoy it while it lasts.

Gonna keep the head down in March as I want 100k vpp month to get me back on track for SNE which Im still undecided about. Well see how the next few weeks go I guess................

Busto!!!!!!

2010-02-22T23:51:00.002Z

Day 2 was a grind of a day to say the least. I was shortstacked for all of it. The most chips I got to was 75k which was still well below average. I eventually finished the day on 37600. Blinds starting back on day 3 at 2k 4k 400 ante I needed help fast. Unfortunately it didnt happen and I busted a few hands into the day. Managed to steal the blinds with a shove that got through. Very next hand I shove AQ and run into QQ. I had him covered though so I was still in with about 2bbs. At this stage needing a miracle. Got it in with 45s against KK and no miracle busted about 10 places from the money which sucks after playing over 2 days in a tourney. John is the only remaining Irishmann in with less than 90 players left. So goodluck to him! 5% of $850k would do me nicely

40600 going into day 2 in NAPT

2010-02-21T09:09:00.002Z

Arrived in Vegas on thursday evening after the grueling travelling! 8 hours time difference takes some adjusting so my body clock is kinda fucked atm. Rooms in the Venetian are pretty sweet! Im rooming with John O Shea who is also still in the main event hes on about 45k. Not many Irish here for the event but still a few. Andrew Grimasson (Chubbs) is struggling and on 17k, Eoin Olin was knocked out today unfortunately and Dave Callaghan is on 50ish I think. Thats all the Irsh I know of that are here. Hopefully we can push on tomorrow and get some chips.

Seems to be a pretty tough field. I had an awful table today with little or no soft spots, so not too dissapointed with how I finished up. Chatting to the other lads they were saying tables were also tough. Such a big field I expected there to be alot more value. Gonna get a decent nights sleep so have a good head for tomorrow.......zzzzzz

January Review

2010-02-13T14:30:00.003Z

No joy in Manchester busted out in level 6. Uneventful tournament for me, got no luck and played pretty shit tbh. 1st tournament Ive played in a long time that I felt I played bad in. No interest in any of the side events so Ill just save myself for the NAPT in the Venetian next week. Flying out next Thursday so really looking forward to that.

Alot of the time when people dont update there blogs its cos there running like shit and dont wanna talk about it. Luckily for me that certainly hasnt been the case as Im on somewhat of a heater lately. Played live once since I got back from Deauville, The Fitz monthly which is a €250+20 and the only regular Dublin tourney worth playing imo. Got 158 runners so a nice prizepool for a Thursday night. Managed not to run KK into AA for the entire tournament!! So went on to do a 3 way chop at 7am for €7k each. Nice nights work and a great confidence booster. Chopped that tourney the last 2 times Ive played it now which is impressive. Last time was a 5 way chop in October. Would never usually consider chopping a tourney 5 ways but I got a sick deal that night so couldnt refuse.

ONLINE

Mentioned in my last post I had won 2 out of 3 step 6s that I had played and was goin to focus on the steps for a while. Well I have. Despite not playing much the past couple of weeks cos Ive been so busy moving etc when I have played Ive done sick good! Played another 3 step 6s since the last post and managed to win the 3 of them. 5 out of 6 in total and a healthy $37k in cashes from 6 sngs. Id love to know what my hourly rate online is so far this year. Doin great overall in the steps playing pretty much every step 3-5 and D-F that fills while Im playing. Ive 2 step G tickets atm and 2 step 6s. Dont fancy Copenhagen or Berlin and Ive stuff on for Austria so not sure exactly when Ill get a chance to use them. Also been playing alot of hyper turbos which are going really well too.

At the start of the year I was about 90% certain I wouldnt be going for SNE this year for a number of reasons which I already mentioned. Now Im about 50-50. I can rack up alot of vpps in a short space of time playing the steps and Hyper turbos. Got 7k vpps in 1 day there 2 weeks ago which grabbed my attention and made me have 2nd thoughts about not going for SNE. Still very uncertain though cos Ive played so little so far and have so many trips planned for this year. See how it goes over the next couple of weeks I guess.

Thats pretty much it for now. Next stop Vegas Baby!

UKIPT Manchester

2010-02-11T13:05:00.003Z

Been really busy the past week or so and havent got a chance to update this. Had a lot of stuff going on and I just moved into a new apartment in Ashbourne so been sorting stuff out for that.

Arrived in Manchester last night and Im playing today which is day 1a. Ill do a proper report later on when hopefully Im chip leader cos it starts in 40 mins, better go...........

Live poker is rigged

2010-01-26T21:28:00.002Z

Busted the EPT Deauville towards the end of day 1. It was a 30K starting stack and my stack was between 20k-40k for most of the day. Was on 21k when I picked up KK in the sb. about level 7, so its folded round to the button who raises I reraise he ships I call he has AA. Im like omfg surely I cant go out of another tourney with KK v AA? Nope! KABOOM! K on the turn and Im up to 43k. Biggest stack Ive had so far so Im on a real high and feeling confident especially after just getting so lucky.

So Im playing away and pick up a few more small pots and get my stack up to just under 50k. In the mean time I text Derek telling him I just ran KK into AA again but sucked out. Bearing in mind Ive been knocked out of 2 of the 3 tourneys Ive played this year with KK v AA. If I had gone out with KK v AA again I would have cracked I said to him. So blinds are now 400-800 and Freddy Deeb raises from utg to 2500 its folded rounded to me in the sb. I look down at KhKc and make it 7500. He thinks about it for a bit before making the call. Hes playing about 100k at the start of the hand. Flop comes Qs 10s 4h. I check and he bets out around 12k I ship the rest of my stack. And he asks for a count and thinks about it for some time. At which point Im 99% sure Im ahead. As any hand that is ahead of me is surely a snap call. AA,QQ,10,10. 44 is unlikely but well possible so I think he has something like AQ or maybe AK,AJ with a flush draw. Anyway he calls and turns over AA!!! I was in shock. No miracle K on turn or river and Im busted. Av. was less than 50k so I was absolutely gutted. So a quick recap on my live play so far this year. Ive played 4 tourneys (excluding ept sat) all of which I exited by running into AA. 3 of which I had KK. And ran KK into AA 4 times in total. Pretty nasty start to the year but hopefully it will change.

Also I couldnt stop thinking about 1 hand in paticualar in which he doubled up. Now freddy Deeb needs no introduction and has been playing poker before I was born, has almost $7 million in hendon mob cashes and would be regarded as 1 of the biggest cash game players in the world. Anyway heres the hand.

Im utg playing 25k and dealt 22 blinds 300-600 50 ante. I raise to 1650, Freddy is 2 to my left and calls playing around 19k, guy to his left calls as does the button so theres 4 of us going to a flop. Flop comes Jh 3s 6h and I press the check/fold button. Checked round to the button who bets 3.5k. I fold, Freddy calls, other guy folds so 2 of them go to the turn. Turn is a 7d and they get it all in. Not sure exactly how the betting went. Anyway button turns up JQos and Freddy has 45os! for the turned straight. Now Im not 1 to go slating other peoples play on my blog especially a household name. So I wont comment on the hand but found it very interesting. Calling an utg raise from utg+2 for 9% of ur stack with 45os is intersting to say the least imo.

Anyway was in no humour of playing after my exit and just hung around waiting for Jude to finish up who was going very well. Myself and Derek played a bit online the next day as there was no side events on till 9pm. I didnt really know what to play cos I dont like playing a high volume on the laptop. Then I remember I had 3 step 6 tickets which I had built up from playing a load of step 3s in December. So I jumped into a step 6 for the NAPT in the Venetian and took it down wuhoo! Took my mind off my main event exit anyway. Decided not to bother with the €2k side event cos I was due to fly home the next day so we just went on the piss instead.

Jude busted just outside the money which was pretty sick seen as he basically bubbled in Prague too. Pity about the lack of Irish playing these international tournaments as they are by no means tough fields. There was a total of 4 Irish players afaik in the main event, none of which cashed unfortunately.

Got home on Saturday night and just chilled. Put in a couple of hours grinding on Sunday and played another step 6 cos if I won another package I would get tournament dollars. Managed to get lucky again and shipped $7k. Used up my last step 6 ticket tonight but unfortunately bubbled a ticket by coming 3rd. But 3rd and 4th get $2k so wasnt all bad. Besides 2 out of 3 aint bad. Won another UKIPT Manchester seat the other night so a healthy $10k few days online.

Gonna focus on the steps for a while and see how it goes. See you at the tables.............

Ept Deauville

2010-01-20T14:59:00.002Z

Headed down to Killarney on Friday. Got there just in time for the start of the main event which was 5pm. Bit dissapointed with the turnout though it only got 106 players. I expected about 150. Great tourney anyway and a great weekend but no success unfortunately as I ran KK into AA for the second tourney in a row. Hopefully it doesnt become a habbit this year.

