Barcelona or bust

Just thought I'd scribble a few lines before I head off to Barcelona tomorrow afternoon. Myself (and my good wife Patricia) are flying out from Cork tomorrow for the E.M.O.P Barcelona tournament that starts an Thursday. This is another leg of the EMOP series around europe which we travel to as members of team Irisheyespoker, and barcelona is one I have been looking forward to for a long time. Really enjoyed it last year when i travelled with Nicky Power, and though we had no luck at the tables, we still had a great time. Nicky is travelling as well this year so the craic will be mighty again,
In fact, theres a huge contingent from the Irisheyes poker team travelling, and at the last count, I believe we have 25 players attending the event, and the nightlife should be some thing to remember as most of those travelling will be known to me. Mr CEO of Irisheyes, Steven Merrick is also going, so drinks all round at the bar I hope steve!!!
Rob, barry and Pat, 3 friends of mine from Bandon, are travelling,Jason thompkins, Paul Carr, Paul Lucey, Derek Murray, Tony harte are just a handfull of the lads travelling, and Ill update this blog during the weekend to let ye know how everyone is doing.

Im hoping for a deep run myself in Barcelona, mainly because my form has been very good of late. A month ago, I finished 11th in the Maccau festival (reported on my last blog)and felt i played very well, and then 2 weeks ago, \i moved on to play the UKIPT game in Dublin. a field of 600 players (and a strong field) and once again, I felt I played quite well and eventually finished in 14th place. So thats 2 nice deep runs in the last 2 3 day events I played, and heres hoping for another one this weekend.
So, lunch on wed (later today) in Cork in my fav chinese resteraunt, The Pearl River. Then a couple of sociable ones with the lads before heading for the airport.

Talk later
Connie

Chance of substantial cash disappears!!

Last time I wrote, I had just won my satellite ticket into the Macau summer festival game which was 100k gtd. With 130 players turning up, the prizepool was a healthy €130,000.
I started on day 1b, and got quite a tough table to start, with some of my opponnents being Jason Thompkins, dave Mccarthy, Donal o Connor, Sean Coughlan and a few internet qualifiers. I didnt get much going all day to be honest, and after starting with 20,000 chips and a 75 minute clock, I was down to 12,000 with about a half hour to go in the days play. I made a decision there and then that i was either going to make some chips or lose the ones I had before the end of play, as I wasnt staying in Cork, i had to drive 1 hour home, and to drive back again the following day, I wanted some chips to come back with. So I started playing very aggressively, which took the table by surprise as I had been doing my rock image all day. Still, nothing much happened and with 5 seconds to go, I had about 16k. I urge the dealer to give us 1 more hand which he kindly agreed to. I limp Jd-9d utg looking for action really. 2 more limpers for 300 when a Limerick player makes it 1200 to go otb. Bb flats and I shove for 15k. Folded back to the raiser who starts asking me all kinds of questions. Then he tells me about the respect he has for my game and says fold, and the bb folds instantly as well. The raiser reaches in and turns over his cards, As-Ks (he was sitting on about 45k). Theres a redraw the next day, so i flick over the J9 and he goes ballistic. God, I took some abuse from him, but all i could do was laugh, which made him worse. Finished the night on 19,950 chips, down 50 chips from my start stack.

Redraw on day 2, and another tough table. But there was a lot of decent players there, so no table was easy. The internet qualifiers were about the softest target, but i just couldnt seem to pick up a hand against them. Them he limps utg, couple of more limpers, I make it up in the sb with A-3. Flop is K-3-3. I bet 70% of the pot, only he calls. Turn is a queen, I lead at it again, he reraises me, I call. I know I have him here. River is a goddam ugly K. I check, he bets, and i fold, showing the 3. "How can you fold the 3?" he says to me, as he tables KQ. Lol. Nothings happening for me really, but im picking my spots well and maintaining my stack which is well below the average. get down to 2 tables and there is money for 14. We play a full 2 blind levels without losing a player, when the td says thats it for the night and we're back tomorrow. Somebody suggests a deal to make sure everyone coming back for day 3 gets money, and everyone agrees.

back on day 3 and I get a good seat, with Jason Thompkins on my right, and dermot Blaine 2 to my right. I just have the right size stack to shove over their raises, and so it proves on day 3. Got a scare all right when one of my shoves got called. I had 99 this time, and my opponnent had 99. 3 diamonds on the flop, and he had the 9d. But the rest of the board blanked out. hen I got lucky when I reshoved for 90k with JJ, only to be called by QQ and I hit the J. Now I had chips for the 1st time in the tourney, and in the next half hour, I took it up to 270k, and chip leader at the table. Jim from waterford had about 250k, and dermot blaine had about 180k, We were 11 left now, my table 6 handed. Jim was in the bb, when i raised to 24k with QQ pf. Jim looked down at his cards and said "im all-in". Now this is a monster pot. Ive played with this lad before, and again here, after playing 2 days on his table, I cant fold to his shove. So I call.
Me--QQ
Jim--As-5s.
Flop---------K-2-J rainbow.
Turn is a 3
River is a 4 to give him the wheel and leave me with 3 bb's.
If I win that pot, i have 520k with 10 players left, and only 2 million chips in play. I was fcuking sick in my stomach. I made my exit soon afterwards and got €3,000. But really, I was looking at a decent 5 figure sum if that hand holds up (35k 1st, 23k 2nd, 16k 3rd and 11k 4th). Its a cruel game at times.

Still, Im happy that I played pretty well and look forward to my next outing. Im playing the UKIPT this week in Dublin, and then on to Barcelona for the EMOP on the last weekend in september. Hopefully some good news to blog after that.

On the golf front, really enjoying the game atm, and had a great game with nicky Power last week when we played 36 holes around the 2 championship courses in killarney. Fantastic weather, fantastic courses, and fantastic company. what more can a man ask for.

On the online front, started a bit of staking for the deepstack tournaments on irishEyesPoker. I think these game are redic soft if your a good player, so i started staking a few IPB'rs into them. It helps that the quality of player that looked for the staking is high, but things are working out fine at the moment anyway.

Golf and poker

Well, it has been a quite summer really, as I didnt really get to play at many of the poker festivals. The exceptions were the Waterford and Tramore games which i supported as the lads are always good to support anything we run in Killarney, so fair is fair. I did ok in both without shooting the lights out. In the Waterford game, I lasted into day 3 without making the money, which was disappointing, as i felt I had played very well for 2 days without any premium hands. Made 2 big laydowns preflop when I folded queens twice, and both times I was shown KK, so i was happy enough with my reads on players. Finally went out when I shoved 4s-7s in the sb when I was the shortest stack left, bb woke up with KQ, and even though the board ran out 9 high, I didnt hit ewither card and made my exit. Still, I won the entry in the satellite the night before, and I went on to finish 3rd in the side event, plus I had a successfull night on the cash table there, so overall, a winning weekend which is what its all about.

On to the Tramore weekend. This was just a big struggle. Started with 15000 chips, and I never got going really, and lasted well into day 2 before being knocked out. Another festival of mediocre cards. I guess I knew it wasnt going to be my week when the following hand happened. We are in day 2. Blinds are 300-600. I raise to 1700 with 66 in mid position. A rock in the c/o flats me, bringing in the button and the bb into the hand as well. Flop is a glorious A-K-6, rainbow. Now someones gotta have a bit of this. BB checks to me, I bet 4k, and all 3 opponnents fold!!! I so much expected a reraise there. Pretty sick really. I know I could have checked it, but its a dangerous flop and I had been having my c bets snapped off all day. just wasnt to be. Finally went out when I raised from the c/o with 44, a friend of mine in the bb reraised, and I 4-bet all-in. he took an age to decide, eventually calling with AQ and hit the Q on the river to knock me out. Again, I was happy enough with my play in this tourney. But again, i was disappointed with the lack of starting hands. I understand that sometimes you have to wait for these, but I feel Ive done my fair share of waiting. Hopefully the dry run of cards will change soon, and hopefully that will be in a decent size game!!!!

And now, the Irish Classic Poker festival is upon us. This is held in the Maccau club in cork city. I had pencilled this tourney in from early this year, as its one of my fav tournaments. I headed up to cork on wednesday night with Keith Cummins and Michael o Brien to play the satt. €110, with 1 rebuy only at €50. 8 tickets gtd. Finished up with 74 runners and 11 tickets. Just played a tag game here, and had Johnny keown 2 to my right. I was glad to have position on him, because he can be a nightmare on the table, depending on what kinda mood he's in!!! kept myself out of trouble early doors, and as the blinds increased, kept myself in the game with some timely 3-bets and reshoves. Had a good dublin player on my immediate left, although I didnt know his name. When we got down to about 15 players left, the game was becoming a crapshoot, but if you werent prepared to put your chips in the middle, you couldnt survive. The blinds at this stage were 4k-8k with a 1k ante, so 20k to be picked up if a pot was won uncontested. Ave stack was about 70k at this stage. The 2 to my left both had about the ave stack (same as me), so i was just shoving the button or the sb when folded to me to keepmy stack together. Finally got to 12handed when a deal was struck for all 12 to get tickets and everyone agreed.

2 starting days this year, 1a is Thurs and 1b is Friday. Ive decided to go with 1b. 25,000 chips and a 75 minute clock. Should be a great game. I dont know if any other members of team irish eyes are playing the event. Hopefully there are.

Got home from the satt on wed at 5am, and was up again at 9 to play golf!! I used to play a lot of golf a few years ago (well, 10 years ago), but I started playing lately with a few friends, and the bug has bitten again. so much so, that i went and joined up membership at thew local club, something i thought was behind me really. Myself and my brother Tim play fourball against my son Derry and his best friend, Mark Coffey. Tim is a 12 handicap, me 14, derry 10 and mark 18. No love lost here with all 4 players being extremely competitive creatures. I must say, its very enjoyable, and I guess the enforced exercise id doing me no harm!!

As for the online poker, I dont play as much in the summer as I would in the winter. Ive been concentrating really on the 2 new deepstack games on Irisheyes. A €15 f/o at 2.30pm aqns a €10 f/o at 4pm. 5,000 chips in both tourneys, and a 15 minute clock. Most of the players who play in these deepstacks havent a clue how to play them, willing to get it all in during the early levels with top pair etc etc. If 130 play, the field will be down to about 50/60 after 1 hour!!! They really are a soft touch for a decent player.

I'm heading off to Cork later for day 1a of the festival, and hopefullt, I will get to do a trip report here when I return. Wish me luck!!!!!!!!!!

Connie

Party time (unfortunately)!

