The trials of live poker: A trip report

I played in the €250 + €20 end of month NLH freezeout tournament in the Fitzwilliam Card Club in central Dublin last night, along with 75 other players. The structure is good but not great, the standard is average and the fun is fairly good usually! I took part in a €30 one-handed blind Omaha satellite for a ticket beforehand, this is just a bit of fun and chance to gamble it up - I’ve never won one of these!

The usual Dublin poker crowd was in attendance, at least those who are not lucky enough to be over in Las Vegas for the WSOP. My fellow PPP’er Noel ‘BCB’ Hayes was there (even though his flight to Vegas to look after our WSOP qualifiers was leaving at 10am!), as was such notables as Ollie Boyce, Willie Clynes, Colette Murphy, General Zito and more. We started with a 7,500 stack and 30 minute blinds - at 8.30pm the flag was raised and away we went!

I had a quiet few hours up until the break, with only one or two interesting hands. During the 75 / 150 level, action was folded to me in MP with AKc and I raised to 400. The button, a strong player I didn’t particularly want to tangle with, raised to 1000 and I decided to call. The flop was 2c2s3c , I checked to see if he would continuation bet (c-bet), he bet 2000, I put him on a strong pair but with my nut flush draw and two overcards to the pair I put him on, I was 50-50 to win the hand at this point, so I pushed for about 6k in total and let the decision to race rest with him. I actually didn’t like his 2000 c-bet, as it almost committed him given what I had behind if I pushed, 1500 would have made him fold easier. In any case, he folded and I raked in enough chips to put me above average.

During the 100 / 200 level afterwards I made a mistake: I found 5c5h in MP and raised to 500, only the BB called, another good thinking player. The flop wasQs9c4h , he bet 600, it smelled weak and I raised to 1400, which I hoped would look strong and get him to fold a weak Q or 9 or a bluff of course! He called and checked the Jc on the turn. What could he have? Again a weak Q maybe, a strong 9, the small possibility of a flopped two-pair or set of fours, or a straight draw. Don’t think he’s floating anymore. I bet 1400, which he called without betraying any emotion. The river was a 6d , and again he checked. I briefly thought of betting, but didn’t want to lose any more chips in case he was slow-playing a monster or would check-call with a medium strength hand, so I checked. He turned over JdTh expecting to lose and was somewhat surprised that I mucked.

I played his hand badly, particularly in my giving-up on the hand on the river. If I had slowed down and given myself 60 seconds to think about it, I would have realised he wouldn’t have checked a strong hand to me on the river (not this player, he would have value bet it), that he played it like the straight draw it was, and that if I had fired the third barrel I would have taken down a tasty pot. Always take the time to think your decisions through, especially in a spot like this with a lot of information on offer over the course of the hand and with so much of your stack on the line.

Anyhow, fast forward a few hours (don’t want to bore you with lots of the standard play!) to when there were only 11 players left, blinds were about to go up to 800 / 1500 and I had dwindled to 14.5k, it was folded to me in the cutoff with Td8h , the button (General Zito) and the SB were playing very tight and only had 25k each and so very likely to fold to my all-in, so I pushed to take the blinds. The General insta-called, the SB and BB folded and he turned over AQc , uh-oh! Not only was I in trouble, the door card (the first one exposed on the flop) was a Q! The flop was QhTs9c, not the worst really, the turn was the beautiful Th and the river a brick, so I doubled up! Poor General, he wasn’t happy.

The bubble soon burst and I was on the final table with a decent 42k stack, only €500 for 9th but €7000 for 1st, a long way to go! Fellow PPP’er Noel was there too with over 60k, in good shape - could we do a paddypowerpoker.com one-two? It wasn’t to be! I picked up QsQh in the first hand, raised to 11.5k (blinds were 1.5k / 3k), the player on my immediate left with over 100k raised to 40k, everyone folded to me. Obviously, with 30k behind and an effective pot of 55k, this is almost always an insta-call, but I have put a lot of hours in against this opponent and knew he almost certainly had KK or AA, I would say more than 80% of the time here. The best I could hope for was to be against QQ or AKs. Despite my read, I made a foolish call and knocked myself out getting it all in against his KK. Bleh. All that work for €230 profit! Make that €200 considering my one-handed blind Omaha madness The things we do for the love of the game, eh?