In Deauville atm for the EPT. Played a sat last night and managed to get a ticket so Ill be playing tomorrow which is Day 1b. Oops laptop battery is gonna go and Ive no adapter yet. Better go. Ill update tomorrow see how I get on

Hectic start

2010-01-15T11:39:00.002Z

Been a busy start to the year with lots of travelling. Headed over to Manchester on the 2nd with a load of friends for the United v Leeds match. Disastrous! Not only the result, and been beaten by a 2nd Division team but the atmosphere in Old Trafford was the worse Ive ever seen. Made the most of it anyway and had a good drinking session.

Headed down to Galway last Friday for the Eglington IPC party. Great craic, as is always expected when you go to Galway. Again, was more of a drinking session than a poker one tbh. Played my 1st outing of the year there and bubbled the ft when I ran my KK into AA. Had a great weekend anyway so cheers to "The Legend" himself Mr. Dave Curtis and co. for putting on a great weekend.

Killarney today with the Lakes of Killarney festival on. Its a €500 3 day event with a great structure and Id expect around 150 players so a decent enough prizefund. Going over to Deauville on Tuesday to try and sat into EPT Deauville main event. If Im unsuccessful Ill just play the side events.

Online hasnt been going too good so far. Got off to a good start and picked up about $5k 1st few days. Lost all that back since then unfortunately. Still havent really found my main game for the year and have been playing lots of differents sngs and mtts. Wont be playing much at all over the next week or so with Killarney and Deauville so hopefully Ill get back to a proper grind after them. Better go catch my train

09 Review

2010-01-07T21:48:00.003Z

Well 2009 was my second full year as a full time poker player and all in all it was a success. No life changing results and I didnt make as much online as I might have hoped but all things considered Im pretty happy how it went. The games online got increasingly tougher as I expected especially towards the end of the year, even the $60 9 mans became a regfest.

I decided in December I wont be pursuing Supernova Elite this year. I got it the last two years but decided Im not willing to put in the time and effort it requires for a third year running. It really is a big commitment and becomes very stressfull towards the end of the year. I will of course maintain it until the end of September this year provided I get 50k vpps each month.

So grinding online will certainly still be my bread and butter this year but I plan on playing alot more live poker, especially big buy in tourneys. I didnt play as much live poker in 09 as I had orginally intended but still managed to play a fair bit. Unfortunately I dont keep live records anymore so Im not sure exactly how much I made but considering the amount I played (or lack of) it was a great success. Highlights of the year would have to be my min cash in the WSOP main event where I played at the ESPN feature table and was eliminated by the man himself Mr Ivey. And my 4th place finish in the IPC just a few weeks ago which was my biggest cash to date. €36k.

Online was pretty uneventfull with no big wins probably because I played so few mtts. But was a solid, steady grind none the less until the last two months when I went on a bad downswing finishing getting SNE. 9 man sngs are pretty much solved imo and so this year Ill be trying to move away from these. Plan on playing mostly 18-45 mans and try more mtts.

Stars recently improved there vip system which means everyone will be getting a higher % rakeback which is nice. In December they also announced there online Team pros. Big welldone to acoimbra who I play with regularly and I believe reads this blog. Im sure hes over the moon with that so welldone mate and goodluck with it.

I decided not to go to the PCA for a few reasons and so Ill be going to wsop and Monte Carlo as part of Elite. Hoping to play a couple of EPTs also this year and all of the UKIPTs. And pretty much every major festival in Ireland

Heading down to The Eglington in Galway tomorrow for one of there infamous parties and my first live outing so that should be good craic.

Mission accomplished!

2009-12-31T19:23:00.002Z

Just a quick one cos Im goin out to get wasted and celebrate New Years. Just finished up getting Supernova Elite for the 2nd consecutive year and man did it feel good! Even had a few hours to spare! Hope ya"ll had a good Christmas and an even better new year. I somehow managed to have a great Christmas despite bein under alot of pressure to get Elite. Still managed to get plenty of partying done. Last week or so went well online. I actually made a profit which wasnt expected and secured a UKIPT Manchester package. Anyway Im off! Ill do a better report summary of the year etc. sometime over the next few days. Cheers to everyone for the support and good wishes throughout the year. Hope you enjoyed reading! gl

Uuuugggggghhhhhh......

2009-12-22T16:15:00.002Z

Well the last few weeks online have bein agonising! Grinding away day after day losing my absolute bollox! In fairness I knew December was gonna be pretty bad but I was just hoping it wouldnt be too bad. Only positive atm is Ive only 45k vpps to go. You have no idea how relieved Im gonna be when and if I ever get there. 45k is still a fair bit considering theres only 9! days left in the year! Gonna have to play pretty much every day even stick in a few hours on Christmas Day which sucks.
Anyway wish me luck!
I wonder how much more Ill lose getting 45k vpps???

So close!....... Yet so far far away..

2009-12-15T16:51:00.002Z

Still need 80k vpps to reach Elite, so Im nearly there but it feels like Im never goin to get there. Didnt play online at all Friday-Monday because I headed to Galway on Thursday evening for the Irish Poker Championship which was also the 1st leg of the new pokerstars UKIPT which Im really looking forward to.

It got 259 players creating a prizepool of €471,400. All the usual faces from the Irish circuit were there including some big names from the UK. Put some more faces to names after meeting some of the stars regs there including allinstevie, nigdawg, Tmoney0209 and also both vers and chong94 who both made the final table. All seemed like sound guys and some excellent poker players.

Anyway as I was saying I had bein looking forward to this UKIPT and plan on playing all the legs including EPT London. So I headed to Galway really determined to win this and was full of confidence despite doin pretty shit online lately. Overall I felt I played very well throughout the weekend and made few mistakes. Ive really tried to develop my live game this year and am very happy with my progress. So the big score eluded me this year but considering the amount of live mtts I actually played Im pretty happy with my results. Next year I plan on playing more live poker and taking a few trips to EPTs etc.

The tournament went very well for me and I didnt seem to play many big pots at all. It was just a steady accumalation of chips which is the way I like it. I was never under any real pressure and rarely below average stack. It was a well structured tourny with lots of play and I tried to take advantage of this. Alot of people still see me as a turbo sng crapshoot king when in reality Im a much better deepstacked player, in these slow structured tournys I feel I have a big edge and can easily exploit it with so much play in them. even around the bubble when alot of tournys can get very crapshooty there was still plenty of play. Average stack was over 50 bbs I believe at the beginning of the final table.

Eventually finished 4th for €36k after bein knocked out in an interesting hand blind v blind with Ben Lefew (chong94). blinds were 15k-30k 4k ante and its folded to me in the sb playing 830k, I raised to 80k with K2os Ben dwells for a minute and reraises to 230, I thjink for a few seconds and move all in for 830k, he thinks about it for a minute or two before calling with A 5s. His hand held up and so it was gg me. Dont really regret how I played the hand tbh as we had a bit of history and I knew he could be 3 betting me very wide.
Padraig Parkinson went on to win on title which I was delighted about as he was the only Irishman in the last 3.Paul Marrow finished 2nd and Ben Lefew 3rd. Always good to keep these big titles on home soil. Anyways I better get back to the grind.............................

Wednesday Bloody Wednesday

2009-12-09T22:46:00.002Z

Bad day online today which seems to be the norm for me on Wednesdays. Lost $3k. Came across some interesting stats a couple of weeks ago that got my attention. Sharkscope has a function that you can graph your results by day of the week. So I decided to have a look. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are all profitable days for me. Monday Im down a bit, but Wednesday Im down well over $20k with a -2% roi over 9501 games! Really interesting I thought. Now it could be just a coincidence and if it were only over a few hundred sngs thats exactly what Id say it was. But surely this is far too large a sample size to be a coincidence,variance etc. ??? Who knows. Maybe I should just take Wednesdays off in future as they are clearly -ev for me. lol.

Had bein doin fine until today and was recovering well from my losing streak. Sngs on stars atm are an absolute joke!! I knew they would be for the last few weeks of the calender year in fairness as pretty much ever half decent grinder is trying to reach various different milestones for bonuses. I actually unreged from a few $60 sngs today. Probably the 1st time Ive ever done this. I never usually table select at these and reg for as many as I want to play. But today I noticed there was a hell of a lot of regs in my games. I mean I expect 2-4. But today I seen 6!!! regs in 1 game!! Like wtf! Game 100% unbeatable. So annoying. I know everyone is in the same boat this time of year before the year ends. But unless your grinding your last few thousand vpps to get Elite I really dont think its +ev to be playing in these games. People just dont care how many regs are registered for a game they just jump in. Last December was my worse ever month online, profitwise as a result of the games bein full of so many regs and me having to get x amount of vpps for Elite. I was hoping to not have many vpps to get this December but unfortunately as a result of taking 10 weeks off throughout the year I still have a fair bit of grinding to do.