I've been looking forward to Bulgaria for some time now. Things have been going well poker-wise for the last month and I felt on top of my game coming here.
The weekend started well when I won a satellite for the 550 side event on the first night I arrived and I felt good.
My table draw could have been better. Just one local and of the others there was only one I didn't recognise as a good player from previous tournaments. He was one to my left, more of him later.
The tournament couldn't have started worse for me. First hand utg, the local, opened for 175. I flatted in mp with JJ and 2 others called. Flop of T62 looked good for me and I raised his cbet, which he called. He then check-called my 80% pot bet on a 3 turn and lead the 9 river for 25% pot. The only hand that made sense to me here was 99 but i called anyway given the price I was getting and he showed 78. NH.
This took me down to 16.5 k from the starting stack of 20k. I grinded for the next few hours without making any real progress. The player to my left turned out to be the table fish that everyone was after, obviously totally unused to playing live, limp calling all the time and generally being awful. The only hand of note that I played in the early levels came when he opened utg and got 2 callers. I reraised from BB with AQs, the 2 callers got out of the way and I won the pot on a raggy flop. This pot took me back up to about 18k, which as it turned out, was as good as it was going to get. I lost another 7k to the local when he raised and I made the call from BB with KJs. Flop of AJJ looked good but to cut a long story short, he called flop and turn with KTs and runner-runnered the flush. At 11k and the blinds at 400/800 I was getting into short-stack country. My opportunities were very limited, however, as most pots were opened before I could act and I blinded down to 8.5k before I made my move. A good Swedish player on a stack opened from mp to 2.5k and I shoved from the button with 66. He made the call with QJs and a J on the turn ended my tournament.
The rest of the team didn't get any luck either. Sandro went out in level 4, shoving AK from the BB, for 19k, after a raise and 2 callers. One of the callers made a hero-call with 99 and held. Dave departed after correctly putting his opponent on AK on a K high flop and playing his hand like a set, shoving the river for most of his opponents stack. Feargal grinded for hours without cards and shoved for 20k with KK after a raise and 2 callers to run into the AA of the or. Jamie went in the second level running JJJ into QQQ on the flop. Robbie went out on a Q high flop with AQ to Q7 in a reraised pre-flop pot. Lisbon winner Tim made day 2 but went out when he shoved 37k over a raiser with TT, only for the raiser to call with QT and make a straight.
We all went to the player party on Friday night but I can't remember anything at all about it!!
On Saturday I played in the 550 side-event. The structure, in direct contrast with main event, was essentially a turbo. 30 min clock and 5k stack. We really are spoiled in Ireland. I played well in this and thought at one stage that I would make the final table. With 12 left and 8 getting paid I opened from the CO with KQs and the chipleader shoved from the sb. If I fold I have 15k left at 1/2k blinds with a 2oo ante. His range is huge as he's been bullying lot's of raisers into folding so I made the call. I hit my K and he hit his 4 for 444. I win the race there and I ft for sure with a chance.
I'm not going to play any more poker on the trip. The weather is fantastic and I'm going to soak up a bit before I go home. The locals are friendly and welcoming food and drink are ridiculously cheap and this is a real party town. I'm surprised it hasn't been "discovered" yet by the young holiday crowd. Cheap booze and all-night music bars would make it a cheap holiday. Kinda like Spain 20 years ago.
The Irish Eyes crew are going out on the town together tonight. Could be interesting!!
The next EMOP is Barcelona and all the talk here is that it will break records for numbers. The biggest EMOP so far was Barcelona last year with 399 and 430 is confidently being predicted. We will have at least 20. If you want to join us and have a great weekend of poker and partying, satellites are running now on Irish Eyes Poker from €2. We will also be running live satellites around the country. It would be great if we could bring a team of 30 or more and turn Barcelona into a big Irish party.

I used to love the "ladies"!!!!!!!!!!

Well, ladies and me usually get on pretty well, but even though Ive only encountered them a few times this weekend, I'm sick of them already! Of course I'm not really talking about ladies in the flesh, but i am referring to being dealt QQ. I've had them twice here at the ISOP in Waterford, and they have cost me quite a lot of chips.

This tournament has a sick structure (good I mean), but it started on friday evening at 4pm with only 70 runners. It really deserved much more than that, but i guess with the economy in the state its in, and a lot of the serious players in vegas for the World series, low numbers was understandable. Theres also a bit of political unrest down this side of the country between the different poker fractions, so i guess that didnt help either. But the game deserved a much bigger crowd, because you'll have to go a long way to find a better structure than this.

I came up to Waterford the night before the event, decided to play in the Sattellite and managed to luckbox my way to a ticket for the ME. A lot of the players in the satellite didnt realise the difference between playing a sat and a tourney, and I used this to my advantage on many occasions during the night. It was an enjoyable game with a great "craic" athmosphere. With 12 players left and 10 tickets the prizes, I was 12th in chips. We then lost a player and we were on the bubble, and I went from bottom stack to CL and only having to show 1 hand! Played all night on the same table as Vera duffy, and she showed her class by playing great poker.

On to the ME. 20,000 chips, 1 hour clock on day 1, 75 minute clock on day 2 and a 90 minute clock on day 3 for those lucky enough to make it there. The minds a bit of a blank right now, but i'll run through a few of the most important hands.

day 1--sitting on approx 26k at the 100-200 blind level. A serial limper limps, I limp behind with 77, and larry ryan(playing 50k) (of EPT fame) makes it 750 otb. Limper calls, and i call.
Flop comes Qc-7c-3h. all check to the raiser, and he bets 1700. Limper folds. I dwell for a minute. i know larry has a hand here, either AQ or an overpair at a guess. His bet size tells me that from what i know of his play. I reckon if I jsut call and a club comes, it will slow him down a lot, so i reraise larry to 4,500 hoping he might think Im playing a flush draw aggressively. It worked anyway, because he insta shipped all-in and I snapped. he had AA, and i made quads on the turn to take away any bit of a sweat I had!

Finished day 1 on 58k.
Day 2--Still on the same table. Good player(MD) 2 to my left that is a boardie and well known to me. Blinds 300-600, I make it 1650 to go from mp with QQ. MD raises me to 5,200. Folded back to me. I think for a minute. Now MD knows me well, he's well aware of my image that I have cultavated at the table, so i reckon theres a chance he could be reraiseing me light enough here, but I figure AK to be his most likely holding. I 4 bet reraise him to 13,750. he asks me for a count, I still have 45k behind. He tanks and goes all-in for 32k more. Im sick in my stomach now, cause I know Im behind here to MD 100% of the time. I take my time but do the manly thing and fold. He shows KK. Everyone says "great fold", but its not really. Its pretty standard in my eyes.

Later day 2--I grind and grind and just love this table i'm on. Pick my spots carefully, and get up to 80k over the next few hours, and I dont remember losing a hand at showdown, not that I got to many showdowns anyway. Then my table got broke, and that was a big dissapointment.
On to my new table, and nothing really happened for me here. Had about 80k going to the table, and after about 5 or 6 hours playing there, still had 80k. So blinds are 800-1600, and a good dublin player(playing 120k) raises mp to 5,200. Im next to act, and I have 2 red queens, and Im playing about 75k. I make it 15k to go. Folded around to him, and after a 2 minute dwell-up, he flats me. Hmmmmmmmm! Flop comes 4x-4x-3x. He checks, I bet 22k, he insta ships all-in. WOW!!! Im in a world of pain here. I have nearly half my stack in the pot, and normally, its an instant call. But theres a few things that have to be weighed up, and these are the decisions that count in this kinda tourney. So what went through my mind in the few minutes i dwelt up that seemed like a few hours?
1-This is a good player. Ive been chatting away to him over the last 5 hours, and I know he loves the structure of this tourney like i do. He has told me a couple of times how he doesnt like to play too many big pots in this type of game, because theres plenty places and time to pick up chips. And I agree with him.
2- He should be aware that my range here is minimum JJ. Really, I can only have 1 of the 4 big hands. Ive half my stack in the middle, so there no way he can think he can bluff me off the pot, so i can rule a bluff out of the equation.
3-If I rule a bluff out, I now know he just has to have Kk or AA. He could do that with QQ, but aS i have that hand, he cant have it. He never does it with JJ, so he has to have KK or AA.
4-The structure. Blinds are 800-1500, I still have 35k or 24 bb's, blind levels are 75minutes long. Its a lot less than what Ive had all day, but its definately enough to play with and try to get back into the tourney.
So I fold. I tell kieth what im folding, and he's kind enough to show his KK. Even though its the right fold, I still have a pain in my gut for the next hour!!

I just grind away for the next 2 hours, and i finished the day on 44k. Blinds are 1000-2000 for another 15 minutes, and then 1200-2500 for 90 minute blinds for the rest of the day. 14 players left, and 9 for the money. Heres hoping for a run of cards today. I just have to win the first serious pot I play. 1 time and all that!!!

Busy month ahead!!

Havent been blogging for a while cause Ive been quite busy with a lot of things happening in June, and not a lot of time for poker.(unfortunately). Ive been doing alright on line without shooting the lights out, but Ive made myself a promise to play much more in July, and thats a promise I intend keeping.

Had great fun last week with the Lakes of Killarney festival of golf. This was a 2 person team 3 day event (details can be found on www.par4golfevents.com) played over the 3 sister courses at the Killarney golf club complex, Mahony's point, Lackabane and the Irish Open course, Killeen. With 3 days of glorious sunshine, the 3 courses looked fantastic and all competitors had a fantastic time. Money was also raised for the Carers association through the event, so kudos to my brother Tim who spearheaded the project. Over 60 teams competed from all over ireland,with some from the UK and Germany, and no doubt, it will be a definate sell out next year is the response of this years competitors means anything.

Back to poker,and 3 decent live events to be played this month, 2 of them in Waterford, and finishing with the EMOP in Sunny Beach in Bulgaria.
The 2 Waterford games are similar in buy-in (€500), they are both 3 day events with excellent structures. The 1st one is on next weekend in the Tower Hotel, run by Big Slick events. With the numbers playing these mtt festival games dropping around the country due to the economy, the organisers are unsure of the expected numbers, but I expect something between 120 and 150. (thats well down on their previous expectations, but coming on the back of the WSOP, I thiunk my estimate is close enough).
The 2nd event is on in Tramore on the last weekend of the month, run by Waterford poker club and Pronutz. Another excellent strucure here, and im hoping to go a few steps further than last year when I exited around the bubble time even though I had a healthy stack. I flopped a set of 8's against jay renehans flopped flush, and no help on the turn or river saw me going out and Jay went on to win it.I expect close to 200 runners at this one.

The final event of the month for me is the next leg of the EMOP in Bulgaria. A good friend of mine qualified online last night on Irisheyespoker.com, (sandro taddei), so the craic should be good out there. (the craic is always good at them anyway). If your reading this and you fancy a trip to Bulgaria, pop on to Irisheyespoker.com and you could get yourself a package for as little as €2. The casino in Bulgaria is in Sunny beach, a tourist destination, although with a bit of luck, I wont get to see much of the beach as I want to run deep in one of these EMOP's.

