Letter from Doke (9th January 2012)

Hi,

Doke here again. I spent most of this week out at Citywest at the WPT. On Wednesday I played the supersat and had a fairly early bath losing with an overpair v an underpair.

I played the main event the next day. The 30k starting stack allowed for a lot of play, but I handicapped myself by starting with 20k after losing 10k almost first hand with aces. More on that hand later. I barely won a pot and before the dinner break I got set over setted. That left me with ten big blinds which went shortly afterwards with AKs. I got called by the English guy who had set over setted me, Bodog sponsored pro Tatiana Pasalic, and then Dermot Blain squeezed for almost half his stack. Tatiana called again and when the 7 high board was checked down I was starting to think I might be good for at least a chop. Dermot announced ace high and turned over Aj, but Tatiana had kings!

I was back the next day for the IPC. In truth my table was a lot tougher than my WPT table, so I hunkered down through a period of card death until Padraig Parkinson doubled me up trying to bluff me off the nuts. I more or less tread water til close of play. Day 2 was a long tough grind where I never managed to get past the 100k mark, and towards the end of the day drifted back to 40k before the bubble burst.

So back to day 3 short but in the money. I needed to find something quick, and a couple of races won with AK were just the ticket to put me right into the mix. I then lost with kings v ace jack all in pre. Had I won that, I'd have been up over 250k and above average. Instead I hung round the 125K mark until my exit, aces against nines. A friend commented "another standard live cooler for Doke" and I do seem to go out of a lot of tournaments in similar fashion. I know nearly every poker player complains about running bad and thinks they run worse than they do, but I do genuinely feel I've run well below expectation live, at least at the business end of tournaments. I always seem to lose a big 70/30 or 80/20 at the crucial time, and while I can't complain about my consistency (which apparently attracted the attention of the Hendon Mob: Mick Mccloskey told me at the weekend I was the answer to one of their annual guiz questions: "Which Irish player had the most Hendon mob cashes last year?"), I do feel I could have won a couple of major live titles for now with a little less bad luck at the right time. This felt like another such occasion.

Well done to a few of my friends who did cash: Cat Taylor and David Lappin both final tabled the 250 side event (David also won a seat in the supersat), and Jono Crute also cashed. Also very well done to Kieran "Croc" Walsh who won the EMOP Ironman freeroll for a package to
EMOP Prague. Check out Irish Eyes for the many ways you can qualify for this.

You can see a teaser clip of an documentary on poker in Ireland I contributed to, which was directed by Eoghan O'Mahony at http://youtu.be/MOWy09t9CfY

Also this week I was interviewed by PocketFives about my second triple crown. You can read the interview at http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/doke-wins-second-triple-crown-587072/

This week's strategy for once features a hand I made a mistake in for once. It started with a competent aggro German opening in early position. I found aces behind. Flatting with aces has come back into fashion and in some instances I would but on this occasion I decided the threebet hoping to induce a light fourbet as my opponent was capable of doing this and we had some history (I'd already threebet folded to him). He flatted, and the flop came JT7 with two diamonds.
This is about as bad as flops get for aces as it smacks the flatter's range. However, I usually have the best hand on a draw heavy board so I have to bet when checked to. My opponent again called. So far so standard. The turn was a five of clubs bringing a second possible flush draw. Here's where I went wrong in the hand. When my opponent checks to me again, it's a tossup between checking behind for pot control, or betting if I think he's on a draw. However, if I bet I should fold to a reraise as then my opponent's range swings away from draws to hands that beat me (sets and two pair hands). Instead, I bet and called the check raise. The river blanked, he bet quite small, and I made a crying call in case he was value betting something like kings, or bluffing a missed draw.

SharkRankings.com is a new website that presents a ranking system for poker players to compare their results across the entire spectrum of the poker community in Ireland incorporating the results of nominated Online games as well as Major Championships such as the Irish Open, WPT, IPO, UKIPT, the domestic festival circuit and the clubs schedules currently on offer in casinos, card clubs and pubs around the country.

The rankings include an online ladder specifically for Irish Eyes Poker which will display the accumulated points totals for all players entered in the daily ranking tournaments running on the site which awards Shark Ranking points.

The ranking tournaments will run daily, seven days a week, at 8.15pm and will be €30 + €3 deepstack freezeouts with a starting stack of 3000 and a 12 minute clock. These tournaments will run from January 9th 2012.

SharkRankings.com online ladder points will be issued to all players who finish in the top 10% of the field in each tournament - with at least 3 players receiving points. Ranking points are calculated based on the number of players, the tournament buy-in and the finishing position of each player.

As well as the bragging rights that go with being at the business end of the rankings, the top ten players in the overall Online ranking leader board on SharkRankings.com at the end of 2012 will qualify to participate in the SharkRankings.com Final Freeroll with a guaranteed prizepool of €10,000.

Irish Eyes Poker are also pleased to announce that the overall winner of the individual Irish Eyes Poker ranking ladder will also qualify for the SharkRankings.com Final Freeroll. The Irish Eyes Poker rankings will consist solely of Irish Eyes Poker players who accumulate ranking points via Shark Rankings events on Irish Eyes Poker.

And if that wasn't enough, we have also placed a bounty on my head. Eliminate me from any of the Shark Rankings nightly games and you will be entered into a freeroll with a chance to win a €200 ticket to the €100,000 guaranteed monthly game right here on Irish Eyes Poker.

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

Doke