Friday, December 18, 2009

UKIPT Manchester

Weee Weee <---that is a sign of happiness not that i have pissed myself or anything,

Just shipped a package to the UKIPT in Manchester, hopefully the trip wil fare better than galway,

i am stil down money the last two weeks, but this is a step in the right direction,

i actually pretty much bubbled an EPT sat for Deauville, getting rivered in an >av. stack for HU.

In other news

i had a savage time in maynooth on monday, drinking began at 2 o clock on the train i only arrived back in dublin at 12, i get to my house to realise i had left my house key in the hotel, so i had to leave my bags in a neighbours house, it really sucks cos i never lose my keys and always slag my sister about cos she is serious culprit.

It was 3euro a drink in Maynooth, and maniac busy, great buzz about the place. I am not one who likes to wait on a drink so was buying 4bottles at time, needless to say by 11 that night i was blitzed and don't remember much other than 5 of us standing round a mizzoni box at the street corner at 1am,

Pokerwise

i wil prob not play much before the new year the odd session here and there, but 2mro i have the 12pubs of xmas which has a no. rules and shud be good banter, i hope to win the best xmas jumper award, Homemade FTW, i might post some pics of i bring out my camera.

Also would like to congradulate Bigmickg on his 4th place finish in Galway, ul not to go all the way, maybe we can chop Manchester

Jay

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Poker can be so frustrating

Played the 550euro side event yesterday,

have to say my table draw was not ideal but alot softer than the main

had a very fishy english(indian descent),and an asian guy who was huge value

Keith McFadden, Sirtoyou from boards, Fintan Gavin, Fergal Nealon(was at my starting table in the main),

i also had Michael Murphy on the table, i know he's had some nice results this year, but from my very short period playing with him i thought his play was awful, raise to 6x the BB, betting double the pot multiway,

i had few interesting spots really other than, i limp blind v blind first level into a local, he checks, i have AhJs, i am not huge fan of raising any hand from the sb,

flop comes J8Thh, i bet 75 into 100, he min raises me to 150, i call pretty quickly,

turn is a blank, he now bet 300, and i figure he can be value owning himself with worse jacks and pairs so i call

river comes an 8, pretty ugly card, he now bets 525, i beat pretty much everything bar 8x, JT, overpairs are not in his range, i would think he would raise TT pre also

as much as i expect to see an 8 here alot, i do expect him to have missed SD and FD and worse jacks,

anyways he had 87hh, i lose

next interesting spot i have is vs Fintan Gavin, he raises in MP, i flat QJs in the hijack, McFadden calls on his button, flop comes KT4rainbow, fintan checks, i do also and it we see the turn which is the 8 of hearts putting a FD out der

fintan leads for 600, i make it 1725, and he looks at my stack and puts me all in,

i have 7k behind, i have the flush draw and straight draw and regret raising, i fold and Fintan says he had three 8's

3hands later i open UTG to 300 wit 86s, fishy indian calls as does the asian guy,

flop comes down a dream 97ddKs, i have 86dd, asian checks as do i, the indian guy bets 800, i make it 2200(6700), he snap flats, turn is ugly and is Jh, i jam for 4500,

he snaps me off wit QToff lol, gg nh sir

so i go up to my room and load up stars and play maybe 6tourneys or so and get coolered and 3outered in them all

i'm always very positive and i was like okay sunday will be my day so i plan to start wit the warm up and play everything up until the Sunday Million

I run into AA in 22$ on a AKK flop and i have AK lol, in the warmup i run my AA into AK aipf, to lose to running diamonds

manage to double up in the 40k guaranteed so i was like its not my day reg for no more tourneys, manage to get a good stack together and had decided a fuk it i wil reg for the 55r and 22$ cubed and the Million

went out of the 40k guaranteed in a race about 50spots off the money,

in the 55rebuy i lasted 3hours eventually going out in a big pot wit AJ vs A7 vs AT, i have AJ, played 3% of hands, i literally trebled up in the rebuy and added on and stole a couple of pots

