It's that time of year where players start to reflect on the year they've had, and in some cases go a bit mad. (More on that later).

As the year draws to a close, it's time to look back and reflecting how I did overall this year and whst I can do better next year.

Online
Barring a major bink or downswing in the next few days, my bottom line profit for 2011 is comfortably over $200k but down on 2010. I probably worked harder this year online and had my biggest scores this year (a few 5 figure ones), and I think I ran ok overall (certainly not below expectation) so I think the dip is down to a couple of things:
(1) Game selection. I didn't game select as well this year as previous years. I tried a number of bigger higher prestige games and while I more than hold my own overall in these, these are essentially the poker equivalent of vanity publishing in my book (I summed up my thoughts on this during the week on IrishPokerBoards). Practically all my profit comes from $100 and less buyins. For example, on Stars this year, I beat all six levels I played decent volume at by a hefty margin (261% ROI in the $60-$100 group). Big Mick G and Jude both said to me in London at the EPT that there are no good games (apart from Sunday) with a buyin of over $150 these days: it's just the best players in the world swapping $'s and paying rake.
(2) Tougher year. Online inevitably gets tougher over time. Several of the other top Irish online players have seen their bottom line plummet this year. Some have even recorded losing years. At the end of the day (or year) when you toss in rakeback, bonuses and other extras, making over a quarter of a mill clicking buttons at home is more than acceptable.

Nicky (Power) said to me in Vegas a few years ago that the game passes everyone by in the end. This stuck in my memory and made me determined to make the most of it while I can still beat the game online. To be honest, live is so soft that I can't imagine ever reaching the situation where I wouldn't have a fairly clear edge outside of EPTs and WSOPs, but online I can definitely feel I might be looking at a 3-5 year shelf life. Hopefully when that point comes when I can't beat online any more by a worthwhile margin, I'll be able to step back, see it and walk away, without having to do my roll first all the time complaining about variance. They say that all political careers end in failure: too many successful poker careers end in busted bankrolls.

Live
2011 was my most profitable year live to date, helped in no small part by my second place finish at EMOP Dublin. But like my online year which was very consistent (I made approximately the same in both halves of the year, and don't think I had a losing month), I've been really consistent live this year in terms of notching up the results. I'll do a fuller summary in my end of year blog, but apart from EMOP Dublin, other highlights during the year included getting the "never cashed in an EPT main event" monkey off my back in the only EPT I played this year (Berlin), as well as the "never cashed in a WSOP event" one with 3 cashes in Vegas this summer. I also ended the year on a high chopping the Fitz main event and being on the winning team in the team event. My consistency this year is highlighted by the fact that I got a Hendon Mob entry every month this year except January and December, a total of 19 over the year which is my most ever in one year.

Onwards and hopefully upwards in 2012
Adding online and live together, 2012 was my most profitable year to date in poker. However, there's no disputing that I ran above Ev live (and possibly online too) so there's no room for complacency. I have to keep working to improve my game to stay ahead of the training sites curve. I have a very good brains trust of top players to discuss hands and strategy with. They're all top class players in their own right, and perhaps more importantly, they cover the entire spectrum of winning playing styles, so I get top class advice from every angle.

One thing I want to focus on more (again) in 2012 is game selection. Game selection has been the key to my career to date, allowing me to build from a bankroll of zero (I never deposited a cent online: everything I've won has been spun up from freerolls) following the path of least variance. While I'm now in a position bankrollwise to take a sustained and nasty downswing, and it could be argued it would be more profitable for me to focus on more profitable high variance games, I feel myself that I'm psychologically better equipped to deal with sailing along with no losing months (but also no massive scores). After all, I've always been a long distance runner, not a sprinter.

This year my game selection suffered slightly. I still made money across all the sites I played, and I played a good spread (my biggest winners this year were Bodog and Ipoker). But I definitely played quite a few games which would not be that profitable for me long term, so next year the plan is to stick more rigidly to the bread and butter games.

Live: well, we'll see what comes. Live is always such a small sample size that luck is the main determinant of success in any one year. That said, game selection is vital here too, and with the exception of the WSOP which I see as my one shot at glory every year, I won't be running around playing EPTs full of the best mtters in the world.

THIS GUY
I was finishing my night grind a few nights ago around 6 AM when my laptop started making that "You've got Skype" noise. Clicking the answer button, I heard the distinctive voice of Jono "Gawa9" Crute. As I recall, the conversation went along the lines of:

Gawa9: Doke, what's the name of that form you have to fill for the US?
Doke: Eh? Why?
Gawa9: Me and Karl Henrik are going to Detroit in a few hours.
Doke: Again, eh and why?
Gawa9: We just decided we wanted to go to the US.
Doke: When?
Gawa9: An hour ago.
Doke: And Detroit?
Gawa9: There were flights. What's that form?
Doke: ESTA. I'll skype you the link.
Gawa9: ESTA, that's it. Doke, you're a legend. See Karl Henrik, just gotta ask a Vegas veteran these things
Doke: When's your flight?
Gawa9: 10 AM. From Dublin airport.
Doke: Really? How you getting to Dublin?
Gawa9: Hmmmm. When do we need to be there?
Doke: Probably around 8, you have to clear immigration on this side.
Gawa9: Karl Henrik, we're gonna need a cab.
KH: Where to?
Gawa9: Dublin airport.
KH: OK.
Doke: You realise Detroit's not exactly one of the US's prettiest cities right?
Gawa9: Really? That sucks
Doke: Be like some Americans randomly deciding to fly to Milton Keynes for Christmas
Gawa9: That makes me sad
Doke: You're going through with this?
Gawa9: No choice now. Flights already booked
Doke: Enjoy Detroit so. Go visit a car factory and walk 8 Mile imo
Gawa9: Not doing 8 Mile! Can you ring my Mum and explain if I don't come back?

Obviously there was drink implicated, and Jono apparently woke up on a transatlantic flight wondering how he'd got there remembering only that he'd gone pub the night before. Since then, Facebook and Skype has been unusually entertaining with glimpses from the most awesome poker road trip ever. Highlights include a novel solution to what to do when you want to drive away from Detroit but have no credit card with which to rent a car (correct answer, it turns out, is ask a cop who drives you round to cheap second hand places where you eventually buy a red 1995 pickup), a decision to drive to Chicago stopping at the funniest town name they could find (Welcome to Climax was an early contender, but with no room at the Inn they ended up in Kalamazoo). I'm sure Jono will be posting a trip report on the crazy kid's blog at some point, but I just felt this whole moment of seasonal madness was just too good to go unnoted on my blog. Jono: in a world of people pretending to be "characters", you're a genuine eccentric, and I love you for it.

On paper, it looked easy enough: Dublin to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Manila. I knew from past experience that Amsterdam airport is big and can be tricky to connect through, but it was Hong Kong where I almost came a cropper.

Proof that I shouldn't be allowed out of the house alone, part one
Having been warned that Hong Kong doesn't do gate PA announcements, I located the Cathay Pacific flight to Manila on the screens and installed myself at the indicated gate. While I waited there in the eery silence, I availed of the free Wifi to chat to some friends. The spell and silence was eventually broken by a PA announcement warning Dara O'Kearney that his flight was now closing. I strolled over to the official. He strolled away. Another passenger looked at my ticket and pointed out it was not for this flight to Manila, but another one just leaving from some other gate. A quick look at the screens confirmed there were two Cathay Pacific flights to Manila, and the one I was supposed to be on was departing. As I checked the gate, the flight literally disappeared from the screen. A panicked run through the terminal and I zoned in on an empty gate with no display but two security guards. Good news: this was the gate. Bad news: the flight had departed. As I was processing this piece of info, a female Cathay Pacific hostess emerged pointing at the shute and shouting "run! run!" Having no reason to believe that this was anything other than sound advice, I ran ran. Down the shute, round the corner, and I literally hurdled into the plane as the door was sliding shut. The air hostesses on the plane found this incredibly amusing.

