Irish Poker Open - Day 1 (and done)

Making the day one cut was within my reach, but it was not to be mine. I exited in the sixth level and they would play eight levels on day one.

Overall, I'm rather happy I made it to the sixth level. A third of the field exited the tournament before I did. So for being the first major tournament I had ever played, I sure can't complain. The first person exited within ten minutes of the start, and everyone applauded as though it were a sign of respect. TV cameras were everywhere, but I'm pretty sure I didn't make any of the coverage. :)

It was also the most difficult tournament I had ever played. I learned at lot playing at this level. So it was simply a fantastic experience and I'm glad I did it. I enjoyed the longer rounds (60 minutes versus the usual 10-20 minutes), better dealers, more chips (10k versus the usual 3-4k) and of course, the more skillful play. The tables had fresh new felt, the chips were clean, and brand new plastic cards.

I was assigned Table 27, seat 8. Seat 8 is usually a nice seat, because in nine-handed play, you can usually see everyone except seat one. I did have a few Americans at my table (one from Birmingham, AL) My strategy coming in was to be very conservative, fold the mediocre hands, and observe some of the play before trying to engage in a hand. I don't think I played a hand for the first twenty minutes or so.

Some of the more skilled players seemed to be counting on just that and came out of the gate aggressively. The first big hand I played was from the big blind with Kc 8s. The board read Kd 6h 7c 9d Td. I was happy that I had made my straight on the river, but the board had a possible flush out there. I tossed out another 900 in chips and my opponent (who had called my bets all the way) comes back over the top and bet 2700. I thought about it for a bit and folded. That hand cost me about a fifth of my chip stack, but it could have cost me a lot more if I had called it and lost. Maybe I could have been more aggressive with the pair, but my kicker wasn’t all that great.

I played at this same table with the same folks for the first four hours before we saw the first person declare "all-in". He survived and shortly thereafter we went on our dinner break. At the dinner break I was down to about 6200 in chips from the original starting stack of 10,000. Though down, I was growing in confidence that I could still make the first day’s cut.

And then I got moved to table 16, seat 7. Not just any table either. I was seated with (I think) three pros, including Andy Black for sure. Doyle Brunson is on the table just behind me. You can tell who they are because the media comes up often asking them for counts of their chip stack and jotting down hands they are playing. Sometimes they give short little interviews, too. Well, I’m seated between two of them with a short chip stack. It was time to go into Hail Mary mode. Thankfully, I started getting some decent cards at this table. I moved all in for the first time at this table and on the second hand. No callers, everyone folded. I did this twice more and still no callers. By this point the antes had started kicking in, so I needed to double up pretty fast to stay alive. I’m then dealt KK for the second time at this table, the second strongest starting hand you can get. I did get a caller this time, but he had the strongest starting hand – AA. I didn’t improve, and I was done. After 5-1/2 hours of play, and I went out at about 390th of 630 players. Almost half way in the field.

I also chatted a little with JJ Liu on this trip and I thought she was quite pleasant. She went out of the tournament about a half hour after I did. In the end, no regrets on my play. Of course, I didn’t win, but I wasn’t exactly expecting to. I only wanted to come out of this learning some new things without punching out too early and doing so without embarrassment. Call it a success.

Dublin vacation (aka French Police and surgical strikes)

I'm currently in Dublin for the Irish Poker Open. It's been a mighty interesting trip thus far. Flew through CDG to get to Dublin, and while transferring I got chased out of the loo by several well-armed police officers dressed in camoflauge and automatic weapons. Turned out there were two unattended bags and this resulted in them closing down part of Terminal 2. After two plane changes, I finally got to Dublin after some 18 hours of travel. One $75 dollar taxi ride later, I got to the hotel where this tournament is being held. The hotel is quite nice. Was told Bono held a private event here at this hotel just last week. Dunno if that's true or not, but this sure seems like a place where he would do that. There are 4 helicopters, numerous limos, and six different Rolls Royces parked in the drive. Not me though, I arrived by taxi.


Before going to check out the conference center, I decided to take some pictures outside while it was light. I'm enjoying the wonderful scenery around the hotel and look over my shoulder only to realize a bird had perfectly executed a surgical strike on my nice shirt. The bird must have thought I arrived by helicopter. Of course, my first thought wasn't about the shirt, but instead to check to make sure the Nikon survived the carpet bombing. Of course, if it had been a Canon, my first thought would have been about the shirt.:-)


I went back upstairs and changed shirts, then went to the conference center and checked in for the tournament. The room at the conference center is very nice, and the TV set is envious. Would be fun to get picked for it. :-) They are showing the tournament all weekend here on national TV with a feed on the internet. I also noticed that they had some cash games going. Mind you, I don't like playing cash games. I prefer the tournaments - buy-ins are cheap, its a game of competition rather than gambling, because simply digging into your wallet to rebuy isn't an option in a tournament, once you're out, you're out. I had said to myself I wasn't going to fish out the wallet while I was here. But I figured it might give me an advantage if I played a couple of dozen hands to see how good the poker talent was in Ireland. So I weighed my options on the cash game, picked the cheapest one and decided it might give me an advantage tomorrow. Plus I needed to get some dinner, and that would make that very easy. I can say the talent here is very, very good. I might be in over my head here. :-) If the cash game is any indication, tomorrow will be a very difficult day - usually about half the field won't make it past day one. I didn't get any real good cards at the cash table, so once dinner came and went, I left promptly. I got what I needed anyway. Several top pros are here, but I've yet to see Jennifer Tilly. I just hope I make it past day one.