On other topics, went to the Kerry-Limerick munster final yesterday, and i was very impressed with the Limerick performance. I think they will take a bit of beating in the back door tournament to qualify for the latter stages of the All Ireland championships, and a few quid could be made on them.

On the sports betting front, I was extremely sick after the US open golf championship. I met my brother Tim for breakfast on the Thursday morning it was starting, and he told me he had just backed Ernie Els for ther US Open. I told him I was going down to Ladbrokes to back Graham McDowell at 60/1. He said I should go up town to PP as he saw McDowell at 80/1. So off I went and could only see 60/1 everywhere. So I said Id wait until I met Tim again that evening to find out where the odds were. And you know what happened next. Never got to see Tim again that day, never got to put my bet on, never saw any price again like 60/1 after day 1, and never felt so sick over a missed bet as I was on the sunday night. Delighted for McDowell of course, just sick at my stupidity.
On the plus side, I had the Gooch backed at 11/2 for the 1st goal yesterday, and then invested a decent chunk of the winnings on Ryan Moore @ 13/2 without justin Rose in the US golf, so feeling a bit better this weekend.

before I finish, I must congratulate sean Prendaville on his tremendous showing so far at the WSOP. Before he went over, he won two big MTT live tournaments here in Ireland, the CPT grand final, and the JP masters back to back. Then he hit for Vegas, and within 5 days of getting off the plane, he has gone deep in two fields of over 3,000 players, finishing 15th and 24th for about $50,000. He's on a heater at the moment, and when theres a good player on a heater, its almost impossible to stop him. I just hope it lasts for him into the ME.
I didnt have the chance to go to the WSOP this year, but hopefully, I'll return there in 2011.
Finally, GL to all the Irish playing in the WSOP ME. Hope ye run like god.

EMoP Bulgaria Live satellites starting soon.

Celtic Poker Tour / Atlantis Casino Live EMoP satellite in the Atlantis Casino Carlow on 4th July. 170 entry. 2 packages worth 2,000 euro guaranteed. Entry to this live satellite can be won via the CPT Monday night 20 euro F/O satellite on Irish Eyes Poker at 9pm.

Entry to the Live satellite can also be won at any Celtic Poker Tour event between now and 4th July.

Join the Team in Bulgaria from July 28th to 1st Aug.

EMOP Italia!!

Im writing this overlooking lake como on the Italian/swiss border. We are here to play in the EMOP Italy. Unfortunately, this will not be a very long post, or a post about being successfull, because i have failed to make it through day 1.

The tournament had a great starting field of 400 runners. The only downside of that was that over half of them were itallian!! Now Im not racist, or anything like that, but i have yet to meet an Italian who is a good poker player. Im sure they are there, i just havent come across them. On the 2 tables I played on today, I came across about 12/15 of them, and the mind boggles. heres an example;

we start with 20,000 chips. 3rd blind level, blinds are 100/200. Utg raises to 550, 2 callers, C/O reraises to 1400. All 3 who had raised and called the raise called the reraise, putting approx 5.5k in the middle. flop comes A-7-5. UTG shoves for 23,000, all 3 fold after a dwell. UTG proudly turns over A-10 to show he wasnt bluffing!!!
I knew if and when I was going to get stuck in a pot with them, I was going to have to play a big pot. But you want players of that standard on your table whenever you play.

So, on to my own tale of woe. Nothing much happened in the 1st couple of levels, but in the last hand before the break, there was a raise to 250, 2 callers and i called otb with 22. Flop comes 2-4-6, with 2 clubs. Raiser checks, Italian bets 600, i call, oroginal pf raiser folds. turn is 4s. Italian bets 1300, I dwell for a while, hoping he will put me on the flush draw, and call again. River is a 10d. He bets 2,200. I dwell again, and make it 8,000, and he snaps. I show the 22 for the boat, he yells yes and turns over 4-7 for trips. he thinks hes ahead until the dealer shoves the pot to me.
I get moved table, and things are going fine and i have 28,000 when the blinds are 150-300. i raise the c/o with 77 to 750, sb and bb call. Flop is a golded J-J-7, 2 hearts. Checked to me, I bet 1,500. Sb folds, bb makes it 4,600. (he is italian, and im estacic!!). I pause and reluctantly call. Turn is the 4h, and I hate this, because Im scared he might think I now have a flush, and his J might not be any good anymore. He checks, and i fire 6k into the pot. He announces all in for another 13,000, and i have my chips in before him. he proudly flips over A-J for trips, and i show 77 for the boat. Im mnot so happy though when the dealer somehow finds another ace on the river to steal the pot from me. I now have 3.5k when I should have 55k. Its a sick sick game we play.
I climbed back up to 13k in the 400-800 level, when I raised to 2,200 from the c/o, and same player reraises me. This time, I have my best starting hand of the day, and I shove with QQ. He has to call now, and he has AK. Two kings on the flop, and the 4th king on the river seals the deal, so i will have to wait for EMOP Bulgaria to make a name for myself.

patricia ran queens into Aces, and later kings into aces to go out day 1, while teamtom gort very unlucky when he clashed with another big stack and had his aces cracked by 33 late in the day. EMOP champion from Portugal, Timothy Timmotheu, is also gone, as his big crash came when he ran kings into aces.
Dunno if im gonna play the side games, as this is a beautiful area and Im anxious to see a bit of it while im here. I believe george Clooney owns a big property on the lake here,and Im not surprised about that at all. Words dont do it justice, and when i find out how to transfer pics from a mobile onto this site, Ill post uo a few.

Ill try and write another piece for here tomorrowe night, depending on the humour im in. But sure, it cant be any worse than i feel tonite.

Connie

June Newsetter

Welcome to our June Newsletter where you will find information on all of our new promotions, including a 100% RELOAD deposit bonus for June, and news of the next EMoP leg in Bulgaria.

Team Irish Eyes Poker had a fantastic trip to Lisbon and scooped 1st and 5th place in the main event. The Team are now off to EMoP Italy and hope to bring back even more prizes. Make sure you join the Team for EMoP Bulgaria.

EMoP Bulgaria, Crystal Crown Casino, Sunny Beach, Bulgaria from 28 July to 01 Aug 2010

The fifth stop for European Masters of Poker in Season II will be in Crystal Crown Casino, Sunny Beach, Bulgaria from 28 July to 01 Aug 2010. Join the Irish Eyes Poker Team at EMoP Bulgaria for the great EMoP Team Party. Main qualifiers from €100 and Satellites online now from €2.

Keep upto date on the Team's progress at EMoP Italy this weekend, and all other EMoP announcements by joining our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Irish-Eyes-Poker/112290065454803?ref=mf

Celtic Poker Tour

Our association with the Celtic Poker Tour, Ireland's Premier Poker Tour gets stronger and stronger. We have some great promotions with the CPT including a new CPT Irish Eyes Poker Live event in the Bridge Club, Banbridge on 20th June, with 7,000 euro guaranteed. Capped at 100 players, registration online only, is available now.
We are also delighted to announce that you can now deposit and withdraw funds in cash from your account at any CPT event.

Win your seat to any of Celtic Poker Tour's weekly events in our Monday night satellite at 8.30pm, with one Celtic Poker Tour weekly ticket guaranteed.
Plus we can announce the new Players Championship 2010/2011 where Irish Eyes Poker and Celtic Poker Tour are guaranteeing €25,000 to a FREE entry live tournament in April 2011.

June 100% Reload Bonus

Reload your account this month using reload code 'june500ie' and we will match your deposit up to €500, (except cash deposits).

Any amount up to €500 can be deposited to get your bonus. Deposit €100 and get €100 bonus. The deposit is released into your account after 30 days at a rate of 5 euro per 100vip points earned.

VIP150 ENDURANCE CHALLENGE (€20,000)

In June two endurance challenges are arranged.

All players who earn 150 VIP or more every day (00:00:00 to 23:59:59) from the 1st of June to the 15th of June will equally split a prize pool of €10,000.

All players who earn 150 VIP or more every day (00:00:00 to 23:59:59) from the 16th of June to the 30th of June will equally split a prize pool of €10,000.

All winnings are paid out directly to the players' accounts after the challenges are concluded.

SIT & GO LEADERBOARD (€30,000)

The leaderboard is divided into three different levels: Low €1 - <€10, Medium €10 - <€50 and High €50+. All Sit & Go tournaments except Double or Nothing (DoN) will count towards the leaderboards. Ranking, point distribution and payout structures can be found under the Account Information tab in the poker client.

Over €5,000 in Freerolls Monthly.

With Daily prize pools of up to €100, and small player fields, the next batch of upcoming freerolls are not to be missed! Freerolls include:

€100 Exclusive Affiliate Freerolls. Wednesday Nights 21.00. Password Wednesdays on our Facebook page.

€20 Freeroll Daily Mondays to Fridays 18.20.

New Team Irish Eyes Poker Live VIP Tournament Bonus club coming soon.

Best of Luck
Irish Eyes Poker

EMoP Live Super Satellites this week

Team Irish Eyes Poker EMoP Live Super Satellites this week:

Tuesday 11th in the Bank Casino, Cork at 8.30pm. €100 F/O.

Thursday 13th in the Fitzwilliam Card Club Dublin at 8.30PM. €100 buy-in.

Sunday 16th in the Bridge Club, Banbridge, at 6PM SHARP. £150+£15 buy-in. 15K Stack.

Sunday 16th in the Cue Club, Killarney, at 7.30pm. €80 buy-in. 1 Rebuy OR add-on €50.

Win your package and join the Team at EMoP Italy or any EMoP event of your choice. See http://www.irisheyespoker.com/en/EMOP.aspx for more details.

Irish Eyes Poker May Promotion: New low buy-ins to guaranteed tournaments.

Irish Eyes Poker May Promotion: New low buy-ins to guaranteed tournaments.

All next week we are offering half price or less buy-ins for daily guaranteed prizepools in the following tournaments:

Time Name Old Buy-in New Buy-in
14.00 €1,000 Guarantee €50 €25
15.00 €1,000 Guarantee Shorthand €40 €10
16.00 €1,000 Guarantee €75 €25
17.00 €1,000 Guarantee €50 €25

The lower buy-ins for these tournaments will be available for one week between 8-14th of May. Don't miss out.

Jason Tompkins New Irish Eyes Poker Pro

Jasons New Personal Blog can be found here:

http://jason-tompkins.blogspot.com/

EMoP Italy Live satellites

EMoP Italy Live satellites are taking place soon around the country. If you want to win your ticket to the EMoP Italy at the end of May with over 300,000 euro in the prizepool, check out one of the live satellites below.

