Poker & Life & Etc with Jay Farrell

Long Postament

2011-01-15T00:37:00.001Z

Well this will be a pretty long update as lots has happened since my last post.

My last post covered the unfortunate event which saw me snapping my wrist on the ice and requiring surgery and two k wires. It really wasn’t perfect timing as I was just starting to get into grinding the hu sngs and was feeling confident in my ability to beat the games and move up.

The medication I was on at first post the operation really affected me physically and mentally besides the fact I was one handed I didn’t feel like doing anything then feeling sorry for myself. It is only when you lose use of something you take for granted you begin to really appreciate what it was you once had. I could barely dress myself, couldn’t wash properly and couldn’t complete the most trivial of tasks. It was only after two weeks that the pain in my wrist and the affects of the surgery and prescription drugs wore off, I became more competent. I got my cast changed and my hand and arm was not a pretty site the K wires sticking out of my wrist encrusted in dried in blood combined with the dried in disinfected and blood covering my arm. Thankfully the new cast was lighter and easier to manage, however I still couldn’t leave the house with our friend Mr. Frost giving us a snow storm like I’ve never seen before and with Australia looming in a couple of weeks and the need for a speedier recovery than expected it would be foolish to jeopardise. I missed a number of friends 21st’s and countless social events and didn’t drink for 3 full weeks. One of my favourite days of the xmas period was looming around the corner and I was determined to attend but it was out of my hands and sure enough the ice returned and it was only on the last minute I decided to go in and see how bad the streets where, you see it was no normal occasion it was our annual 12pubs of Christmas on Camden St. which usually promises ridiculous attire and creepily messy behaviour by the 30 strong crowd involved and it was the combination of transport from pub to pub coupled with drink that made me apprehensive. I went and braved it and my fears where greatly exaggerated as the streets where clear of ice in the city centre and a great day was had by all.

The cast had to come off a week early due to me leaving for Australia on the 9th of January, so I got it off on the 5th of January and had to the two K wires out too, it left for a small dilemma as I had to get all my physiotherapy in one session and will have to judge myself on the recovery. One of the k wires didn’t want to leave my wrist and made friends with my nerves as it was getting removed, the shadow doctors face looked in more pain than me.

It took a getting used to using my wrist again as it was extremely weak, the advice I was given was to treat my wrist as it never had been broke which I did and do the necessary exercises.

My going away party came and went and before I knew it I was on my way to the airport to start my Aussie Adventure, the route I planned was Dublin- Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpar- Sydney. It started at 3am on a Sunday night and I arrived in the hostel in Sydney at 9.30pm on the Monday. Some of you may know I have had my run ins on long distance flights and I wasn’t looking forward to it too much, I heard Malaysia airways where pretty decent, my first 12hour flight had a screaming baby the whole way but he wasn’t even a baby he was like a 3year old toddler, but that in no way prepared me for my next flight, I was disappointed to see the plane was significantly smaller and me and my mate Ayo where taking bets on the seating arrangement of the plane and whether we would have entertainment. We got on board they somehow had 9seats going across the plane. Sit down take off far bit smaller and less space then the last trip, finally get in the air, my entertainment doesn’t work, oh well I’ll wait until someone comes by and also my head was bouncing from the screaming kid who is now two rows ahead of us. Eventually one of the guys comes round and I tell here my entertainment is not working. Sorry sir blah blah blah let me reset it and it should work fine don’t press anything until it comes back on, hour passes no sign of my screen or anyone coming back. Eventually he comes back and I’m like its still not working, goes off again, comes back with a voucher for the on air shopping worth about 24euro, he keeps apologising and invites me down to the crew seating to watch a film, I wasn’t in humour of kicking up a big fuss as I wasn’t going to be using the entertainment system and was happy enough with my ipod. In the row in front of ours there was an Indian family consisting of mammy daddy baby grandad and granny. Mammy sat with her full seat back then next seat granny didn’t, so I could see too well what was going on, my seat wasn’t pushed back. The baby spent the whole flight trying to ripe mammys top off to get some “bitty” and looked overjoyed every time he got some. It was defo something I could have done without seeing.

I was surprised at how easy and quick going through customs was, we got a train to hostel in world square, 19bucks a night 18person dorm, there was a great buzz in the place even though the quality of the place was below par. I set up my bank account with relative ease. Got internet for 79$ for 4GB’s which I have 3months to use and can top up at a cheap enough rate. One thing I have noticed since being in Sydney is its quite expensive, especially drink, but everything seems dearer when the currency value is greater than your own but the decreasing value of the euro made things seem more expensive.

I did the oz party bus the other night which involves a bus kitted out wih a DJ box and lights and stuff driving around to 5different locations for 5free drinks and entry, all for 30$ which was great value. The group mentality on the bus especially with drink on board brought back memories of my days of going to bohs matches. People do lose the run of themselves smashing the roof of the bus with their fist jumping up and down like lunatics, screaming at the top of their lungs. I am glad to say I was firmly in the middle of all the non sense and had to remember to not smash my healing wrist off the roof, there is a small chance I may have broke my left hand J. there was one interesting game played for 300bucks worth of prizes and it really shows how far people will go for free stuff, 5guys 5girls have get into various positions and the last to do so came either leave the game or take an item off each, it got down to the final two as most got down to their pants and bottled out, to stay in the game one of the guys(very camp guy) got his kit off and tugged on his knob as he pulled down his briefs and saved the girl from getting her baps out. The sick part was he still didn’t win the top price. The strippers friend did stalk me for the entire pub crawl and I in no way led her on, my chattyness got the better of me, the lads had great craic the next day slagging me as I said I’d take a blowie off here but nought else you might ask yourself why not? If you seen here in the flesh it would take a long time before the beer goggles would come into effect you might hit a coma first. The crawl ended in a foam party.

Yesterday we went out to visit a friend of ours who came over to Sydney in October on her own, she is living out in Coogee the lads laughed at me in the morning as I was plastered in sun cream before we left. A day of drinking beers on the beach and was great to catch up and see how shes been getting on. We are all meeting up again tonight in the city and going out again. One lads new nickname is RED as he got an absolute pounding off the sun and I had the last laugh.

The flooding over here has greatly affected our plans as we where going to get out of Sydney pretty rapid move up the coast of which is mostly flooded now. Its pretty mental 12people died and 60 missing the last time I seen and they reckon they will not find most of their bodies. We are going to look into the fruit picking to get it out of the way until then we need to get the bank accounts up and running.

