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.     









 



   

The weekends Irish Winter Festival was a bit of a non event for me, disappointing as it's one of the best chances of a touch each year.

I knew 2009 IWF champ Micheal O'Sulivan and Tom Kitt on my starting table, the rest were a mixed bunch, but none were throwing their chips away. There was an active German who was in a lot of pots and I still cant decide whether he was good or not but apart from him it was a stagnant enough grind of a table.

I lost two decent pots in the early levels. Pot one I lost the least with a flopped set against a turned flush.  The second was more expensive with AJ on an AAxxx board verses the Germans AQ. This saw me drop to 6k, but I chipped back up to starting in two hands where I pulled fairly dangerous tournament ending moves if I got called.

I dropped to 12k in the level after dinner and the table broke. My new table looked a different preposition with a chipped up Mick-G on my right and Niall Smyth and a busy English player I had played with at the IO on my left, both with stacks.

I'd say the average stack on the table was 25k and after two rounds I had 10k and an old American guy open shipped 24k UTG, I look down at AhKh in the cut off.

It's an 80 big blind shove that I really don't have to call and my gut says no. I then start thinking this is the best hand I've seen in six hours and I need a chip at this table.

I've seen some funny shit at the tables in my time so talk myself into the call, sure enough the guy turns over the aces and I'm out.

Great to see an Irish 1-2-3 in the event and a big Congratulations to John, Noel & Chris on their performances.

This weekend it's the JP mini WSOP  game in the Maldron Hotel, This event is the best structured mid-low buy in of the year with an enormous amount of play for the €360 buy in. If you want to experience a tournament run like clockwork with a major events feel for a fraction of the price, do not miss this.    

      

 

       

I think  it's fair to say that last weekends IPO was a resounding success, it certainly ticked all the boxes for my own criteria for a magic poker festival.

The team IPO deserve huge plaudits here as amazingly the main event produced the 2nd largest field ever assembled in the history of European poker, just falling just shy of IPO 2009, which holds the record. Almost 1400 souls turned out in the Regency, which just goes to show how much the poker community love this event.

My own tournament didn't go well, I started badly dropping to 10k, I rallied to 30k fairly quickly, and then lost them as quickly going out in the 300-600 level.

Cal McCarty my mentee in the Boylepoker mentor challenge involving John and myself; thankfully managed to hang in a good bit longer and we scooped that one at least - so big well played to Cal, great working with you through the event.  

My early exit freed me up to do some promotional duties for Boylepoker. I suppose some may question whether drinking copious amounts of the black stuff constitutes a duty. However I feel it's very important to meet people at the various bars during the event.

I did partake in a number of commentary stints over the weekend and if I say so myself, we did a jolly good job on that. The stint I did Saturday night with John and Ciaran will probably go down  as a benchmark moment in live streaming poker history. We certainly moved the goal posts from what is the norm; it was some craic doing it with the lads and the feedback was very good so hopefully we didn't offend too many.

One deplorable incident I witnessed while in the commentary booth on Saturday evening needs to be brought to people's attention. Mick McClosky coolered Iain Cheyne in a hand to knock him out. Upon Iain leaving the table Mick leaped from his seat and performed a number of pelvic thrusts. A truly horrid scene and one I hope to never to witness at a poker event again.

I do have to apologies to one punter over another incident in toilets. I was entering a cubicle and chatted briefly to a lad at the sink when John made it known that he was in the cubicle next door, with cottaging references.

   

         

     

             

     

The tournament is simply a celebration of the game of poker and a wonderful time is always assured. Win or lose this weekend, everyone goes home with a smile on their face.

If you haven't gotten you place already there's 10 IPO Seats guaranteed tonight in the IPO mega sat at nine and direct buy in registration is open until Thursday.

After the glut of events in September I've been taking it easy last couple of weeks. I did play the John Hennessy memorial tournament in The Poker Lounge, Waterford on Saturday night. This was a €110 freezout with €20 of the buy in going to charity.

There was a good few faces from around the country in attendance, including Jason Tompkins, Paul Lucy and Derek & Phil Baker. I flopped a couple of early sets in the game and got a good stack, eventually chopping it four way for €900.


It was a really good atmosphere in the club, and on the nights over €5,000 was raised for the local Hospice, a fantastic effort and well done to everyone involved, it just goes to show the generosity of the poker community.


Phil Baker deserves a special mention as he did a super job as auctioneer on the night and definitely added at least 25% value to the items sold with his harassment of the bidders.