More live satellites will be added. Details will appear here when dates and venues are confirmed.

Friday 30th April: Atlantis Casino, Carlow: €200+€20 F/O. Starts 8.30pm.

Monday 9th May: Cue Club Killarney; €80 + 1 rebuy or add-on €50. Starts 7.30pm

Thursday 13th May: Fitzwilliam Card Club, Dublin. €100 F/O. Starts 8.30pm

Sunday 15th May: Bridge Club, Banbridge. £200+£20 F/O. Starts 5pm

Irish Eyes Poker - New sponsors of the Celtic Poker Tour

Irish Eyes Poker are delighted to be the sponsors of the Celtic Poker Tour, the Premier Poker Tour of Ireland.

The Celtic Poker Tour run live poker events every week in venues around Ireland. For a list of upcoming events check www.celticpokertour.com

As part of our sponsorship of the tour, you can now win your seat to any of Celtic Poker Tour event in our Monday night FREE entry satellite at 8.30pm, with one Celtic Poker Tour ticket to any weekly event guaranteed. The satellite has an optional €10 rebuy and a €10 'double chip' add-on.

We are also delighted to announce the new Players Championship 2010/2011 where Irish Eyes Poker and Celtic Poker Tour are guaranteeing €25,000 to a FREE entry live tournament in April 2011.

To be able to enter this event you must achieve one of the following:

Win any Celtic Poker Tour Live Event

Win any EMoP Package on Irish Eyes Poker

Accumulate 50 player points from Celtic Poker Tour weekly events AND 10 VIP player points on Irish Eyes Poker between now and April 2011

Accumulate 1000 VIP player points on Irish Eyes Poker AND play in one live Celtic Poker Tour event between now and April 2011.

You can also increase your changes of winning the Players Championship live event by building your starting stack at the event by accumulating player points and online VIP points.

The starting stack at the live event is 5,000 chips.

However, for every 1 live player point earned at Celtic Poker Tour events over the required 50 points to enter, you receive 100 extra starting stack chips. Example, you have 70 live player points, then you get 7,000 chip starting stack.

And you can increase your starting stack through VIP points online also.
For every 200 vip points earned online over the required 1000 vip points to enter, you will receive 100 extra starting stack chips.
Example, you have 9,000 vip points, then you get 7,000 chip starting stack.

It is also possible to get your entry of 50 live players points or 1000 vip points online by pooling both your live player points and online vip points together.
Example, you have 25 live player points and 500 online VIP points. This will get you your free entry to the Players Championship final with €25,000 guaranteed prize money.

The Players Championship Live Final in April 2011 will be a members only entry event, with a free buy-in, one re-buy and one add-on available for €50 each. All rebuys and add-ons will be added to the €25,000 starting prizepool.

Players will have starting stacks in line with the accumulated live and online points as outlined above. No player will be allowed to start the tournament with more than 25,000 chips.

For more information contact promotions@irisheyespoker.com or speak with Fionn or Liam at any Celtic Poker Tour event.

Spring is in the air!!

Couple of weeks since I last posted. There hasn't been a lot going on in the poker world in the last few weeks for me. The weathers been great down here in Kerry, so we took avail of it at home. Had a barbecue at home in the evenings and generally chilled out. Played some online poker, but not as much as I usually would.

I see that the entraction network (irisheyes)are introducing a spring series. They are a list of different price games, with great guarantees and various size buy ins, suitable for all pockets. Tonite for instance, there is a €10,000 guarantee for a €20 freeze-out (only 230 players registered with 20 mins to go, so should be a nice overlay in that. Also, tonite at 8pm, there is a STS €50,000 gtd game for a €100 F/O and also there is just over 200 registered so far. Some great value tourneys there, and hopefully i can run well in them. Also tonite, there is the invitation tournament satellite for the EMoP Italy. This is a tournament where the only players allowed to enter are the players that actually competed in the EMoP Lisbon. Matt won this tourney last month, so hopefully its my turn!! Although, having played quite a lot already today, I wouldnt be filled with confidence. I made 6 final tables today, got my chips in ahead on all of them, but came out the wrong side. And they werent all flips either. Lost AQ v Q-10, AK v AJ, 10-10 v 3-3 and a few flips. Happens to everyone, I understand that, just hoping to run better tonite.

Gonna concentrate on qualifieing for the italian leg of the EMoP after that. I've been reading up on it, and it really looks like its worth a visit. the tournament is being played in campione, which is on the border between Italy and Switzerland, with the casino situated on the shores of lake Lugano. Its supposed to be the biggest casino in Europe, so I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully, we'll have a gang again on the Teamirisheyes contingent. We've a lot to live up to though, as one of the lads, Tim from London, managed to actually take down the EMoP portugal for an €85,000 pay day. 1 guarantee anyway is that the craic will be good!!! For those of you that dont know, qualifying can be done on line on Irisheyespoker.com There are 3 finals a week with 20 seats guaranteed between them, on Tuesdays, thursdays and Sundays, with €2 satellites on every day into them finals. Also now, because of the increasing popularity of the EMoP's, there are a number of live satellites on around Ireland. they will be in the Cue Club, Killarney, The Bank casino in Cork, the Fitzwilliam casino in Dublin, the Atlantis casino in Carlow and the Bridge club in Banbridge.

Lets change the subject away from poker for a minute. Lets talk snooker.And mostly, about steve davis. What a fantastic performance he is putting in at the world championships in sheffield. I'm delighted for him, as I know how much pride he takes in his own performances. Now that he has reached the quarter final, I'm gonna head off over to the Crucible tomorrow in time for the quarter final against neil robertson which is on tuesday and wednesday.

Will write a bit of a trip report next week on that.

Connie

Oh what a night!!

Oh, man, what a night. Irish Eyes players finishing 1st and 5th. Team Irish Eyes taking over the casino bar. Chants of “ole, ole” and “you’ll never beat the Irish” temporarily stopping the roulette and blackjack. All followed by a late bar, where our host (and by Sunday night, good friend lol) Antonio was prepared to draw drink until the sun was well and truly up!
My own tournament didn’t run so well. First I lost half my stack with tens on a ten high flop. The hand played out like this: local hero raises to 300 (he has raised about 60% so far). I repop next to act to 850, he calls. Flop is T9x rainbow. He leads for 350 and I raise to 1200, he calls. I raise here because on the evidence so far, this guy isn’t folding anything that’s hit and I want to build a pot. It would make no difference to him that this is the first pot I’ve played!! Turn brings a K, completing the rainbow. He checks, I bet 2800, he calls. River is a J and he leads for 4k. WTF? I think about it for a minute or so and think it looks like he’s hit 2 pair on the river and consider raising to try and get it in. In the end I decide to be cautious and flat call, to be shown Q9 for the straight. WP NH.
I took a breather after this and told myself not to panic, I still had 11k and the blinds were still only 50/100. However, the day got worse after this, with AK on a K high flop having to be folded to a check raise on the turn, 99 getting beat by the T7 of my local hero friend and JJ having to be folded on the flop. With around 6k left, I’m looking for a spot to double-up. When I raise with QQ, I think I’ve found it when I get repopped by a good aggro Scandie. I ship and of course he has AA.
In the side event, I decided to play pretty snugly and hope to hit something to double up with. I had increased my stack to around 9k, without having to turn over any hand at all and knew that I was playing well. I called a raise with 77 from a decentish player. The flop came AA7. If he’s got the A here, I’m thinking, this is my opportunity. He leads and I decide to raise. He insta-shoves and I snap obv. He has AT. Turn 9, river 9. Hasta la vista, baby.
On the plus side I won 2 out 3 €100 sit and go’s, to keep turnover on the up a bit.
My job for the rest of the weekend, I decided, was to support the other Irish Eyes players still in the main event.
I was absolutely gutted when Patricia went out with JJ vs A6 just a couple of spots off the money. She had played superbly well and used her (rock) image to good effect in a couple of spots to steal nice pots. She was just waiting to get her double-up from the A6 guy and pounced at exactly the right time, only for the poker gods to shoot her down. It won’t be long before she gets a right run at one of these.
That left Paul and Tim to cheer for. Paul had played out of his skin all weekend. He showed balls of steel with 16 left to win a nice pot. He raised in early position. The BB min-reraised and after a dwell Paul called. The flop came AQJ and after a little hesitation, the BB checked. Paul instantly reached for chips and counted out a 90k bet (nearly a pot sized bet). The BB gave Paul a stare for about 60 seconds and folded KK face up. Nice fold says Paul and flips 44. Beautiful. Tim, meanwhile, stayed out of trouble until 13 left. Then he let loose and seemed to raise every second or third pot. He ran through 2 players very quickly, including Patricia’s conqueror and built a nice stack for the final table.
The final table was a blur. Action seemed to be like a waltz. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. Paul and Tim both hunkered down and watched the carnage going on around them and picked their spots well. Paul’s exit hand was standard. He shipped with T7 over the SB’s open and got called by A8. A flop of 89x gave some hope but he missed and was out in 5th. A brilliant performance by him.
Tim then made a big call with J9 on a 9 high flop against the chip leader, who was trying to bully his way to the title and never looked back from there. The bullyboy was dispatched in 3rd place and the heads-up didn’t take very long. There were no deals and Tim walked away with close to €87k.
Which brings me back to the night after. Oh, what a night!!
As usual, the EMOP team ran a superb weekend of poker and craic. I made some new friends among the Irish Eyes qualifiers, met some old ones from previous events and generally had a ball. My only gripe is that I’m yet to get any sort of run at one of these. Roll on Italy.

EMoP Lisbon - A Result

TEAM IRISH EYES POKER PLAYER WINS EMOP LISBON.

A huge congratulations to Timothy Timotheou (centre picture) who won the EMoP Lisbon main event on Sunday last 28th March. Timothy is a great tournament player and qualified online to win his EMoP package. Tim won out in the final hand against Lithuanian Povilas Portukas.
How it happened: Purtokas completes and Timotheau checks. Flop 74K rainbow, check-check. Turn J. Timotheau bets 140K, Purtokas shoves all in, call. Timotheau has K9, i.e. top pair, Purtokas only TT. Only one of the two remaining tens would save the Lithuanian. But a 4 falls.

A big congratulations also to Paul Lucey from the Atlantis Casino in Carlow who came 5th.
And to Patricia O'Sullivan one of the last 2 ladies in the event who just failed to make the prizemoney.

Well done to Timothy, Paul, Patricia and all the Team Irish Eyes Poker players.