Poker wise I have the dongle now so I will be able to play when I get a chance I have played a couple of hu sngs but no real volume as people are constantly coming up to you in the hostels and chatting. I’m sure when I need more money I will find a reason to play until then.

Ice you Bastard

2010-11-30T22:14:00.000Z

well if you had of told me on saturday afternoon if i was going to spend sunday til 7pm tonight in hospital i'd have laughed at you,

lil did i know when i slipped on the ice on the way home from the shop that i rgery on my wrist would need surgery, i iced my wrist had a few cans of devils bit with my mates and threw a sling on my wrist and i went out, when i woke sunday morning in agony, since sunday afternoon i have spent going from vhi swiftcare to a & e in blanch. it was in vhi the doc said how badly i'd fractured my wrist that i shifted the bone the otherside and i need to get a plate put in my arm,

so off to a&e in connolly fun begins arrive 6,30pm, 7pm tiage nurse sees me, 8pm blood taken and drip added to my vain, 9pm meet surgeon and told i would stay overnight, got a bed in casualty 11pm, surgeon introduced to some of the team and tells he is confident i'll be seen, moved to a day ward noon next day thought i'd be operated on that day, 5pm comes, surgeon comes out explains he won't fit me in as two life threatening injuries have skipped me in the queue

, more than fair enough just a nuisance for me as i would not get seen until tuesday, another night of boredom fasting and plenty of half doze offs and loads of painkillers,

8am nxt morning delighted to see the surgeon, nurse dresses me which is strange i was like the biggest baby you've ever seen, the pants i had to wear where just LOL,

operation went well with no complications, anastecthic is the strangest feeling ever, came around about 3pm today and wanted to get out of hospital as quick as i could stated to drink water get dressed, went loo, sat up in a chair,

nurse comes in says your staying tonight, now all surgeons i spoke to that morning said i should defo get home that afternoon unleess i react badly, i didn't, i demanded to see a doctor or surgeon to be told why i'm staying overnight, 10min later surgeon clears me and asks the nurse why she said i had to stay? she said my paperwork wasn't finished , he said thats not a worthy enuf reason etc and she had told the surgeon i hadn't came round,

he wrote up my perscription and told me he'd see me for my check up in 2weeks,

crazy few days glad its over, shouldn't affect my Oz plans too much, on the mend now i think

bastard ice

Jay

I'm not dead yet!

2010-11-10T01:06:00.001Z

Well its been a long while since my last blog post, and lots of things have happened since then. I guess the biggest thing is that I decided that I’m going to go to Australia in January for the year. My best mate mentioned to me last march that he was considering going over as he was finished college that year and wanted to do it while he still could and before he got a real job. I immediately without even thinking about it and said I’ll go. The way I figured it would be a great life changing experience and serious craic. I like to enjoy myself and love travelling.

After I came back from UKIPT Coventry(where I actually made day 2) I don’t like to use the word depressed, so I guess I better manner would be I was kind of fed up with poker and pretty much didn’t want to play and grind and took a pretty long break from the game.(Well the longest I‘ve taken since I started playing when I was 16)
This was not a great thing as I just went out too much, drinking too much and just was a real mess and I didn’t know one day from the next and didn’t know where anything was going. I have a large group of friends if anything was happening I was involved. Don’t get me wrong I did have a good time most of the time but I think I had a bit of a epiphany after my 21st, I had pretty much been on a couple month bender and felt like absolute shit and said I can’t keep this up. So I decided I needed to make a change so I cut back on the drink, I knew realistically I could never just give it up as alcohol is a huge part of our culture, I stopped drinking shorts and drinking before going out, I also cut back on nights out. I was much more focused and productive as a person. I finally felt like I wanted to play poker again.

So I didn’t know what to play, and I wanted to set myself a challenge and not to dive back in, so I withdrew all my funds online and left 600$ on Pokerstars and decided I’d grind that up and I would do it playing HU SNG’s and the reason for this is because somehow I was down 600$ @ the 23$ level games from playing them drunk and poorly since I played under that account, so I wanted to rectify that. So I’ve been playing mainly hu sng’s and the odd MTT thrown in. I’ve been happy with my success so far considering the small volume I’ve put in. That is the plan poker wise before I go away and I’d say my only live outing will possible be UKIPT Galway in December. Other than that its really full steam ahead with Australia flights are booked and visa’s are granted leaving 9th of January.

While I am in Australia I plan to update this blog and maybe do the odd vblog as one the lads going is a genius with tech stuff. I do intend to bring the laptop and play poker when I can and also check out some of the live action over there.

I’m sure it won’t be another 6months before I update again,

Jay

Updating Stuff

2010-04-06T18:59:00.000+01:00

UKIPT COVENTRY

Well next up for me is the third stop on the UKIPT which is in the wonderful place known as Coventry, I left it really late to book my flight for some reason and failed to avail of the 20euro flights but 60euro isn’t too bad I guess J it did leave me with getting 6.30am flight on Thursday morning. I am playing day 1B and hope to fair better than the last two stops on the tour. I am staying in the Novotel hotel which is meant to be near enough to the Ricoh arena which is little complex wonderland.

Poker
In terms of poker I haven’t played that much since I came back from Uruguay and any sessions I have booked have just been losing I must be building up my run good. It can be really difficult to keep a positive attitude and continue playing your best. I have ran really bad in tourneys 2010, and can’t win anytime I’m all in regardless what way the percentages are, MTT variance FTW. I remember hearing that John Juanda has never lost two pots all in a row, guess I’m doing something wrong J. I guess I am just lucky in the sense that I don’t need to worry about living expenses or future summer plans as before I decided to give this a bash full time I set aside 6months~ worth of living expenses and set money aside for the summer, I have my 21st, a wedding in Spain and a wedding in Dublin as well as a stags in abroad in May and a Stags in Dublin. I do have intents of starting a grind of 100nl and see how I like it and see how that goes and cut my MTT’s just to a Sundays. I am looking forward to the SCOOP.