This is Manila
My first impression of Manila was that it was a symphony of praise to chaos theory. On the cab ride in from the airport, I observed that motorists paid little heed to lanes or the like, but liked to beep their horns every few seconds. The cab weaved in and out and around to a constant cacophony of beeps. Took a bit of getting used to, but once I did it seemed to me that as lawless and chaotic as it appeared, traffic was flowing much faster than it would anywhere people respected lane rules and traffic lights.

The hotel where the tournament was taking place was booked out for the first night, so I scooted round the corner and found another. Scooting is probably not a good verb here: although the hotels were only a few hundred metres apart, every time I walked it it felt a bit like obstacle course with the beggars, the hustlers, the street kids, the working girls, the street traders and the unreliable pavement. The kids were probably the saddest aspect: I read in the local paper that there are an estimated quarter of a million of them here. Kids as young as four trained to trot along beside you, one hand outstretched to beg, the other tapping you gently on the belly or side to get your attention. I find it very hard to see such visible desperate poverty, and not feel a bit guilty and worthless when I reflect that I make a small fortune from exploiting a superior knowledge of game theory and probability.

Day 1c
I'd originally planned to play 1b (Friday, the day after I got there) of the Manny Pacquiao World Poker Open (which despite the name was an APT event rather than a WPT one) but my friend Mark Dalimore who had arranged this entire trip was delayed and didn't arrive in time to play it, so we both registered that evening to play 1c, the last day. A few pool tables had been set up in the poker room. Manila is infamous for its pool hustlers and Mark willingly donated. I decided an early night was in order for me. Surprisingly I was having no jetlag problems but a good night's kip before a major tournament is never a bad idea.

I didn't get too much to play with all day but managed to work my way up to double stack near the end of play by making the most of what I did get. It wasn't the kind of field where you could do anything fancy without cards, so I stuck to value betting much bigger than I normally would. A series of minor setbacks late in the day saw me drift back from 30k to finish with 21k, 21 bbs when we came back for day 2. We'd lost two thirds of the field so I was well below average but still reasonably optimistic.

Mark got knocked out early and turned up late in the day with legendary Welsh wizard Dave "El Blondie" Colclough, who lives out here now. Dave had played 1A and got through as one of the chipleaders.

Day 2 - Take 1
Day 1 ended early, around 9.30 PM, a pleasant change from tournaments back home where you play til 4 AM and have to be back less than 12 hours later. I was in bed by 10, keen to stick to the plan to get enough sleep as possible. When I moved from marathon running to ultra running, I hooked up with Norrie Williamson as my coach. Nobody has studied ultra running as scientifically in the world as Norrie: he literally wrote the book on how to train, eat and live for optimal performance. Nobody has yet done anything like that for poker, and it remains a matter of conjecture rather than scientific method as to how much things like good diet, general fitness and rest affect poker performance. One thing I've noticed from observing most of the top players who are consistent performers is that they sleep far more than I do, and far more than the average person. Given that the key skill that top poker players have (particularly online players who multitable) is the ability to identify and process relevant information at lightning speed and make decisions, it is not surprising that an activity which places such high demands on the brain requires that the brain be given ample recovery in the form of sleep. I've never been very good at sleeping. This flaw was a major advantage when I was running 24 hour races but may not be when it comes to playing poker (although mental stamina and the ability to make good decisions when tired is important in tournaments with long days), so that recently I've been trying to improve my sleeping (or at least do more of it).

I slept straight through until almost 7 AM. When I woke and saw the time, I decided to try for another hour or two's kip, since we weren't due to start back until 1 PM. Next time I opened my eyes, I read 1.46 on the clock. I hurled myself out of the bed and into my clothes, and on the sprint to the Pan Pacific, I frantically tried to work out how much of my stack if any I likely had left. Up 5 flights of stairs and into an empty casino except for cleaning staff. I figured I must have blinded out but where was everyone else? Checking the time on my mobile phone (which was still on Irish time), I found it was almost midnight back home. Subtract 8 hours, so it's 4 PM? No, wait, that's Vegas that you subtract 8 hours from GMT, here you add 8, so.......8 AM. I slunk back to the hotel cursing the clock in my room which I was convinced had malfunctioned. But when I got there, it read 8.15 AM. Somehow I'd read 7.46 as 1.46. The following photo taken at 7.59 illustrates that this is easier than it sounds.

Day 2 - Take 2
If someone had told me that I'd be gone within a couple of orbits, I'd have assumed it meant I waited for a standard reshove spot, got called, and lost. But while I was indeed gone in a couple of orbits, in that time I got myself into a spot where I was more than a 4 to 1 favourite to move into the chiplead in the tournament. So, quite an eventful half hour.

Hand 1: I raised an ace in late position and get the blinds and antes to move to 23k.
Hand 2: I'm not in this hand, but it was hugely significant in hindsight given what followed. El Blondie opened in early position, called by a loose local just behind, and an elderly guy in the blinds. Flop was 744, it's checked to the local who fires in a chunky bet, the elderly guy raises, El Blondie flats, and the local folds. The turn is an 8 and the old guy shoves and gets snapped by Dave Colclough. The hands are 33 and A4s. The old guy catches his 2 outer on the river to cripple Dave and become table chipleader.
Hand 3: After 2 more blind steals that see me move up to 27k, I flat a late position raise from a loose aggro French guy I barely cover with kings in the big blind. I check call an ace high flop, and a blank turn. When a second ace hits the river, it gets checked down and my kings are good. I'm now up to 40k.
Hand 4: The French guy limps utg playing 15k. I find AQ on the cutoff and raise to 3K, happy to get it in if he shoves. The local on the button flats, as does the French guy, The flop comes AT4 with 2 spades, I cbet 5k, the local raises to 13500, the French guy folds, and I shove. The local folds. I'm up to 50k.
Hand 5: Two more blind steals and I have 55k. I find aces in early position, and make my standard raise to 2200. The local just behind who seems to be gunning for me since Hand 4 flats. The old guy in the blinds who also seems frustrated by my apparent aggression threebets to 5600, I four bet to 12500, and after an eternity, the old guy shoves. He has kings, and binks on the turn, which is fair enough.

That's poker
I wouldn't be human if I didn't feel a bit sick as I walked back to my hotel. It's a long way to come to sit and wait patiently for more than a day for the rush to come, and then when it does and you get it in 81/18 to move into the chiplead in one of the softest 4 figure buyin tournaments ever as the bubble starts to loom on the horizon and you know that with a stack you'll be able to cruise to a megastack. One of the things I like about online poker is that no one tournament ever means too much if you do it right: it's ultimately just one in a sample size of tens of thousands. But live is slower and sample size necessarily tiny by comparison, so it seems like every tournament matters more (even if it really doesn't. I was talking to Lappin recently about my "take it or leave it/not that pushed either way" attitude to chops and said jokingly I wish I'd chopped Dublin EMOP headsup as I'd be 10-15k richer. Lappin responded saying 10k is nothing compared to what you will win in your life playing poker).

However, I shrug these setbacks off quicker than most. Mark, great friend that he is, took only a few minutes to learn of my demise and come over to check up on me. He said he expected to find me committing hara kiri, and was astonished at how positive I seemed. It generally takes 10 minutes or so for the mists of disappointment to clear, but once they do I'm done with it and already thinking about the next tournament.

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Welshman walk into a bar
The following day I spent some time chilling with Mark by the pool, then we met Dave for some midday drinks. Dave's a great guy with a great attitude: despite all he's achieved in poker to date, his ego doesn't seem to cloud his perception and his desire to keep up with the ever evolving game. Mark always gives me some interesting stuff to consider every time we meet. This time he suggested that I might benefit from either a total break from poker, or regular mini breaks. My work ethic is probably the one thing I get the most comments and compliments on from other players, and I do see it as one of my biggest strengths, but there may be a case for taking more breaks as periods of reflection, so I don't end up chasing my tail.

This year is winding down, and overall it's my most successful year to date (albeit only marginally more so than last year). It's a natural point at which to stop, reflect, and plan for next year. On the poker front, I think I need to narrow my focus to home in on the games that mean the most to me (live) and are (likely to be) the most profitable for me online. Away from the table, I probably need to get a bit more balance back into my life, and give greater consideration to my health, fitness and diet. I'm almost 2 stone heavier than when I was running, and while it's unlikely I'll ever tip the scales at 10 and a half stones again, I want to drop at least a stone.