EMoP Lisbon Top 5
1: Timothy Timotheou - 86 680€
2: Povilas Portukas - 53 190€
3: Henrik Torstensson - 34 672€
4: Diogo Borges - 22 064€
5: Paul Lucey - 17 336€

Top Team Irish Eyes Poker EMoP positions.
1st - Timothy Timotheou
5th - Paul Lucey
48th - Patricia O'Sullivan

Day 1b at EMOP Lisbon.

Obviously, after my exploits yesterday,(day 1a), I was not involved in the playing side of things today, but as 6 of the team Irish Eyes group were playing day 1b, including my wife Patricia and daughter Ciara, I decided to go to the casino and lend my support. And truthfully, it was more draining than the hard slog on the table the night before. Its one thing to be in control of your own destiny, but when your just sittting or standing there watching the games go on, you feel powerless and everytime you see one of your own entering pots, your heart would be in your mouth. But sure, I suppose thats why we love this game so much.

The 6 irish eyes qualifiers today were patricia, Ciara, Jamie Lowe,(Killarney), William Brown, (Bangor), Thomas Collins, Castlemaine and Janus Jeszek (Dublin).
William had the best start, and sure why wouldnt he. in the 1st blind level, he had AA,KK,QQ,JJ and 99, as well as flopping a set of 4's. Considering he missed his flight out here and had to go to lots of trouble to get another one on time, and then proceeded to lose his passport since he got here, his luck was bound to change!!!! Having said all that, his luck ran out just before the end of the day when he raised with Ad-Kd, got 1 caller, flop comes Qd-10d-6d for a pure gin flop. Willian bets out the flop as he's thinking to himself "how do i get his chips here?". he didnt have to think for long when his opponnent announced "all-in". William snap calls him obviously and they both have 50k in the middle. Opponnent has 10-10 and an ugly 6 on the river gives his opponnent the full boat and see the chips sliding across the table. A sickener really for william, but thats poker for you.

Janus was just as unlucky. Blinds were 500-100 and Janus was very comfortable with 50k. He raises with AA, and opponnent annouses reraise all-in. A delighted Janus insta calls, yer man has 6-6, and a 6 on the flop ends Janus's hopes.

Jamie Lowe had got off to a quick start as well, racing up to 38k when the average was only 23k. But then he suffered a few hours of being totally card dead, and after dropping to 24k, he got it all-in preflop against AK with 99, but the river brought a king to eliminate Jamie with just an hour of play left in the day.

Enough of the sad stories now, as our other 3 contestants successfully made it through day 1 and into tomorrows play to join myself and Paul Lucey as the 5 team Irish Eyes players still in the tourney. With over 400 starting the event, its a great achievement to get 5 of our 11 qualifiers through to day 2.

Ciara was card dead all day and never got past her starting stack for the 1st 8 hours of play. She finally got the double up her patience deserved when she raised of the button with 33, got called by the Bb who had KQ, and the flop came K-9-3. The bb duly obliged and doubled Ciara's stack from 15k to 30k. Ciara stayed card dead for the last 2 hours, but some aggressive short stack play saw her maintain her 30k stack at the end of play.

Patricia, who is only playing the game 2 years, has played extremely well once again and qualified for day 2 with 45.5k. This is her 4th EMOP event, (and are the only 4 big tourneys she has ever played in),and this is her 3rd time making it to day 2. Its truly an advertisment for the tight is right bregade. Her big hand came when she had about 17k, she raised with JJ, got reraised by a scandie in the blinds, and she shoved her stack in. he called with AK but the JJ's won the race.

Last but not least is Thomas Collins. Thomas doesnt get to play many live tourneys, but he took to it like a duck to water. He gathered a tight image all day and then used it when the blinds got bigger. he got very unlucky when he called a shortstacks all in for 12k late in the day when he had 88, and the shortstack turned over J-2. A 2 on the flop, and another 2 on the river saw tom lose the pot. He was down to 13k himself then, but he recovered brilliantly to finish up the day on 35k.

So thats it for today. I'll report back tomorrow night with news on how the last 5 team members do on day 2. Paul Lucey is nicely stacked on 95k, while the other 4 are all less than the average stack. But each of them is only 1 hand away from being right back in it. 125 players return to do battle with a new table draw. 45 player will get payed. heres hoping we'll have something to cellebrate after tomorrow.

Connie

Team Irish Eyes Poker at EMOP Lisbon.

TR from EMOP Lisbon.

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Well, after the last EMOP in Gran Canaria, I said I'd do another TR from the next one in Lisbon, so here we are. I'll try to keep it a bit short though as its 4.45am out here, and I could do with some sleep!!
Flew out yesterday with some of the family, my wife Patricia, and daughter Ciara and her boyfriend Jamie, as well as Lplate and his wife Sheila. They're all playing in the tourney(all qualified online at irish eyes poker.com) except for Sheila who doesnt play, so theres a bit of pride in the last longest. Theres a good gang from Ireland here this time, with 12 qualifiers in total from Irish Eyes Poker.
We're staying in the beautiful Palacio hotel in Estoril (just outside Lisbon). Its a 5 star, but it was part of the package, so 4 nights of granduer guaranteed. The casino itself is the biggest I've ever seen outside of Vegas. Its a really classy joint, with 4 large restaurants, live music and as much gaming as a man could want. (1,000 slots!!).

There are 2 starting days, 1a (Thursday)and 1b (Friday)with a cap of 250 each day. I decided to go with 1a, for no particular reason except that they are having a €300 2 day event as a side event and that is starting Friday night, and I reasoned that if I didnt make it through day 1a, I would be free to play the side event. That doesn't mean I don't expect to make it through day 1, but it was enough reason to make me decide which start day to play. Spotted a good few lads I know quite well by now from playing these EMOPs, and also had some Irish playing 1a as well, LPlate, Paul Lucey from the Atlantis casino in Carlow, a guy called Finn O' Sullivan from Dublin and a friend of Paul's from Carlow called Connor. I met with Finn in the queue to register. Finn doesn't play live much but plays quite a bit online. He was really looking forward to the experience.
20,000 starting stack, the 1st 4 levels are 45 mins, and then its an hour clock for the rest of the tourney. The only difference in this tourney from our well structured ones in Ireland is that they dont have a 75/150, and when they introduce antes, they dont replay a blind level. Other than that, the structures are pretty much identical.

I started really slowly, failing to get any hands of note, and failing to hit when I got in there with the speculative hands. I was playing basically ABC poker and would have a tight image to the rest of the table. The standard at my table was surprisingly good, as I had been told that the Portuguese were very poor players, but I had 4 of them at my table and I thought they player quite well. I didn't see any of them making any big mistakes. One thing I was happy about is that I was drawn on table 13 of 25, so I knew I'd have plenty time to create an image for myself as they break tables out here from the highest number down. (Is there anything worse than creating a tight image for yourself but finding your table breaking before the blinds go high enough and you have to change gear)?

We went to the dinner dreak after 5 levels, and I had only 6 pots of note played in that time. And I was only down 400 from my starting stack, which was an achievement of its own!! I had 1 pair in that time (QQ) which I won with, and A-9 was the biggest ace I saw, so timely 3 bets were keeping me in the game. We were schedueled to play 10 levels, with the last level being 800-1600, so I knew I'd have to get chips from somewhere if I wanted to stay in the game.
I dropped as low as 13k on this table, and got it back again without showing hands (which was as well!!), and when my table finally broke, I still only had my starting stack, and this was the middle of level 9. I was down to 15k with blinds at 500-1000 when I won a race with AQs against 99, and suddenly I had 30k, my high of the day!! Then, a very tight Portuguese player got moved onto my table, 4 to my left. (he had been on my 1st table all day so I knew how tight he was). Of course when it was folded to me when he was in the bb, I was raising as he knew I was tight and with the blinds now 500-1000 and 100 antes, it was worth stealing. But when raising from the HJ, I kept being repopped from the button or sb, and I done 10k there over a few laps. So we moved into the last blind level of the night, and I was in trouble again. I kept looking for a spot to get them in with as I needed a double up, but all of a sudden I had only 12bb, and thats not enough to get raisers off pots (especially scandies), so I was tring to pick my spots carefully and now open shove instead of reraising.(Thats all you can do with 17k-18k, blinds 800-1500, 100 ante).

I got a little unlucky when I got em all in with my AQ againgst scandies A-10, with the board running out K-9-3-9-9 for a split pot when I could have done with the chips. But not long later, the same guy raised my blind and I found QQ. He had 10-10 and mhig and I'm up to 33k. Still not great, but I have some power back. 2nd last hand of the night saw a Portuguese player raise to 4,000, scanie flats otb and I ship in the sb for 35k. Both fold quickly, and I finish the night and bag my chips with 45,000.

I suppose its not great when the average is 65k. (210 players started 1a, and 65 left I think). Day 1b is on Friday, with day 2 on Saturday. We go back to 1,000-2,000blinds. I have enough chips to work with though. I had QQ twice today, and had 3 small pairs dealt to me as well, 1 x AK and 3 x AQ's, so if I can hang in there long enough, the tide might turn and I might hit a few hands. Thats the plan anyway, but sure isn't it everybodys!!!

Other team member news, Matt Dobbins didn't make it through day 1, he had a lunatic of a Portuguese player on his immediate right who trebled up early and just had to play every hand. Lplate managed to trick him into getting all his chips in on the flop with Matt holding top set, but the Portugues man-o-war called him with 2nd pair and managed to runner-runner a straight. Last I saw of Matt he was propping up a bar counter (or it was propping him up, I'm not sure which way it was!!). Paul Lucey from the Atlantis casino in Carlow has 100k and is in prime position. Connor got coolered when he he's KK in a raised pot. Flop is K-10-10. Bet, reraise call. 10 on the turn, bet call. Ace on the river. Opponnent bets 10k out of a 15k stack and Connor folds.
Finn had no luck either, losing a couple of big races before finally getting his chips in with AQ only to lose the race.
Day 1b sees Patricia and Ciara o Sullivan in action, along with Jamie Lowe, Thomas Collins, William Browne and Janus Jeszek. Hope a couple of them will join Paul and I in day 2 in our assault on the title.
I must say that the new Irish Eyes Poker uniforms look stunning. I'm just about to head down to the casino and lend my support to the lads and lassies.

Thats it for now,

Connie

Hi there,
Just updating. travelled to Cork last Tuesday night for a satellite in the Bank casino. The satellite was a live satt. for the EMoP in portugal (Lisbon) later on in the month, and I'm glad to say it was won by a friend of mine, Rob Quinn from Bandon. So Rob is the latest man to make it onto the Irish Eyes team for lisbon. We had only 3 runners at the last EMoP in Gran canaria, but it looks like we will have between 10 and 15 players on our team heading to portugal. Hopefully, 1 of us can go deeeeeeeeep!!!!
I never got going myself in the satellite, absolutely card dead the whole night. I lasted about 3 to 4 hours, but that was only from making moves in the right places. After getting no pair all night, I finall picked up a half decent hand in the 400-800 blind level, As-Qs. I raised to 2,500 but got reraised. I only had 9k starting the hand, and i didnt really feel like folding the best hand I seen all night, so i stuck them in only to see KK by my opponnent. Two spades on the flop gave me some more ouits, but it wasnt to be and the best pre-flop hand won.
I must say, gavin, Ger and the lads have a fine job done with the Bank casino. Its very comfortable in there, and its definately a place i'd return to.

