Back From The Pub

Just back from the pub and the league final has taken a nose dive into mediocrity. I only say that because the one hit wonder Paul "The Syrian" Joubi is still in with 7 players left. I am rutting for the short stacks Ronan "Shaken Hands" Gilly and James "The Liverpool Nutjob".

Good news for those in my camp, Gilly has doubled up.

How The Mighty Have Fallen

Among the first casualties in the league final are a couple of notable names, reigning champion Dave Curtis has validated my one hit wonder comment by bluffing of his entire stack in level 2 to a guy holding the nut flush, if your going to blow it you might as well do it in style i suppose. Also gone is Vinny "The Longlad" O Toole and in exiting he has demonstrated how much things have changed on the Galway scene. I think it fair to say Vinnie is a legend in the Irish poker world, the reasons don't really matter, but when I heard the shout "player gone" and asked one of the people at my table who it was, and got the response "the big guy in the orange jumper". Apparently its true that time waits for no man, but it is a little sad when one of the greats doesn't even get a little name recognition

League Final

Tonight is the €10000 spring league final in the Eglinton, the top 50 will compete for a piece of the prize pool. Oh sorry, there will actually be 52 runners in the events, the previous league winner Paul “Mr Fish” Joubi and the final winner Dave “The Sweet Talker” Curtis didn’t manage to qualify but have been given wildcard entries (I doubt the phrase wildcards has ever applied more). I have asked both players about missing the top 50 and each one assured me that it was due to circumstances beyond their control, outside commitments keep them from attending events on a regular basis. So it appears that rumours the pair are just talentless one hit wonders, who couldn’t find their ass with both hands and a road map, are completely unfounded.

Way to early to be in the club

Monday night and I'm in the Eglinton way to early, it's really eerie, dealers wandering around with cans of pledge polishing in silence, Vinnie "The Longlad" mouching around like a ghostly presence. I'm telling you it is not a place for a normal person, not that I for even an instant consider myself anywhere near normal.

Wow, tournament is starting, 6 runners so far, guess I might aswell jump in. There are 3 young fellas I have never seen before, Vinnie, Steve "I hanew you had that" Kovacs and Ivory "I have never seen a hand I wouldn't play to the end".

Ah, things are brightening up a little Laurane and Siobhán have just arrived in, would love to join in now but Steve is telling good bet stories, and the people around him look like they are thinking of a warm bath of water and a razor blade.

On break now, 27 runners in total and just under 2 grand in the kitty, we wouldn't say no to a piece of that. The breaks in these things are way to long now that I am back directing tournaments in here the odd time, as staff I can't play the table games, BEST RULE EVER.

Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. 1 hand after the break and gone, to stupid to lay down AK on a king high board against a knuckle dragger with AA. On the bright side Fintan just got knocked out as well, can try and make my money back playing him in pool.

Steve Kovacs has been eliminated which is a suprise because he hanew what the other guy had, but there you go ever the best among us can make mistakes.

Midnight Madness

Welcome once again to the Eglinton club. Tonight is a €200 freezeout with a 12 o’clock kick-off and has apparently has been named the midnight express but no matter how hard I try not to, I keep calling it midnight madness. Special guests tonight include Ken Doherty, Steve Davis and Tommy Tiernan, and the rest of the field is made up of the usual nut jobs you find in this lunatic asylum. But I have the feeling its going to be a cracker.

Deal or No Deal

A deal at the final table of a tournament is as common as Fintan “Arthur Daly” Gavin blowing his chips on a bluff, it happens every time. And there is absolutely no doubt that the poker Gods look poorly on anyone that refuses to make a deal. I know a lot of people who think players that won’t deal are cheap ass, tight fisted, miserable bastards, which of course could very well be true, but this isn’t what causes affront to the Gods, no no, make no mistake, if a players refuses to do a deal at the final table he is saying he is better then you, the fact is you are lucky to be at the same table as them. In a game which relies so heavily on luck these players have elevated themselves to an almost divine level in their own minds and this is what incurs the wroth of the true Gods and divine retribution will be theirs.

One of the most recent and well know occurrence of a deal gone bad involved Adrian “The Negotiator” Walsh in the IPC, he tries to come across as a man of the people, a one love hippy type with all that long hair and silent contemplation, but I have heard rumours from people close to him that it’s a wig and in reality he’s as bald as Danny DeVito, and I know for a fact he is a man. utd. supporter, so right away you now there is a certain amount of mental instability. With 30 players remaining and 26 getting paid at the IPC a deal was suggested, money back, €2000, for the players 27^th-30^th and of the 30 he was the one man that stood alone and refused, he was knocked out so fast he nearly went back in time, I mean it, he was actually eliminated before some of the player found out he had rejected the deal. And he used to be such a nice lad until he got mixed up with that Lesson Lounge crowd.