22cubed had the same 8k from all the rebuys at the 500/1000, AJ button shove no good vs AQ,

finally pick up no spots in the million until the blinds are 300/600, i have my original 10k, button playing similar stack makes it 3x, i flat wit KK

check the T52 flop he checks back

turn comes T, he bet 1200 i call

river comes a 6, i jam for like 6k he snaps AK,

very next hand i have the button cut off makes it 1800, i have 20k, make it 4400 he jams i call wit AK, he has AA

LOL i know the variance of tourney poker is high but i jus couldn't get going in any of them

Anyways in other news i am looking forward to Xmas and the celebrations begin for me 2mro, i am leaving the radisson early 2mro to get back to Dublin and onto Maynooth wer i will be going on the lash, there is loads going so shud be good banter,

i also have a pub crawl on saturday and my sister will be back from Tanzania on friday she has been gone 6weeks and to say i have missed her is an understatement and that is even wit two trips to break up the 6weeks,

and then on sunday i'm going to see damo dempsey in whelans, 16euro a ticket bargain

Hopefully my next update will bare better news


Oh yeah fair play to BIGMICKG on making the Final Table here in the UKIPT, top bloke, hope he can take it down

Jay

Friday, December 11, 2009

We are off to the races. . . . .

Just busted the UKIPT here in Galway, i will get to my bustout hand in a minute,

i actually drew a pretty tough starting table considering that there was over a 100qualifiers from pokerstars,

i had Larry Ryan(very nice guy btw), James McManus, Mark Spellman, and the other players wer all playing pretty competantly and had a basic grasp of poker,

i had a few interesting spots, for the first level i hardly played a hand and dwindled to a bit,

then came a spot wer i open KTdd UTG 50/100, to 300,

Button flats, flop comes 434cc, i check/call 600, i plan to fire the turn and the river, as he is going to fire at this flop wit pretty much all of his range, and if he does a have the top of his range here like 55-JJ i can put alot of pressure on these hands, i also can get folds from similar hands like mine Ahigh etc,

the turn is a 3s, this is actually a pretty bad card for me a higher card would have been better, but i stick wit my plan and he calls my 1125 bet quick enough,

my plan was actually give up because i believe he is going to call on most river and his range here is 66-99, TT be unlikely cos i hold a ten, i think he would have played JJ or QQ more aggro,and he 3bets KK and AA preflop, so i figure i would value bet if i hit a King or a Ten, and bluff if an Ace hits the river

As hits the river i bet 2k, and he folds pretty quick and says you rivered me,

this was one of 2pots i won, other one was taken down pre,

so another spot comes up wer this guy who struck me as an old school player, he reminded me of someone like Mike Caro,

he had previously 3bet, a 350 open and two flat call(i am in der wit AQ), he makes it 2600,

anyway he opens to 450, i'm playin circa 18k, i flat in the SB, 50/100

the BB says "yeah yeah i call", the flop comes 284rainbow, i lead for 750, i figure that the OR will re pop wit hands that beat me and may call wit worse some of the time,

however the BB called quickly

me and the BB had played an interesting pot about an orbit before this wer i have JJ, i open to 300, get 5callers, cbet 1125 T62hh, he is the only caller, the turn is an ugly card for me being a 3h, so i check he quickly checks behind, the river is a 3c, i check and he fires 2100, i tank for a min or so and fold, its a pretty tough flop, the only had i beat is AT type hand and random bluffs, like if this is a value bet i'm beat,

therefore my read on this guy was that he had like a set a huge % of the time, anyways the turn comes a 6, i check fold to his 2000 bet and fold my 99 face up,

he said he would tell me on the break wat he had, but if he was on a weaker table he would stacked two people by now,

the very next hand, it is opened by UTG, Larry Ryan flats 300(he had been playing lots of pots with few showdowns), some other guys flats i look down at QhQd on the button and it looks like a great spot to squeeze, the UTG player calls(he was the fishiest player at the table and bet sizing was terrible), then Larry announce raise i knew he didn't have AA or KK, because i believe he would not slowplay them but previously he had slowplayed AK vs me when defending his BB,