Online is going ok, not spectacular, but OK. I cashed in the 20k gtd,cashed twice in the 8k gtd, and had a great run in the 12noon €30 F/O, chopping it twice and finishing 4th and 7th in 4 days. maybe I should stick to that tourney!!! I won an online satellite to Lisbon last week on IrishEyes, and so did my wife patricia. Patricia is only playing 2 years, nut she is improving all the time. She definately has the patience required for the game. Matt won his package as well, and I was delighted to see a Cue Club regular, jamie Lowe, also win a package last sunday night in the Sunday final. We have a live sat in the Cue Club on Saturday night next, so hopefully that will see another cue club regular make the trip to portugal. Should make for a good party out there!!!!

Well, thats it for now, I'll update before we head out to lisbon. talk soon

Connie

Exclusive EMoP Live Satellites

Team Irish Eyes Poker are coming to a casino near you soon for our Exclusive EMoP Live Satellites

If you would like to join Con, Matt and the Irish Eyes Poker Team in Lisbon Portugal at the European Masters of Poker event from 25th to 28th March, make sure you qualify for your package online or at one of our exclusive Live EMoP Satellites.

EMoP Live Satellites:

Tuesday 9th March: Bank Casino, Cork, starting at 9pm. One seat worth €1,650 GUARANTEED.
€100 Freeze-out, 10,000 starting stack, 20 minute clock.

Wednesday 10th March: Atlantis Casino, Carlow, starting at 8.30pm.
€150 Freeze-out, 10,000 starting stack, 20 minute clock.

Thursday 11th March : Fitzwilliam Card Club, Clifton Hall, Lower Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, starting at 8.30pm.
€100 Freeze-out, 10,000 starting stack, 20 minute clock.

Saturday 13th March: Gold Club Casino, Letterkenny starting at 9pm.
€50 buy-in for 6,000 starting stack (plus 1,000 early bird available)
€50 re-buy for 6,000 chips
€50 add-on for 8,000 chips

Sunday 14th March: Cue Club, Hilliards Lane, Killarney stating at 7pm. One seat worth €1,650 GUARANTEED.
€80 buy-in for 7,000 starting stack.
€50 re-buy or add-on 9,000 chips


Or Qualify for EMoP Lisbon in our EXCLUSIVE €100 freeze-out Super Satellite on Monday 15th March at 7.30pm.
Daily and Weekly satellites to the Super Satellite online now from €1

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1st live outing in the IrishEyes colours!

Well, as those of you that read the blog now know, I've recently signed up as a sponsored player with Irisheyespoker.com. It's a great thrill for me to be a sponsored player, and it means I'm gonna get to play all the EMOP events, and with them being my fav tourneys to play in, then thats a real bonus!!! The EMOP is the European masters of poker, a series of tournaments that is the flagship for the entraction network, of which Irisheyes is a part of. I've been qualifying for these over the past few months on irisheyespoker.com, but even though I'm now going to be sponsored into the tourneys, I'm still going to go down the route of qualifying. If I get another package, there's plenty family members to make use of it!!!

The next stop on the EMOP tour is in Lisbon, Portugal on March 25th. Myself and patricia have our flights and hotels booked (Patricia won her package last tues night in the Tuesday final), so its all systems go. Hopefully, I can get a result out there. we're staying on an extra few days, going down to Villamoura for 3 days after the poker, so that should be nice.

Well, I made my first live outing last Friday night in the irisheyes colours, and a successfull outing it was!! Travelled up to Cork to play in the Maccau monthly game, which is a €250 + €25reg game played on the last friday of the month. 50 players turned up for the game, which is well down from a few months ago,creating a prize-pool of €12.5k. 15,000 chips and a 30 minute blind clock meant for a decent structure, and in fairness, when it was pointed out to the td that the 150-300 level was skipped, he gave us an hour at tyhe 200-400 level to make up for it. To make a long story short,made it to the final table with the average stack. Two players had big stacks, 1 of them I didnt know, the other being Nicky Power who drew the seat directly to my left. Didnt really like that as Nicky would know a lot about my game, and my raises would probably get snapped off here, so I had to ne careful. Some were talking about a deal for for 7th, 8th,and 9th (6 being paid), but there were 3 short stacks on the table, and nicky refused (quite rightly imho) as he felt if everyone was in the money,it would just become a push fest and take away his advantage. All the shorties finished up doublig up, and at 6am, we were still 6 handed. the players started talking about doing a deal on chip equity as it was so late, (chop the prizepool 6 ways according to the chips you have). While this discussion was ongoing, I shoved twice in a row (blinds 5k-10k), and picked up a handy 30k before the chip counts were done. We done the deal asnd I got €2,000, near enough the same as coming 2nd, so i was happy enough with that.

Thats it for now. Let all your pots be monsters!!

Ups and downs

I played my first decent tournament under the Irish Eyes banner at the Macau end of month game in Cork last night. It’s a €250 + €25, €10k gtd game, with as decent a structure as can be allowed for in a one-day game. With 49 runners, it generated a prizepool of €12.25k and a good first prize of over €4k.
I decided going in to play a pretty standard ABC tag game and see how things developed. I got a few hands from time to time and chipped up to 40k by the end of the 300-600 level and felt well in the zone.
My stack took a severe knock in the 400-800 level when a young guy in mid-pos open pushed for 15k and I woke up with 2 black kings in the sb. I made the call and he showed 2 red nines. 4 hearts later and I’m back to 25k. In the not too distant past this would have triggered the tilt monster in me but I’ve done a lot of work on this problem and took a 5 minute breather, coming back still believing I would do well. Before the end of the level I was down to 11k!! My 99 no good for A7 aipf.
I stole from the button once and tried it again next round having seen just an A. The sb called with 99 and I hit runner-runner 5 to my kicker. Talk about swings and roundabouts.
The table wasn’t too difficult, with the exception of Nicky Power and Trevor Dineen and I was able to pick out my spots quite well. I took out the A7 guy with 99 (again) against his A5 and found myself up to 55k. There were 12 left at this stage but the blinds had gone to 1500-3k, so it was pretty much all pre-flop ninja stuff.
Nicky had been pretty active with his big stack and 2 hands later he raised to 8k. I looked down at AK in bb and dropped 22k over the line with the full intention of calling a shove. He shoved and I beat him in. QQvAK, classic match-up. A on flop K on turn, nice. Q on river not so nice and I’m walking. If I had to give them to anybody at the table, then Nicky is the man. Not only a great poker player but a gent as well.
With the blind structure, the hand played itself as limping to the final table short is not my style. A pretty standard tournament really. A few downs, a few ups and I felt did as well as I could with what I was dealt.
Following my 3rd place in the Cue Club last Sunday and this game, I know my game is in good shape and with a bit of luck at crucial times I’d be hoping to score sooner rather than later.
Nicky went on to take the lion’s share of a 6-way chop, with Connie next in line. With his confidence restored, Connie is going to be a major force for the next while.
Watch this space!

Con O'Sullivan and Matt Dobbins join Team Irish Eyes Poker

Irish Eyes Poker are proud to announce and delighted to welcome Con O'Sullivan and Matt Dobbins onboard as our new Team Irish Eyes Poker Sponsored Players.

Con and Matt are very well known in the Irish Poker Community and will be playing poker in Ireland and around Europe in the EMoP events, including the upcoming EMoP event in Lisbon, Portugal, on 25th to 28th March, as part of Team Irish Eyes Poker.

Team Irish Eyes Poker are aiming to take at least 10 players to the EMoP Lisbon and many more Irish players to later EMoP events around Europe.

And you could join Con & Matt and Team Irish Eyes Poker at the European Masters of Poker events by winning your package through many of our daily EMoP satellites from only 2 euro; or in our weekly finals on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday nights; through our Iron Man qualifiers, and in our VIP Freerolls. We guarantee over 20 packages each week, with each package worth 1100 euro seat, 4 nights in a 4 or 5 star hotel, and 350 euro travel expenses.

Plus to celebrate Con and Matt join Team Irish Eyes Poker, they will be in a casino near you soon holding exclusive EMoP Live Satellites. (A list of casinos holding live satellites for EMoP packages will be listed here shortly.)

In addition, there will be an exclusive Irish Eyes Poker only online satellite with a 100 euro buy-in on Monday 15th March where we will guarantee another Irish player will be joining the Team in Lisbon.

With so many ways to win your seat, or you can buy in directly through your Irish Eyes Poker account, we hope to welcome you to Team Irish Eyes Poker and see you in Lisbon and other EMoP events.

For more information on EMoP Live events and online satellites go to www.irisheyespoker.com/en/Poker/Promotions/EMoP-Events.aspx

And don't forget, drop Con and Matt a line here on our blog.

See you at the tables.

Dave McLachlan in Gran Canaria

Just back from playing in the EMOP tournament in Gran Canaria, which I had qualified for in a 2 euro rebuy on Irish Eyes. What a brilliant time I had. The craic was excellent! There were playersof all age groups, and I met some great folk and spent four days playing poker and partying!

The weather could have been hotter, but after leaving Inverness (-10c and 40cm of snow) +17c felt like a tropical paradise, and I managed to get a tan (though most of that is peeling off my balding head!) Next year I'm taking a sun hat! The hotel was excellent, and even though I think that they are more used to people in Armani suits than hoodies, the staff were very friendly and helpful. The food was good, as you would expect, and the drinks affordable.
Apart from the sell out main event (in which the devilfish Dave Ulliot was playing), there were cash tables and sit and go games organized, and two side events, as well as the casino to play in.
I was a little unfortunate to go out of the main tournament on the first day. My button push (JJ) over the top of an all in (88) being called by the big blind's QK off suit. The Q came on the river! That's poker. (or so I was told!) However, it wasn't all bad news, as an Irish Eyes player, Connie, won the Sunday Tournament. The vocal support he was getting from the other Irish Eyes players who were there helped to put the pressure on the eventual runner up!
This was my first EMOP experience, but hopefully, not my last. In fact I'm going to be trying hard to qualify for the next round in the series in Lisbon, Portugal in March, so watch out!