On a positive note I have just under 84k vpps to go. And Thursday is my most profitable day of the week and Im up over $27k so hopefully tomorrow will be good before I head to Galway for the UKIPT.

100k to go!

2009-12-05T01:35:00.002Z

Well 100,660 but we"ll just say 100k. Just a quick update, not much rambling I promise. 27 days left in the year and I plan on taking 7-8 of them off for Christmas, Galway etc. So 19 days grinding should be plenty of time for me to accumalate 100k vpps. Works out at just over 5k a day which is easily acheiveable. Im averaging 5.5k a day atm.

Profit wise bein up an down the past week or so but defnitly seemed to have stopped the massive losing streak I was on. My main focus this month isnt how much I win or lose its just about getting the rest of the vpps out of the way. Obviously I want to still make a profit but its not as important as getting Elite. I recieved a 1 week chat ban yesterday so apoligies to anyone I havent been able to reply to in the chat box.

Heading to Top Gear Live in the rds tomorrow, looking forward to that, gonna enjoy the day off tomorrow cos Ive been grinding hard all week

Battling away

2009-11-28T11:21:00.002Z

I had a profitable week this week! WUHOOOO!!! Made about $2k before rakeback. Although Im still well in the red for the month it felt great to string together a few winning days and stop the rot! On 871k vpps atm which isnt great. The nasty downswing I had set me back a bit as I was playing lower stakes after it to get the confidence back etc.

The Fitzwilliam Xmas festival is on this weekend and I woulda liked to play the main event which is €500 buy in. Not sure how many there expecting for this but I assume itll be over 100. Cant play it unfortunately cos Ive an old friends wedding on today. Another Saturday with lots of drinking and no poker just the way I like them tbh! I prob wont play live until the UKIPT Galway which Im looking forward to. Decided Im going to play all of these UKIPT thingys hopefully. The English legs are only £500 buy in but there £100k guaranteed so should be good tourneys.

Gonna put in some long hours over the next 2 weeks to get the vpps up before Galway and dont wanna be playing too much over the Xmas. Still no word on who the 25 new online pros on pokerstars will be. All 5000+ supernova and elite players filled out application forms over the past few weeks. I expect them to be announced before the new year but havent heard a date mentioned so well just have to wait and see.

Slogging it out!

2009-11-23T23:51:00.002Z

Well Im still running like shit online, doing my bollox! Wont say much more about that as I dont like crying and moaning when Im going through a bad patch and it doesnt make for good reading either. But November is well on track to bein my worse ever month online (without rakeback bonuses etc.)

Bein a pretty hectic couple of weeks both poker and non poker. Forgot to mention in my last post that some fucker ran into the back of my precious car! Sittin at traffic lights minding my own business then BANG! Wasnt much of a crash tbh but still managed to do 2k worth of damage to my car. Was his fault obv so his insurance is looking after it. Its in being repaired at the mo but Im collecting it tomorrow.

Big talking point over the past few days of course was the Ireland game. Went to the first leg which we didnt play great in to be fair. Headed to the local for the away leg. I didnt give Ireland much hope If Im to be truthful but you never know. Couldnt believe how well we played in the game! In the first half anyway. Was the best Ive seen Ireland play in years! Although they just didnt finish the chances and then of course we went out in cruel fashion which I wont say anymore about cos Ive a pain in my bollox talking about it at this stage.

Big welldone to Derek Murray who scooped a FTOP last week for around $130k. I cant think of a player who deserved a result like this any more than Derek. Hes bein 1 of the top mtt players in Ireland over the past few years but never seemed to run good when it mattered so its nice to see his efforts finally rewarded.
Another great piece of news for Irsh poker was Jude (j.thaddeus) Ainsworth (who is Derek Murrays close frien btw) bein signed by Pokerstars as a Team Pro. Making him the first Irish member. Finished 13th in Portugal in his first Ept as a team pro, so a good start and hope he keeps it up. Best of luck to him over the next 12 months. Its great to see an Irish player being sponsored by the biggest name in poker. There had a been alot of talk on the poker scene in Ireland over the past few months about stars sponsoring an Irish player following the announcement of the ukipt. Several people asked me who did I think it should be etc. My opinion was it would be an absolute disgrace if anyone other than Jude got it. So well deserved and goodluck mate.

I turned 24! on Saturday. Jesus Im scared of getting old I still feel 18. Went to see Brendan O Carroll which was a good laugh then hit the town. Anyone into films dont go see "The men who stare at goats" cos its the biggest load of bollox Ive seen in a long time! I came out of the cinema angry that Id just wasted two hours of my life watching the bullshit! Go see "Harry Brown" its well worth a watch.

Im on 855k vpps now which is the only good news I can report lol! So Ill finish with that. 5 busy weeks left for me this year. Gotta grind the teeth keep the faith and hopefully hings will improve soon! Thats it for now, peace out!

The losing continues

2009-11-14T16:59:00.002Z

Well its been more of the same unfortunately. Played JPs mini WSOP game last Friday.Probably shouldnt have bothered as I wasnt really up for it but played it anyway. Lasted 3 levels, had 2 semi intersting hands which I made bad calls in both and so it was gg me. Saturday decided to watch the David V Golaith fight and get pissed. LOL at the fight. Like wtf! I just couldnt take it seriously it was like something out of a cartoon! I was trying to stay off the drink but when ur runnin like shit may aswell drown ur sorrows.

Online this awful run continues. November is on track for bein 1 of my worse ever months. So far Ive played just under 1500 sngs and am down over $13k!! : ( Pretty awful stuff. Its hard to say how much of this is down to variance, my bad play,games bein so tough. But its rough anyway. We all go through bad spells no matter how well we play but its the consistincy that Im losing at this month that is a cause for concern. Its like Ive suddenly become a losing player.

On the positive I did get the $8k milestone bonus last week which really helped and Im currently on 830k for the year which means only 170k to go. Have to just grind the teeth and hopefully I can pull through this and start winning again.

Heading to the Ireland v France match in Croke park tonight. Gonna be a tough game obv. but fingers crossed we can get a result

Rough week

2009-11-06T13:36:00.002Z

Well as the title suggests its been a rough week for me. Started off great on Sunday night (which is the end of last week but anywho) by winning a $4.5k package to the UKIPT Galway. Then Monday I recieved my $1200 bonus for topping the bop leaderboard, Tuesday solid uneventfull day, then Wednesday it all went pear shaped. Managed to spunk off just under $5k which is pretty impressive. Its not easy to blow $5k in a few hours playing $60-$235 sngs but I managed it. Played like shit and ran even worse. Yesterday was much of the same blew around $3k. Felt like I didnt play all that bad in fairness just seemed to run unbelieveably bad. So a nasty little $10k downswing to wake me up.

Haevnt had a real bad run in a long long time in fairness and so it was inevitable. I had forgotten how shit it feels to lose. Fingers crossed this doesnt turn into one of them soul destroying runs that dont seem to end. On the bright side Im on 798k vpps and so I get a nice litle $8k bonus when I reach 800k which will ease the pain.

Decided Im goin to play JPs mini WSOP this weekend as I dont feel like grinding much and dont wanna drink this weekend. Its a €350 buy in and should get around 300 players so a decent enough prizepool. A few of the lads are gone to Amsterdam for the Masters Classic. Ive never been to Amsterdam and would love to go sometime. But I made a pact with myself not to do any more travelling for the rest of the year. So goodluck to them! Do the Irsh proud!

October review

2009-11-02T00:57:00.002Z

October was a good solid month online. Played 2910 sngs which is the most Ive ever played in 1 month and managed to make $4527 profit from them. I also had a few decent scores in the battle of the planets including a 1st place in the Saturn High orbit last week. Managed to grind 100k vpps for the month which equates to 350k fpps, not 500k unfortunately as my elite status expired the end of September. Im now on 777k vpps for the year which means I need another 223k in the last 2 months. Gonna be a busy man

Played the Irsh winter festival last week and managed to cash. Came 36th out of 398 players for €3400. Small cash but still always nice to make a profit. Was delighted to see it bein won by an Irish player. (Michael O Sullivan) Even better he was a Dub. Met Michael for the first time at this tourney and he seems like a sound bloke also a very solid player so well done to him taking home the €143,000 1st prize

Played a decent amount of mtts online in October but with no real success. Made a small loss from them for the month. Played a good few mtts today including the Warm up and a couple of $100 rebuys but again no success. Until my last tourney of the night which was a sat for the IPC in Galway. www.irishpokerchampionship.com
The sat got 76 players with 3 packages. I was lucky enough to get 1 so Im delighted with that. I had planned on playing in it anyway but its always nice to win a seat and have the accomadation etc. sorted

Great to see Pokerstars comin to the Irish Market. This can only be good news for poker here.