he makes 4025 to go, i think okay is capable of making a move here? yes, will he call my shove wit worse? yes i don't think he will fold JJ or TT or AK,

i shove for like 16k, he calls and tables AK off,

374flop,

Ad turn
As River,

busto, i am not a fan of his 4bet/call cos QQ is like the bottom of my range,

i have to say it was fun to play a circa 350BB so earlier, ah well,

its better to get knocked out of a tournament early then play for two days and cash

i'm not bothered really cos i played well and bust out hand is pretty standard, perfect spot to 4bet bluff, i honestly might have shove TT or JJ(however i would have flatted with them)
cc
another option i was going to do was to just call the 4k and play for stacks on any flop wit no Ace or King, but i lose so much value doing this everytime i win the race

so wat to do now? i think i will play the 550euro side event 2mro, i think i wil also be back in dublin for Monday and go to Xmas in maynooth there is a good gang going and it is going to be some craic

also i will grind online tonight and play a few tournaments

Jay

Monday, December 7, 2009

It was the best of times it was the worst of times

Will do a proper report 2mro, anyways played 3tourneys on stars today 109$ 40k, Sunday warm up and a 22$ tourney that started at the same time,

bubbled 22$, coolered in warm up,

managed 3rd in the 40k for $18k my biggest single cash,

was unlucky not to win it going out wit A9 vs A6, however i had my share of run good and bad

my volume online recently has been very poor farting about here and der, i did manage to run a step 2 ticket to step 6 so i will have to wait for new step 6's cos i actually cannot go to the PCA bohoo- college i love you!

anyways proper report 2mro

nice one to get me in the mood in galway

Jay

Friday, November 27, 2009

GALWAY. . . . .FINALLY

Well i finally snagged my ticket to the UKIPT in galway tonight in a 8.88$ 3x turbo, i've played probably in the region of 10-15 of these, including here sister or brother tourney the 10$ 3x turbo. I think i've final tabled 4 times cashing each time and losing HU last Wed. You never know when your going to run good in these crapshoots/+Ev, thankfully tonight after the rebuy i was chipleader and it got a bit ropey 4handed but sucked out wit K8 vs Ak to take double then won an important K9 vs 77 and finally A6 vs K9 hu.

I am looking forward to getting to know a few more faces on the Irish Scene as this will be my first tourney buy-in over 1k euro's in ireland. Galway is one of my favorite cities and i actually have a interesting story about my last time down there

Me and 7 of my mates wer going down to galway on the piss for one of the lads birthdays as a 21st present. there was two cars of us that set of that thursday morning, 4 in a Micra and the other 4guys in a Golf. anywho the lad who drove our car sean named his motor the BLUE BULLETT and it would be far to say he loves his car. Sean was too tight to pay the toll so we took the palmerstown route(grant it no-one complained :) ), the other lads went ahead. Usually when i go down on trips down the country i'm a fiend for drinking but you can't take your shoes off in the BLUE BULLETT never mind have a beverage. . . . it was just as well, cos jus as we wer coming up to Mullingar(i suck wit road names maybe the N4) we heard a bang like a stone taught no more of it, about 5-10mins later no-one is quite sure how long the back tyre blew, sean tried to control the car for as long as he could but eventually the car crashed into the crash barrier and it flipped a couple of times.. . . . it landed upsidedown and folded like an envelope, i was unscrathed and so was david, we rode in the back, we crawled out the windows, sean was ok few cuts on his arm, john who is about 6'3 was in the front, his head got cut pretty bad from the windscreen(tank god he didn't need stitches and is stil a twisty cunt to this day). i will try n get the picture of the car to put up cos it is quite amazing. Me n david continued to galway with the other four lads and had a great couple of day

That is my near death experience and god or my dad or someone was looking down on me that day- hopefully it will turn out to be a lucky place for me :)

