Letter from Doke (18th July 2011)

Hi,

Doke here again. I'm still in Las Vegas. After making it through to day 3 of the WSOP main event, I had to extend my stay here by a week, so I won't be home now til Wednesday. Unfortunately, I then proceeded to bust 2 hours into day 3 when my aces were cracked by kings. Disappointing end but that's poker: there's no point in getting upset over anything other than your own mistakes. I ran into Padraig
Parkinson shortly afterwards and after remarking to him that I just wished it had happened 2 hours before the end of day 2 instead as it would have saved me the cost of an extra week's hotel and new flight, Parky joked "Basically it's like you made a mini rebuy".

Parky famously said once that the worst day of the year for any serious poker player is the day you get knocked out of the main event. This has been through for me in the past but although I was obviously disappointed, in truth it didn't hurt as much as my exit in the Berlin EPT, maybe because I felt I had a very good chance of at least final tabling that with only 60 players left. With 1800 left in the WSOP ME,
it's way too early to be thinking like that.

It also helped that I still had an interest in the main event in the shapers of Nick Newport and Mark Dalimore. Both went into day 4 (the day the bubble usually bursts) relatively short, but both survived past the bubble into day 5. Mark was still short but Nick had got up to average. Unfortunately, both busted early on day 5. Mark at least had the bonus of being on the TV table (ESPN were showing it on a 30 minute delay), and wound Daniel Negreanu up to the point that he celebrated Mark's demise.

The end of every WSOP is time for honest reflection and preliminary plans for how to get yourself back here in a year in good shape.

Having suffered through 3 WSOP campaigns without a cash, 3 cashes this year to break my duck represents progress. My tentative plans for next year is to play more events with less than 1000 runners, and also to try to get my non-holdem games to where I feel I can compete against the best. Most seasoned experts say that there is much more value in the other games these days than in holdem.

I always find it hard to hang around a poker tournament after I've been knocked out so I checked out of the Rio and headed to the Hilton with Mark for my last few days in Vegas for some decompression. Not too much rest for the wicked though: next Friday I head to Waterford for the Waterford Masters. Hopefully I'll shake off any post-Vegas cobwebs or blues there so I'll hit EMOP Dublin in top shape pokerwise.
If I could pick just one tournament in the rest of 2011 to do really well in, it would be that one.

After 6 weeks away from the online tables, I'm also really looking forward to getting back to the night job.

Good luck at the tables - unless I'm at the same table :)

Doke
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Keep up to date on how I'm getting on in Vegas on my blog
(http://dokearney.blogspot.com/) and on Twitter (daraokearney).

For details on all Irish Eyes Poker promotions in July, including:

Iron Man Dublin Promotion (€20,000)
Summer Freerolls (€46,500)
July VIP Matrix Promotion

See http://www.irisheyespoker.com/en/Poker/Promotions/monthly-promotions.aspx