Life
I haven’t played poker in like a week and instead have been on quite a spree of drinking, went on a 14pub crawl on Saturday some reason related to easter I do never question days like this J. going out with friends and just taking your mind off the game is a big help. I also have been watching the TV Show Fringe, I got through Season 1 and am on Season 2 good show but with the same writer as Lost is it no wonder I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I have also been reading a bit, reading Bill Cullens book Penny Apples, have another book Golden Apples which he wrote but haven’t read yet, I also have my hands on Rich Dad, Poor Dad and have read some of it and so far have found it quite an interesting read. If anyone has any other good books to read leave a post below

Irish Open
Also on a side note, congratz to all the IPB’ers who cashed in the Irish Open at the weekend, particularly PistolPete who made the final table and busted in cruel fashion cause he got unlucky but got 3bet jammed in an absolute horrible spot to do so. Also congratz to IPB’ers update team who did a great job with the updates when I skimmed through all the updates yesterday.

If anyone knows anything cool to do in Coventry while I’m there let me know cause I will have Thursday and possibly Saturday and Sunday free too knowing spewy form.

Jay

Its been a long time coming

2010-03-23T22:30:00.000Z

Punta Del Este continued

Well that was fun, I busted into level 6 today in the main event 200/400 with ante of 50, to be honest nothing went right for me today, from my table draw to the cards I held. I had SixthSense19 to my left who is Uruguay’s only online player and is quite sick, beside him was Humberto Brenes not too tough a spot as he plays quite straightforward but not a weak spot, the only value on the table was two local South Americans and a old US gentleman qualifier(but he was playing very tight), the other three seats where filled by two young solid South Americans and a Norwegian guy.

My first real hand of the tourney that I played was vs. SixthSense, I raise QTcc in early position to 400 he flats to my left(he had been playing a lot of pots and over betting and stuff),

Flop comes 984ss, I bet 600 to just try and end the hand he flats,
Turn comes Ad. This is a good card for me to continue to bet as all my Ahigh continuation bets get there, there aren’t many Ax hands in his range that call the flop, he more than likely has something like TT T9, JT or a FD, so I bet again 1325, I know he won’t fold a FD or a SD here, hell he might not even fold nine, but my plan was to fire most rivers as he will fold all of them to final bet, he thinks about raising and calls,

River 2 no FD has been completed, this where I had to be careful with my bet sizing cos he might snap me off with 9 or 8x or bluff raise if he senses weakness,

I bet 2200 and he folds after thinking for 3mins, the hand I most rep on the river is something like AK or AQ imo and he is prob unsure whether I would fold that to his raise, but my range does have hands that don’t fold to any river action, therefore he can’t really turn any hands into bluffs but he can’t make light call downs.

About an orbit later I pick my first real hand of the day KK, old South American guy limps, I make it 525, other old South American calls(he had played one hand of note where he c/r a K4x flop vs. Humberto 1025 to 5k)

So we go 3handed to the flop- T4cc7, the limping SA bets 450, I figure this is nothing but a FD or something weak and for some opponents is a set, so I go ahead and value-raise to 1425, I can call HU but can’t afford to let the guy behind come in,

he quickly makes it 5k, SA leader folds pretty quickly, now the stacks where about 20k effective at the start, so my decision on the flop decides whether I play for stacks or not, I figure this guy has a set nearly always, either way I felt like I was drawing to two outs nearly always, I also don’t have Kc so no backdoors, so I decide to fold but show cos I feel he will show if I do regardless, he shows top set I feel good,

Nothing really happens good for me until I pick up KQdd vs. the Norwegian, he makes it 550 UTG its like his first hand cos he was 2hours late and only arrived at the tourney, blinds 100/200, I decide to flat,

Flop comes 984dd, he checks I bet 800, he calls, I’m still unsure what he has he could be floating some of the time have like 44-AA, some 9x and 8x hands and some SD and Fds, I do have quite a big draw so tbh I don’t care what he has,

Turn Jd, he leads for 1400, I’m like hmmm, I think this can be BS a lot of the time, there isn’t a lot hands that c/c flop that can bet/call the turn so I decide to flat again to keep lots of weak hands in my range,

The river comes a pretty safe 2s, he bets like 5200 and I’m like sigh, I eventually call to be shown ATdd , I thought of folding but my hand is just too strong too fold, I posted the hand on Irish poker boards,

So that left me with like 10k or so, managed to build this up to 24k by 200/400 with an ante of 50 with no showdowns bar me 3betting AT and getting one street of value on a A2245 board vs. an unlikely KK,

I call a Ten BB shove from late position with AQ(in the BB), he had the top of his range in AK, I drop to 20k,

The second of the big hands came when the old South American brings it in for 1200 UTG, Max the Norwegian flats, which is nothing unusual he has been playing pretty lag especially versus this guy, I pick up AKdd, I raise to 3.9k and sixth sense shoves for 11k folds back to me, I’m never folding here and I run into the top of his range KK no suck out for me and I’m down to like 8k and the blinds go up to 300/600 75 ante, I shove 77 from mid position into QQ and its busto for me.

I did enjoy my stay in Punta Del Este that is the one advantage of playing tournaments in these wild exotic places is that you get to experience a completely different culture. The language barrier was painful at times. The most interesting thing of the trip happened on my return flight from Sao Paolo to Amsterdam, I always choose the aisle seat if I am travelling alone, its just easy if I need to get up at any time during the flight, I have never encountered someone on the inside who abuses the I need to go the toilet, well I never had a guy with diahorrea, a drug problem or a kidney infection beside me before. We get on the plane he goes the toilet far enough, plane stabilises in the air and he needs to go again, ah maybe he had a few beers in the airport, the problem arose maybe after 2hours he had went the toilet 4times, each time I had to get up stop what I was watching and wait for him to come back which was 5 to 10mins, so the food came and even before the flight attendants came to take are trays, I told he would have to wait. When she did come I let him out and I went for a stroll down the plane to cool off, its only 3hours into the flight we have another 9hours to go, you don’t want to get into a row with someone who you have to sit beside, so I’m down the back of the plane and I see this middle age south American man going towards the door on the plane and his hand going towards the lever of the plane, my natural reaction was to push him and ask what the fuck are you doing? He barks back in Spanish/Portuguese and go back to the door in a bit of frantic fashion, before I really know what has happened I have punched the man and he hit’s the deck and as he tries to get up I put my knee into his back and shout he was trying to open the plane door, the flight attendants come rushing to see what has happened the apprehend the man, and I explain what has happened, while a couple of flight attendants talk to the other guy, I get escorted back to my seat and he tells me he will get back to me. So the guys story was that he was looking out the window and used the lever for leverage and that when he was barking frantically he was saying why you pushing me or what not, he claims he doesn’t speak English and did not know that it was an open lever, the good news for me he was not going to press charges, and the second good part was that shitty shitty bang bang didn’t go the toilet again.