Jay

Friday, November 20, 2009

Nothing Much to Report

Haven't been playing too much since my last post, have played two sundays which no success,

have had a couple of close calls in some sats for UKIPT losing heads up to SlowDoke (Dara O'Kearney), the final table went pretty well getting it in wit 99 vs AK vs JJ
i bink the 9 on the flop, this put me in a commanding lead. Dara made a sick call wit J6 to double, i had a feeling it wud be the two of us heads up, i had 2m to his 700k, but couldn't close it out losing wit K5s vs his T9s and then KJ vs his A8, left me crippled, eventually losing my last 500k wit K8 vs his KJ.

was chipleader with 14 to go in 215fo and ended up busting in 11th, ran into the only stack that cud hurt me, i don't have the HH but i open playing 50k to 1899, blinds 400/800 with an ante, Villian defends-

flop comes 3TQcc, he leads for 4000, i call

Turn comes Q, he checks i check

river comes 4, he fires 9.5k, i tank and call

in hindsight i think the river is a fold in the satty, he turned over 33 for a FH,

this left me with 20BB, dwindled to like 16BB's and shove KJ and get snapped by aces

In London at the minute, visiting a mate of mine who moved over, staying until monday evening, i was going to stay on for the GUKPT festival but with college i cannot afford to miss any more of it.

Won't play any poker to tuesday more than likely

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Sundays......

I haven't posted in a while, well because i have been playing very little poker since i came back from Auckland(FUCK ME the jetlag sucked), played two satty's for the IWF with no joy and other than that just a few SNG's here and there and the odd tourney but no big sessions.

I've been busy with some college work and have been catching up with friends too, and haven't been in the humour of grinding. Also my sister going volunteering in Tanzania next friday so i've been spending some time with here.

I plan on playing a good bit today, starting with the Warm up at 17.00 (Irish Time) and will register for pretty much everything until the Sunday Million at 20.30(Irish Time). I'm feeling quite fresh as i am not a big fan of Halloween and chose not to go out last night and haven't a raging hangover to get over.

Something which i am pretty excited for is the UKIPT Tour http://www.ukipt.com/. I hope to play all the Irish stops and maybe one or two of the ones in the UK.

Stars have started the Satty's for it and they are running a 3x turbo every day and 2 some days i believe, i pretty much hope to play these every day. 95% of people in these satellites play them completely wrong, which makes them great value if you know the right strategy, someone on poker boards asked me to explain wat i meant but it would be pretty foolish of me to educate people on how to play them better and make them tougher for myself.


Anyways, Hopefully i can run good, go deep and win some monies.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Cash Game: Skycity mmmmmmm

So the day after busting the main event, i was itching to get back in action so i woke early enought got showered and pretty much was over at the casino to see if there was any cash going.

There was a 5/5 game going and everyone had full stacks. I sat down beside that Chris the local who i had played maybe 8hours of cash the other day and 4hours during the tourney. We had respect for eachothers games and talked about other peoples play and stuff to each other. He played an unorthodox style but winning style in this game.

I built my stack up to about 700$ when this hand came up which was my first real decision.

I limp KQoff after two limps 3rd to act. A local guy in his mid 30's makes it $25 to go, 4callers when it gets back to me i call.

Flop AKQrainbow. Checked to the raiser who fires 30$, the sb makes it 85$, In this game i'm never folding its jus whether i flat now or raise, i reckon the orginal raiser is nearly always folding once i come in. So i flat and he folds,

HU sb checks on a Turn of a : 4c, i reckon he never checks a straight here and his most likely hand is a KJ, QJ, Ax hand. I bet a 100$ and he calls pretty fast.

River 7s, he jams instantly for 337$, i tank and tank, i just couldn't put him on a hand that beats me that plays it this way - unless he has played A4 or A7 and caught something.
So i call and he mucks.

The next interesting hand is one i played vs Chris, I was about 1300$ deep and he covered me.

limped around to me and i AJhh i limp also, the sb makes it 25$ playing 300$ he has jus reloaded. 3callers round to me including that guy who bluffed all in on the river vs me in the last hand. I call

Flop: K26 all hearts.