Getting stuck in!!

2009-10-19T16:50:00.002+01:00

Played 924 sngs last week 221 of which I played on Friday which is the most Ive ever played in one day and the most Ive ever played in one week. So Im pretty happy with my work. Made $2,832 profit over the 924 sngs without rakeback and made over 30k vpps for the week. Also finished 3rd in theSaturn high orbit Leaderboard and 15th in the Uranus high orbit which was good for another $680. And recieved $360 from stars because of colluding so well over $5k proft for the week.

Decided not to play the IPO last weekend for a number of reasons. Sounds like it went very well so welldone to all those involved. Good to see a few familiar faces down in the business end but unfortunately yet again another big tournament in Ireland won by an overseas player!

Also welldone to Eoghan O Dea flying the Irsh flag on the International poker scene finishing 2nd in the wpt Marrakech for a cool €263,662. Another very nice payday for him.
I was slightly tempted to go to Morroco for this but cant really take any more holidays for the rest of year cos Im so busy getting Elite.
I just passed 730k vpps for the year. Hopefully I can put in another solid weeks grinding before the Irish winter Festival which Ill be playing this weekend

2009-10-13T22:05:00.002+01:00

Last Friday was pretty hectic! Had my heat of the late night stars of poker in Citywest at 10am. So i had to be there at 9am. Which meant getting up before 8am! UUGGHH! Anyway had no success in my heat finished 3rd. Pretty annoyed with my exit hand. I know hinesight is a great thing but I really should have folded as I was beating nothing. Heres the link for the show for anyone who hasnt seen it http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1057371 Played fine until that

So after playing in that I rushed home to try and catch my flight to Killarney. Which I managed to catch somehow! The flight was due to take off at 2.30pm. I got to Dublin Airport at 2.15pm ran through customs!! And got on the plane at 2.20pm!! I was the last person to get on the flight obviously. Couldnt believe I got on the plane 10 mins before takeoff! Arrived in the INEC around 4pm ish and was down only a couple of hundred chips. Got off to a good start but seemed to get dwindled away towards the end of the day and day 2. Got knocked out about half way through day 2 and so it was too late to play the side event. Wasnt keen on playing it anyway. I didnt play any other form of poker after my main event exit and decided to go on the piss. Great craic down there as I had expected with everybody who is anybody in Irish Poker was around.

Dissapointing to see the main event and the side event bein won by overseas players. Great result for Goffy coming 2nd and a very nice payday for him and all the lads. Always good to see the Dubs doin well in these festivals. Stayed in Killarney till monday flew home monday and spent the day in bed recovering from a hefty weekends drinking.

Got back to the grind on Tuesday and got stuck in. Felt guilty after taking another 4 days off and so I had some catching up to do. With less than 3 months left in the year I need to start putting in some long hours to get elite.
Headed to the 1/4 finals of the darts in Citywest on Friday. Was good craic obviously but the matches were a bit disappointing. Taylor beat Lewis 4-0 and Barney beat the Irsh guy Jacko 4-0. Men against boys stuff in fairness. Watched the Ireland v Italy match on Saturday and so it was pretty much another weekend full of drinking and very little poker.

Im on 710k vpps now which means I need 290k more by the end of the year for Elite. Should do it alright just gonna be a busy 3 months. Gonna give the IPO a miss this weekend cos I didnt really enjoy it last year. Venue isnt really able for the amount of players it holds. Irish winter festival next week will be the next live outing. That and the IPC is all I have planned really before xmas

Back to Supernova

2009-10-01T21:53:00.002+01:00

My supernova elite status expired yesterday. It was up until the end of September. Im on 680k vpps for the year at the minute which means Ive to get another 320k by the end of the year to get Elite. I should do it but Im gonna have to put the head down for the rest of the year. No more holidays or time off. September went well overall online. despite taking a week off for Barca I still managed to get in 2k sngs and make $2k profit from them. Done well in mtts, had a coeple of small cashes in the sng leaderboards and grinded 75k vpps. So made well over $10k for the month.

Havent had a live game since Barca and so Im looking forward to this weekend. I had planned on playing the Fitz monthly last thursday. But I got a couple of calls from my mates who were goin out for Arthurs Day and so I just couldnt refuse.

Ive to be in Citywest for 9am tomorrow for the early morning Stars of Poker. Heading down to Killarney after that and so Im going to be arriving late for that unfortunately, although its a great structure so bein a couple of hours late is no harm. Organisers kindly arranged a flight to Killarney for me. Not exactly a stars private jet but Ryanair will have to do until I scoop the wsop main event. Due to arrive in Killarney at 4.20 so Ill be heading straight to the poker obv.

Watched my wsop feature table on poker tube the other day. Coverage is pretty bad and gives you no idea of how the table is playing etc. Couldnt believe they didnt show my Q 2 hand. Only showed 2 of my hands. My exit hand, and a fold I made on the bubble in the bb with AKs. Ivey raised from early/mid position with 99 and it was folded to me in the bb. Remember were 1 from the money and Ive just over half the average stack. Its an intersting situation which you wont find yourself in too often but I stick by my guns and think a fold is the best option.
I was doing well in an mtt the other day and some random observer comes into the chatbox... "bigmickg I saw u fold AKs vs Ivey on the wsop m.e bubble why?"
"Surely $22k is nothing to a big money grinder like you?"

I didnt reply but i was lol to myself. $22k is alot of money to anyone. (especially me)
and lol that he though I was some kinda of high roller baller tybe. (obv because im elite) alot of people have the impression that elites are all millionaire high rollers, unfortunately for me that certainly isnt the case. In reality your just a grinder who pays alot! of rake.

Recieved a chat ban today for 3 hours!! lol Not sure what I even said tbh but Im always at it. Ive been warned once or twice before but never actually banned. This time Im really gonna try and stop abusing the fish when they suck out.

Bein really busy lately both poker and non poker eventually got round to putting my old car up for sale. heres the link if anyones interested http://www.carzone.ie/search/BMW/3-Series/323-ci-N/200939195338383/advert?channel=CARS

Early morning stars of poker

2009-09-19T21:52:00.002+01:00

Found out when Im playing in the Late night stars of poker. Altough Im not too sure about this name given that Ive to be in the Citywest for 9am!!!! Ill be in the first heat on the 2nd of October and its due to start at 10am. Ive to be there at 9 for interviews etc. Not sure whos in my heat except Dara o kearney has told me hes in it. Really looking forward to playing against Dara as hes bein taking the piss out of me quiet a bit this year. And so it would be nice to get 1 over on him at the tables.

I was scheduled to go down to Killarney early on the 2nd for there festival but it looks like Ill be arriving a few hours late. Gonna leave as soon as my heat is over and should be down there before 5pm. (hopefully). Killarney is a 15k starting stack and 1 hour blinds so bein a couple of hours late isnt that bad. Organisers of the stars thingy generously said theyd sort out a flight for me to killarney but I think Ill just drive as I hate waiting around aiports!

Bein grinding away online with nothing much to report. Im quiet happy with how Ive adapted to mtts and there goin well. Still no big scores but plenty of deep runs so Im happy enough. Tomorrow is the wcop main event and Im looking forward to it. Maybe this could be the 1????.............

Back to work

2009-09-09T20:01:00.002+01:00

Saturday went out for the Ireland match with the lads from Cork who we met up with over there. Knuckles and Trevor Dineen and a couple of others. My first time really meeting them and there all sound blokes. We went to an Irsh bar for the match so was good craic. Ended up being an all nighter as I kinda expected. Went to a club after the match and god knows what time we got home.

Sunday spent most of the day in bed nursing a hangover. Eventually got out of bed some time in the evening and just had time to get a bite to eat and hit online. One of the biggest days of the year online I reckon with the wcoop bein on and all the sunday majors. Played a few mtts meself but no real success. couple of small cashes but ended up a losing night. I was done and dusted in all the mtts I played relatively early around 2.30am I think. Derek was going well in the wcoop 9 which was a $215 tourney with $1m guaranteed. It was in place of the usual sunday warm up. As expected it got a huge field!! 11131 players to be exact. Anyway he was doin well all the way through and so I decided to stay up and rail him. Derek is an excellent online mtt player without doubt 1 of the best in Ireland and so it was somewhat a priviledge to be watching him in this tourney goin so deep. He eventually finished 40th for around $3.5k losing a massive race on his exit. Unlucky not to go further cos these games are so top heavy. It was redic late when he finished, up or should I say early. around 10am I think it was.

