Letter from Doke (30th August 2011)

Hi,

Doke here again. Another fairly typical week for me: lots of online grinding during the week, and then some live late in the week. I busted the Unibet Open late on Saturday which left me free to do a Sunday grind, rare enough for me these days. I had one deep run, making the second last table of the Party 200K. There was almost $80k for first so it would have been a good time to run well but instead I lost a huge flip to bust in 17th. I've still been enjoying a fair amount of success in the ten euro rebuys on Irish Eyes: the smaller field sizes and fact you can survive an early bustout suits clearly my game. I started as an online 9 man sit n go specialist, and when I was transitioning to multitable tournaments enjoyed a fair deal of success in the 45 mans on Full Tilt. Live, I cut my teeth playing nightly tournaments with 40-60 runners in the Fitzwilliam Card Club in Dublin.

Speaking of the Fitz, I played their end of month game last Thursday. I was short throughout most of it (watching from a cash table after he busted, I heard my friend Lappin tell someone "Doke spends almost his entire life between a third and half the average") before going on a rush two tables out to move close to the chiplead. I then lost a massive threeway flip on the bubble. Holding AK, I initially outdrew Marc Brody's tens who barely covered me when a king appeared atop the flop. The dealer spread the flop to reveal a ten lurking beneath to more or less kill me. The shortie's AJ pulled ahead when a queen appeared on the turn, and the king of the river did nothing for me but housed up Marc's set of tens. It's always annoying to bubble a tournament but I had no regrets about the manner of my exit as I was more interested in playing for the win and the 11k up top rather than locking up the 400 min cash. My chips went to a good home for once as Marc who was clearly the best player left in my view went on to win.

I also ran into Terry Loughnane, currently top of the Celtic Poker Tour league, in the Fitz. Very nice guy.

My Unibet Open main event was similar in many respects. I hung around well below average for most of it until I was on the right side of a threeway cooler just before the bubble, my kings holding against queens and jacks. Unfortunately, the chipleader (and eventual winner) then got moved to the table. He was hammering us with nobody playing back at him apart from me. Just after the bubble, he raised the button, the small blind reshoved for just over 10 bbs, and I liked my AQ enough in the bb to reshove. It's well ahead of both ranges here and I can't just flat for a third of my stack so the shove is standard in my view. Unfortunately the chip monster on the button had a real hand this time (kings), and an ace which would have saved my day and propelled me into the chiplead never appeared. So all in all a strange mixed feeling of disappointment and pride at another deep run as I was led away to collect my min cash which seemed particularly min given there was over 100 grand for first.

I'd run into Roy the Boy Brindley when I went to dinner in a nearby restaurant with my friend Daragh Davey. Roy was doing the commentary for the live stream and asked me if I'd come on to do some co-commentary if I busted. Since I'd enjoyed a similar gig with Neil Channing at the Irish Open I was only too happy to agree. After my exit the Unibet co-ordinator came scampering over to make sure Ididn't sulk off, so I did some commentary with Roy for a few hours which was good craic.

I am looking forward to EMOP Barcelona on 29th September. Should be a very good turn out. I see on the Irish Eyes Poker lobby there are 125 entrants registered to the event already and there are satellites and qualifiers running right up to at least the 18th September, so many more I expect. Plus Barcelona usually gets a good number of direct buy-ins on the day.
If you want to join me there, as well as sats and qualifiers, Irish Eyes are running VIP-point freerolls starting on the 2nd of September and ending on the 18th September. There is one package to EMOP Barcelona worth €2,000 in each freeroll. Each package consists of tournament buy-in of €1,100, accommodation in a nice hotel for five nights and €350 in travel contribution that is credited to the player's poker account.

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

Doke
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Click on the links in the menu for details on all Irish Eyes Poker promotions, including:

Iron Man Barcelona Promotion (€18,000)
September Freerolls (€36,000)
Raked Hands Race (€40,000)
Sit n Go Leaderbaord (€30,000)
Upto 45% rake back
Team Irish Eyes Poker promotions.

Keep up to date on my blog
(http://dokearney.blogspot.com/) and on Twitter (daraokearney).