SB had checked dark, chris fires 75$, i flat hoping the SB shoves or Mr. Creative calls or raises, i want to keep as many one pair hands in as possible, SB calls and checks the

Turn: Jc

Chris fires 200$ into me, i have 900$ behind, the SB has 203left, i flat the sb jams his last 203$, we both call

River 5d

Chris fires 300$, i know he has a flush 100% time i jus believe he wil slow down with anything else i jam for 600$ more and he calls me with the Q7hh, for the 2nd nut flush

I would go into detail lil more but i'm rushing to get to the airport to catch my flight

Later

Jay

Auckland Part 3

I wake up for the main event feeling quite good, even with my small loss the day before, was really looking forward to getting a good table draw and building my stack steadily.

My starting table was a dream really. I ran over the table to get up to 28k with no hassle at all and no showdowns. A pretty interesting hand i open A4ss in the cutoff to 300, flatted by a hungarian qualifier on the button(my read was he was a solid player and knew wat he was doing)

Flop KQQdd, i check, he fires 350, i feel he is going to fire 100% of his range when i check to him, i can peel one card here and fire alot of turns and rivers to make him fold alot of his range.

Turn 7s, i fire 850, he calls after one min of thinking

River Tx, not completing any flushs. I bet 2250, and he quickly folds.

My table breaks after two levels and i get moved to a super tough table with lots of unorthodox play. I've got a solid local cash grinder to my left. An aussie guy Ali Khalil, two young internet qualifiers to my right and two nits. A loose australian/lebonase guy who wil defend J4off from his BB.

I go pretty card dead and dwindle from 28k down to like 13.5k getting no good spots-(this is over of the space of 4levels), so this Auckland Internet guy makes it like 1k in the hijack and look down at JJ, my plan vs him was to 3bet/call. So i make it 3.5k

Ali Khalil flats after like 2mins of deliberation. I put his range to JJ+, AK- then the original raiser shoves for like 30k. I tank and fold and so does Ali who has JJ also. I don't know its pretty close but he is never jamming TT+ AQ+ there, my hand does pretty shitty vs his range. It sucked folding but whatever

This tight internet qualifier makes it 1500 playing 8k, i have just over 10k and shove blinds are 300-600 wit 50 ante.

He calls and has AA, obv my TT is not worth a wank.

Down to 2000, i double up twice wit A7s vs KJ and 99 vs 55, I then get a standard reship over the Auckland guys hijack raise i jam QThh, he thinks and calls wit AQoff, no miracles bye bye just at the end of the 2nd last level of the day

Auckland part 2

On the monday i explored Auckland a lil bit and got presents out of the way. I was still pretty fucked and about 5pm was ready for bed and decided to try to stay wake until 10pm. A bottle of Captain Morgan later, it was 2a.m and i was singing to myself.

I had quite a bit of college work to submit while i was here in Auckland. So i did it down the harbour while swamping a fare few pints, this was the tuesday i think. I went to the welcome party that night had a few drinks but had to strong an itch to gamble so went off played some -EV games and won like 30$.

I played flight 2 of day 1 so decided to play some cash to get me into the groove a little. The game was 5/5 wit a 15dollar cap a hand. It was a super soft game but i ran like a dog and lost 1k after 8hours of play. I lost in the region of 5/6 $300+ pots. One hand in particular summed up the day

I raise KsQd UTG +1 to 20$ playing 700$, 5callers.

Flop AJTdd,
i lead for 35$,
button shoves for 87$,
this loose guy playing ever hand and catching everthing flats, 100% he has a pair and a straight draw or a flush draw.
I make it 300$ straight. He calls quickly

Turn 4s
I jam for 380$, he say i've got so many outs blah blah blah, straight and flush draw, he calls

River Qs, he does this lil gay fist pump crap, not realising we are chopping.