I do apoligise for the lack of updates I had 2/3 of that wrote back after busted added to it now, this is pretty long so I will post another update in the next couple of days of more present events,

Later

Jay

LAPT: Punta Del Este so far

2010-02-24T12:00:00.000Z

I arrived in Punta Del Este safe and sound, the only problem other than the 20hours of travelling was the timing of it, I got into Montevideo airport at like ~1am and out of customs by half one, I looked for a hotel near the airport before I went but the nearest one was like 11miles away, or I suck at looking for hotels, so I decided I would hang round the airport and get the soonest bus to Punta Del Este, so that turned out to be at half 5, and to be honest it didn’t really matter either way since I didn’t make arrangements with the hotel that I’m coming a day early so I would have had to hang round the hotel waiting on my room anyways. So I had left my house at 3.30am on Monday morning but didn’t bother going asleep for an hour or so, it was now effectively 24hours later with little to no sleep.

Montevideo airport as visually appealing as it is, it really does suck as the only thing open is a McCafe which doesn’t sell still water and no where to sprall out and lie down, so I decided to just stay awake. I got the bus at like 6am and arrived in the hotel and all by 8am, got a taxi up for 484peso’s don’t know yet whether that is good or bad. All I know was that the biggest scariest looking bee flew in half way thru and wouldn’t fly out and buzzed at me for the second half the trip. I didn’t get into my room until noon, I had a shower and went for a four hour sleep, got up about 5pm. I went for a bit of stroll, the scenery is amazing, it took ages before I hit a shop or a bar. I was hoping to find somewhere to get some water because its $4.5 a bottle in the room. I didn’t get any water so I have just been toping up the room tab. I got back the room at like ~8pm, rang reception looking for an adapter for my laptop but never got one, I was pretty tired still so I didn’t make any plans to go the Stars party especially with the tourney starting today. So I just got some room service and was asleep and all by about 9.30pm.

Flight
On my flight from Dublin to Amsterdam was fine, then arrive out in Amsterdam airport which from my only other experience told me it was huge, which it is but at peek times is crazy, board my flight to Sao Paolo and this is when the fun begins, I get there to find a Chinese guy already asleep in the middle seat, I have the aisle, his leg is also in my space and in general is pushing his boundaries imo, so this constant wrestling continues for the rest of the flight and the bastard robbed my earphones, Sao Paulo airport was a bit of a blur, pretty tired and fucked and unsure whether I would have to go out and check my bag back in, was getting mixed views off people I asked, you got to love being lost in translation. I eventually trusted that it would and the guy at the TAM desk outside the boarding gate confirmed this the flight with TAM was very pleasant,wasn’t overly happy with KLM they where very unclear about having the seats up while food was being served and in general were not as pleasant as when I flew with Air Newzealand but this might have to do with the china man I mentioned, but seriously someone with there seat stretched back while your trying to get stuck into the airplane slop is not on.

So the tourney is going to start in two hours, the plan is to get shaved and showered, get some food, register with the LAPT people and head over the casino which is across this tunnel which is kind of cool. Will post an update after day 1 hopefully i will survive a couple of levels for a change

Updatements: Manchester, Online etc

2010-02-17T18:27:00.000Z

So i headed over to Manchester for the UKIPT last week, my main event ended quite early which has become a habit of mine in live play. I drew quite a silly table where everyone on it thought that it would be cool to 3 and 4bet eachother on the very first level,

there was one hand wer i open JJ UTG+1 to like 200 after a limp, 2callers, this guy now squeezes to 750, its a shitty spot for me i know i'm ahead of the 3bettors range its like his 5th one so far and he has 4bet once, however i don't really want to 4bet with 15k stacks cos i'm putting myself into a shitty spot post regardless of the flops that dont come Jxx cos i reckon he will just flat whatever piece of crap he 3bet with, but also if i flat the other two lads will call behind, so i take the safest option which is to effectively setmine and call other two blokes call,

flop Q85, checks thru, i think no shud check a queen, unless one of the overcallers have a set i'm good,

turn comes a K, i think ah fuck it that just hit someone lets check again, it gets checked thru, i'm like hmmm

River A, check and hope and everyone obliges i turn up the JJ and win WTF, this just highlights the table imo, its a 3bet pot 4ways and no one can beat 4th pair,

I played a pretty weird hand which i made some mistakes on posted it here : http://www.irishpokerboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491

that left me with like 6.5k and i grinded it back up to like 10k when this happened, the lunny villain opens to 425, two callers to me, i look at QTdd on the button i have already been active shipping and re raising so that is out of the question i have too much to just jam but that wouldn't be awful, i can 3bet fold but that wud suck so calling is the best option, the BB who 3 or 4 times at the table looked like he was going to cry and who was greatly inexperienced called as well playing maybe 11k just barely covering me anyways,

FLOP come QsJd3d, checks thru to me i bet like 2525 into ~2kish, BB tanks shoves 10.5k, i overbet the pot by accident i put out all my low demonition chips and left myself with like 6.5k behind, when he shoved after looking like someone was setting him on fire, i felt it was a marginal hand like the nut flush draw, which i do beat i have a pair and two blockers,

so i call pretty quick, he flips AKdd what horrible flat pre, i expected to A8dd or something like that,

anyways 9d hits the turn no one outter for me,

ONLINE
so after this early bustout i considered changing my flight and just coming home but decided to grind it out a lil online and i managed to win a second package to LAPT Uruguay which means i got the $ for it, but i did have a couple of deep runs and bust outs in tourneys which sucked i just can't win any important flips in tourneys deep i build my stack without putting myself at risk and then i just lose a bunch of 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, 80/20s, its tourney variance and its only matter time etc the important thing is getting deep and the luck will look after itself, i also managed to bubble a Berlin package and UKIPT package for Coventry and came 6th in the 30r 6max last night after getting slowrolled on the river i flop nut flush vs a bare pair of fives runner runneraments for him and we play a pot for all the chips in play,

also would just like to say that fair play to Dara O'Kearney (Slowdoke on PS) he is the satelite king winning 2packages to EPT Berlin, his first of many to UKIPT Coventry, i railed one of his Berlin seats from about 40 out with 5seats and it was lesson in how to play a satelite and just totally owned it

also congratz to my horsey AK47 who had a deep run in the Micro Million and was unlucky not to go further