It's time for some Whalewatching! $15,000 worth...

Have you ever been down sunning yourself on the beach, eyes peeled for an attractive member of the opposite sex, when a sudden shadow is cast over you and a chill makes its way through your bones? A large object has somehow found its way between the sun and your pasty body, and you wonder whether it could be an ecplise or maybe even a helicopter landing close by? You try to focus your eyes, unused to the dark, and see a beached whale of some sorts striding across the beach in front of you, casting a shadow the likes of which no human should cast!

Yes, some people should really cover up!

What we can’t keep under wraps any longer is our Whalewatch promotion. We are running seven nights of money-added tournaments from June 18th to June 24th, the $2 + 20c Sunburn Special rebuy with $200 added every evening at 7pm and the $5 + 50c Bouncing Bikinis rebuy with $500 added every night at 9pm. Sounds good, right? Well that’s just the start of it! Play in at least two of these tournaments and you will be eligible to enter the Whalewatch Grand Final Freeroll on June 25th, which has electronic and travel voucher prizes for the the top 25 runners and a $3,500 Irish Winter Festival package up for grabs for the outright winner. The top dogs here at Paddy Tower have also decided to throw in $2,000 cash, which will be divided up between the top 50% of the field!

That’s a total of more than $15,000 waiting to be snagged in the Grand Final, so open up your favourite poker room now and get registering!

Smash your way to big cash prizes at Summer Slamdown!

Hopefully you’ve all heard about our Summer Slamdown cash race promotion by now and are ready to fight for the big cash prizes over the course of June and July. We’re giving away more than $36,000 in prizes, almost $35,000 in cash and almost $2,000 in tokens for our Irish Winter Festival satellites.

It’s not gonna be easy to climb the leaderboards and stake your claim on the cash, but it certainly will be worth it - the top grappler every month is going to walk away with $2,500 in cash! More than 200 players will win each month, so everyone is in with a chance

Part III of ionapaul’s fantabulous tournament trip report

The last installment of my trip report from the recent €300 2-day No Limit Hold’em side event tournament at the JP Poker Masters festival in Dublin. I had made it to the final table and heading towards the big payouts…

Another hand I remember, with about 7 left it was folded to me on the small blind and I completed with (blinds were 3000/6000/500 I think), the big blind raised another 15k to 21k total, he was fairly active and I felt certain if I hit (and didn’t get into trouble!) I’d win a nice pot from him – it felt right at the time to call but I really wonder, I didn’t think about it enough. Anyhow, the flop was rainbow, I checked, he bet 40k, I pushed my remaining 110k in and he instantly called with …interesting. I hadn’t made any big moves without the goods really since getting to the final table, most of the rest would never have called me in that spot with his hole cards. Anyhow, the gutshot missed (only a K would have taken the pot away from me, or a more improbable runner-runner) and I jump to having one of the biggest stacks of the remaining players.

Again, I played fairly passively with the big stack, when I raised the others folded generally, once I raised in late position with , a limper in mid position called , the flop missed me but was all low cards and I had him on broadway cards or a weak ace, I bet ½ pot, he flat called, another brick fell and I knew he again had none of it, fired another bullet and he folded. I think betting with nothing in the knowledge your opponent is going to fold is the most satisfying play to make in poker, more so than making your opponent lay down a better hand. I am not sure why I like this so much!

When we got down to four the big stack didn’t want to do a deal to flatten the payouts so we’d all get €4000, he had about 420k in chips, I had 250k, the Chopper had 330k and the shortstack had just over 200k. I thought this was madness, he wasn’t THAT far ahead! Anyhow, the very next hand I raised on the button with , Ricky folded on the small blind, the big stack re-raised on the big blind, I thought about it for a moment or two, decided I was probably still ahead but only flat called (this is a mistake).

