I went to Galway full of expectation last Wednesday and left late Saturday night with empty pockets and broken dreams. Now that may sound a bit depressing, but it happens to thousands of people every year on Galway race week and I've been doing it for years. One thing is guaranteed in the 'City of the Tribes' you'll of had some fun blowing your hard earned.

I had initially registered for the Friday but a big gang had planned a piss up to cerebrate Derek Murray's  birthday post play Thursday. This meant a change of starting day and a three hour drive on Wednesday with the early noon start. Tom 'the bomb' Finneran convinced me the best hangover avoidance option was to play the rebuy satellite. I managed to do €300 for a €770 seat, not lasting long after the first break.

This set the tone for the rest of they week, if there was a hand to be lost, a bet to go down or a dinner bill to pay, I found it.

My main event was fast; the 15k starting stack was my peak chip stack. I got no hands and didn't play well. Firstly I bluffed off 40% of my chips, I luckily got these back in a hand against Limerick native Jamie Daly. I raised pre with 2h7h, totally missed the flop but kept firing on a 7 turn and a two river. Jamie's fellow county man, Paul Carr seem to get more pleasure from the hand the myself when I relayed it to him later, perverse crowd those Limerick lads!  

This got me back close to starting, but I dribbled to 8k in level five (150-300) then lost them in a blind on blind situation. SB limped, I raise 88 and we get it in on a 10 7 5 two spade flop, he held Js 9s and hit his nine on the turn.

At least I had plenty company at the bar as Derek, Jude and Tall Michéal were also out at this stage. A nice meal and plenty drink followed Thursday. Friday was more of the same although I did venture back to the poker room for the fun €100+50+10 turbo scalp game.

It wasn't that much fun, I think I was at the table 40 minutes before any of the players even spoke. I did hang in until the last three tables of the 150 field but lost a race to exit.

Saturday was spent in the company of Marty Smyth on our laptops punting everything that moved, it didn't go well. We went for dinner and when I lost the gamble for that one, 'well' it was time to surrender, Marty just doesn't win dinner flips ever.    

I couldn't face the €300 game so just chilled watching the golf before driving home about eleven in the evening. It all might come across as a little miserable but in honesty I had a great few days catching up and socialising with friends. The Radisson Galway is in my top three venues for a poker event in Ireland and produced the goods yet again; I can't wait for the next time.                         

I was saying to Bops on the drive up to this on Wednesday that I felt veryrusty and hoped for some kind of run to blow off the cobwebs. I managed to makethe money for a min cash, meaning I got the table time I felt I needed anyhowso I guess we can call that a small success.

I played day one A as I tend to do at €550 events, it keeps the expensesdown should I bust and means a refreshed start for day two should I make that;so win-win.

My table on day one had some very good players, Ross Johnson impressed andEPT London second Stephen O'Dwyer seemed decent, although one player stolethe show. Watching the Chief crush dreams for a full day was a pleasure to seeat close quarters.

The man is obviously a poker genius and was operating on a level so farahead of anyone else that we hadn't a clue what he was at. He amassed a top tenstack over the day mastering spots that would make Durrrr a nervous wreck.

My own day went ok, I was going along nicely and had more then doubled thestarting stack when I dropped about 30k to Ross in a hand he played well and Ididn't. I locked up for a bit after this, got going again to110k and thendonated another 50k to the same man AK v KK.

 This was into the last level and my 60k were looking very measlyamount when I got a table move. First hand at new table I get a double, raisingKQ utg and getting it in against a flush draw on a queen high flop. I pick upanother small pot two hands later when the table breaks and I’m allocatedback to the seat I had left three hands earlier with a much improved 130k. Wefinish shortly after this and I bag 160k.

Day two started very slowly for me I don’t think I played a single hand inthe first hour. I got a bit more active after this but every time I seemed tobe getting ahead of the game I lose a decent pot. Two 100k reversals spring tomind; AK v AJ in pre, and a blind on blind with Jacks v A7 where the acefloated and spiked the turn.

 I was grinding a re-shove stack on the live stream table for the twohours leading to the bubble and just as it bust I picked up AQhh and shove 23blinds over a late position raiser. Unfortunately the bigblind woke up with theboots.

I enjoyed the tournament and look forward to playingthe UKIPT Galway this week a little less rusty. DaGunman O'Shea has kindlyoffered me a loan of his crush hammer for the tournament so a deep run isalmost certain. 
 

This was the question I was asked returning from a smoke in Clane Friday night from a random person I didn't know. Usually I just listen to the persons badbeat, nodding away with a numb brain. This time I just said "not really" as I was a bit steamed on Guinness and thus not at my diplomatic best. I hope the gentleman involved didn't take offence, but I think I was doing him a favor long term.

The tournament was good craic. My starting table had great potential with John O'Shea, Chris Dowling & a few notable heads IPB heads, unfortunately none of them were on the Guinness buzz with me.  

There was six levels played on day one, I spent at least four of those in the bar, making it through the day with an average chip stack. I think my best play of the time I spent on the table was to come up with a nickname for Chris 'showdown' Dowling.