Downtime
Busting a tourney relatively early with no side events to play and an internet connection too unreliable to play online (I did try though!) makes for a fair amount of down time. Generally when you're abroad you're drawing to a few movie channels and a music channel or two as far as English speaking stuff goes. I found myself watching a lot of Fox News, purely as entertainment, something I generally associate with Vegas. Now that they're not even pretending to be in any way balanced any more, it's always good for a giggle. Usually this takes the form of endless variation on current far right wing dogma (currently there's a feverish attempt to portray the Republican nomination process as anything other than a parade of Crazy Bobs), but one amusing piece that caught my eye was some bloke who wrote a book on how to win the lottery (seriously: or at least how to increase your odds of so doing).

Apparently it boils down to three basic tips (how he managed to expand this into an entire book is surely a more miraculous feat than his claim to have won the lottery 7 times):
(1) When buying 10 scratch cards (this in itself qualifies the tip as a fail), buy ten from the same game rather than spreading it over 10 different games
(2) When deciding which scratch cards to buy, check how many grand jackpots for each are still in play (apparently they make this information available to the public in the US)
(3) Don't QuickPick: always play the same numbers.

(1) is basically a trick of mathematical semantics. Let's say each scratch card has a 1 in a 1000 chance at the start of winning because 1,000,000 were issued and 1000 are winners. If you buy cards from ten different games, each card has precisely a 1 in a 1000 chance. But if you buy from the same game, you have to factor in losers (in the same way you remove known cards from poker probability calculations). So if the first one is a dud, the second one has a slightly higher chance of being a winner (1 chance in a 999999/1000). If that's a dud, the chances that the third one is a winner is ever so slightly higher, and so on. Therefore, your chances of scoring precisely 1 winner in your batch of ten is very slightly higher than if you buy ten different games. The key phrasess in that last sentence are "precisely 1 winner" and "very slightly higher". The increase is almost insignificant: if the first nine are duds, your chances of the tenth being a winner rise from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 999.991. Big whoop. Also, this increased chance is "paid" for by it being significantly less likely you'll score more than one winner using this method. Either way, your expected value is precisely the same: the only difference is that when you buy ten from the same game more of this equity resides in your chance of hitting one winner. Naturally, the guy didn't explain any of this or the math underlying the other two points: he just presented them as indisputable facts.
(2) actually has some mathematical validity. Or rather, could have, if he related it number of cards remaining. In the example he quoted, he said that you should always go for the option with the highest number of grand prizes remaining. This is not true. If option A has 6 grand prizes remaining but only 10% of the cards sold to date, then it's a much worse proposition than option B which has 5 prizes remaining but 90% of cards already accounted for.
(3) is not only rubbish: it's actually wrong. Whether you pick the same numbers every week or you do a random QuickPick, your chances of winning are precisely the same. The only difference is that it's actually worse (in terms of expected value) to pick the same numbers every week as there's a much higher chance you'll split the jackpot if you do win as opposed to the quickpicker.

The Fox presenters of course lapped up this nonsense without any attempt at criticism. I guess it's what they're programmed to do when dealing with right wing nuts spouting propaganda: it's probably naive to expect them to develop the ability to think critically all of a sudden just because the topic changed from voodoo economics to junk mathematics. Fair play to your man who wrote the book though: good game selection sir. If you need to reach the gullible fools who would be your target audience here to lap this nonsense up, where better to promote yourself than on Fox?

With barely a day to recover from my return from Riga, I was starting to feel very like a live pro as I headed into the Fitz to play their supersat for the main event there. The festival ran for a full week, and my plan was to play at least 5 of the 7 days.

Having played it cautious and folded my way through early card death, I was hoping to exploit the tight image when the shipping portion started. Unfortunately, one of the D4 lads who it's safe to say wouldn't be buying the tight old man image got moved to my table just as the time to cash in on the image arrived, and first time I shipped KQs over a Vera Duffy limp, he snap reshoved AQ and held.

Thursday was effectively the end of month, rebranded as part of the festival. I ended up bubbling the final table. When I reshoved A6s over Dave Masters button raise and got called, I was happy to see him turn over A4o. Two rag aces are often a chop, but when the first card to flop was a 6, this was looking less likely, and it seemed I was on my way to a doubleup. However, a 4 appeared beneath it on the flop, and another on the turn to send me packing. Dave went on to chop the event with James Waldron, both continuing a fine run of recent form. Also well done to my friend Padraig "Smidge" O'Neill whio chopped this last month and was unlucky not to do so again this month after final tabling.

I took Friday off (or rather grinded online) but was back the next day for the main event. First there was a diversion to Ken Doherty's place to contribute an interview to Eoghan O'Mahony's documentary on Irish poker. I ran into Parky who was there to do livestream commentary on the IPO final table. Anyone who has read his recent blog will know he was less than happy with the performance of his team, in particular one member. He filled me in on the gory details and other gossip from the event.

After my interview with Eoghan, I stuck around Brady's bar where they were streaming the IPO final table. There was a brilliant atmosphere there: all the final tableists brought their own supporters, particularly Rory Brown whose cheer section was led by the inimitable Tom Kitt. There was also a good crew of the young Waterford lads I've become pally with this year, to support Mark O'Connor. Mark's online record suggests he was the strongest player on the table, but was hampered by being the short stack. In those situations it often means you need to get lucky early on, and he did just that, getting it in dominated but getting there to double up. The other Irish lads started short too, but any worries about them being first out were quickly allayed. Rory played a waiting game early on and his patience was rewarded when he caught a few big hands to propel into the chiplead. He and Mark got it in virtually flipping, and Rory was looking good to win when he held. However, it was Paul Purcell who stayed under the radar to get headsup with the eventual winner. Well done to the 3 lads though.

From there I sped into town with Nick Newport who drives like he plays for the Fitz main event. I could have had an easier table: Conor "TommyGunne" Fennell a few to my left peppered me with three bets, and further on down there was Smidge, and IWF champ John Keown. I managed to keep out of trouble and chipped up steadily to end the day with over 80k despite losing a couple of big races. The biggest pot I won eliminated John Keown: I flatted a raise called by John in the blinds with tens, flopped top set, and got the lot in on the turn which gave John a smaller set. This left me fourth in chips overnight much to many people's surprise given my reputation as someone who grinds short to medium stacks rather than accumulates big ones. In fact, I think I get big stacks as much as most top players, but the fact that when I don't I tend to hang on longer than most with the short stack creates the image of a short stack specialist.

In the event, my status as a big stack didn't survive long into day 2, half of it disappearing when I lost a race. A while later I lost another one and was looking at elimination with just 4 big blinds left, but I staged one of my trademark recoveries to make the final table. With 6 left, three of us were approximately level in chips, and the other three while shorter were not yet desperate, so a deal seemed prudent. Eventually we agreed that my good friend Rob Taylor, Declan O'Connell and me would take €8500 each, with Big Mick G, Jude McCarthy and James Waldron taking €7500 each. We played on for the remaining €2250, which Jude claimed after he overcame a 3:1 deficit headsup with Rob. It was another great effort by Rob who hasn't played live much this year but has still managed to final table the Irish Open and chop the Fitz end of month tournament a few times. He was unlucky not to claim the win here: had his jacks held against Jude's A4o ghe would have, but it was not to be. Big well done to Jude too who was a reg when I started going to the Fitz first 4 years ago and is one of the few regs from back then still in the game.