LIFE
its unfortunate but i'm afraid that i am going to have drop out of college in maynooth, i have discussed it over with my mam and sister, the guys in BBV at Irish poker boards and i have got some really good advice, but the fact remains that i have a compulsory class which i have missed 3 of already with going to uruguay next week i will miss another and will flunk the year, therefore i am going to cut my losses(already 3k down the drain) and dropout, i have emailed some of my lectures and they wish me luck, so its official i am playing poker as a profession

FML this shit is getting annoying

2010-02-07T23:44:00.000Z

KQ < JTs on a KQ4ss board in the Sunday Warm up wit 160 left for a pot for average stack for the last 40,

cannot win an important flip for my life,

only played like 3tourneys too this sunday cos didn't feel like a big grind,

Ah well, back on the horse roll on manchester

300 euro Deepstacked Festival

2010-02-07T15:13:00.001Z

So I played the 300euro side event at the deepstacked festival and it was a very short day for me. It was such a pity because I got such a soft table draw. Two irish one who I played with once before in the one and only pub game I’ve ever played in JP’s game in Molloys. To say that he was terrible was being nice. The other was your typical old irish player who is very exploitable. Then there was a horrible Russian player, an Italian and the rest French/Belgian.

The first hand I got was two kings, it was the 3rd hand and the Russian had already lost maybe 5k and had 3bet the previous hand from 125 call, 700, and he took it down preflop. I raise UTG +1 to 225 after a limper, the Russian makes it 725, I know this is a combo of full of crap/steaming and some strong hands but nothing he should be 3betting with especially at this stage. It is an obvious 4bet vs. this opponent cos he will defend wit so much worse so I make my 4bet way bigger than normal and crank it up 2750 after a short think, he calls relatively quickly, given this type of player a 5bet would have been sick but my sizing was so that he should only 5bet AA but tbh this guy was so bad I don’t think I could fold. So the flop hits J96dd, I have the King of diamonds, I bet 3950 and he tanks and folds his garbage.

The next real hand I played was in level one also when I limp after a couple limpers with QJs at some tables I squeeze but this would not get through and the table is so weak if I hit a big flop I can stack some weak one pair type hand. Flop comes QJ3dd, its checked to me on the button and I bet 250, into 325, the Russian calls quickly everyone else folds. The turn comes an 9hearts, I ponder and try to decide wat he has got, he for sure could have KT so a raise by him could put me in a sick spot, he couldn’t have a set cos he would play it faster on the flop, I also ruled out 2pair hands(he was BB) cos he would play them faster. So I put his range mostly to FD and some one pair type hands like JT or QT etc, so I bet 525 he snap call, so in my head I’m saying not putting any more money in on a diamond and bang the worst diamond hits the Kd, he checks and so do I he turns over T7dd what a terrible river check by him.

So the next hand is the most important of the day and is LOL and we are still in the first 40 level, one limp by the irish guy I described from JP’s game, this guys mo is he bets really aggro regardless and calls way too much with weak hands so hes an aggro calling station kind of he makes it 5,6,7x preflop, one hand I saw him play in JP’s game limped pot KK4 maybe 5players he overbets pot and gets one caller and then bets hard on a 6 and then again on like a 9 river, calls allin wit KJ, for the other guy to turn 66,

So the hand in question he limps I raise 78dd in the cutoff to 200 are Russian friend defends as does the limper, flop comes a dream T96 rainbow and the irish guy leads for 600 which is nearly full pot. I think that from the non aggro nature of the Russian post that I shouldn’t bother trying to just call in the hope he does something, so I decide to raise straight away to 1750, Russian fold, the next guy snap calls, turn comes a 5, and he checks so usually I would bet smaller to balance my bluffing range a little but bet 3500 cos this guy is such a station and his most likely hand is JT, T8, T7, I think he plays a set way more aggro, he could have two pair and is scared, he also may have a draw wit QJ or J8, the rivers I plan on slowing down are board pairs, Kings and eights, the river comes an Ace which is bad cos he may fold his hands that has the ten paired, I bet 7200 and he shoves for like 13k or so I snap and he turns over T8ss, I had been so focused on extracting value I didn’t see that a backdoor flush had came, but tbh if I had say it I wouldn’t have played the river any different cos that is such a lil part of his range.

So I am crippled down to 3325 blinds up to 50-100, I wait maybe 5 or 6 hands pick up aces in the cut off 4 limps to me, I make it 500, 6 to the flop I just know I’m never winning the flop comes a nightmare 625ss which basically means someone has flopped a set especially the way I’ve been running lately, checks to me and I bet 1425, sb calls and my irish friend calls, turn comes a 2 don’t know if it’s a good or bad card some loon could have A2 or 23s or some BS the SB leads for a 1000 lol at bet sizing, I say I know I’m bets I’m all in for like 1500 or so he calls guess wat fives full, I’m on my bike after an hour. It sucked so bad.

I will have to hope for better for my next two live trips in Manchester and Punta Del Este. I am a positive person so I must have got knocked out so I can have a great Sunday online obviously

Jay

GJP Deepstacked Satellite

2010-02-05T14:30:00.000Z

Wrote this last night for freshness only publishing it now,

Played the Green Joker Poker Deep stacked Super Satellite,

50euro + 10euro in,
2rebuys or one rebuy and top up,
starting stack 3k,
4k for rebuys,
rebuys for the first hour,
three 20min levels, then the blinds go up to 25mins,

I managed to get through the rebuy without rebuying and had 4800 chips, toped up for 4k, so had 8800 with the blinds starting at 100-200,

But at the speed of live play and the blinds going up in 25mins, it was basically a turbo, there was a great turnout for the super satellite 271players, the funny thing was that this generated 54seats but there was only 15seats available, this left the interesting situation that when the bubble broke everyone would be guaranteed 550euro, now anyone who already had a ticket or didn’t want to play would drop out, chips removed but the remaining players would have to play it out for the 15seats. I thought that was a interesting bubble situation.

