Letter from Doke (19th Sept 2011)

Hi,

Doke here again. I had a pretty good week online, with more than my fair share of final tables, and better yet managed to win a handful of tournaments, including a ten euro rebuy on Irish Eyes. Cashing is nice but there's nothing like actually winning a tournament to get the blood pumping.

On the live front, I played the 50K guaranteed 100s festival in Maynooth, largely because I was intrigued to see how the novel idea of 4 day ones with re-entries would work. I played day 1c and got through with one bullet (no re-entry), mainly because I got off to a great start. Or should I say a lucky start: the first major hand of note I got it in with the schnuts (second nuts) against the nuts on the flop and still managed to win the hand.

Day 2 didn't exactly go to plan though: I was definitely on the toughest table in the room. I was struggling to get anything going and ended up reshipping queens from the blinds over an early position raiser. He had a huge stack and seemed very spewy so I reshipped knowing full well I could get called very light, but it was still a surprise to see him call fairly quickly with A8. He hit the ace on the turn. I can't really complain though: I'm always happy when an opponent calls it off as a 9/4 dog getting only 6/4. Professional poker players and bookies have one thing in common: in the long run our money all comes from people making bad bets against us at insufficient odds.

This week I'm playing day 1A of the European Shorthanded in Ballsbridge. This is also a re-entry tournament so if I do bust 1A I'll probably be back for more punishment on 1b.

A big thank you to the Irish Eyes team for giving my blog a makeover. It was probably well overdue: the blog had the same look and feel as when I started it three years ago as a secret "Dear Diary". Also, the latest edition of Player Ireland has an extensive description of EMOP Dublin with pictures. Speaking of EMOP, I'm really looking forward to EMOP Barcelona at the end of the month. It will be my first foreign trip since Vegas and while some time at home was needed after Vegas, my batteries are well and truly recharged now and I'm raring to go. I'll be flying directly from Barcelona to London for the last few side events and the EPT Country of the Year freeroll I qualified for.

You may notice ads for various stuff on the new look blog. Not to plug everything, but one worth paying attention to as I genuinely get asked about it a lot (or more generally the best way to get money on and offline). I personally use Neteller and an associated Net+ Cash On Cash Off card which works as a debit card (meaning no credit card fees) against your Neteller account.

This also means no fees when booking flights etc. (Ryanair for example charge you extra for using a credit card), and I can use the card to withdraw cash from ATMs. So click on the Cash On Cash Off banner at the side for more details.

Lastly, I have also tried a new site this week called Terminal Poker. Its like Full Tilt's Rush poker and although it is new its quite a bit of fun. Cash games only. Fold and you move directly to a new table and new players.
Irish Eyes Poker are adding it to their site (although you will need a different account on Terminal than on Irish Eyes)and have given me some free money to give to anyone who wants to try it out. If you click in the link on my blog (there is a link to it from the Irish Eyes blog) or put in the referral code 'doke' when you signup, they will stick 20 euro into your account for free if you email team@irisheyespoker.ie with your username.

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).