The following night, Rob and I were back for the team event. Calling our team the Old Nits, we were joined by Smidge and possibly the best online mtt player in Ireland Lappin (David, but generally known by his surname which is also his screen name). Rob only made himself available at the last minute and I had been intending to ask Daragh "Mongoose" Davey (in my opinion one of the best young live players on the scene if not the best) to join our team. In the end, Mongoose (as he is affectionately known) assembled a team of his own that included Nick Newport. On paper, they looked like our main competition, and once the tournament got underway it became clear they saw us as theirs, as they were targeting us specifically. With all four of them having immediate position on all four of us, this gave them a big advantage, and seriously curtailed our play. In team events, it is almost always the team which keep all four members in the tournament the longest that ends up winning, so it's crucial to avoid early bustouts, and we all managed this. Rob and Smidge are nits by nature, and I reverted to my original style for the occasion, which just left Lappin to worry about, but he assured us he would do his best not to get a hundred big blinds in preflop with AQ early on :)

I got almost nothing to play with and with Team Mongoose member Noel who I have a fair bit of history with sitting to my right making it clear he was calling my shoves with any 2 and trying to verbally goad me into shoving light, I let myself get a lot lower than I would have in an individual event while I waited for a decent spot. Noel was good to his word and when I finally found a pair of fours in the small blinds, he called with J3o. I held, which bought me some more time. Next time I shoved I wasn't so lucky, my AT losing to his Q9. I was less than pleased by some of the Mongoose celebrations that accompanied my exit (I know it's a team event, but still) and a comment Noel made to me in the heat of the moment, so I went for a walk round the block to clear my head before coming back to rail my remaining teammates. I came back to find Smidge had also been dogged and eliminated by a Mongoose. Things weren't looking that promising for us until a moment of madness by my vanquisher Noel was trumped by a moment of genius from Lappin. Having raised a pair of eights, Lappin saw Noel and the big blind call. The T44 flop was checked around, a 6 appeared on the turn, and Lappin made a weak looking quarter bet pot, called by Noel. A 5 on the river saw Lappin check, and then Noel unexpectedly shoved for several times pot. Lappin quickly concluded that, in his words, "the bet made no sense" and called. Noel had king high and had crippled himself and propelled Lappin into the chip lead. Both he and Rob outlasted the remaining Mongooses, to clinch the team title (in the end, it was Marc Brody's American team which almost snuck up the inside to take advantage of the Nits and the Mongeese spending too much time worrying about each other). Poker's not really a team sport, and as the Fitz paid us and took our "winning team" photo they commented that we were the only team that stuck around to rail each other, but these team events are always good fun and a pleasant change from the ruthless individual events.

The biggest problem with playing all this live stuff is it eats into the day (or night) job: grinding online. I eased myself back in Tuesday, and managed a few final table on Stars. Then it was back on a plane, this time heading for Manila (via Amsterdam and Hong Kong) for Manny Pacquaio's World Poker Open.

Humans have a basic need to socialise and form bonds with their work colleagues and peers. We all need to be able to talk to people who understand the specific stresses and challenges of our chosen profession. These peer groups essentially function like modern tribes, with their own language (or jargon: a non poker friend commented once to Mrs. Doke that after I started playing, "all your husband's Facebook and Twitter messages seem to be written in a code only other gamblers understand") culture and customs. This need is so strong that neither distance nor isolation can prevent it. Truckers turned to CB radio, while online poker players use Skype.

What makes poker almost unique is that the peers with whom you form these tribal bonds are also your biggest competitors: the ones trying to crush your dreams and take your money. It's not unusual for, say, boxers to form close bonds of friendship after they've knocked lumps out of each other, but it would be unheard of them to travel to the fight together side by side in the same car or plane, and back home after one had crushed the dreams of the other. But in poker, well, it happens all the time, and we develop protocols, customs and psychological defences to deal with being on both the giving and receiving end.

It happened to me and my friend Phil Baker recently. Phil picked me up in the early hours, we travelled on a plane together to Riga, knocked each other out of a couple of tournaments, and then travelled back home together afterwards.

A good contingent of Irish travelled for the EMOP grand final in Riga, and all the advance buzz on the city itself was negative. When people who come from Tallaght are telling you Riga is a horrible unhospitable and dangerous place, you do start to be a little afraid. On this occasion however, the collective experience of the Irish who travelled was much more positive. No muggings or rapes to report, just plenty of good times and friendly locals.

Most of the Irish were staying at the Radisson, the official hotel where package winners were playing. Both Feargal Nealon and myself had transferred our packages won in Clontarf castle for Barcelona (I got mine at the last Team Irish Eyes member standing, and Feargal hacked his way round a golf course to get into a freeroll which he duly won). The bigger buyin here meant hotel was no longer covered, so Feargal sourced a cheaper option nearby for us.

We were met at the airport by a friend of Phil's, Artak, who used to deal in the Jackpot before moving back home. Artak gave us the local run down, but also started to wind Feargal and me up about our hotel, saying it was a fleapit located in the worst part of town (in actual fact, it was basic but great value, and the area was just round the corner from the Radisson).

We went to get something to eat in one of those cheap student places you find in most European cities that would be marketed as trendy organic something and charge ten times as much if they existed in Dublin or London. After an incident where one of our party who shall remain nameless broke protocol and started helping himself to the food being served, Phil impressed us with an intervention in flawless Russian. Whatever he said pacified the situation (he later told me it was along the lines off "Please forgive my dumb tourist friend, he's from Sligo").

One of the biggest problems of travelling to live events is it forces you to abandon your regular sleep pattern. Midday flights are the worst (effectively they're like 4 AM flights for normal people if you're an online grinder used to playing 6 PM to 6 AM and then sleeping until the afternoon). After conking out for a few hours, Feargal and I were up just in time to scoot over to the casino to play the supersat. We both went the route of maximum efficiency buying in late and busting early, though the nature of the competition was encouraging. I got it in with KQ versus a bare king high flush draw on a queen high flop. The flush draw called it off too, but got there on the turn. Not nice when they get there, but you don't want to be discouraging such "bravery" in the long term when you meet it.

There were two day 1's, and most of us decided to play 1A. With only 80 runners, this meant a high likelihood of being on the same table as some other Irish. I was plonked right beside Phil Baker, and across from Noel O'Brien. After one big hand early on where a local 6 bet folded kings to my 7 bet having put almost half his stack in before convincing himself I had aces, I lost a few small pots in the early skirmishes, and then a big one to Noel where we both had an overpair to the board on the river. His was unfortunately bigger than mine, and better disguised since he'd flatted it in the blinds. I was so unsure about the hand afterwards that I ran it by 5 different people who I regularly swap opinions with on hands, and my confusion was not helped by the fact that all 5 suggested a different way to play it (also different from mine). The sixth person I asked, Jason Tompkins, said he'd played it as I played. Since Jason's the only one who has played a good bit with Noel, I guess this made me feel better.

That left me with a reshipping stack just before dinner, and Phil seemed like a good target to come over the top off as he was opening most of the time it was folded round to him. I eventually reshipped AJ, and when Phil snapped I knew I was facing an uphill battle, as there's no hand Phil snaps with I'm ahead of, and not even that many I'm flipping with. Worst fears confirmed: he had AKs. I pulled ahead on the turn and thought I was still ahead after the river until Phil said "Unlucky Dara" snd I noticed for the first time he'd caught a runner runner flush. Phil's a gent and there was no boisterous celebrations or obvious delight at my demise (in fact he seemed more depressed about it than me) or IPB/Facebook brags. A more gracious winner you could not hope to meet.




The exit from any big tournament always feels a bit like a little death, and I never feel particularly social afterwards, so I just spent the evening in my hotel room grinding a bit online. Losing hurts, but then it's supposed to.

The following day was a day off with the 1B runners getting their shot. I ran into a good contingent of Team Irish Eyes players at the casino and

wished them better luck than the 1A contingent (only Phil got through, and he had only barely advanced on starting stack). I also had a good chat with Connie, who was telling me about some exciting plans for 2012. Watch this space. Unfortunately, 1B was an even bigger disaster than 1A from an Irish standpoint, with nobody surviving the day.

It was a big holiday in Latvia, their Independence Day, so myself, Feargal and Jason Barton's Da Les headed into town for the celebrations and fireworks. When we alighted from our cab to join the throngs heading to the river for the fireworks, it was like a scene out of Schindler's List, with everyone thronging in one direction towards the river. We stepped out of the Pied Piper rat like procession to have a few bevies. Like his son, Les is a very interesting guy who has been intimately involved in the snooker world (he was Ronnie O'Sullivan's de facto manager, and heads up the Players Union) and he had some very interesting insider insights to that world. We eventually tore ourselves away from the comfort of the bar as the fireworks were starting. Our view was obscured by buildings so we walked down to the river, arriving just in time to miss the last firework. We'd literally turned the corner to an unobscured view when the whole crowd started clapping and dispersed. Wp us.