Anyways in the satellite my stack peeked at 11k, then an interesting hand came up where the blinds are 150-300 25 ante, 10handed, couple of limps around I limp the button with J9s, the sb raises to 1350, one caller, everyone else folds, I decide to take a flop here, I’m getting a great price,
300+300+300+300+(1350X2)+250=4200 I have to call 1.05k more, little loose but I have position and a good read on the two opponents,
Flop comes 8s7s5, the raiser checks, next guy snaps 5k in I reship my 9k, original raiser folds, villain flips 98hh vs. J9ss, I brick out, couple hands later I ship 3700 A8s from the CO, called by the buttons 99, I manage to flop a FD and hit it on the river, this brings me up to like 8kish,

I had a pretty good table draw in that no one had a notion of short stack play, so I was looking forward to abusing the shit out of them, so I was shoving in +ev spots, have roughly 11k I shove wit JJ from early position blinds are 400/800 ante 75, get called by a guy with 77 he has like 8k,
QTQ8 and the miracle 7 ball on the river, so I’m down to like 2800 bohoo, if I had to won that I’d would been in a great position but ah well can’t do much better than that, I shove the next hand UTG wit 64of, there is a chance the BB will fold incorrectly even though he should call any two, he does call any two wit J2off, I manage to flop 2pair which put me at like 6kish buy still in serious danger, I wait for a spot to push but can’t cos someone had brought the action in before me and I had no fold equity and not a strong enough showdown hand, I end up shoving my last 5325 chips in the middle from UTG +1 with J9s, get called by the next guy with roughly 6or 7k in chips wit 44, I am not a huge fan of his call he is at best racing, someone can wake up with a stronger hand behind and have him crushed, he will be better pushing himself with any two. The door card is a 9 but the two following where 64 and then the sweat of a 9 on the turn but it no joy, the BB actually made a bad fold with AJ.

I would have liked to play but the main event but it sold out some time ago uncapped this event could have hit the 600 or 700players mark i believe, I will just have to wait for the side event on Saturday 300euro in with 20k chips and 40mins blinds, i registered for this already can't afford to miss another event cos its soldout, so hopefully I will get something going in this.

ARGH!!!

2010-02-03T01:45:00.000Z

just came 47th out of a couple of thousand in the 10$ rebuy on stars, i actually ran pretty bad in showdown pots as i have been this year but wat can you do,

here are my last 3 major hands, i acquired the big stack by winning a AQ vs AJ vs TT but i got most by pushing small edges and min raising most hands, this just sucks to go this way

Seat 1: faxekondi500 (504264 in chips)
Seat 2: DrJFF (693817 in chips)
Seat 3: robby-70 (692871 in chips)
Seat 4: LilFishAtL (106415 in chips)
Seat 5: Graf N5 (303800 in chips)
Seat 6: kievclubber (449103 in chips)
Seat 7: grazia59223 (512449 in chips)
Seat 9: b2p1991 (93189 in chips)
faxekondi500: posts the ante 1600
DrJFF: posts the ante 1600
robby-70: posts the ante 1600
LilFishAtL: posts the ante 1600
Graf N5: posts the ante 1600
kievclubber: posts the ante 1600
grazia59223: posts the ante 1600
b2p1991: posts the ante 1600
faxekondi500: posts small blind 8000
DrJFF: posts big blind 16000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DrJFF [Ah Ac]
robby-70: calls 16000
LilFishAtL: folds
Graf N5: folds
kievclubber: folds
grazia59223: folds
b2p1991: raises 75589 to 91589 and is all-in
faxekondi500: folds
DrJFF: calls 75589
robby-70: folds
*** FLOP *** [4c 3s Jc]
*** TURN *** [4c 3s Jc] [5s]
*** RIVER *** [4c 3s Jc 5s] [9s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DrJFF: shows [Ah Ac] (a pair of Aces)
b2p1991: shows [5d 5c] (three of a kind, Fives)
b2p1991 collected 219978 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 219978 | Rake 0
Board [4c 3s Jc 5s 9s]
Seat 1: faxekondi500 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DrJFF (big blind) showed [Ah Ac] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 3: robby-70 folded before Flop
Seat 4: LilFishAtL folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Graf N5 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: kievclubber folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: grazia59223 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: b2p1991 (button) showed [5d 5c] and won (219978) with three of a kind, Fives

i said to myself okay if your going to get suckout on this is small enough

and then once i raise this one its a call with any two, flop came i thought my turn?

Table '283010642 196' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: faxekondi500 (489864 in chips)
Seat 2: DrJFF (587828 in chips)
Seat 3: robby-70 (646471 in chips)
Seat 4: LilFishAtL (76015 in chips)
Seat 5: Graf N5 (281400 in chips)
Seat 6: kievclubber (479503 in chips)
Seat 7: grazia59223 (579649 in chips)
Seat 9: b2p1991 (215178 in chips)
faxekondi500: posts the ante 1600
DrJFF: posts the ante 1600
robby-70: posts the ante 1600
LilFishAtL: posts the ante 1600
Graf N5: posts the ante 1600
kievclubber: posts the ante 1600
grazia59223: posts the ante 1600
b2p1991: posts the ante 1600
Graf N5: posts small blind 8000
kievclubber: posts big blind 16000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DrJFF [5c 6d]
grazia59223: folds
b2p1991: folds
faxekondi500: folds
DrJFF: raises 16989 to 32989
robby-70: folds
LilFishAtL: raises 41426 to 74415 and is all-in
Graf N5: folds
kievclubber: folds
DrJFF: calls 41426
*** FLOP *** [Qs 6c 5s]
*** TURN *** [Qs 6c 5s] [Ac]
Graf N5 said, "lol"
*** RIVER *** [Qs 6c 5s Ac] [7h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DrJFF: shows [5c 6d] (two pair, Sixes and Fives)
LilFishAtL: shows [Ah Ad] (three of a kind, Aces)
LilFishAtL collected 185630 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 185630 | Rake 0
Board [Qs 6c 5s Ac 7h]
Seat 1: faxekondi500 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: DrJFF showed [5c 6d] and lost with two pair, Sixes and Fives
Seat 3: robby-70 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: LilFishAtL (button) showed [Ah Ad] and won (185630) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 5: Graf N5 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: kievclubber (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: grazia59223 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: b2p1991 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