One class moment occurred when the bidding was on an overnight stay with Dinner for two at the moorings Dungarvan valued at about €160. Someone was slagging Tommy Walsh, and Tommy gave them the two fingers; Phil snapped in straight away with sold to Tommy for €200.

Obviously the large fridge needed to be filled with beer and when Derek arrived down about midnight and we decided on a nightcap. Unfortunately we seemed to find plenty to chat about at it was pretty late and lots of beers before we turned in.

My day one was an odd one, I can't remember many hands but I did run about eight chunky river bluffs without a single one getting through. Quiet simply this is bad play by me as a large percentage of the field is of an over fifty demographic that come from pub or club games. Everyone knows the way to play this type of player is chunky value betting not bluffs, however they seemed such good spot to me at the time, I guess they put me on AK!!

I managed to get through the day with 32,000, but day two wouldn't last long. About twenty minutes in I raised AK and Larry Ryan 3-bet to 6.5 bigs, I shoved my 27 blinds, which he just covered. Larry went into the tank for a decent while, I knew he had a hand and more or less had his range at AQ JJ or 1010.

There was a bit of banter an I could of induced a fold - Larry told me later that he would of folded if I said yes when he asked would I show - but I was probably optimistically thinking AQ was a decent percentage of his range. Anyhow Larry's Jacks held and I was on my bike to the €300 side event.

This had 200 runners and I had an average stack with 60 players left. It was shallow enough but a lovely game and any bit of run good at that stage and I'd of given myself a right chance. Unfortunately a missed Flush Draw with me as aggressor left me with 10 bigs. I hung in until around 40 players left but my A4 shove found Trevor Dineen's AJ.

The Killarney Festival is such a great event and I do love playing in the INEC, it really is like playing in a poker arena, and outside of the RIO it's probably my favourite venue. Numbers were down this year but clashing with the EPT London and EMOP Barcelona this was to be expected and had the bonus of the absence of a lot of top players. I think all things considered 560 players was a very respectable turnout.

Maybe its the fact there's so much on these days but the thought of staying in the Ballsbridge Inn for last weekends UKIPT just didn't appeal to me. With this in mind I decided on playing day 1-A hopefully returning on the Saturday for day two.

My starting table was nice enough but I couldn't get anything going early. It was quiet a strange first four levels as I in fact doubled up four players but never had more then starting stack myself.

A table move in level five when my stack was at 8k saw a change of fortunes. It looked a more difficult table with the guy who won the Cork leg and an Edinburgh finalist but a good rush of cards saw my stack hit 40k within 30 minutes on the table.

I coasted through the rest of the day and bagged up 57k which was just shy of 50 bigs and ahead of the average for day two.

One thing that really pissed me off on day one was that they cleared the main room floor of 20 tables for €100 side event meaning 12 tables from the main event were dumped in a sweatbox room upstairs with no AC.

When I saw the redraw its was obvious there would be plenty action on the new table with the Thomas 'Bomber' Nolan dynamic in play. Bomber is an action player, but he also seem to effect action from others on the table and that was the case here.

One had in the first level of day two, I actually managed to chip up 30 bigblinds ( 60% of average chips ) Pre-flop. Bomber opened, I 3-bet to 7.5x - Padge Barry made it 15x - Bombers calls and I jam to win the pot; I didn't have it.

This brought me over 100k but my momentum was stopped soon after when a relatively shortstack shoved 910 over my A9 button open and got there.

Level 3 of the day with blinds 1k/2k was where my pivotal hand of the tournament occurred. We were about 35 off the money and I was playing about 75k at the start of the hand. Bomber opened and a young polish player who was clearly steaming after been shown a bluff from Bomber a few hands before flatted, I called the button with KdQd.

The flop was 9 7 4 with two diamonds and Bomber lead for a near pot 15k and the Polish player shoved for 40k. My thinking here is Bomber had a hand with one pair probably a nine and was just trying to take down the pot while the shover range was wide enough considering his disposition and contained many worse draws to mine.

I felt I could fold Bomber out and would have 15 outs twice a lot of the time or could even be possibly ahead with King high. Anyway being the optimistic I am I went with it, bomber folded and I was 54.5 % favorite against my opponents pocket tens getting 2/1 for my 40k.

If I had hit it would of given me a lovely stack to attack the bubble with and was well worth the risk, unfortunately I didn't and would exit soon after shoving AJ over the same players AQ cut-off open.

That's the second UKIPT in a row I've basically done for my tournament in a big pot with a draw. I've been entering them with the intention of gambling to get a stack because of the field size and flat payout structure so I cant complain.

