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.
