Letter from Doke (3rd August 2011)

Hi,

Doke here again. What a weekend! I'd been telling all my friends for ages that the one Irish tournament I wanted to do well in this year was EMOP Dublin at Clontarf Castle. I played day 1B on Friday. I got a pretty tough first table with Jason Tompkins two to my left. I played a lot more cautiously than usual to keep out of trouble and was very happy to get to day 2 with a well above average stack. Day 2 was a bit of a struggle for me. I managed to get through and increase my stack, but it still meant coming back with only 8 big blinds so I needed some run good early on day 3.

It was all going to plan until I shoved nines into fellow team member Michael Muldoon's aces. I thought that might be it as we were close in stack terms but I had just over 2 big blinds left. With eleven players remaining and half my stack in blind next hand, it wasn't looking good for me to make the final table but then I got some much needed run good. It goes without saying that to recover from 45k to 3.6million (my peak three handed) needs more than a bit of luck. Having done so and moved from the short stack three handed to overwhelming chipleader, I really thought it was going to be my day but in the end I fell at the last hurdle.

It was a great weekend overall for Team Irish Eyes. As the tournament got down to the business end, the Team Irish Eyes shirts started to outnumber all others. Four of us made the final table including my great friend and regular travelling companion Mick Mccloskey, Michael Muldoon and JP Whyte. Robert Shaw, Robert Elkin, Chris Pyke, Sandro Taddei, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Kevin Hanley, Tony Harte, and Gerry Kane all cashed in the main event too. There were also some great performances in the side events, notably from Tony Baitson (who was pipped at the post in the PLO event) and my amigo Feargal "MidniteKowby" Nealon (who hacked his way round the golf course to qualify for the freeroll for a Barcelona package which he went on to win). Pride of place though to the side event queen Shella McSweeney who had not one but two third place finishes.

A great deal for the Team players that played in the main event is they all get an invitation to a Freeroll on Irish Eyes Poker on the 14th August for an EMOP Barcelona Package.

A big thank you to Connie, Matt and the rest of the crew for making this a great event. EMOP Ireland is here to stay and will surely go from strength to strength.

After the excitement of a live outing, it's back to the online grind for me. I managed to snag a Barcelona EMOP package in the satellite on Irish Eyes tonight, and I'm looking forward to it already. Hopefully a good contingent of Team Irish Eyes members will qualify and make the trip.

My only live outing in the next week is Friday's monthly game in the Bluff Club in Swords, run by my friends Larry Santo and Peter Barable, and one of my favourite places to play in the Dublin area.

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

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

Iron Man Barcelona Promotion (€12,000)
Summer Freerolls (€37,200)
August VIP Matrix Promotion
Sit n Go Leaderbaord (€30,000)

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

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

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