I played the side event the following day, making the second last table, before getting it in dominated again against a very good young Lithuanian player. He was autoraising the button so I figured A9s was well ahead of the range, but he had AQ and held. Around the same time Phil got knocked out of the main (in a very creditable 13th).

On Sunday, I went for a walk round the park in the centre with Feargal. Very charming and surreal park: at one point we ran into a celebration by the lake (it looked like a birthday party) accompanied by a musical duo on brass and accordeon. The last official event on the calendar was a one day turbo on the Sunday. Most of us played this. I busted on the second last table (again!) and headed to dinner with Feargal. One very nice steak later, we were back at the casino. With a few of us hanging round at a loose end (there was no cash action), Phil took it upon himself to get a sit n go going. After some debate over the buyin, it was agreed to allow people to buy in for either 100 Lats (about 150 euro) or 200. I intended to go for 200 but my card was maxed out so I bought in for the lesser amount, something of a bad beat as I ended up winning the thing.

The structure was exceptionally good for a sit n go so it went on for hours. Given this plus the absence of antes, I decided tight was right. In the early going, the more aggro players were knocking lumps out of each other and taking the piss out of myself and Jason Barton (who was playing even tighter than I was). There was some great banter at the table, mostly centred on Phil. At one point Feargal sucked out on Noel and did a hilarious victory dance, which Noel took in good spirits. The "tight is right" school of thought was reenforced when the dust settled and the last three standing were myself, Jason and the tightest of the Scandis.

One final bit of Phil Baker hilarity to report: he pulled the funniest hit and run I've ever seen. While we were in the middle of our sit n go, a bunch of Chinese lads appeared enquiring about a cash game. Some of the live cash pros in our midst were licking their lips as the lads sat down at a cash table near us, but their enthusiasm evaporated when they saw everyone buying in for the bare mimimum 50 Lats. As I came back from a 5 minute break, I was surprised to see Phil sitting down at their table to play, as he was still in the sit n go. Before I had time to ask him what he was doing, he had straddled, everyone had folded, and he'd walked away thanking the lads for the game and the three Lats.

I'd been looking forward to JP's mini WSOP as something different on the calendar and while the numbers were probably disappointing for JP and all involved, that was the only disappointing aspect of another great JP festival.

I made a decent start in the 6 handed but ultimately went out near the bubble when my AK couldn't hold against Stewie Samuels AJ. While I was there, Big Iain recorded this interview with me talking about the festival:



The following day I was back for the main event. Tough table and card death meant I was happy enough to get out of the day with just over starting stack. I hung around for much of day 2 with a similar stack, then started to chip up until I finally caught a hand. I took a risk slow playing a set in a three way pot and reaped the reward of a full triple up to move to over 200k. I continued to chip up til I lost a big race, and then shortly after the bubble I lost most of my stack with a rivered flush against a rivered house. Another lost race eventually saw me bust in 28th for a min cash (I also chopped the Irish Poker Boards Last Longer).

The following day I played the 8 game. The most interesting hand was against Kevin Fitzpatrick in 2 to 7 Triple Draw and it ended rather bizarrely with me mucking my queen high hand after Kevin declared his hand as ten high. When the dealer spread his cards out popped an ace so he had misdeclared his hand, but because I'd already mucked he was still awarded the pot. My mistake I guess for mucking without seeing all his cards. I never really recovered from this and didn't trouble the scorers.

I also did some livestream commentary with David Lappin and Iain Cheyne on the main event final table which you can listen to here. Some great insights from Mr. Lappin and I hope we'll get to share the mic together again some time.



I've been falling a bit behind on the blog front of late. Last week I played the EMOP grand final in Riga in the company of a great bunch of Irish lads. Full trip report with sordid details following shortly on that one.

One of these days, or years rather, I'll get a run in a one of the two big annual Paddy Power live events. Just not this year. I'd prefer if it came in the Irish Open, but at this stage I'd settle for the Open's less attractive sister, the Winter Festival. Pretty much nothing went to plan in this year's version, even my wardrobe. I'd qualified online for the Sole Survivor online so had to wear the Sole Survivor gear. In previous years this consisted of a top and optional hoody, so I bounced into the Burlington in my usual poker gear thinking I'd swap my shirt for the tshirt and keep my jacket. Unfortunately there was no tshirt this year: just a hoody. Matters got worse when it emerged the hoody was far too hot to actually wear in the room. And got even worse again when having got permission to take it off and put it on the back of the chair, I found that the inside of the jacket had molted onto my black shirt which was now covered in green fluff. There's a rather horrible photo of this floating around. I look homeless and demented. Dealer Izzy tried to convince me it looked like a cool designer shirt from a distance. Sick bluff, but I appreciated the effort. Andy Grimasson on the other hand couldn't stop chuckling and pointing out "the shirt just looks ridic Doke" at regular intervals.




The poker didn't really go much better. I moved a little up from starting stack but after dinner everything went wrong. A series of small pots and minor setbacks left me short and having to push, and when I did with AJs, I ran into AK.

Undeterred by my exit, I was back the next day mainly to rail some friends still in. Rebecca McAdam also grabbed me for this interview:




There was some debate with the cameraman as to which side he should film from, a debate I settled definitively when I pointed out that it really made no difference as I have no "good" side, and Rebecca no bad one.

I also played two side events without troubling the scorers. I got a good start in both. In the last one, I 4 bet shoved kings into ace king which pulled ahead gamely on the turn. That pretty much summed up my weekend on the poker front, but you can't expect to cash every tournament and claim to be sane, and given that this is already my best ever live year nobody should be expected to put up with me whining about going a few games without a cash. My good friend and Irish Eyes teammate Mick Mccloskey told me that one of his many fans told him recently that his 10th Hendon mob cash this year made him the most consistent Irish player this year in terms of numbers of live cashes. Mick was feeling chuffed about this until I pointed out I have 15 on my Hendon mob for this year. All the best friendships are based on ruthless honesty in my view.

A few of my good friends went deep in the main event. One I tipped to Neil Channing as one to watch for the future was Daragh "Other Daragh" Davey. Daragh has a tremendous attitude and has all the skill discipline and patience needed to get to the very top in this game. He went deep in the recent European 6 max, and again here. He always seems to get horribly unlucky in the end (this time he got it in with AK v A4 in a massive pot with 20 left) but if he keeps getting into position it's only a matter of time before the big one comes. Feargal "MidniteKowby" Nealon got even unluckier, losing twice to an underpair. Other honourable mentions to Colette "Smurph" who went deep yet again, Niall "sicko" Smyth who looked like a rather unique treble was on for a while, and Chris Dowling who keeps popping up at these final tables. I did some live stream commentary on the final table with lovely Rebecca, the inimitable Emmet "epic" Kennedy and Downtown Rory Brown. Chris was particularly unlucky not to finally claim an elusive big title. Former WSOP main event final tableist, the great Scott Gray, left a message saying how much he enjoyed listening my commentary, which I thought was very nice until he added that he now had a better idea of how I play and the thought process I go through, very handy free information he will no doubt hope to use next time we play. Cheers Scott :)

I read an interview with a famous cartoonist once (Gary Larson I think) where he was asked what advice he'd give aspiring cartoonists. When probed further after answering "Become a dry cleaner", he pointed out that as a professional cartoonist himself it wasn't in his interest to help anyone become competition to him, but there was a shortage of good dry cleaners where he lived. I often think of this whenever players come to me looking for poker advice. My natural inclination is to help when asked to do so, but I've had other players saying I'm hurting us all by doing so.

In the bar of the Burlington drowning my sorrows after busting, a man who was still very much in and would go on to win over 50 grand in the tournament was telling me how much he likes the weekly advice letters I write that are sent out to everyone who signs up to my sponsors Irish Eyes. A big well done to Noel O'Brien who has only been playing at this level a couple of years but showed himself to be fearless and unfazed. Noel's on a bit of a run at the moment too and I expect to see him at more final tables in the future. It's fair to say I get a good bit of (mostly) friendly stick over the Letters from Doke, so it's nice to hear at least one person appreciates them.