This absolute PRICK, also did something pretty snakey too in a hand we played too

he opens UTG to 40$ playing 140$, I make it 105$ from the hijack wit KK(trying to induce the remaining players in). Folds back to him, he throws all of his chips in, dealer deals out all five cards my KK holds and he says he never said he was all in and that he wants his 35$ back. The ruling is he gets his money back. What a cunt, if he beat me would he have said i only called take 35$ back, he basically was freerolling me for my 35bucks

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Trip so far

Well i left my house at 8.30am Friday morning and i did not arrive in Auckland until 6.20am Sunday(12hours ahead). In general my travel was fine, the entertainment and hospitality on Air New Zealand was fantastic. My only complaint i would have and i have had on my only other previous long distance flight is how horribly uncomfortable it is for me, the pain in my ass was by far the worst, constantly sliding down the seat, tbh it still kind of hurts now.

I managed to arrive at the hotel at 8.30am, i got a shuttle bus for Nz$30 and i would recommend them for anyone travelling alone to Auckland. When I got to the hotel I was arriving two days before what pokerstars were paying for so I had arranged with pokerstars that I would pay for the two nights myself, but when the hotel had no indication that I was arriving early. However it was no problem only I had to wait until 11.00am to check-in. I left my luggage at concierge and decided I would get something to eat/drink and check my emails. What I didn’t consider was that it was Sunday morning, so I presumed a few beers was a no no, only coffee shops where open and the last thing I wanted was something that would prevent me from sleeping in a few hours.

So I decided to walk toward the harbour and stretch my legs and look for an internet cafĂ©. I was beside a pub that was open. So I wonder in after roaming the web, looking like a sweaty serial killer type and I ask “can I get a drink?”, barmaid replies “why couldn’t ya get a drink, mate”. . . . I say “oh ah oh ah. . . . I thought. . . give us a pint of lager so…” boom served at like 9.30am. The entertainment was that good on the plane I never got a chance to look at my Nuts magazine I had purchased in Dublin airport, four pints of mac golds later and an update on on Danielle Lloyds . . . . . it was 11.00am and time to head to check in.

In my room by 11.30am, I didn’t realise how fucked I was until I tried to mount that hill, my legs were killing me, I was like fuck me, I’m bollixed, damn these new runners. I got showered and sitting on the bed (kingsize J) about to rest my little head noticed my right ankle was swollen huge and left was not as bad, I didn’t leave the hotel for 24hours that’s how fucked I was!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

APPT Auckland

Just packing now for the New Zealand. Looking forward to it, first package i have won off of stars. Have to be in the airport at 9.30 in the morning and it is a bit of a bitch to get to not arriving in Auckland until Sunday at 6.25am. I am arriving in a couple of days before hand to get over jetlag.

I am sure i will play some poker over there beforehand to get my feel back as i haven't played live since last May at JP's Masters, so i might be a bit rusty. I do not know what to expect of the locals standard but i'd imagine that they will be pretty bad as poker is still pretty fresh over there. As far i as i know i am the only Irish guy travelling to this, hopefully i can do well and go deep and become the 2nd Irish guy to take a title on the APPT this season.

My laptop has not come in time so updates will be dependant upon internet access in the hotel and surrounding area.

Peace,

Jay

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Online Online Online

Well i wish i could say my online career started as promisingly as some- you know the whole i started wit freerolls won a x amount of dollars and i never had to deposit or i deposited 50$ or something small and i never had to deposit again. I could also have done that but would have involved never playing on the internet again :).

My story begins with small deposits here and there, the odd 50euro or 100euro, but i approached it all wrong and never really gave myself a chance to suceed. I started playing online in around July 07. (when i turned 18 and used PP cos i had no cards or any that shit) I had probably lost maybe 300 or 400euro-(maybe more) until i found cardrunners in Jan 08 through a friend in college. I wish i could say know i never looked back. I watched the videos on cardrunners for 3months before i deposited money back online. Then in late April 08 i deposited 300-400euro's onto Betfair and was very determined to be a success. I ran this money up pretty well but ended up busting it through a number of stupid mistakes- Tilt control, Bankroll management and i'm sure there was some bad play in there too :) - and the casino option on Betfair.