Monday again spent most of the day in bed cos Id been up so late the night before and didnt end up playing the €2k ept event which I had planned on playing. Chilled out most of the day. Played a step 6 on stars later in the evening cos it was redic soft!! IT was a 9 man with 5 places paid. 1st-3rd wcoop main event tickets. 4th-5th $1200. Finished 5th which I was really pissed off about cos it was such a soft table. Lost a huge race which was basically a $4100 flip. Blind on blind, he ships from the sb and Ive AK on bb. snap call obv and he has TT which holds.

Tuesday we played the €1000 ept side event. It got 144 players with 18 paid. It was a 2 day event. The first day was played until the final table was reached. Anyway theres 28 players remaining with 18 paid. Derek was doin well but I was quiet short and needed a double up when this hand happens. Blinds are 600-1200 with a 100 ante and Im on the bb playing 16k. Folded to the button who ships in for 15k, sb folds. I wake up with Jc Jh on the bb and call. Button turns over 2c 9c. Flop comes with two clubs and I think to myself.. OH FUCK! 9h on the turn giving him a few more outs. Club hits the river and I feel like clubbing him in the head! 1k left and there was no miracle comeback by me eliminated in the next hand. Derek went on to finish 13th for €2300.

Overall Barcelona was cool enough even though it was my first losing trip in quiet some time. Pity to see so few Irish travelling to these events. Out of the few Irish that were over there even less of them played the main event. Welldone to Daniel Smith who was the top Irsh finisher in the main event afaik.

At the bar drinking away one night when we got chatting to an Irsh guy who I wont name. Basically he was saying he and some of his friends who are very well off are looking for Irish players to stake into big events like this. We were chatting about it for a while anyway discussing the ins and outs. Not sure if it was all drink talk tbh but the idea of this got my attention and it would be great to see some Irsh players being staked into events like this. Only time will tell I suppose.

Barcelona

2009-09-04T22:04:00.002+01:00

Arrived in Barcelona on tuesday night and spent the night chilling having a few beers. Met up with a few of the other Irish players who are out here. Alot more Irish players here than I had expected. Although most of them dont seem to be playing gthe main event.

Wednesday there was an €1100 freezeout which we all played, it got 160 runners creating a nice prizepool. Almost €60k for the winner. Unfortunately none of us had any success.

Yesterday there were two €200 rebuy satellites for the main event. The 1st of them started at 2pm. Again myself Derek and Jude gave it a spin. And AGAIN! No success!! : ( I got eliminated around 7.30pm. The last sat started at 8pm and I decided Id give it a bash but it wasnt to be. So no ept Barcelona main event for me this year.

Derek and Jude both played today which was day 1a. It only got 204 runners which is a fair bit less than expected Id say. Jude didnt last too long and struggled from the start. He eventually got his 9k stack aipf only to find himself against AA and QQ. No help on the flop and he was out before dinner break. Not in the best of form as is expected when your eliminated from an ept, Jude headed back to the hotel and booked himself a flight home. Leaving Derek to fly the flag. Derek was doin fine at the dinner break and was on 33k which was right on the average but unfortunately he too is now eliminated. No details of his exit hand.

Not much to do now for the next couple of days except enjoy Barcelona I suppose. My first time here and its a lovely city. Theres a €2k event on Monday and a €1k on Tuesday Ill defo be playing in at least one of these.

Its not all bad news for me in Barcelona however as I recieved confirmation on Tuesday that I will be playing in the Late night stars of poker. This should be great craic and Im really looking forward to it. Not too many details atm about my heat etc. but Im sure Ill find out soon enough.

Online has bein going ok lately. Just grinding away as usual racking up the fpps. i decided to start playing a few online mtts to try and sort out my awful online mtt record which Ive bein getting some abuse about recently. Made back to back final tables last week in the $109 freezeout which is on stars at 2pm daily. Came 4th and 5th for over $4k combined. Also won a few $60 45 mans. So Im having reasonable succes. The wcoop is underway now and Im gonna try play a few of the events. Im defo playing the main event anyway which is a $5k entry $10million!!!! guaranteed 2 day event. Im put into this for being Elite. Would be very nice to run deep in this

Teamcop

2009-08-25T01:08:00.002+01:00

Hectic weekend! Collected my new car on Friday then straight to the Citywest for the teamcop. Was really looking forward to this event and I felt we had a real chance of winning it. It only got 19 teams (114 players) and that was the only bad thing I can say about the event. Great banter, perfect venue,friendly staff and just a great atmosphere in general. Real pity it didnt get a bigger crowd.

I was chatting with my team before the event and I was joking with Jude saying I reckon he could be a bit of a liability in this event. Saying he"d either be gone in the 1st level or he"d win it. Unfortunately he was the 1st player eliminated and we were under pressure straight away. Not alot he could do in fairness as he was set over setted. We lost another player (Brian Rickard) at the end of day 1 and so there was 4 of us remaining going into day 2. We had our work cutout as there were still some teams with all six players. But it was still anyones game. There were some really strong teams in it. I didnt have a room booked on Friday so I ended up just driving home. Stayed on the Saturday night and went on the drink. Its just no fun driving home alone from a poker festival sober!

The tourney was full of the regular faces and there was some sick tables at times. At one point in day 2 my table consisted of myself, Nicky Power, John o Shea, Paul Leckey, Rob Taylor and Dave Masters. Alot tougher than the average €250 tourney. Was great crack at the table and there was lots of banter. (even though most of it was Nicky and John abusing me!) Although neither of them got a chip off me so I was happy enough. Also had a side bet with John which I won so that was sweet. Pretty happy with how I played in general over the weekend and eventually went on to finish 2nd losing heads up to Dave Masters.Played with Dave most of the tourney and he played really well throughtout the tournament so welldone to him and his team on winning the team event too. Deserved winners. Also welldone to Dara finishing 2nd in the side event. Yet another solid result for him.

Our team tied for 2nd with team Eglinton. Another very strong team. So we chopped 2nd and 3rd place prize money given each team €3750. If I had won the heads up we would have finished 2nd but wasnt much difference in the prize money so didnt really matter to the team. There was however €1100 difference in the individual prize money. Finsihed the weekend with a profit of €3k after side bets etc. so was very happy with that.

Drove home on Sunday and I unregistered from two sit an gos which I was due to play on stars. the weekly vip sng with a stars pro. Wasnt in the humour of playing online so just chilled out and went for dinner instead.

Online has been pretty meh lately as I havent been running too good. Putting in a decent volume though so Im racking up the fpps. Have to grind hard this week after taking 3 days off over the weekend. Also myself Derek Murray and Jude Ainsworth are heading to Barcelona next Tuesday for the Barce ept. So wont be playing much online while Im over there.On a bit of a live heater atm which hopefully can continue over there. Quick recap of my last 4 tourneys

Waterford €170 side event 91 players : Done a 3 way chop

Fitwilliam monthly €270 130 players : Done a 5 way chop

Macua Irish Classic €1100 158 players : 12th

Teamcop €250 114 players : 2nd

Pretty impressive run which hopefully can keep up.
Ye so were heading over on the 1st and theres a €1100 event on the 2nd which we"ll all be playing. Theres also a €200 rebuy satelite on daily for the Main event. Hoping to get a seat in that.

So gonna put the head down this week online and play the Fitz monthly on Thursday which will be my only live outing until the ept. Should be a good few Irish over there. Finatn Gavin and a few others are goin afaik. Fintan will be lookin for a repeat of his result last year.

Anyway im fucking wrecked! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Macua report and new car

2009-08-18T17:54:00.000+01:00

Online has been pretty uneventful so far this month. Kinda the way I like it really. Ive been putting in a decent volume and am basically even profitwise so far this month. made 50k vpps so far and hoping to hit 100k by the end of the month and reach 600k overall for the year.

So I headed down to cork on Friday morning for day 1b of the Irish classic. Got a plane down which was grand and id defo recommend it to anyone travelling to Cork. Takes about 40 mins which is pretty sweet and it only cost €25 return. travelled down on my own but stayed with Conor, one of my fellow team mates for the teamcop which were going to win this weekend.
Got off to a slow enough start in the tourney and wasnt 100% happy with how I was playing. Managed to grind away anyway and things picked up in day 2. much hapier with my how I was playing and hitting a few hands too.
Made a couple of really nice plays and a couple of hero calls getting my stack upto about 200k about 10 places from the money. Anyone who knows me will know Im not the type to tighten up around the bubble to scrape into the money. So sure enough I tried to build a big stack before the bubble. Was doin really well until I lost a big pot to the chip leader at my table, blind on blind. That crippled me and I was down to 90k chips four places from the money. Change of plan now decided I was gonna basically fold into the money which I did comfortably.
Eventually went on to finish 12th out of 158 players for 3k. Was hopin I was goin to chop my 3rd tourney in a row. which would have been pretty sick. Wasnt to be unfortunately but still a nice result. Made another €1400 from % swaps so that was nice too. Flew home on Sunday evening and took the rest of the night off and chilled out.