The ultimate winner was popular Northern Irish bookie, John Keown. John's been a good friend of mine for almost as long as I've been playing poker and like everyone else he's had to ride through his fair share of lows so I was delighted to see him land a big score. John recently bought me breakfast in Cork so good karma I say. Anyone hoping to bink big: just buy me breakfast some time.

Theos Rippis is an Aussie mate of mine (and also Feargal Nealon). A self described recreational player, I spent a good bit of time with him in Vegas at the WSOP last summer, and he came up with the idea of doing a bankroll challenge grinding 180 mans. I gave him some very general guidelines and strategy tips to get him going (mostly around bubble play, effective stack sizes, bankroll management and push/fold) and off he went.

Theos has written an excellent blog report on how it's gone so far and his thoughts here

My 180 man experience and knowledge is well out of date at this point and I think Theos has gone past the point where I can give him much useful input, so I'd be very grateful if any guys with current experience of grinding the 180 mans could have a look and give him some feedback.

As an aside, there was a lot of talk about Martin Stasko's chess background recently. Theos is a much better chess player, genuine near IM (international master) standard. Imo, this manifests it most strongly in Theos very disciplined and methodical strategy/game theory based approach to poker.

I started to suspect that "Executive Apartment" might not mean what I thought it meant as I was checking in and they asked me if I wanted to upgrade, and when I asked what an upgrade meant, was told it basically meant "you get a window". Actually I should probably have suspected that long before, as this place was recommended to me by Mick Mccloskey. Mick has proven himself to be a man who values value above every other consideration on many occasions, not least when he dragged me all over a supermarket in Malaga looking for the absolute cheapest water per litre.

Deciding I'd rather have the extra hundred quid than a window for the next few days, I eventually found my cupboard, number 021. First I got into the lift, then realised the 0 signified ground floor. Next attempt was a right turn through a well hidden door behind reception, revealing a warren of numbers from 039 down to 022. So back to reception where I found an even more cunningly disguised door the other side of reception where the numbers, behind which lurked another warren with numbers from 001 to 012. After climbing the stairs (no good either, the numbers now started with 1) I found another brilliantly hidden door behind the stairs. A few more well hidden doors later and I'm wrestling with the lock to cupboard 021, buried so deep within the building it seemed there was no phone signal. After dumping my luggage and freshening up in the bathroom so small you had to back into it, I felt ready to tackle the task of finding my way back out, so I could head to the Metropole. As I was exiting the cupboard mentally trying to reconstruct a schematic of the way back to reception, I noticed another well disguised door just to the left on mine. Worth a try, and it brought opened onto the lift beside reception. Result.

Still feeling like I'd just gone through a loophole in the time space continuum, I walked from Hyde Park up to the Metropole. I was there in time to play the 1K side event but feeling a bit tired from an early start, a flight and the search for my cupboard, I decided it might not be the best idea to play a 1k sterling event in the circumstances. I went to get some food with the idea that I'd then decide whether to play the 440 turbo at 8. Walking back, I ran into Ben Jenkins who was still in the main and obviously buzzing. A brief chat with him perked up my poker appetite and when he asked if I was going to play the 1k, I said I was. And stuck to it.

I was about 30 minutes late but got off to a good start. First hand I find kings, raise utg+1, and get two callers. One decided to raise me on a JTx flop. He fired the turn again but gave up with Q8o on the river. Next hand, I won a decent pot when I raised ATs utg, flopped middle pair, turned 2 pair, and rivered the house.



After that, I was pretty much just card dead. Liv Boeree got moved to the table and wasn't best pleased when she got 2 outered by one of the table fish for most of her stack. Next hand she made a steamy looking reshove but had the goods, jacks, which held against tens. She hung around for most of the day amusing herself and the table with some very innovative chip stack structures, before reshipping ATs over KK.

Meanwhile, I was struggling with card death. The one hand I got, sevens, lost a chunk when they ran into a shortie's kings. I then got lucky to get back into it. I reshoved KQ over a guy opening most pots when folded to, only to run into queens behind. A king on the turn kept me alive.

One table move later and I'm at the same table as Devilfish. A late card rush and some well timed steals and resteals see me finish the day with a very respectable 56k, in or around average. Didn't play any big pots with the Devilfish who seemed to decide early on I was a rock and therefore not to be tangled with without the goods. One interesting thing I find When I play abroad is if I sit there quietly not saying a word or joining in the table chatter, the general assumption is that I'm playing a lot tighter than I actually am. Numerous times this week I heard myself described as "the tightest player at the table". In a way, it's like stepping back in time to when I first appeared on the scene in Ireland.

Devilfish was visibly tilted when a girl at the table called his overbet on the river with king high (and was good obviously), offering the loud opinion that God gave the fair sex one anatomical part he referred to in crude terms as compensation for not having any brains left to give out.

Day 2 was mostly a case of hanging in there. I was on the verge of a stack only to get rivered and crippled in a big pot. I hung in with 6 bbs for a long time around the bubble, then won a 70/30 (AK v A9) and a flip (AQs v tens) to get right back into it. A lack of cards and spots after the bubble saw me treading water, then I got 2 outered on the river again to return to shortstacksville. With 16 left I lost a race (AK v 99) to bust for £2800. Normally I find second last table exits pretty tilting, but was fine with this one as I felt I'd done the most with what I was given to play with, and while I could argue I was unlucky to get rivered in big pots twice, I can't argue that I was also lucky at crucial points (the early 30/70 I won, and winning both the 70/30 and 50/50 on the bubble).

Well done to Bobby Willis who I played with a bit in this game. He ended up fifth for 11k.

Turbo king.....does not strike again
I jumped straight into an unusual 330 turbo. The twist here is that each player was dealt their own river card (face down unless the chips were all in before the river). This makes the game a bit like seven card stud, and it was clear that very few in the field understood the full implications of the personal river. In particular, small pairs go down in value in a straight race, as the two overs have a better chance with a personal river (if it pairs the board, the overs pull ahead unless the pair's personal river also hits it). I never got going though in this. I'd like to play it with a slower structure.

Hyperturbos live....chaos poker
On Wednesday I went back to play the 100+20 hyperturbo. 5k starting stack, 10 min blinds. I almost didn't play on principle as I doubt the best hyperturbo player in the world could beat a 20% reg (or 23%+ when you take the prize pool deduction into account) long term. They wouldn't get away with this online, but that doesn't stop Stars doing it live, and if people will play, then why not I guess. Mad props to all the dealers in this one (most of whom were either Irish or regular faces on the Irish festival circuit) for some lightning dealers. Without the best dealers, a live hyperturbo could descend into a 2 hands per level farce, especially given the clueless nature of much of the field who had to keep being reminded about antes and the like. Even with top notch dealers and floor staff (also crucial. Given how fast players bust, you need floor staff to be on their toes as far as table breaking goes), it's something of a farcical affair, particularly late on when you can go from having too many chips to shove to having so few you're priced in too call on your bb with any 2 in the space of an orbit without playing a hand. This is what basically happened to me.

The floor staff were also top notch, with many regular faces like Toby, JP and Carine on top of their game.

EPT Country of the Year freeroll
14 players (out of an eligible 38) turned up for this 10k freeroll. Feargal Nealon was flying in so I arranged to meet him at Paddington. In the event his flight was delayed, which meant not for the first time I found myself hanging round Paddington for no good reason. All I can say is it looks a lot different in daylight filled with people and open shops.

Fintan Gavin arrived late and proceeded to bluff off a third of his stack to me first hand. My plan was to check call the whole way so as to let him barrel, but I got greedy when I rivered the nuts and fired out a small bet I hoped he'd interpret as a weak lead. Instead he just gave up.

They were paying 8 places in this, and I was just over starting stack when the final table of 9 (also the bubble) formed. At the final table I found myself in an O'Dea sandwich, with Eoghan to my left and Donnacha to my right. Eoghan was short though and ended up bubbling when he lost a race to Feargal Nealon. As he (jokingly) whined about bubbling, he received zero sympathy but lots of abuse, even from the old man. That's how we Irish roll.