January sun

Qualified for the Gran Canaria leg of the EMOP on Irish Eyes and headed away from the freezing cold at home to the sunshine. During the cold snap we had no water at home for 2 weeks and having a large family I had to move into an apartment, so a bit of sunshine was welcome.
This was my second EMOP after Slovenia last November and I have to say I'm in love with them. The team in charge of running them are top class and the craic is mighty. My wife lolled when each night I sent the same text "on the piss with a bunch of mad... " Finns/Danes/Swedes/Brits depending on the night.
The main event started slowly enough for me. My table wasn't bad at first. A couple of bad locals, a couple of bad lags, a couple of good lags and one good player that I recognised from Slovenia (he final tabled there). I was biding my time trying to figure them out when, 30 minutes in, Dave Ulliot lands in the empty seat to my right. He limped utg with his first hand, set off a chain reaction and won a 10k pot from a bad player in mid pos with QJ after flopping JT8 to his 79! My only hand of note early was a rr with AK that won preflop. Meanwhile Ulliot was flopping houses and sets like there was no tomorrow and moved up to 50kish effortlessly.
I lost a decent sized pot in the 200-400 level that set me back a bit. Cut-off (good lag) raised to 1050, Ulliot flats otb, I rr to 4000 from sb with QQ and BB (young guy who hasn't been out of line) tanks for 3-4 mins and repops to 10000. I have to let them go here and he flashes KK. This brings me down to 14k from my starting 20k. The only other interesting hand I was involved in came in the next level. First hand back from the break and there's just 3 of us at the table, with both blinds missing. I look down at AJ in early position and make it 1600 to go. A very agg Scandie instaships for around 8k. Now, Im thinking that I must be ahead of his range here as he will automatically assume I'm stealing in that spot. I drop it after a sweat and he flashes an Ace. Good or bad fold? Still not sure. Our table breaks shortly after.
The new table dosen't change things for me. I'm still totally card dead and drop to 7kish when I ship over a raiser with AK. He calls with QQ, I hit the K and am off again. I battle up to 18k or so through restealing a couple of pots and we're nearing the end of day 1 when the car crash happens. Utg+1 raises for the umpteenth time, weak player to my right flats and I look down at JJ. I ship, only to see mr rocky mcrock to my left reship!!! Utg reships!!!! Weak player calls!!!!! Rocky has QQ, utg has KK and weaky has AK. Obv AK wins a huge pot and I'm out. I spend the rest of the night in the company of some Danes getting pie-eyed.
I played the 1 day side event but suffice to say that I lasted about 7 minutes in that after 4 betting QQ preflop and being called by T6 soooooooted. The rest needs no further explanation.
Absolutely delighted to see Connie take this down (see his trip report, it's a cracking read). He deserved a win and it'll do his confidence the world of good. An amusing footnote to this is that on the winning hand, myself and Connie's other supporters started chanting "spade, spade, spade" after the turn. The Finnish player's mates then joined in with us and cheered just as loudly when it fell!! Wonder what his enemies are like?
Met loads of nice people, drank loads of beer and manged to get a bit of sun.
I said I'd say hi to Dave McLachlan who also qualified on Irish Eyes, so Hi Dave.

emop gran canaria

Well, blogging is new for me, and as I'm not the most computer litterate person in the world, it might be fun. I was updating my trip on the irish poker forum, irishpokerboards.com, so I'm gonna try and lift the reports from there and reprint them here. Wish me luck!!!

Originally poster 30/1/2010

Well, I said I'd report back, and so I'm doing.
Good news first, made day 2, but only just about. But i guess you cant win it if your out, so hopefully can start fast today.

Flew out on thursday to las Palmas, where as expected, the weather is nice even if a little windy. Hotel and casino are lovely. These EMOP's seem to be running underneath the radar in Ireland (theres only 4 irish here in total, and 3 of us are here together). The field is capped at 300 runners with 2 day 1's, A and B. (The casino cant hold any more runners than that). Of the 150 that played day 1, 54 players remained, and of the 150 that played day 1b, 53 remain.

The structure is pretty good to be fair, although due to silly dealer hour restrictions here in the Canaries, there are 2 blind levels missing from the last EMOP I played in Ljubljana. The TD explained to me that the tournament can not run for more more than 8 hours a day due to the local laws on dealer hours so we started at 5pm, and finished about 1am. He reckoned he had to drop the 2 levels and shorten from 1 hr blinds to 55mins as well as shorten the breaks to finish the tourney in 3 days. 20,000 starting stack.
Played 9 levels, 25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 150/300, 200/400 (25), 300/600 (50), 400/800 (50), 500/1000 (100), 600/1200 (100). The 1st 4 levels were 45mins, and all others were 55mins.

Started slowly enough, being at a particularly aggressive table. (Three quarters of the field are online qualifiers, mostly scandanavians, the rest are locals who dont have much idea about whats going on.) I won the first 2 pots i was involved in, which is always a nice feeling, 1 gratifying one when i called down an annoyingly aggressive scandy on the river with just a pair of 7's and i was good. He seemed to take issue with this and he definately set out his stall to play hands with me after that, which I was happy enough with cause i was fairly confident that if I got the goods, he would pay me off.

2nd blind level and i'm sitting on about 23k. I raise QQ utg, (300), tight player flats otb, the scandie repops in the sb to 1650, I repop it to 5,150, button obviously folds, scandie makes it 14,500. I hate it, but i fold. (he did tell me outside later that he had AA, but sure what else would he say).
Not much happening for a few levels after that, but now I had a pretty good handle on my table and i was able to pick mt spots pretty well, not making much ground, but maintaining my starting stack pretty comfortably while awaiting my oppertunity to make some chips.
Guy to my left who had been playing pretty well, lost most of his stack with a very badly played AA, and he was now in push or fold mode. Folded to me(playing 20k) in the sb and I look down at 88, blinds 300-600 (50). I make it 1700 to go, he shoves for 5,100. I insta call, he has A-7, ace on the flop of course and I'm down to 15k. Get down as low as 13,300 when i get my double up. The scandie raises to 2600 and i see KK otb. Now Ive 13,300. I think about my options. The bb has about 15k. Im thinking of just shoving, but I havent had many hands and figure I gotta gamble and try and get some chips. I'm pretty sure he'll c/bet any flop, and I'll give the BB a chance to squeeze as he is a decent player, and he would have been aware of the battles me and the scandie have been in all day and might just like a squeeze there. BB folds and we're off. before the flop is out, scandie asks me how much i have. I tell him 10,500, that its not much and I probably wont be able to fold. Flop is 10-6-4 rainbow, and he bets 10,500. Snappage, he has A-6 and doesnt improve and I've 28k. I chip up to a high of 37k over the next half hour until I get moved table.

Played the last 2 blind levels of the night on this table, and nothig went right. Anything i tried got snapped off, my only successes being reshoves over aggressive players. Was hoping to find a spot in the last 20 mins to gamble them up with, but nothing doing. Going back today with exactly 22,000, with blinds at 800-1600 and either a 100 or 200 ante. So the M is around 7 and I wont be hanging around. I guess I'll either have 50k at the end of the 1st level today, or i'll be back here finishing this report!!!

I must say though, these EMOP's are extremey enjoyable tournaments. the emphasis seems to be on player friendly, with all players being booked into the same hotel and the socialising with each other is great. The hotel standard is very high. Although I must say, the dealing standard is the worst i,ve seen in any casino. Just simple things like no dealer seems to be able to concentrate and they never know whos turn it is to act. They are also clueless as to rules, but nobody's mahing an issue of it. The TD team are scandanavian and are a class act.

Thats it for now. Back at 5pm to play, so talk later.

Connie



Originally posted 31/1/2010

EMOP TR part 2.

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Well I'd love to be on here giving ye all the great news, but it doesnt pan out that way. Still, no real bad beats to report (tg), but an interesting days play to say the least.

Went back to a redraw of seats with 22,000, ave about 50k, blinds 800-1600 with 100 ante. Obviously, got drawn in seat 3 with the button on seat 1, so straight into the bb. The bb and sb passes through me effortlessly, with raises from ep. I was happy enough with my seat draw, because I had a 100k man to my immediate right, and the 4 to my immediate left all had 30-40k, so they couldnt call me light whenever i decided to move (or so i thought). So folded to c/o next hand, table cl raises and i shove shite otb, and he passes. Round 1 to me.

2 hand later, utg open shoves for 17.5k, folded to me. I have approx 26k. I see Ah-Qh. I decide i'll take the race and shove in too (if he has AK, then cee-la-vie). All fold, he has 88, I hit the flush on the turn and I've 45k. 20 mins later, utg raises to 4.5k (he's playing 25k, his 3rd raise in 1 lap), folded to me in the c/o,i reraise him to 15k with AKo, he asks me if I'm Italian,(must be the good looks and fashion sense I guess), I answer "si signor". He says, "I call so" and tables 99. I spin over AK, tell him not only am I not Italian, but I'm Irish and have the luck of the Irish as well!!! Flop Q-4-Q, Ace on the turn, harmless river and I'm on 70k at the end of todays 1st blind level. My target was 50k, so everythings going well, isnt it?

2nd blind level (1,000-2,000) is not a good one for me. Theres lots of 3 betting going on around the table, and indeed 4 betting. I get done for smallish money 2 hands in a row. I raise to 5,200 otb with Kd-Jd, sb (39k) repops me to 14,800. He's a young scandie (isnt eeveryone here!) and my gut tells me he's making a play on me. But I can let this go and Ive still 70kish with the average 67k, or i can 4 bet him. I decide to let it go, but because i have a pretty decent image so far, I show him the KJdd, and he shows me 9s-6s.
The very next hand, folded to me on the button, I raise 10h-8h (as you do), bb shoves for 33k, I fold slowly, he shows me AKs. Back down to 60k, I get 2 sets of blinds but probably unlucky in both. I get KK and QQ, but both utg, and my open raises got through uncontested which was very unusual really (not just my raises, most raises were being repopped).

So, we're 3 minutes from the end of the level when i raise Ac-Qc in the HJ. Button,(80k) not long at the table but has called 3 seperate raises in position in the 40 mins he's been there, flats me, while the bb, another extremely aggressive scandie wants to know how much i have behind. I tell him about another 60k approx. he counts out 15,500(out of a stack of 130k) and dwells for ages. I have at this stage decided that if this guy reraises me here, I'm 4-betting all-in. He eventually just flat calls. Flop come 7x-8c-Qx. Scandie leads out of the bb for 13k. I'm pretty sure I'm good here so i just tank it in. The button snaps me and the bb folds his 3rd pair. Button has 88 and thats all she wrote. Maybe I played the hand less than optimally, but I reckon I win that pot there most times unless the bb has flopped gin. Extremely dissappointed to be knocked out to be honest. I got off to a flier today as I had hoped I would, its just a pity i got no action on the couple of big hands i picked up. The way the table was playing, I could have easily built a big stack but them raises went through uncontested.