Treated myself to a new car on Monday. I had looked at it last week and wanted to bring a mechanic with me this time to make sure it wasmechanically sound.He said it seemed fine and so I bought it. Its a 01 BMW 325ci convertible. Always wanted a convertible even though theres not much point in Ireland. Im collecting it from the garage in a few days so Im excited about that. Now I have the agony of trying to sell my old car a 99 BMW 323ci. anyone interested give me a bell its a really nice car which has been well looked after with lots of extras and fsh etc.
thats it just gonna gring the rest of the week and hit the citywest for the teamcop on friday

Good July

2009-08-04T19:14:00.000+01:00

Well as the title suggests July went well! Played 4 live tourneys in total, the wsop m.e cashed for $25k, the waterford masters, nowhere in that.chopped the side event for €2850 and the fitzwilliam end of month chopped that for €4750. Making July my most profitable live month to date.
Online was pretty uneventfull took about 21 days off because of vegas and waterford but still managed to make over $10k thanks to the milestone bonuses.Stars are doin a reload bonus at the minute which is basically free money. Its a 50% reload bonus upto $300. So thats always nice. I know its only $300 but hey that used to be 2 days hard work on the roofs for me so not to be sniffed at.
Next live outing for me will be the Iirsh classic in the Macua in Cork. whick Im looking forward to. Hopefully my form can continue there. Thats it for now, back to the grind..........

Waterford Open

2009-07-28T19:43:00.000+01:00

Went down to Tramore on Friday for the Waterford open. Decided to drive down as its only 2 hours now. Great craic as I expected.
Main event didnt go to well for me though, played pretty shit tbh. and quickly bluffed off about 1/3rd of my stack. never hit a hand from then on and just dwindled away to nothing really. Got knocked out just before the end of the 1st days play. Stayed up drinking till the early hours though and had great craic. All the usual faces were there.

Decided to play the side event the next day cos everyone else seemed to be playing poker so there wasnt much else to do except go on the piss, so i decided to do both. Get pissed and play the tourney. Ended up running really well in this tourney and sucked out my fair share of times. 2 tables out I got my 89 aipf against smurphs AQ and rivered the 8. then soon after my A 3 aipf against Paul Smallwoods QQ. Was sure I was gonna win it then! When you play as good as I do AND! get lucky its impossible to lose! lol just kidding.
Done a 3 way deal in the end for €2850 each. So happy with that obv. although its a bit annoying to run so good in the smallest buy in tourney Ive played in a long time.

Couple of events coming up which im looking forward to. The Irish poker classic in the Macua in Cork which is a €1000+€100 is on the 13th-16th of August http://www.macausportingclub.com/skins/macau_special/eng/home/, and the Team Champiuonship of Poker in the Citywest is on the 21st-23rd of August. http://www.teamcop.com/ We have a really good team in this so I think we have a real chance of winning. Our team is Myself, Jude (j.thaddeus) Ainsworth, Conor Ainsworth, Derek (Greenrizla) Murray, Brian (Sunset king) Rickard and another guy from Galway who is a friend of dereks. Dereks told me hes a great player so thats good enough for me.

Thats all for now anyway gonna just grind online for the rest of the week and play the fitz monthly game on thursday

Back grinding away

2009-07-24T10:14:00.000+01:00

Bein getting stuck in since I got home from vegas, Felt I had a bit of catching up to do after going basically a month without any online play. So Ive put in a decent voulme, even put in a few hours on Saturday and Sunday. Bein doin quite well too which is nice. Always good to get straight back into things by winning. Made well over $10k since returning home, thanks mainly to the $4k and $5k milestone bonuses i got for reaching 400k and 500k vpps. Got 100k vpps for playing the WSOP so that helped. So Im exactly half way to elite this year. Would love to make it November some time so I could take December off, but dont think thats going to happen unfortunately. Maybe if I hadnt took 8 weeks so far this year off I would have been able to do it. But hey a man needs his holidays.

Ive also started playing some 6 max sngs recently. Main reason bein just to fill tables when Im playing during the day. playing mostly $119s and $235s. doin really well at them. Way too small a sample size to be making any assumptions but still good to get off to a good start when trying a new game. played 168 of them so far and am up over $5k with a 9% roi. highly doubt this is sustainable for me giving the amount of tables I play at once but will be interesting to see how my stats are after 1000 games.

Looks like I"ll be playing in the Late night stars of poker Tv series which is coming to Ireland later on in the year. http://www.pokerstars.com/uk/poker/promotions/late-night-stars/ sponsored by pokerstars. My chance to become a Team pro??? If I were to win this it would certainly increase my chances anyway. Given that I"ll be playing it as a Pokerstars pro. Dont have too many details about it yet just the ones in the link above. Looking forward to this anyway.

Heading down to Waterford today for the Waterford poker open. its a €400+50 3 day Main event which is expecting around 200 players. There is also 2 smaller side events on Saturday and Sunday. Should be goodfun anyway as Tramore is a good spot. Finshed 6th in this event last year, hopefully I can do a bit better this year.....

Busto in Main event in 483rd for $25k

2009-07-12T04:46:00.000+01:00

Finished 483rd for $25,027, happy enough although dissapointed not to go deeper obv.
Started off great today and picked up chips very quickly. Got moved to the feature table about 1 hour into the day with the man himself Phil Ivey. Picked up a decent amount of chips there too. Before i knew it i was on 450k.
We started playing hand for hand on the bubble and each hand took around 10 mins.

Played the sickest pot of my life today which im about to get too. Pokernews got the details of it wrong so i thought i best clarify exactly what happened before people think im an idiot, anyway were 1 from the money at this stage and the same guy has raised the previous 3 hands. Hes second to act in this pot and I decide if he raises im 3betting regardless of my hand. So sure enough he raises to 12.5k, im 3 to his left and make it 35.5k with Qs 2s folded to the sb who thinks about it for a while and then calls so does the initial raiser. At this point im thinking... oh fuck, ah well ill just give it up. Anyway flop comes down Ks 2d 4c. sb leads out for 36k and initial raiser folds. Im 100% certain this guy is weak and decide to 3bet him to 90k. Again he thinks for what seems like an eternity and calls. AGAIN im thinking ok im done with this hand, but the turn comes As. He leads for 56k. I consider raising cos im still pretty sure hes weak and i can make him fold, but i opt just to call to see the river cheap. River is a 3c and he checks to me. I prob should just have checked at this point but couldnt resist a bet as its the only way i can win the pot. I bet 120k on the river. I know this is very small in relation to the pot but its a large % of his stack and im sure hes weak... and i think given how the hand has played this looks so like a value bet with AA KK or AK, as i would have played all those hands exactly this way. Anyway he thinks about it for well over 5 mins before another player called the clock on him and eventually calls with QQ. Sick call but correct.
Dont really regret how i played this hand except maybe the 120k on the river. anyway that was the key pot for me and i was a wounded animal after this. Never recovered and eventually got knocked out by the man himself Mr Ivey.

Thats all the poker in Vegas for me for this year anyway. Suppose ive got to be happy with how it went considering i made a profit in all areas. sngs, mtts and cash games. Thats it for now anyway gonna enjoy my last few days with my gf before heading home on the 14th. cheers to every1 on boards routing for me and sorry to electra blue for not winning the Irish last longest. maybe next year

323.5k going into day 4

2009-07-11T10:36:00.000+01:00

well im still in which is pretty sweet obv. today went well again grinded away picked up a few chips without any real interesting or big pots. less than 1 hour to go for the day and im sittin on 150k which is actually short at this point av. is over 200k. picked up kk at a perfect time and got it all in against 66. luckily i held and doubled up to 300k. i felt it was soo important for me to get a double up b4 the end of the day. not that 150k is really short or anything but i reckon it will play redic tight as we get close to the money and there will be a sick amount of chips to be picked up if u have a stack. so many short stacks just trying to fold into the money. hopefully i get a decent table draw 2moro and can pick up some chips around the bubble. i have 12% of myself swapped out in this so hopefully i can give them a decent score too.

