Letter from Doke (10th November 2011)

Hi,

Doke here again. I played the JP mini WSOP series this in the Maldron
in Tallaght at the weekend. I made a decent start in the 6 handed but
ultimately went out near the bubble when my AK couldn't hold against
Stewie Samuels AJ. The following day I was back for the main event.
Tough table and card death meant I was happy enough to get out of the
day with just over starting stack. I hung around for much of day 2
with a similar stack, then started to chip up until I finally caught a
hand. I took a risk slow playing a set in a three way pot and reaped
the reward of a full triple up to move to over 200k. I continued to
chip up til I lost a big race, and then shortly after the bubble I
lost most of my stack with a rivered flush against a rivered house.
Another lost race eventually saw me bust in 28th for a min cash (I
also chopped the Irish Poker Boards Last Longer). The following day I
played the 8 game. The most interesting hand was against Kevin
Fitzpatrick in 2 to 7 Triple Draw and it ended rather bizarrely with
me mucking my queen high hand after Kevin declared his hand as ten
high. When the dealer spread his cards out popped an ace so he had
misdeclared his hand, but because I'd already mucked he was still
awarded the pot. My mistake I guess for mucking without seeing all his
cards. I never really recovered from this and didn't trouble the
scorers.

I also did some livestream commentary with David Lappin and Iain
Cheyne on the main event final table. Team Irish Eyes member Colin
Gray was on the final table and hung on admirably with a short stack
for as long as he could. Well done to Ollie Boyce who claimed the win,
and all who cashed.

I got home in time to watch Eoghan O'Dea. Eoghan played superbly but
got unlucky when it really mattered. He did us all proud though both
in his play and his conduct at the table.

This week's most interesting hand was the hand that tripled me up in
JP's mini WSOP. I raised pocket sixes in late position and got called
by both the button and the small blind. The flop came down AT6 with
two hearts and the blind led out. People rarely do this with monsters
so I decided to flat call rather than raise and risk scaring him off.
I was also hoping the other guy would stick around. Even though the
board was very drawy with the possible heart flush draw and any number
of hands with gutshots (KQ, KJ, QJ, 98, 97, 87) I decided to take a
calculated risk to try to get the maximum value for my set. THe button
called too. With the pot now so big my plan was to ship most turns to
charge draws the maximum and protect my hand. However, the turn was an
ace, giving me a monster now and rendering all flush draws and
gustshots worthless, so when the blind led out yet again, I flatted
again. The button also called again. The river was a brick, the blind
led again and now I finally shoved. I figured most likely one of them
had an ace and the other a draw, but was pleasantly surprised to find
they both called with just the bare ace.

My next major live outing is the EMOP grand final in Riga next week.
I'm flying out from Dublin on Wednesday week with Phil Baker and it
looks like there's going to be a very sizable Irish contingent. You
still have the chance to qualify for this in satellites on Irish Eyes.

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

Doke