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.