132.5k going into day 3

2009-07-08T09:34:00.000+01:00

today went well, started today with 75k and really struggled for the first couple of levels. couldnt hit a flop, cbets getting raised etc. the usual stressfull stuff. really felt like it was gonna be 1 of them days! was as low as 37k at 1 point. thankfully things changed and i started accumalating chips. my table was nice, it was pretty weak passive and no real big stacks. so as soon as i got a decent stack i began hoovering up chips. finished up on 132.5k with the average less than 100k. i still havent been all in in the tourney which is nice. lots of small pots. av. stack hasnt been below 80 bbs yet because of the sick structure.

2 days off now before day 3. enjoy vegas and strictly no poker until then. the pokerstars party is on thursday night so that should be good. gonna try not get too pissed though not a good idea showing up for a 12 hour day at the wsop with a hangover

75k going into Day 2

2009-07-04T09:58:00.000+01:00

played the main event today and im pretty happy with how it went. my table draw wasnt easy by any means but i still managed to pick up a decent amount of chips. 1116 players started which is alot less than many people may have expected (including myself.) it was a 30k starting stack and 2 hour levels which is a sick sick structure. not too sure exactly how many players survived today but my guess is around 25% of the field were eliminated so im well above average. im back on day 2a which is the 7th so i dont plan on playing until then. tomorrow is the 4th of july and ive nothing planned but im sure itll be a good night. all the other irish lads who were playing today all survived as far as i know. best of luck to all the other irish playing days b,c and d

The calm before the storm

2009-07-03T06:25:00.000+01:00

moved into the palms today and my girlfriend arrived. played very little poker over the past week or so. bein doin alot of partying and chilling out. went the ladbroker party, pkr party and went the palms 1 night with dave lucie and aload of us. was a great night! dave got us all vip treatment free entry free drinks etc. so cheers to him for that.went the pics twice and went bowling 1 night which was cool.im playing the main event tomorrow which is day 1a. thats the main reason i havent been playing any poker. wanted to keep myself as fresh and motivated as i could. had 3 deep runs out of 5 tourneys since i got here but no cash, so that was very disheartening. the main event will defo decide if its gonna be a profitable vegas this year. really happy with my game at the minute so hopefully i can just run good at the right time. ive swapped 2.5% with 4 other players apart from that im playing 100% of myself. considered selling % of myself but decided not too.

Early exit

2009-06-29T11:36:00.000+01:00

played the $1500 wsop event yesterday. it sold out and got around 2800 players. i lasted about 2 and a half hours unfortunately. never got going at all and went out in a race. at least i wasnt sitting there for 12 hours to finish just outside the cash. albert kenny arrived over a couple of days ago and is still in the event going into day 3 with 30 players left. hopefully he goes well tomorrow and final tables it. $660k for the winner. 5% of that will do me nicely.i unregistered from 2moros $1500 event. wasnt too pushed on playing it. so ill just rail albert 2moro and then go to the ladbrokes party 2moro night

Tournament..... GGGGRRRRRHHHHHHH

2009-06-27T10:39:00.000+01:00

played the venetian $340 on wednesday. it got 914 players and 88 paid. played really well and went deep. got knocked out 120th after about 12 hours. ggrrr!!! next day decided to give it another go, this time it was a $550 and got 664 players with 68 paid. i finished 82nd in this. another 12 hours poker for nothing! ggrrhhh! was really happy with how i played in both so sucks to play for like 24 hours in 2 days and be down $900. ah well, the score will come im sure.

bein doing really well playing live cash games over. i made it my business before i came over to try and develop my live cash game over here. up over $5k from playing $2-$5 and a $5-$10 session. so gotta be happy with that. havent played any more sngs which i planned. so so far ive played 4 mtts and im down $4400 played 1 sng up $970 and a decent amount of cash sessions which im up over $5k. so in small profit for the trip which is nice.

went out on the lash last night after the tourney, had a great night so chilled out all day 2day and we went to see the hangover tonight which was cool. chubbs arrived yesterday and albert kenny arrived 2day so the irish crew is increasing all the time. most of us are playing the wsop $1500 event tomorrow which is sold out. 2800 players max. not sure if therell be alternates. hopefully this will be the 1 for me.

2nd event down

2009-06-21T22:13:00.000+01:00

made an early enough exit from the $1500. was gone and all by the end of the 4th level. got it all in on the flop with a gutshot and a flushdraw. all the irish that are here seemed to be playing in it. every1 i know was gone early. wasnt in the mood of any poker after that. bumped into derek murray in the rio and spent the rest of the day chilling out had a few beers with him and jude in the room. jude is playing the $5k shootout today so best of luck to him. hes the only irish i know playing it. i havent any events now until saturday so ill prob try play the venetian at least once before then. gonna try play a few more live stts also

2nd bracelet shot!

2009-06-20T18:40:00.000+01:00

yesterday went well. had a bit of a lie on then went and done a bit of shopping, stocked up on the old food supplies. played my 1st live $1k sng yesterday which i came 3rd in for $2k but was pretty disappointed. there winner takes all games but deals can be done. so anyway we got down to 3 handed and well all had almost identical chipstacks so we decided to take $2k each and play on for $4k. up until now the game had actually bein playing fairly well but i still felt i had a big edge. neither of the other 2 guys seemed to be great. so after we done the deal i started picking up alot of small pots and before i knew it i had 25k (exactly half the chips in play). then this hand happens.
dealer who is playing 15k raises to 2400 with blinds at 400/800 im on sb with 25k and ship with 99. bb dwells up for ages and eventually calls for 9800. dealer folds. bb shows 9d 10d!! im like wtf! i know i had bein playing pretty loose and very agro at this stage but this call is shocking. anyway he obv hits a 10 and im down to 15k. got knocked out a few hands later blind on blind i had A 8 he had 99 and they held. so a disappointing finish but still $970 profit so cant be too angry. the rake in these games games is brilliant. its $15 on a $1k game which is pretty sweet.

played a few hours cash later on in the evening and won $1450 so was happy with that. i love the way when ur playing a live cash game over they give u lots of small demonination chips. like if u buy in to a cash game for $500 they give u it in all $5 chips. by the end of the night i was sitting there with $2150 all in $5s and some $1s. when i eventually dismantled my castle to cash out i filled 5 chip trays. lol.
anyway my 2nd wsop event the $1500 starts in 1 hour so hopefully i continue to run good when it counts

Close but no cigar

2009-06-19T11:09:00.000+01:00

played my 1st event today which was the $2k nlh. it got 1695 players so a nice prizepool! i got off to a good start and was really happy with how i was playing then in level 4 i lost a 10k pot when my kk was no match for 10 10 all in preflop. never really recovered from this and spent the rest of the day shortstacked. although i did battle on well. finished around 220th with 171 paid. got knocked out 30 mins from the end of the day. i seem to be making a habbit of this. my exit hand was standard enough i was down to 9800 with blinds of 500/1k folded to me on the button with 910s. i ship, bb calls with kj, no help on board gg me. : ( next event is on saturday. might play the ventian $500 tomorrow if im up early enough. john finished 24th in the $5k plo for $14k so nice result for him.

Vegas Baby!

2009-06-18T09:28:00.000+01:00

in vegas eventually after what felt like about 3 days travelling. got to the apt. about 7pm freshned up and headed out for something to eat. then straight to the live cash grind. donked off $800 very quickly. by 1am i could barely keep my eyes open so decided to head to bed and try sort out the jet lag. got up at like 7am this morning. body clock seems pretty fucked! done a couple of hours online and won $1k. done some more $2 $5 grinding in the rio and picked up $650. went for a walk down to the strip with paul to check out a few more casinos. quiet enough so far. john is still in the $5k plo going into 2moro aroung 60 players left and 36 paid i think. so good luck to him. im off to bed to get a good nights kip before my 1st event 2moro.

Vegas here I come

2009-06-14T17:44:00.000+01:00

well im starting to get pretty excited about vegas now. flying over at 11.15 am tuesday morning and due to arrive in vegas at 6.30pm U.S time. Ive spoke to john and paul who im staying with over there for the 1st couple of weeks and they both seem happy enough with the apartment so thats good. Helen is coming over on the 2nd of july and so ill be staying in the suite in the palms place from then on. very nice room! 2 balconies with sick views of the strip. two 42" plasmas jacuzzi etc.

made up my mind which events ill be playing over there. here they are.