I then picked up the only two legit hands I got. First Big Mick G shoved KTs for less than 10 bbs utg, I called with AQ, and lost on a k high board. Standard shove post bubble obv. Next hand, the rest of my chips were in from the small blind with queens against Feargal's qjo. Feargal won this one with a runner runner flush, so it's fair to say I ran pretty bad in this overall, so wasn't too disappointed to have to settle for a £500 min cash. The big prizes went to Nick Newport (first), Big Mick (second) and Feargal (third).

Good banter in this tourney. Early on, Nick Abou Risk was the centre of it without pretty much everyone exclaiming "But you're not Irish!" at some point.

After my bustout I hung round a bit. Had a very interesting poker chat with Mike Lacey, Jesse May and Nick Abou Risk, and then went for some food with the other Nick (Newport) and Feargal. Most of the lads were jumping into the UKIPT turbo but I had an evening flight so headed to Gatwick instead.

Congratulations to Cat and RobO
On Saturday I headed north to Belfast for the wedding of two of my oldest poker friends, Cat O'Neill and Rob Taylor. In such circumstances it's normal to wish the happy couple a happy marriage, but actually it's harder to imagine a couple with more shared interests than Rob and Cat, so anyone even considering that this marriage will be anything less than blissful is drawing dead. The wedding itself was a classy affair with some memorable revelations in particular from Cat's brother Tony in relation to Brylcream :)

I played day 1B of the Barcelona EMOP. Recently I've been trying some of the mental techniques I used to prepare for big races (of the running variety) to see if they help with the poker, and one area where I've noticed a definite improvement is in my patience early on. The biggest mistake I see predominantly online players (myself included) live is to get bored, play too many hands, and try to force things prematurely.

Anyway, it paid off on this occasion: I think I'd lost the minimum through my early period of card death/making the second best hand a lot, so still had 13k left when I was on the right side of a cooler. At 150/300, a loose player utg raised to 800, a loose Scandi flatted just before me, and I found aces in late position. I threebet to 2600, and after asking how much I had left the initial raiser threw in a clump of chips to make it just over 9k. The other guy unexpectedly flatted, I shoved, and now the initial raiser was annoyed to discover after the floor had been called that he couldn't reraise to force the other guy out as my shove represented an underraise (an elementary mistake you see online players make live more often than they should, particularly after taking the trouble to get an exact count from me). So he flatted, as did the other guy. The board ran out KT896 with three diamonds and with neither of them betting I was still feeling good about my aces (I also had the ace of diamonds).As anticipated, they turned over queens and jacks. So a timely triple up. From there I moved up towards 70k without any major setbacks. Late in the day I lost with tens against a shorty's A5 to finish with 56k, around average.

It's not just the French who do it
Unfortunately day 2 didn't go to plan. I was card and spot dead for the first three hours and struggled not to fall too far back, kept afloat by the occasional well timed steal or resteal. I had just over 40k shortly before dinner, less than 20 bbs, when I got moved to a new table. First hand: I shove AJs and it gets through. Second hand: I shove sevens and runs into kings behind. I was left with a pile of small denom chips which represented just over 3 bbs. I was bb next hand so with over a third of my stack in (counting antes) and getting over 2 to 1 to call I was more or less committed. After a late position raise I checked one card to make sure it was higher than a 7, and seeing a queen reshoved. My opponent hummed and hawed as the dealer counted my mountain of small denom chips before announcing, "OK, I call", and turned over aces, which held against my Q9. An annoying end to my tourney about 40 from the money but no major regrets: I felt I'd done as much as anyone could given what I had to work with. The tournament itself was a massive success, with over 450 runners, an EMOP record that proves that the tour is going from strength to strength. Roll on the live final in Riga.

Mrs. Doke was struggling with the same flu so this curtailed our sightseeing a bit, but what we saw of Barcelona was absolutely brilliant. I also ran into Team Irish Eyes member Noel Keane on day 1 (he busted just after dinner unfortunately). Noel's an interesting guy with a very interesting background and "how I got into poker" story.

Bad news from home
I was still struggling unmanfully with the flu, as was my better half sniffling back in the hotel room, so my mood couldn't really be described as cheery as I described to her how I'd been slowrolled. The wifi connection in the hotel was terrible, but when I eventually got it working, I learned two things that quickly put into perspective just how unimportant what had just happened to me was in the grand scheme of things. First I found out that the living legend that is Pagraig Parkinson had suffered a heart attack two days previously. I sent him a message on Twitter apologising for the delay in so doing saying I was out of the loop in Barcelona with dodgy wifi. Sharp as ever, Parky tweeted back "WHOSE DODGY WIFE?", indicating no damage to his humour valves at least, surely a good sign. Get well soon Parky.

I also found out to my deep sadness that another poker friend, Sean Gregory, had just lost a long fight with cancer. Everyone who knew Sean agreed he was one of the most genuine and positive people on the Irish poker scene. No matter how bad the beats got, Sean somehow kept a smile on his face that could cheer up anyone. Sean was one of the first people to befriend me when I appeared on the scene a few years ago, and one of the first to come to grips with my game (which meant that as much as I loved his company, I dreaded seeing him at the same table). He was a natural poker talent who read people well and worked out how to play them. He was also profoundly generous: a long chat I had with him after I knocked him out of a major tournament on my first year on the circuit provided me with a wealth of information on how loose players think and play, and a wealth of ideas and improvements to incorporate into my own game to counteract them. This is not generally how people react when I knock them out of a big tournament, but it was typical of Sean. Sean was the ultimate people person. Very few people in Irish poker remember that I have a brother who played at the top level, because he drifted away from the game around the time I drifted in, and poker's a fast moving and fickle world with a cast of characters that changes quicker than your average Aussie soap, but the first question Sean always asked whenever we met was "How's the brother?" He was also an underrated talent. Like many talented players, he struggled with the vagaries of short term luck (and ill fortune), and bankroll management. Even a smidgen of luck earlier in his career would have afforded Sean the chance to prove to us all just how great he could have been, but he never seemed to get the break when it mattered most. About a year ago he came to me looking for advice on how to play online, saying he'd watched me play and rated me the best in Ireland online. I was more than happy to give him whatever advice I could, and was thrilled to see him subsequently win some big ones online. The last time I saw Sean at a major live tournament, a few months ago, he asked me to sit down with him and helped him construct an online schedule. Unfortunately we never got round to it, as for one last time Sean's luck deserted him when he deserved it most. Rest in peace Sean: you'll never be forgotten by anyone who had the privilege to know you.




Better news from home
Congratulations to Niall Smyth who followed up his Irish Open win with another win in the Killarney main event, a truly remarkable double that will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen Niall play. Congratulations to everyone else who went deep, particularly Mark O'Connor, one of the best young players in the country. I've never failed to been impressed any time I've played with him live (or more frequently) online.

More fun in lifts
Frequent readers of this blog will know my occasional obsession with the wry and amusing things people get up to in lifts. The lifts in the hotel in Barca were a bit of a disaster. If the lift was going up but you were going down, it tended to collect you on the way up anyway. Same if you were going up when it was on its way down. Basically the world's friendliest lift: it literally couldn't wait to get you inside it.

One day I was on the ground floor looking to go up to the 5th, where the room was. The lift opened, empty, and I got in. It then went down to the basement, and picked up 8 pensioners. They shuffled in, pressed the button for ground floor (groan). One of them was standing too close to the doors so when they tried to shut, they couldn't, so they re-opened. 4 of the 8 pensioners were now convinced they were on the ground floor, so they wandered out. Much to the dismay of the other 4 pensioners who started shouting at them in Catalan. This only confused the wanderers further and they now fanned out in different directions. Two of the pensioners who were still in the lift now got out with a view to rounding the others up. This they eventually managed, although one particularly stubborn soul refused to accept he was still in the basement, so the doors closed without him. He must have had an immediate change of heart and pressed the Up button, because the doors re-opened. He got in, as 3 other pensioners got out, once again convinced they were on the ground floor. I'd had enough: I surreptitiously jammed my finger on the close door button, and off we went.