The flop was , he checked and I checked behind (I know I’m most likely ahead here, I should have bet / pushed and taken it down), the turn was a , he bets out again, I flat call (I really felt I was still ahead, I had a good read on him), the river is a , we both check, he shows and I take down a 100k+ pot. Suddenly he is happy to make that deal! 4th €4000, 3rd €5000, 2nd €6500 and 1st €8000.

Soon after the Chopper knocks out the shortstack, we break for lunch, Ricky and I discuss how much each of us would like to win the tournament, get back a bit late, play for 30 minutes before deciding to chop 3-ways as our stacks were so close. €6500 each, the same as 2nd was going to get. I wonder did the other player decide to deal because he felt a bit of ‘2 against 1′ was on the cards (it wasn’t, of course) as myself and Ricky had been chatting so much and had lunch together during the break. Anyhow he took the nice trophy in the blind hand we played for it and myself and the Chopper had to make do with just the cash!

Hopefully I’ll have another tournament report with a similar outcome from my live or online play sometime over the summer! Please leave a comment if you find this interesting (or boring), we read all comments and will act on them; we’re eager to please here at paddypowerpoker.com

Part II of ionapaul’s fantabulous tournament trip report

Down to two tables, I was on the same table as Noel ‘Big City Banker’ Hayes, Ricky ‘the Chopper’ Cosgrove (who had a big stack!)and Vera Duffy and I slipped under average stack for the 1st time in the tournament. It was a few painful hours of being completely card dead, painful stuff! I hoped we would play on until the money if possible, not wanting to come back again on Monday to play for a few hours for not even money back! However, the decision was made to finish up around 3.15am and come back at 2pm the next day….without Noel unfortunately, who was knocked out by the Chopper on the final hand of the night.

Day 2: I had about 70k in chips, with the average stack being about 75k, not too bad, but was starting on the more difficult of the two tables of 8 I think, with three big stacks (including Yuletired and the Chopper) on the table. 12 of us were being paid and knowing we would probably pay the bubble their money back (we actually decided on €500 for lucky 13th) it was ninja shortstack play if I wanted to survive and have a chance at a run on the big money….5th €2000, 4th €2500, 3rd €3500, 2nd €6500, 1st €11000. I would have taken 8th for €1000 if you had offered it to me at start of play on Day 2 actually, felt like I was up against it. On the plus side, there was a player at our table with only 16k, he allowed himself to be blinded away the night before, which was crazy.

So 16 players were vieing for 13 paying places and €32k in the prizepool…if the blind structure hadn’t been changed it would have been a crapshoot for the 1st time in the otherwise excellently structured tournament…to JP Poker’s eternal credit, however, the poker player comes 1st and they altered the structure for us without being pressed! The last blind level of Day 1, 1500/3000/300 was repeated for us and the blind levels increased to 60 minutes! Wonderful, I wasn’t in as much trouble as I had thought I would be and could play a bit.

Another iffy hand for your delectation; with blinds of 1500/3000/300, I was big blind and the shortstack was small blind with only 9.8k after posting the ante…it was folded to him and finally he found a push…I looked down a and was being asked for another 6.8k, more than 10% of my stack at the time. Should I have called? There were still 16 players in it so I really needed those chips. He had and doubled up to about 20k, I was down to 48k or so. More ninja shortstack stuff, pushed on the button on two consecutive orbits to stay respectable.

Within two hours the bubble had burst and then soon after we were on the final table. I was shortstack with 50k+, the blinds had just moved to 3000/6000/500 I think, not sure. Yuletired had a big stack, the Chopper was healthy too, a few others with 150k and the rest with between 65k-80k. Time to make some moves for ionapaul!

I had drawn a good seat in Seat 1, I had position on a player I thought I had a good idea of his play, and Jude Ainsworth and the Chopper were in seats 3 and 4, where I preferred them to be honest! I doubled up the 1st hand to over 100k when a player raised in mid position, I pushed in late position with , he called quickly and two queens on the flop put paid to his mid-pair. Now I could play a bit. I further increased my stack against the same player a blind level or two later when he raised to 24k or so and I pushed my 90k in with , he folded that time.