this one is pretty close but i felt there was far more overcard hands in his range than say 22-66, which i think he folds or calls(cos hes bad), i reckon he may only like shove 99+ but like all broadways,

gotta win your races

Seat 1: faxekondi500 (485064 in chips)
Seat 2: DrJFF (508613 in chips)
Seat 3: robby-70 (641671 in chips)
Seat 4: LilFishAtL (182430 in chips)
Seat 5: Graf N5 (204600 in chips)
Seat 6: kievclubber (450703 in chips)
Seat 7: grazia59223 (688449 in chips)
Seat 9: b2p1991 (194378 in chips)
faxekondi500: posts the ante 1600
DrJFF: posts the ante 1600
robby-70: posts the ante 1600
LilFishAtL: posts the ante 1600
Graf N5: posts the ante 1600
kievclubber: posts the ante 1600
grazia59223: posts the ante 1600
b2p1991: posts the ante 1600
b2p1991: posts small blind 8000
faxekondi500: posts big blind 16000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DrJFF [2c 2h]
DrJFF: raises 16989 to 32989
robby-70: calls 32989
LilFishAtL: raises 147841 to 180830 and is all-in
Graf N5: folds
kievclubber: folds
grazia59223: folds
b2p1991: folds
faxekondi500: folds
DrJFF: raises 326183 to 507013 and is all-in
robby-70: folds
Uncalled bet (326183) returned to DrJFF
*** FLOP *** [Jh 8h Ks]
*** TURN *** [Jh 8h Ks] [Tc]
DrJFF said, "ffs"
*** RIVER *** [Jh 8h Ks Tc] [7h]
robby-70 said, "damn"
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DrJFF: shows [2c 2h] (a pair of Deuces)
LilFishAtL: shows [Jc Ac] (a pair of Jacks)
LilFishAtL collected 431449 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 431449 | Rake 0
Board [Jh 8h Ks Tc 7h]
Seat 1: faxekondi500 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DrJFF showed [2c 2h] and lost with a pair of Deuces
Seat 3: robby-70 folded before Flop
Seat 4: LilFishAtL showed [Jc Ac] and won (431449) with a pair of Jacks
Seat 5: Graf N5 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: kievclubber folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: grazia59223 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: b2p1991 (small blind) folded before Flop

And then this guy had been 4x and 9x and stuff and turned up wit the goods, he also called 16bb wit AT which i'm only remembering now, but i felt the 2x was a weaker hand and i would take it down pre and get momentum back, LOL at a complete value shove

i also have Hearts covered on the turn

Seat 1: faxekondi500 (457864 in chips)
Seat 2: DrJFF (308583 in chips)
Seat 3: robby-70 (642282 in chips)
Seat 4: LilFishAtL (429849 in chips)
Seat 5: Graf N5 (201400 in chips)
Seat 6: kievclubber (447503 in chips)
Seat 7: grazia59223 (685249 in chips)
Seat 9: b2p1991 (183178 in chips)
faxekondi500: posts the ante 1600
DrJFF: posts the ante 1600
robby-70: posts the ante 1600
LilFishAtL: posts the ante 1600
Graf N5: posts the ante 1600
kievclubber: posts the ante 1600
grazia59223: posts the ante 1600
b2p1991: posts the ante 1600
DrJFF: posts small blind 8000
robby-70: posts big blind 16000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DrJFF [3d Ah]
LilFishAtL: folds
Graf N5: folds
kievclubber: folds
grazia59223: raises 16000 to 32000
b2p1991: folds
faxekondi500: folds
DrJFF: raises 274983 to 306983 and is all-in
robby-70: folds
grazia59223: calls 274983
*** FLOP *** [Js Th 3h]
*** TURN *** [Js Th 3h] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [Js Th 3h 5h] [9s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DrJFF: shows [3d Ah] (a pair of Threes)
grazia59223: shows [Ks Qs] (a straight, Nine to King)
grazia59223 collected 642766 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 642766 | Rake 0
Board [Js Th 3h 5h 9s]
Seat 1: faxekondi500 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: DrJFF (small blind) showed [3d Ah] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 3: robby-70 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: LilFishAtL folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Graf N5 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: kievclubber folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: grazia59223 showed [Ks Qs] and won (642766) with a straight, Nine to King
Seat 9: b2p1991 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

don't usually post beats but mixing it up having a lil rant cos its jus happening amass big stack lose all key pots,

i was chipleader from 200out in top 10 from 600 out, 1/50 and bust in 47 ah well

Sunday went fairly shit as well, one small cash, and my staking which i knew was high risk drew a loss, with only one guy cashing

Playing the supersat for the deepstacked on thursday night hopefully i can snag a ticket, would prefer to just buy in and burn some more mulaa off :), will play the 300 side event if i don't get a ticket,

Slept it out for college this morn which sucked went the gym which is good

have no excuses for 2mro as i'm not in till 3pm

anyways later, i'm actually completely over the above BS back on the horse and all that

Jay

Update

2010-01-31T17:31:00.000Z

Just a quick update, was off college this week which was nice to have a break, as for the past month i had my exams looming over me and i couldn't put in any significant volume

I played 82tournaments from last sunday wit profit of 527$ av.stake of 48 and -3% roi,
i ran kinda shitty not winning the important flips in tournaments losing effectively HU for a 2nd package to the LAPT event i am already going to, if it wasn't for this and the two 530euro seats i won in the 108.5 qualifiers, i would have been down a bit but thats the nature of tournaments, ya got to win those key pots when you get deep, i busted a few tourneys just wit a couple of tables left which sucks,

anyways i am looking forward to the grind today, i have staked two guys into the Sunday Million this week which double guarantee so hopefully this can work out well for all involved, i also bought some action off people too,

I plan on play the 10tourneys or so, obv the Sunday Warm up and the Million and stuff around that

Hopefully next post will read (I won the Sunday Million)

Jay

2009 review, plans for 2010

2010-01-27T17:56:00.001Z

Better late than never with these things and to be honest the last month I have been handcuffed to college work and poker had to be put on the backburner and no serious volume was put in so very little to report.

2009 was a very successful year for me poker wise, I became a profitable player online and made in the region of 50-60k in dollars. In terms of live play I played very little in 2009 I played the Poker Ireland Festival in May(330euro in), JP masters, APPT Auckland and the UKIPT in Galway.