Having had my fill of the black stuff I staggered off to bed about 3am and thought that was it for the night. Imagine my surprise to wake about 5am and find the legendary Mark Reilly on the bed beside me. Now I do like Mark a lot and was regaled by his story of how he went from being on the lash in  leixlip to ending up on my bed, but I did ask him to please %&$% off  to the poker room when he starting discussing PLO strategy.

 The next day didn't go well poker wise. I got my last 20 blinds in preflop with 66 v AK and if I'm honest, I wasn't that gutted to lose the race. My intentions this year are to win races in big buy in events and lose them in the smaller ones. 

It was an excellent tournament in a really nice venue but once I was out I headed home. It was a big weekend on the sports betting front for me. To cut that story short I should of stayed where I was.  

I think we've seen this event change in one way or another every year since it's inception in 2006. I never would of foreseen it playing out as a side event, but that's what happened this year. The tournament had a €750 buy in and over 200 starters, add to this the title and it was still a tournament well worth giving your all for.

Contrary to the ribbing I get, I'm not really a great one for side events. Usually after getting knocked out of a main event, I find it hard to give a side event my full attention. This wasn't the case last weekend as my early exit from the WPT meant I felt as I hadn't really played, so was well up for this.

The Bomber

My starting table had a few familiar faces, Including Bomber and Andrew Grimason. There was a real nice atmosphere on the table with everyone in good form.

I started steady enough, then hit a bit of a heater just before and after the dinner break trebling my 20k starting stack. We were only playing six levels and the table broke for the last one. I ended the day with a top ten stack of 66k with around half the field still in.

Day two was an odd one. I loved my starting table but it was first to break. They were breaking tables down one of two lines and every time I drew the next table to break. I'm the type of player ( well i guess most are ) that likes time to settle into a table. Subsequently I was three hours into the day and had broken 5 times.

My stack was maintained until I lost a third of it with AJ v KK, it was a shortish corner and I was happy enough calling the 18 big blinds it cost to call the 4bet shove. Again just after this, I get moved again to the next table to break. I know it shouldn't bother me but it was doing my head in at this stage.

I needn't of worried though as the poker gods were soon to put me out of my misery. I was only at the table a couple of hands when I picked up QQ. First to act opened, and I 3-bet from a 40k stack with blinds 500-1000-100, The button shipped for about 120k holding AQ. An ace on the flop meant no fourth life time cash in the IPC.

It wasn't too disappointing, we were about 40 off the money and, well you want to get them in in that spot every time. I dont know where the IPC as a tournament goes from here, but I think we can assume it wont stay the same as this year. The tournament has a good legacy, and needs to find a stand alone berth.              

The general vibe leading up to the inaugural WPT Ireland was that the tournament would not be a success. My gut told me differently, I had told the man behind bringing the tournament here ( Ian Langstaff ) a couple of months ago that I thought it would work and we'd get 300 starters.

I thought the event had three big positives going for it; 1, Ireland has a history of a big field buy ins the first week in January. 2, the City west venue, overseas visitors like it and come back. 3, the brand, every poker player in Ireland would fancy a crack at a WPT title.     

As it played out, the event was a resounding success attracting a field of 333 starters, including a host of big name stars from around Europe.  In fact it could well of been the best field ever assembled in the country. Dom Hever who blogs for irishpokerboards described the field as " being like the Irish Open, without the 300 bad players". 

One area where the WPT people got it very wrong was the chips. Each denomination of chip was a plethora of colors with the 5000 and 100 chip closely resembling each other. Barney boatman was the main sufferer of this when he mistakenly opened for 15,000 instead of the intended 300 and a player put him in holding QQ. Barney call with 1010 for a very unfortunate exit.  

While the tournament itself was a huge success, my own display was an abysmal failure. Looking at some of the starting tables I had definitely drawn a good one. However that wasn't much consultation exiting in level five.

all the cool kids are wearing these

In honesty I made no mistakes so cant be too disappointed, it was just one of those days where my opponents kept having the goods or got there as hands progressed. On four occasions I had to fold after putting a decent percentage of my chip into pots, and each time was shown the nut flush. Just a bad day at the office.

As the tournament progressed  Dave Shallow became the dominant force. The home contingents performance wasn't great with the notable exception of  Ronan 'Gilly' Gilligan, Ken Doherty & Dan Smyth.

The 1997 World Snooker champ taking down a major poker title would of been the biggest headline grabber. However, the talented Doherty's run would end in a creditable 16th place finish.

Dan Smyth, owner of a surname that's synonymous with taking down major Irish events looked like making a big challenge for the title, when he grabbed the chip lead two tables out. Dan has a fantastic online record but a number of reversals saw his commendable challenge peter out in 11th.   

This left Gilly as the remaining Irish hope. A Galway based player Ronan was rooming with my mate Derek Murray. Derek has mentioned to me on a number of occasions that he rates Gilligan very highly as a player and relayed to me pre-tournament that Ronan had won entry in a $50 satellite and his intentions were to play the event as it it was a $50 buy in rather then a €2,500.          