I continued to make small deposits and it wasn't until the Sept 08 when i moved any funds i had online on to pokerstars which was around 400$ and decided that if i blew this roll, i would play poker solely as a hobby and forget trying to make serious money at it. I am glad to say i have not had to deposit again and that poker is my sole source of income. I play all my MTTs and SNGs on Pokerstars and i dabble in cash on Betfair(with the casino option blocked)

Jay

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Something i've thought about for a long time

Hi

This is something i've planned on doing for a while now and have been kind of lazy thus far to do it. So here it goes. . . .

Poker Background
My name is Jason Farrell. I'm 20years old, i have been playing card games my whole life, but what i think which is more importantly i had been gambling my whole life and knew how to place any bet(pretty much) in the bookies by age ten. I started playing poker properly(for money fairly small 5euro, 10euro) at around the age of 14/15 and this was only 5card draw and NL as well, which was interesting to say the least. I hadn't got too much of a clue, i knew the value of hands and stuff but didn't know my chance of making hands etc. I basically was just playing really aggressive and bluffing alot, i had no fear of losing cos i was used to losing my pocket money etc in the bookies.

It was fun, i liked it but didn't play too often, christmas time or if i was up in my cousins we'd play, i remember the first time we played Texas Hold'em up in my cousins and we wer all so bad the typical stuff of everyone seeing the flop the turn the river. The only time i had seen it once or twice on the racing channel and thought it was fascinating and wanted to learn more and more. So i was in eason's one day and picked up How to play poker and win, by late night poker or something. I have to say know looking at the book it is very basic but it was brillant for teaching the basics well, i then started to win everytime i played wit my cousins and by this stage we would play 20euro in wit buy backs, so the pot could escalate to 250euro, for a lad in 5th year and 16 this was a nice few quid to win.

Every year at christmas time my uncles would have a big game of 5card draw, NL, 7's and higher in the deck, 4handed, and thousands could end up on the table. The min buy in was 50euro, and this year i was allowed play cos i had my own money from the games wit my cousin. I got in and the game was going about 3hours, i didn't leave my seat all night and i ended up turning my 50euro into a lil over 700euro, i couldn't believe it i was so happy and this was the first time i realised you can make a lot of money at this poker.

One of my other uncles played around a couple of pubs in dublin, and he invited me over to play wit them after that xmas. It was texas hold'em 25euro, 1r or 1t, max spend of 50euro, the game was ran by BIGMICKG himself, and was a game of great value and atmosphere. The first week i played i played bad and was out before the break, the next week i was determined to do better and i managed to make the final table(stil not really having a clue wat was going on), went out on a race but cashed so i was delighted wit myself. Over the next year i got better, i read supersystem, played every week, would make the final table most weeks, i also started to play in some of the Vegas Nights games but preferred Micks games cos he gave more back to the players.

My first real poker experience came in the 2007 IPO, it was a great tournament and biggest buy-in i had played and prob the best structured so i was really looking forward to it. I managed to come 33rd for 550euro, which i was happy with but hugely disappointed wit, nothing went right for me day 2, i came back short like everyone and built my stack by playing hyper aggro poker wit no showdowns, i had jus ran set over set in a sick button vs blind confrontation, i held JJ and the button AA, i had 1/2million chips at this stage and cruising, he opens to 3x on the button i call wit JJ(my reasoning was people had to folding to all my raises and i was planning to check shove most flops), flop come J52rainbow, happy days, i lead really weak, he insta jams, i snap jizz call, i say ya must have AA or KK, he does but boom A on the river, i'm left wit like ten BB's, i push my way back to 17BB's if i remember rightly and i'm in the BB and UTG limps mistakenly thought he was the BB, sb limps into me, i luck down at J7, i obviously jam, the guy UTG starts talking are you at it again? calls for 2/3his stack wit the mighty JToff lol, knocks me out, the guy goes on to win it outright.

After the IPO, i stopped playing in the pub games as much and found the internet which i wil go into the next entry,

Jay