Still, it was extremely enjoyable. The biggest raise i saw out here was 3x bb, but nearly always 2.5bb. I was a bit surprised by the amount of 3 and 4 betting going on, maybe it was due to the amount of internet qualifiers (or indeed, the amount of scandies). The couple of things i learned more than anything else are:

1--When you do pick up your big hands, DONT get them utg. Most players still respect that raise.
2--When you have the goods, let on you're Italian. Your guaranteed action!

Now, off to chill out for a few days. Will play the 1 day side event tomorrow, then a bit of sun and home mid-week.

Talk soon

Connie



Originally posted on 2/2/2010

TR EMOP side event €200.--doing it the scandie way!!!

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Well, after 2 days of playing the well structured ME, it was down to the casino again on sunday at 6pm for the 1 day €200 f/o. 7,000 chips, 20 min clock, 120 runners and a guaranteed crapshoop to arrive upon us. The only thing different today is that I have no intention of being "scandied", or at least, thats the plan anyway.

1st table
Nice draw. 5 scandies and 4 spannish. All the scandies were capable, all the spannish were useless (bar 1 maybe who'd score maybe a 4/10). 1st test came in the 1st level, I raise 150 in c/o with 4d-5d. scandie repops from the button (surprise-surprise) to 425, i call. Flop is 6-3-8 rainbow. I lead for 650, he makes it 1575, i shove for 8k total. He folds. I put up with these guys 3 and 4 betting me in the ME, and my mind is made up that I'm going to turn the tables on them today, or at least i'm gonna get them in 1st and put the decisions on them.
Anytime the spanish are in a pot, the scandies are following them in cause
they realise theyre chips to be had. With the blinds at 100-200, I'm in the bb with 88. The 4 spaniards and 2 scandies limp in, I make it 1950 to go. Spanniard in mp, (3rd player to limp) decides he's going all-in for 7k. Everyone folds and I call. hed has A-6 and I now have 17k, double the average. 1 lap later, spanniard min raises to 400, 4 callers, i ship for 17k otb with As-Ks. he snaps me with A-10 and I've 27k, 3 times the average.

Table 2.
I get moved table, and sit beside a germasn lad who i know is a good player as i have played some of these EMOP's with him before. But he only has about 10k, and he's on my right. I dont know any of the other players at the table, with only 2 of them having stacks, a youngish scandie 4 to my right with about 30k and an oldidh (65ish) spanniard 2 to my right. i decide to bed in here for a while to pick up a few reads. I get a couple of raises snapped off but i also snap off a few lp raises myself and increase my stack quite gradually. The old spannish man is being quiet enough, he raised twice in the hour or so Im here, and the german snapped him off both times. The german lad told me your man got his stack pretty mirraculously, so thats all the info I had to go on.
Then with blinds at 700-1500, i find AA in MP for the 1st time in 3 days. I make it 3800 to go. Folded to the scandie in the bb who asks me how much i was playing. i understood what he said, but let on I didnt, and spread out my raise and said "3 thousand, 800". He says"NO,No, how much do you have behind"? I tell him i have about 33k more, and then he declares he's all-in for 40k. My chips hit the felt before his, no miracles and i'm near 70k. Drop a bit from there when I took on a short stack when i has AJ, but lost the race with his 44. So Im at about 46k when Im in the sb. Folded around to spannish guy who ships from the c/o for 44k with blinds at 700-1500!!! I look down at JJ, I call, he has K-6o and I have 90k. Unreal.
Not long later we're down to 3 tables, average stack is now about 30k, and i have 90kish.

Table 3. (WANKER-A$$HOLE-KNOB_END, what dont they understand)?

I got my 1st ever time penalty from a poker table here today. i'll go through the scenario, and you can make your mind up for yereselves, but it was 1 of them you gotta be there to understand it moments. Now I never lose my cool with anybody, and especially at a poker table, so this was very unusual for me.
So Im sent back to my original table that i had started on and theres still about 4 players of the original starting crew there. 1 snug spanniard in seat 1, and 3 remaining scandies. I lose some chips here when I raise Ac-10c from the c/o to 7,800 (blinds 1.5k -3kante 300), and scandie otb shoves for 28k. I figure my range is good here against this character, i call but he has JJ and I'm down to 60k. Next lap, in the very same position, (c/o) I pick up the rockets for the 2nd time this weekend. I make the same raise, 7,800. this time, scandie flats me behind with ?? otb, then the sb tanks and ships all-in for approx 30k. This is working perfectly, but how do we play out the scenario? So i ask the dealer for an exact count of the sb's stack. The dealer takes about 30sec to count it up, and says its 24k more to call. Before i get a chance to say anything, immediately the spannish guy in seat 1 (not involved in the hand at all) says "clock".
"what did you say?" says I
"I call for clock" says he.
"I have only had 30 seconds yet, why call clock" says I, diplomatically.
"I no understand " says he.
"Thats pretty fcuking obvious" says I.
The scandies complain that the clock is a rediculous call on me, and i ask for the td. The spanniard in 1 just cant shut up.
"He have to make decision" says he, trying hard to impress anyone he knows whos standing near the table.
"Your a fcukking wanker" says I, "with a head like a knob-end".
The td arrives and tells me im now on the clock. Scandies complain but its on deaf ears.
I say its fine, I'm going all-in myself whilst "raging".
Now the scandie is in the tank, and after about 5 mins, he reluctantly folds.

I spin over my AA and say good fold buddy. He looks relieved. SB had 77 and no miracles, so im back up to over 90k.

Now I ask the spanniard why he called the clock because it made absolutely no sense to me (although the scenario that was playing out was actually ideal for me at the time, but it didnt make it right. He was mumbling some shyte and i told him he wasnt involved in the hand, there was no time elapsed and it was none of his fcuking buisness.
"I no understand" says he again.
"Well understand this," says I, "your a fcucking a$$hole". And just in case he didnt understand, I turned around, bent over, pointed at my a$$hole, then pointed at him and asked him did he understand now?"
The td put his arm on my shoulder and told me to take
I says theres no need, I'm going all-in as well a 10 min break from the table. I left to go for a smoke with a round of applause from the scandies and fits of laughter all round.
I dont know what came over me really, it was like a red mist. He was just such a complete %^%&^*, and although I do regret losing my cool, if I was to lose it, he was the only person i ever shared a table with that succeeded in making me lose it.
When I eventually got back on the table, he shoved for 19.5k and I called him out of the sb with 2h-3h, and when i paired the 3, i sent him packing. I did sing him a bar of a song as he made his exit from the room just to show there was no hard feeling.


Part 2.



Final Table

We eventually reached the FT, with moneys for last 10. It started at 400 for 10th, up to 4k for 2nd and 6,800 for the winner. There was only 1 player at the table that i felt was a very good player, although in fairness, all the rest bar 1 seemed to be decent players, the weak 1 being the only remaining spannish guy. Blinds started on the ft at 4,000-8000 with a 1000 ante, so 22k in the middle. With the av stack being 80k, the m was under 4, so that'll tell you the kinda crapshoot it had become. I have about 90k on ft.
We lose 2 players early, and the one player I didnt want to get the chips took both out and made him cl easily enough. he was on my immediate left now, but as there was no play in it, i just decided that i would only use my chips with 1 move only. I managed to shove 3 hands in a row (havent a clue with what holdings to be honest) and got through uncontested to pick up over 60k.
Got my lucky break on the next lap. blinds 10-20k, 3000 ante. Folded to me otb, I shove J-9o(for 150k). Scandie folds, lady(60k) in BB snaps with AK. J on flop, 9 on river and i'm over 200k. Play on for another while and another scandie shoves otb(90k), i'm in bb with AQ, and call, he flops an open ender but bricks out and Im up to 300k. 3 players left now and i manage to take out the shortest lad when his JQ couldnt beat mt KQ.

Heads-up.
Get a toilet break and meet up with the finnish guy thats heads up with me. I have approx 400k, and he had about 350k. I had a quick word with matt (Lplate) just before and he said if there was going to be a deal, we should leave out a few quid for the dealers before doing the chop. I told matt that normally i have no problem with doing a chop, but i felt coming out here i was due a result, and i wasn't going to mention a deal at all. If he did, well then i would have considered it i suppose, but i had learned from a scandie i had befriended out here that this young lad was 1 of the highest rakers on the entraction network, so i dont think the money made much difference to him at all. He actually did say to me on the way back to the table that there was very little difference in the prizemoney, and i knew from the way he was talking that he had no interest in any deal. I wasnt going to mention it because 1)-I wanted to win this for my own confidence sake and 2) I felt it would look weak from me to talk about a deal, and that was 1 thing they didnt see from me at any time today, and I wasnt starting now.

The heads up started funnily enough. he was being aggressive at the start, but we were both winning the pots in position and there wasnt much change. i actually felt i played the heads-up very well and felt in control all the time. he had a big bunch cheering him on (well actually, he said they were all chanting for him to lose. I had my own cheering section as Lplate gathered up any irish and UK people present and made quite a racket.
2 interesting hands from the HU that gave me control:
He raises button, I call with 5d-3d.
Flop 8-4-3'
I check, he checks.
Turn is 4, he bets 40k, i call.
River blanks, he bets 60k, I call, he has Q-9.

He limps button (he has done that last 2 times and i'm not sure if he's trapping).
He has 300k, I have 430 approx.
I have 4c-5c.
Flop is Ks-Qs-5x
Check check.
6 on the turn, check, he bets 50k. I cant see anytime he would check that flop if he had the k or the Q, so unless he got lucky on the turn, then I'm ahead. I call.
the river comes another K. I check. he bets 85k I still think im good, but I dont wanna call and be shown the 6. So I deliberate for a while, and eventually put in enough chips to put him all-in. he folds, and the momentum is mine.
The last hand is a lucky 1. he has only 140k left and Im on 600k. Blinds 15k-30k with 4k ante. He shoves the button, I see Ks-2s in the bb, I think thats ahead of his range so i call." Ive no isea what I have", says he as he flipped over K-8o. Spade on the flop, again on the turn and AGAIN on the river say all the chips coming my way to the sounds of ole ole ole from the irish/uk fan club LOL.

Must say i really enjoyed the experience. Im flattered by the well wishes coming from everywhere. Hope I didnt bore ye.

PS: Found an all night cafe/bar by the docks. full of police on duty, so poker player and police on the all-nighter. Great craic, long night, sore heads, but oh so worth it!!!!

Roll on the EMOP Estoril in Portugal in March. We'll head there with a bit of confidence!!

Connie


Well, that was a bit long i know, but hopefully, you found it worth reading.