May Triple Header
I came 4th in the Poker Triple header for 1200euro this tournament got very disappointing numbers, somewhere in the low 30’s but I have to say the field was super soft and went out wit AA vs. 54off four-handed. I didn’t bother with any of the side events due to poor numbers and hourly rates in these tourneys would have been terrible with the structure being too good given the numbers, it’s a shame because the TD Stephen deserves better and has always ran great tourneys any I have played.

JP Masters
The JP masters was my first major tournament and I played a very weird hand day 1 against who I later found out was Jason Tompkins and too be honest I wasn’t overly impressed with his play throughout day 1. I remember the note I took was tries to play too many hands but is weak at his play on later streets. Anyways this hand he limps in early position which was the first time he had limped I think one or two guys limp behind and the fishiest of fish raises to 3x at 50-100, I call OTB wit 99, and the SB calls comes back to Jason who makes it like 1300-1500, folds all the way back to me, and I’m thinking the limp reraise went out with the dinosaurs of poker(in other words him being a young guy this is more likely a move than a strong hand) so I call and we go heads-up and I have position, the flop comes J55rainbow, he fires 2000-2200, which he is going to do with 100% of his hands, he might check 55 and JJ but anything else he’s betting, the problem in this situation my hand is fairly polarised to what it is 77-QQ, so I call and see does he fire the turn, the turn comes a Jack, he checks and this is where I make the mistake of betting 3500 he has about 10k total he eventually tries to raise to 6.5k and the dealer tells him it must be 7k, if it had of been online I would have insta shipped knowing that there is no value hands in his range other than Jx and like no Jx hands take this line, so I ponder and say god this guy must be terrible and won’t fold AA, I remember running the hand by BIGMICKG on the break and he said at every stage he has aces, anyways I tank for like 5mins and fold and he turns over 22 and say nut-low, I laugh and say in my head I’m so good and so bad, I had 11k behind and was reluctant to go broke on a hand where the villain should have AA or KK nearly always if I hand of known who the villain was during the hand I happily 4bet/call pre or bet/call the turn. Anyways I made Day two of the event with average chips and drew a pretty tough table Tom Kitt, BIGMICKG, James Sudworth and Paul Leckey to name a few. I was playing ultra loose and 4bet jammed a 3bet from Tom Kitt with 78s and he folded and commented that ya have to get one of them out of your system claiming to have Q5off. I lost a pretty huge pot with KK vs. this complete donk who called two big bets on a T674board only for a Ten to hit the river and me to check-fold and then lost a race with 66 vs. AQ.

My experiences at the APPT Auckland and UKIPT Galway can be found in previous posts on this blog.

In terms of online for the year I played very little volume but had some pretty decent results, I started off playing 9man turbos at 16$ then found the 18man turbos and transformed to these and some success and played 9man turbos up until the 38$ but where full of 5 or 6 regs not that they where overly great but just killed your ROI, so I moved to 6max SNG turbos and found these way better, as far as online tournaments I play mostly 50FOs and 100FOs and the 3x turbos.

My goals for 2010 in poker:

Play as UKIPT events possible
Play a LAPT
Play a EPT
Play Irish Open
Make $100k online
Be profitable at 400NL
Be profitable at 200PLO
Play more live even if its not plus EV for the fun and experience of live play

I would also like to win a live poker tournament and Sunday major but these are main goals but kind of if it happens happens kind of thing.

Life Goals 2010:

Finish my first College.
Get more fit and active and lose weight.
Learn to drive
Drink less
Grind more

have played a couple of sessions so far with a few deep runs but nothing to write home about, going to start now in a minute, will also be playing the Fitz EOM game 2mro as well

that was long

Jay

WBCOOP. . . .BOOM

2010-01-19T22:24:00.000Z

I have just registered for the below WBCOOP should be a bit of craic.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 517880

In other news i haven't been playing that much poker as my exams are lingering over me my last one is friday so then i'll try and get some volume of some sort on before UKIPT Manchester.

I had toyed with the idea of going down to the Lakes of Killarney festival but it just wasn't realistic with an exams looming over me, i also had hoped to play the Green Joker Deepstacked festival but it sold out, i will give my thoughts on the whole lot in a later blog post. I also intend on doing a goals plan for the year and some up last year,

so stay tuned if your tuned in and if not tune the fuck in :)

Jay

LAPT: Punta Del Este

2010-01-05T01:25:00.000Z

Shipped a seat to this a while ago, had a step 6 ticket and been waiting to use it and saw one for the LAPT filling up wit unknowns, 6/9 wer losing players wit an average buyin of 8$ or so and then two very small winners at low stakes,

an offer i couldn't pass up

played out very well for me, didn't play any pots really until we got 6handed, the bubble was 5th

and payout: 1st and 2nd get a package worth 7k, 3rd and 4th get 2k, 5th nothing

i had 4k 6handed and luckily 5handed lasted about 10orbits and saw me accumulate to 8k by the time we got down to 4handed, and got to 3handed the next hand

so the shortie shoves his 87 into my AT and he hit 7 on the flop, but i miracle the Ten ball on the river, nice to win a 6/4 shot and ship the package, altho i would have been still not much of a dog to get the package being left wit 5k and 9k, 13k being the effective stacks

anyways good way to start out the year, had taken a complete break over the xmas new year

For the minute merry xmas and happy new year all

Jay

UKIPT Manchester

2009-12-18T23:30:00.000Z

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

Poker can be so frustrating

2009-12-13T23:55:00.000Z

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

We are off to the races. . . . .

2009-12-11T18:22:00.000Z

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

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

2009-12-07T02:21:00.000Z

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

GALWAY. . . . .FINALLY

2009-11-27T00:00:00.000Z

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

Nothing Much to Report

2009-11-20T16:33:00.000Z

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

Sundays......

2009-11-01T12:06:00.000Z

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.

Cash Game: Skycity mmmmmmm

2009-10-19T07:00:00.000+01:00

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

2009-10-19T06:41:00.000+01:00

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

2009-10-19T06:23:00.000+01:00

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

Trip so far

2009-10-14T02:27:00.000+01:00

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 café. 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!

APPT Auckland

2009-10-08T18:27:00.000+01:00

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

Online Online Online

2009-10-07T18:01:00.000+01:00

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

Something i've thought about for a long time

2009-10-06T13:25:00.001+01:00

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