Thu, Jun 18th12:00 PM3-Day Event
No-Limit Hold’em (Event 36) No Rebuy/Add-onsStructure Sheet

$2,000

Sat, Jun 20th12:00 PM3-Day Event
No-Limit Hold’em (Event 39) No Rebuy/Add-onsStructure Sheet

$1,500

Sat, Jun 27th12:00 PM3-Day Event
No-Limit Hold’em (Event 51) No Rebuy/Add-onsStructure Sheet

$1,500

Mon, Jun 29th12:00 PM3-Day Event
No-Limit Hold’em (Event 54) No Rebuy/Add-onsStructure Sheet

$1,500

and of course the $10k main event which starts july 3rd.so a total of 5 events and $16.5k buyins. hopefully i can run good in a couple of them. im put into the main event by stars for bein elite so thats nice. gonna play a few of the venetian and ceasers daily $500 and $1k tourneys too. stars party is on the 9th of july and nelly is performing at it this year. guaranteed to be a great night! free food and drinks etc. UFC 100 is on 11th july and i really wanna go to that.

online has bein goin much better the past week or so. was due a big week cos may was so shit. this week i played 705 sngs and made $4043 profit. also came 2nd in the uranus low orbit leaderboard and 3rd in the saturn hign orbit. so thats good for $1500 i think. made around 24k vpps. so altogether just under $8k for the week. nice way to finish up before vegas. always good to finish on a winning streak before a break. gonna try play a few online sessions while in vegas. not much obv just like 2 sessions a week. usually when i go away i never play any online poker but a month is just too long! id be afraid id get rusty or something. lol anyway thats it for now, ill post when im in vegas and settled. any1 reading wholl be in vegas in the next couple of weeks gimme a holla.

May...... Meh

2009-06-03T21:46:00.000+01:00

5 months down 7 to go in this year. and may was pretty meh! manchester was shit for obvious reasons. not just because we lost. weather, room mix ups nothing seemed to go right! 1 of the worse trips iver ever been on actually. anyway poker wise may was pretty shit too. played live once (the jp irish masters) which i came 10th in for 2250 profit. so that was ok. online i played almost 2300 sngs and was down $4k. not as bad as it sounds though cos i did get the $3k bonus for reaching 300 vpps. and made $450 from the sng leaderboards and made 350k fpps so still made a couple of k for the month. still not putting in enough hours though. especially with the hot weather recently ive been finding it hard to motivate myself to play.

so far this year ive earned 340k vpps which isnt great. i had planned on reaching the 400k mark before vegas but that looks unlikely now seen as its less than 2 weeks away. looking forward to that obv. my connection has been very dodgey on stars for the past week or so and is really annoying when playing so many tables. dont know what is causing it but really hope it gets better quick. also a game i was doin really well in has stopped filling up for some reason. so that sucks. its a relatively new gam on stars $100 90 man triple up. basically 1-30th gets $300. only played 30 odd of them but was running really well so disappointed they stopped filling.

cant make the short handed tourney thats on this weekend unfortunately as its my friends childs christening on saturday. would really have like to play this as i never played a live 6 max tourney. it should be a great game. might try play the side event on sunday if im not too hungover. could well be my last live game before vegas.

2009-05-21T03:45:00.000+01:00

well not much to report really. been a pretty dull month so far. havent played live since the irish masters and online is going pretty shit. played over 1700 sngs so far this month and im down over $6k. last week though i did get a $3k bonus for reaching 300k vpps so that was nice. and ive earned 55k vpps so far this month, so im actually in profit despite bein down over $6k! lol pretty funny come to think of it. even when i lose i win. didnt expect to run great this month though tbh cos i ran above expectation last month and made well over $20k.

went to see "I love you man" and "fighting" in the past week neither of them were much use.bought myself a new mouse a few weeks back. anyone who sits at a computer 30+ hours a week clicking away on a mouse will quickly realise how important it is to have a really comfortable mouse! my old mouse was wireless and it was a little small. giving me pains in my hand. wireless mouses are a really bad idea for anyone multitabling online poker i soon found out. bein wireless they need batteries obv! and what happens when uve got like 18 sngs going and ur mouse goes dead? oh fuck! not good trust me. scampering around the room like a maniac pulling the backs of remote controls looking for replacement batteries while your being timed out of all ur sngs with AA etc. and all u can do is watch. so anyway ye decided to get myself a top wired 1 as i didnt want this to happen again. very bad for the oul nerves. the mouse cost 90 euro which I thought was a bit of a rip. but then i went to monte carlo and paid 7 euro for a twix. so 90 for a mouse actually seemed very reasonable.

bought myself a 1 bed apartment in bulgaria a couple of years ago and its finally ready. ive been talking to the manager of the complex recently, sent me pics etc. and so im really excited about seeing that. gonna try get over to check it out some time in august. jeez its less than 4 weeks to vegas. really looking forward to that. itll be the 1st time ill have been away from home for more than 2 weeks and so that should be interesting.

anyway thats about it for now heading to manchester on wed for the champions league final so that should be good. hopefully i can run better online for the rest of the month. and have a graph i can post that im not embarrased about. until next week peace out.

JP Irish Masters

2009-05-10T22:38:00.000+01:00

played the irish masters in the red cow this weekend. it got 221 players. 750 buy in. finished 10th for 3k but was very disapointed tbh.40k for the winner. before i started this blog i said i wouldnt bother with hand histories as i find them very boring to read on other peoples blogs, but ill give my exit hand details just this once.

were 5 handed (final table bubble) blinds are 4k 8k 500 ante. im playing around 220k. im 2nd to act and raise to 23k with 10s 6s, button calls both blinds fold. flop comes down 8h 9s Js, i bet 35k button calls. turn comes down 4c. i ship 155k, he thinks about it for about half an hour and calls with As 4s. blank on the river and gg me. : (
had a really good think about it after i got home and calmed down a bit. and decided i am happy with how i played the hand. wasnt to be unfortunately but at least i ended my awful live mtt run. thatll prob be my last decent tourney before vegas. flying over on the 16th june till 15th july so looking forward to that. gonna play a couple of side events this year before the main event starts. gonna grind as much as possible before then as i dont plan on playing alot online in vegas. didnt do a whole lot of grinding since monte carlo so not much to report about online. gonna get stuck in this week. oh ye, i made up my mind i will be going for supernova elite again this year. stars are giving people that play the wsop 100k vpps, which is a huge help when going for elite. its 10% of what u need. ive only 280k vpps so far this year and so im a little behind schedule but ill catch up.

heading over to manchester for the champions league final on the 27th. obv its bein held in rome but the atmosphere in manchester for this is excvellent! went over for it last year and had great craic so decided wed head over again this year. kinda hoped wed be playing chelsea tbh as its nice beating other english clubs in the final, but ah well, beating barca will be just as nice im sure.

anyway thats about it for now, ill try update this at least once a week for any1 who can be arsed reading it so leave me a comment or a link to ur blog if u want me to add u 2 my blog list. gg : )

let the blogging begin!

2009-05-05T12:05:00.000+01:00

been meaning to set 1 of these up for quite a while now but just been too lazy i suppose. just back from the monte carlo EPT which meant no online poker for a week. (break from computers) so now is a good time to set 1 up i guess.

never really got goin in the main event, busted 5 mins from the end of day 1. folded to me on the button with A 10 sooty ive 18k blinds 400 800 75 ante. i raise to 2400 sb raises to 6400 i ship he calls with AQ gg me. :( guy who knocked me out went on to win it so at least i can say i was beaten by the best! lol. i was on the same table the whole day and it looked like a pretty awful table draw for me. had julian thew to my immediate left and juha helpi to his left. neither of them really got going either though, juha got moved after a couple of levels shortstacked and julian got knocked out a couple of levels later.

finished 7 off the money in a 1k side event with 250 runners. :mad: pushed 44 for 11 bbs from the cutoff ran into AA. :( was very happy with how i played in this even so sucked not to cash.

anyway overall monte carlo is a pretty shit place tbh. "alcatraz for millionares" the devilfish called it. nice place to go and witness i suppose. it is beautiful like. yachts and cars are pretty sick. a real eye opener in this "global recession" lol! reminder that therell always be sick wealth in the world no matter how things get. never seen so many super cars in 1 place in my life. in dublin guys cruise around in pimped out civics and lancers with noisey exhausts. over there they cruise around in lambos and ferraris. the older ones drive rollers bentleys and astons. lol

only decent night out i had was my last 1 when myself my girlfriend (helen) francis mcCormac (wally) roy brindley and the devilfish and his girlfriend were out. devilfish was a good laugh. 1st hour was just him and roy telling jokes. roy went home early cos they were flying out earlyish the next morning. (lightweight!!) imo. anyway we ended up goin back to a bar in the monte carlo bay hotel which had a pool table. and so me an the fish played 2 random english guys in a game of doubles. pwned them obv. no thx to me though tbh. he tried to convince them at the start to put a few quid on it but they werent having none of it unfortunately. ok im starting to ramble so ill finish up now. was my 1st time really meeting wally and roy and they seem pretty cool.ok so thats it for now leave me a comment or whatever if any1 actually reads this lol. peace out back to grinding online for me :)