True to his word, Gilly got his full 300 big-blind starting stack in verses two sets (one folded ) in only the second hand of the tournament, pushing a flush draw and never looked back. His third place finish was a swashbuckling display and is a fine addition to his 2nd place finish in the 2010 UKIPT  Dublin for his CV.

In the end Shallow was a worthy winner of a fantastic tournament, which is a wonderful addition to the Irish poker calendar.   

       

Hope everyone had a good Chrishmas and got over the New Year without too bad a hangover. I must admit to being a bit of a Christmas grouch, although I hide it well enough and the feast of sport on over the holiday keeps me some way sane.

It's back to work this week. 1st up is tonight's fantastic $10,000 added Festival Frenzy tournament at Boylepoker. I'm sure most of you will have qualified for this non-direct buy in event already; if you haven't satellites are running all day today ending at 6.45 with the main event starting at seven.

On Thursday I'll be at the City West for the WPT Ireland. When I started out playing the game, this date was always filled with the Irish Poker Championship at the same venue and that event returns to it's spiritual home as a side event of the WPT starting the Friday.

The WPT is a hard one to call turnout wise. On a negative its relatively big buy in for a country where disposable income is at an all time low. This makes it hard to see where the walk in buy ins will come from. There's also the clash with the PCA, which could affect overseas visitors.

The positive is the brand, every poker player in the country will fancy the title of WPT champion, so a few mattresses will be raided to come up with the buy in.

I've herd people predicting very low turnout for the event, but personally I think the numbers will be decent. I'd call anything over 150 starters a relative success for this type of buy in, in its first year. Hopefully it gets over 250 and establishes itself as a permanent way to kick off the poker year.

I, as every other Irish poker player, kinda like the ring of " Irish WPT Champion".                     

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. I usually do a long annual review but I'm just not in the writing rambling mode ATM and feel it wouldn't be interesting for me to write or for anyone to read. 

I didn't have a great year poker-wise, but I didn't really play that much poker over the year compared to previously.

The Hendon Mob database will show six cashes for a total of $30,000. I probably did about $20,000 in buy-ins over the year if even that, and wouldn't have played more than 15-18 tournaments that register on the HMD.

 It's not as abysmal as last year anyway, and the fact that Boyles sponsored me for my tournament entries mean that at least the $30k was profit.


The highlight of the year was a semi-deep run at the Irish Open. I had a lovely stack deep into Day 2 but made a big call, which was wrong and saw me return day three with a playable 30 bigs. I got unlucky in a hand with four tables remaining and bar that a final table was a definite possibility.

The year was going very bad for me punting wise and doing €25,000 in May sports betting more or less meant no Vegas - I really couldn't face doing another 25k over there and I'm sure that's what would have happened had I went as the noggin wasn't in the right place.

I hit a punting downswing for six months in the middle of the year that was character building. Thankfully things picked up significantly from October on or I could have been busking to get over the Christmas.

In general I think 2011 was a very good year for Irish poker, mostly down to Eoghan and Dermot final tabling the WSOP & WSOPE main events. There were more events than ever played in the country and generally numbers held up well in very difficult financial times for people.

Hopefully, this remains the case for the year ahead - I'm really looking forward to kicking it off with Ireland's first WPT next week, what better way to start the year then a major buy in at City West. Anyhow, thanks to everyone who read the blog over the year, I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

         

It seems there's been a poker festival in one form or another every weekend for the past four months in Ireland and quiet frankly something had to give. Unfortunately it gave at one of the best value, best structured and most professionally run tournament of the year, JP's mini WSOP.

JP must be puling his hair out trying to fathom why his numbers are down so much; he really does focus on players needs first and provides excellent events. Having said all that, and even with a 40% reduction in numbers, I can't praise this festival enough, such a great weekend.

My tournament went the way of recent events for me and I walked into aces again early enough, so out the gap. The taker of my chips was very happy anyway going by the screaming and hollering she did after the hand, , it’s was exactly the reaction I always wishedI could get from women, WP Michelle.

I did indulge in a lot of alcohol after my exit and had a great night. JP is some man in fairness, I left his room at 9 am after a messy drunken sit and  go and he was still playing with the lads. Yet he was somehow like a new pin in his TD roll at two pm just five hours later.

I on the other hand was spent and couldn't face playing any side events, so I headed home to watch the breeders cup & the golf from China. Thankfully Kaymer rediscovered his form and booked me a nice touch.   

I feel I've definitely played two many low buy in festivals over the last few months and it's something I'm going to have to look at. I love the game, however you need play with enthusiasm and you need a competitive drive, I have been going to tournaments with neither. I'm not playing badly but I do feel I'm just going through the motions a lot of the time recently, and not giving 100%.  As I said it's something I need to think about.

Like every other poker player in the country who wasn't in Vegas, I was glued to the live stream as Eoghan O' Dea lived out all our dream at the WSOP final table. Eoghan can be very proud of how he played and how he carried himself through out the event and especially last night. He showed a lot of class and was a great ambassador for Irish poker players.