Next...
This blog is being typed on a plane from Barca to London, where the plan is to play a side event or two before Thursday's EPT Country of the Year freeroll. I've rented an apartment beside Hyde Park this time to save myself the ordeal of spending a few more nights with my friends in Paddington. Then it's back home where I have a royal wedding to attend!

While my overall record in tourneys run by Mike and Brian of D4 Events is second to none, closer examination reveals that while my record in their European Deepstack is sensational (I won the first one, cashed in the second, and final tabled the third), my record in their other major, the European Shorthanded, is atrocious (I've never made it out of day 1 alive). So I was hoping to put that to rights last week in the D4 Ballsbridge Inn.

I played the supersat the night before, primarily because I thought it would be a good idea to get some 6 max live practise in, and to see what type of bad the bad players were likely to be the following day. Things got off to a bad start: the supersat was actually played out 9 handed, and I was down to my last allowed rebuy early on when I raised AK on the button and got it in on a KT9 flop against the big blind's K7o. He obviously knew the 7 was coming on the turn when he called my rereraise shove on the flop. I managed to recover from there to bink a ticket, due in no small part to finding aces every time I really really needed them, and better yet, a customer willing to call my shove with something like 23 on the "two live cards" basis.

I played day 1A, made a reasonable start, but then it all went in 3 hands just before the first break. First I got set over setted, which is never fun. That accounted for half my stack. Half of what remained went a few hands later when I called the flop with a draw, barrelled when another draw got there on the turn and it was checked to me, and fired a second bullet on the river which failed to get through as my opponent had the flush I was trying to represent. Then just before the break, Joey Lovelady opened, I threebet AKs playing 50 bbs, the value at the table put in a massive 4 bet for more than my stack and I called it off. There are spots where I might fold AKs, but 50 bbs having already threebet against a French player playing every hand ain't one.

When you managed to incinerate 200 big blinds that fast, self doubt is inevitable, so I ran all three hands by the people I go to for line checks. The Doke Thinktank findings were that the first hand was fine (most thought there wouldn't have been a second and third hand as they'd have lost the lot right there), the second hand was split between people who thought I played it fine, too aggro (fold pre or flop), or not aggro enough (shove flop or turn), and nobody was ever folding in the third one. Sometimes it's just not your day.

Take 2
This being a re-entry, I was back on Friday for take 2. I got going this time but took a few hits late in the day and then went out in a fairly standard blind on blind cooler. Apart from that, the only highlight was running into and having a chat with the loveliest woman in poker, Rebecca McAdam, recently appointed deputy editor at Card Player.



Knowing and doing - two very different things
Before the 300 side game on Saturday, I ran into my Irish Eyes teammate Paul Lucey and my amigo Feargal "MidniteKowby" Nealon (who is crushing the turbos online at the moment). Feargal gave us a good pep talk about playing uber tight and avoiding marginal spots against French action junkies just itching to gift your their stacks if you showed a bit of patience. I agreed in principle but somehow found myself playing way too many hands early on and losing about half my stack in a series of marginal spots. At the next table, Feargal bluffed off half his stack first hand, and then when he did get a stack hero called it off! Right pair we are. Feargal busted in time to run off to the Betfair game in the Fitz and bust that to be back in time for dinner.

At a secret location
I knuckled down in the side and staged a mini recovery until I got it in in a fairly standard race just before dinner, my jacks losing to ak. I had an interest in my friend Daragh "Other Dara" Davey who was chipleader of the main at this point, so I arranged to meet him for dinner. What started as a Dara only event gradually mushroomed as I ran into other people or they phoned: I ran into Ger Harraghy, Albert Kenny and bops in the hotel, David Lappin materialised out of a cab, and Feargal arrived back from the Fitz. Bit of an ordeal getting everyone to the secret location as most of them knew me but none of the others, but after a few false starts and Other Dara leading Ger to the wrong place, we had a good dinner. It's always interesting to hear a bunch of top class players with widely divergent styles discussing and debating hands, and Lappin had some great non-poker stories from the film world (his Da produced the likes of My Left Foot, In The Name of the Father and The Boxer). Tempting as it is to steal them to spice up the blog at this point, you'll have to ask him in person :)

Wasted Sundays
My original plan was not to show my face in D4 on Sunday unless I was in the main event, but smarting from the events of the past three days, I was back the next day for the last event, the 200. I was hoping this would be a proper crapshoot where I could chip up or bust early, but they gave us way too many chips and too much time for that. Instead I chipped up and then bust just after the bubble, my A9 failing to hold against 89o. Another min cash on my Hendon mob.

Congrats to James Waldron for winning that game. Also well done to Other Dara in the main (he got horrendously unlucky in the end), and to "best of the Irish Eoin "starrbar" Starr who followed up his recent UKIPT side event win with a 12th here, and "best of the Irish based" Ivan Tononi. When I went over to check on Other Dara at one point I was rather dismayed to see ViperEyeIRL Ivan to Daragh's immediate left. But once Daragh was out I'd have loved to see Ivan win this: he's not only a really great player but also a perfect gentleman He's one of those guys who always seems to get very unlucky when it really matters (here he couldn't have got it in much better, aces v j8o on an 8 high flop) but hopefully it's just a matter of time before he has his day.

Also, well done Albert Kenny, who got 7th in the WCOOP Omaha HiLO AND busted Negreanu. The two Daras were railing him at 6 AM and he was desperately unlucky not to take it down.

Away trip
This week I'm on my first away trip since Vegas. This blog is being written on the place to Barcelona, where I play 1B of the EMOP tomorrow. I just ran into Brian "Fox" O'Keeffe and a few of the other Waterford lads. Brian's apparently an even more nervous flyer than fellow Deise legend Nicky Power: must be a Waterford thing. Hoping for a good run at this one but if not, Barcelona's a nice city to spend time with your better half (Mrs. Doke is along for this trip, currently giving me an earful on how boring it is to fly). Yes dear.

On Monday I head to London for the EPT. I'll play one or two sides before the Country of the Year freeroll on Thursday. Good luck to everyone playing in London and Killarney at the weekend: I have a few horses in both so hoping for a good weekend on the sweat front.

Terminal poker
Something new and fun on Irish Eyes is Terminal Poker. The basic idea is similar to rush poker. At the moment it has a growing number but still small. If anyone wants a freebie to try it out, sign up here at my blog (link on the side), and then email me your username and we'll give you a 10 euro free money voucher to get started.

I played the 50K guaranteed 100s festival in Maynooth, largely because I was intrigued to see how the novel idea of 4 day ones with re-entries would work. I played day 1c and got through with one bullet (no re-entry), mainly because I got off to a great start. Or should I say a lucky start: the first major hand of note I got it in with the schnuts (second nuts) against the nuts on the flop and still managed to win the hand. My opponent, a friend of the legendary Bomber Nolan, took it in good spirits. I guess any friend of the Bomber gets used to outrageous doggings of the sort.



Day 2 didn't exactly go to plan though: I was definitely on the toughest table in the room. I was struggling to get anything going and ended up reshipping queens from the blinds over an early position raiser. He was a foreign lad with a huge stack and seemed very spewy so I reshipped knowing full well I could get called very light, but it was still a surprise to see him call fairly quickly with A8. He hit the ace on the turn. I can't really complain though: I'm always happy when an opponent calls it off as a 9/4 dog getting only 6/4. Professional poker players and bookies have one thing in common: in the long run our money all comes from people making bad bets against us at insufficient odds. And I've been known to make a few bad ones in my day too (see the first paragraph).

I had a pretty good week online with lots of final tables and better yet a few wins. I won the €10r on Eyes one night, and the $22r on Stars twice this week. Most recently tonight. At the start of the final table, I realised I needed to win the tournament to break even on the day, the Sunday grind having been something of an epic fail to that point. Somebody asked me at a tournament recently how much I'd be down in an average night if I didn't cash in anything. The answer is a couple of grand most week nights and up to double that of a Sunday.

The new Player Ireland has a piece from me on EMOP Dublin. I'm playing the European Shorthanded on Thursday (day 1A). This is also a re-entry tournament so if I do bust 1A I'll probably be back for more punishment on 1b. I think re-entry tournaments are a great idea overall, but I hope organisers follow the example of the Macau in charging reg fee only once per player (not per entry).

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