The City West is in my top two favourite venues for a poker festival in Ireland, so I was happy to see a major event back at the venue after a two-year absence.

I met John O'Shea, Tom Hanlon and Marty at the K Club on Thursday and thoroughly enjoyed our game, although I didn't bring my best. After nine holes I looked like getting stuck a monkey, but a better back nine and an impressive partner in John got me out.

I played the turbo on Thursday night, where I got a hell of a lot of big blinds in pre-flop holding KQ with about half the field gone. Well, you can't really fold a hand as pretty as KQ in a turbo I feel.

In the main event, I was a bit surprised to see EPT former grand final winner Pieter De Korver sitting two to my left on my starting table. One of the commentators described him as the best player in the tournament. In reality he wasn't even the best player at the table and was schooled freely on numerous occasions by Ian 'Bops' Ronan.

My tournament ended at level seven, playing 30k, blinds 300-600-75 ante. A relatively new player to the table who was frankly awful had been there four orbits and on each orbit had limped called a raise from UTG, and did so here. UTG + 1 called and I made it 2600 from the button with QQ; both called to see a 1022 rainbow flop.

First to act check-shoves covering me after UTG+1 had raised 4500 and I had called. I folded QQ on a nine high board the previous week in Cork but I just couldn't get away here. In my head I could see this guy showing up with 10J or even under-pairs to the ten, although I did consider the A2 he did show up with. I'm happy with my call.

I was asked to commentate for the live stream for the last two levels play on the day and had to endure watching the guy butchering his healthy stack. I'd done some live commentary in the past but I really didn't enjoy doing it here. I think it was the fact that it was a very dead table and I knew none of the players, along with having to watch my chips being spewed made me jump ship to the bar after an hour.

I didn't play poker for the rest of the weekend but had a decent sweat from percentage swaps with Marty Smyth and Derek Murray. Marty fell just short of the Money after losing a healthy stack in a couple of coolers. Derek had a great run finishing 15th for €5,000, and but for a beat with twenty left would of went very deep.

The button shipped 20 bigs in the hand, which was nearly average stack for the tournament at the time. Derek said he didn't like risking the chips with 88, as he felt he had a good edge on his table but after observing the pusher for a while, read him as very uncomfortable. It was A4 os and seeing fours land on both turn and river was a horrid way to lose the hand.

All in all I enjoyed the weekend; you can only run deep in a certain percentage of tournaments you play and just have to suck up the inevitable ones you exit early.

The Classic festival in the Macau runs all week and is Ireland's largest casino based poker festival.

I just played the PLO and Main Event this year. The Omaha was on Wednesday night and had a poor turnout with a field of only seventeen.

I finished fourth for nought at five am, which made for a depressing drive home. The tournament was won by Alex 'The Prof' Lopez, with Chris Dowling taking second after some business heads up.

A sign of changing times could be gleaned from the weekend's prize pool; in 2008 the winner's prize for the main event was €81,000, this year the 'total' prize pool was less then that figure. The Macau had decreased the buy-in as a reaction to the current economic climate and a saturated calendar of poker events; they also added a re-buy option this year. The tournament was a still a great success and with 17 players choosing to buy in twice, that seems to have worked well also.

I said in a blog recently that I was unsure about these tournaments that give players the option to re-buy, when multiple day ones are in place. It's clearly an advantage to the top players who have large bankrolls, however is it fair to increase such players edge? I still haven't made my mind up, but it's definitely a topical subject as this type of event is becoming more prevalent.

My Main Event was going well for the first half of day one and into level four I had almost trebled my starting stack. Things turned on me after this however and I had a serious of unfortunate reversals which saw me finish the day with less then what I started. I rallied early on day two but was out just before dinner in a flip against the impressive Nelius Foley.

Seven on a Saturday night isn't the worst time to get knocked out of a tournament in Cork, and a big gang of the tournament causalities including Big Al, Paul Carr and Eoghan O'Dea hit the town for a messy night's drinking.

I returned home early Sunday morning but followed what looked a cracking final table online. Two of the south's favourite poker players; Peter 'Knuckles' Higgins and Brian 'The Fox' O'Keefe had good runs but fell short of the real money finishing 9th and 7th respectively.

Limerick player Con Collins followed up his recent 4th place finish at the JP Masters by filling the same position here. Upon Con's exit, the three remaining players agreed to deal, where Pat Curran took home €19,000 and the trophy, Tony Collins and David Croke both picked up a very healthy €15,000.