Jude was playing well I thought and making interesting sized 2.5 or 2.8 times the big blind raises when he decided to get involved in pots, he must have missed a lot as he was subsequently check raised off a few pots and his stack was really depleted. Yuletired also suffered greatly from being re-raised, it seemed every pre-flop raise of his was met with an insta-shove, he must have lost over 1/3 of his big stack in less than two hours in this way, it was almost funny (but a little sick). He had some bad luck I am sure, lots of raising hands but no calling ones, just once if he had a monster he would have won a big pot and jumped into a big chip lead.

My next installment will cover the rest of my time on the final table of this two-day tournament…hopefully it is not too boring for the action junkies out there!

ionapaul’s fantabulous tournament trip report - part I

Below is the first post of the three part trip report covering my experiences playing in a €300 freezeout tournament live in Dublin recently, hopefully it will prove interesting to some readers…

After spending the Friday and Saturday of May Bank Holiday weekend in Galway with my family, I got back to Dublin on Sunday in time for the €300 freezeout side event of the JP Poker Masters at the Red Cow (the main event was a €750 freezeout that I would have loved to have played). 120 runners took to the tables at 4pm, all trying to make it to Day 2 and shooting for poker glory! My opening table were all unknowns to me apart from Smurph (unfortunately she was knocked out early) and Mick McCloskey. I was dealt on the very 1st hand in mid-position and won a fair sized pot from the table calling station, a very nice guy who was known to some of the others but who was just making up the numbers and wouldn’t be there for very long.

I misplayed a hand against Mick during the 2nd or 3rd level; I limped from MP with with two limpers before me, Mick flat called on the button and the SB and BB came along for the ride as well. The flop was . It was checked to me and I bet about 400 into the 1000 pot, Mick raised to 1200 and I hesitantly flat called, intending to check raise him on the turn. The turn was a , I checked, Mick bet 1500 and I quickly raised to 6000 – I honestly don’t know why I went so big, no flush draws on the board and I knew he wasn’t re-raising me on the flop with an OESD (open ended straight draw). He deliberated for about 3 minutes and folded faceup. I mucked and stayed quiet but cursed myself for re-raising so big, stupid!

Sometime afterwards (the early hours of these things always blur together after it’s over, don’t they?), maybe during the 150/300/25 level I picked up in MP, raised to 1100 and was called by a player who fancied himself as the table captain; a regular who liked to play most pots in position, loved to float, pounce on weakness and raise any continuation bets. I’m sure any strong players at the table had him and his growing stack in their sights. The flop was K-high, he checked, I bet ½ pot, he raised as expected, I gave it a bit of Hollywood for a minute or so (a shake of the head, staring at him as if I couldn’t figure out what he had, etc etc…) and pushed all-in (yes, very obvious by me!), he shook his head and called. Shook his head a bit more as I was pushed most of his chips when his didn’t crack my aces!

I now had a 25k+ stack when the average was 13k or so, and didn’t slip back below average until quite late on Day 1. I was moved to a table with Willie ‘Yuletired’ Clynes, managed to stay out of his way and had the sweetest of double ups when I limped / flat-called a min raise (can’t remember!) in late position with , the flop was and I got all the chips in on the turn against . That was another big pot.

I played quite tight with my big stack, I am no-where near as active as many others, I prefer to focus on a few exploitable players at a table and just target them, rather than get aggressive with other aggressive players. For the next few hours I was content taking a number of medium sized pots without showing, usually having the goods but occasionally not; no-one would ever know as when I very rarely showed, I showed my monsters.

Down to three tables, I had Yuletired immediately to my right and he was active! I didn’t want to tangle with him but my blinds were constantly under threat and I found it hard to play back at him post-flop without the goods. It was folded to him on the button on one occasion and he made a 3.5xBB raise (maybe 9k or so?), I looked down at and pushed for 58k or so…happy to take the 14k or so in the pot. He folded after a minute or so, I think he mentioned he had an ace, I told him I had and he questioned my risking my tournament as I could have been against AA or KK. I’d do it again!