Another occurrence of the phenomenon was witnessed last Saturday at the Eglinton in the Irish Open satellite, John Ward was chip leader with 4 players left, there was 3 tickets and €900 for 4^th, it was suggested that they take €3600 each and anyone playing the open just add €900, John refused, a ticket or bust he said, oh how small and petty the pokers Gods can be. I hope he buys himself something nice with his €900.

We’re all gamblers and chancers and we all get our run of luck, so please, next time your running hot don’t start strutting around like your something special, remember the Gods are watching and they have a sick sense of humour.

Congrats to our latest Galway Qualifiers

Well done to Keith "Space Cadet" Mc Fadden, Keith usually takes forever to make a discussion and having played with him dozens of times I still can’t tell if he is thinking or if there is a hamster in there with a roll of insulating tape and a pliers working frantically to reconnect the wheel to the generator in his brain, and Mark "The Lemming farmer" Spellman, in truth they are cows but the rumor last year was that they were chucking themselves of cliffs and shit, makes you wonder what kinda place Galway is when even the cattle are losing the will to live. Anyway I digress, the 2 boys won the packages for the Irish Open last Friday in the Eglinton, so happily the West will find itself strongly represented by these two bandits.

Also a quick heads up for anyone who has been living in a cave, the satellite for the Party Poker Cruise is on this Friday in the Eglinton, €350 with one €200 rebuy/top-up, and there are 4 $12,000 packages guaranteed (not be me, and if any of these details are incorrect don’t bother telling me, I don't care that much). Seems like good value though, I have heard that there are a number of players coming from all around the country for this but there is still a good chance of an overlay.

I will be covering the event here on the blog so if any of you want to know anything about what is happening on the night just throw a comment in here. I would normally be playing but I get sea sick just drinking a glass of water, so we’ll be giving it a miss.

Oh ya, nearly forgot, there is another Irish Open Satellite on this Saturday in the club €250 buy in with a €150 Rebuy/Top-up, what a great excuse to spent the weekend gambling in Galway.

SDG Fever

As any Sick Degenerate Gambler (SDG) will tell you there are times when you find yourself over taken by the fever. Winning and losing become a blur, it’s you against the world and you’re going to show them who has the biggest brass balls. Poker players call it tilt, and there is nothing nicer then having a player on tilt at the table, 9 times out of 10 he is leaving the money behind, and you got to appreciate the 1 time that they actually creams some bastard at the table with a massive suck out, I mean let’s be fair, we have all been there and if you never won, nobody would ever tilt. Tilt at the poker table is usually a result of a bad beat, with the exception of the odd player like Dave “Silver Tongue” Curtis who, as far as I can tell, actually turns up on tilt, and after the poker god have fucked you, and only because they are spiteful and petty because you’re a good person and deserving of the luck, the initial reaction is to get as much money as you can into the next pot, preferably with the worst hand possible. Anyway, we’ve all seen it and we’ve all done it, and any player that says he doesn’t tilt is a bare faced liar.

I have experienced some bad nights at the blackjack myself but nothing of any major consequence, oh that I could afford to be a big loser at the gaming tables. However, being an SDG and having spent far to much time in casinos, I have had the pleasure of watching some of the big boys go at the blackjack and I can tell you tilt works the same here as in poker, you start to lose and the bets get bigger and bigger, soon the manager is over and your getting the limits on the tables increased, you can actually feel the heat of the laser card burning in your wallet it been through the machine so many time and similar to poker 9 in 10 times there is no way back.

But tilt is not the fever, oh the fever and how glorious it is to behold. There is only one game that can truly induce this intense high and it is roulette, the speed at which it runs, no stops for a shuffle, 2 dealers, one just for building castles out of the rainbow of chips, the true random nature of the game, the fact that most players, even regular ones, don’t know their 35 times tables and have no idea how much they should get when they hit a number, the sea of arms stretching across the table desperately trying to get their bets on, it’s wonderful maddness. And the fever is a very different creature to tilt, the fever hits when you start winning, you become invincible, you actually zone out the rest of the world, eyes darting from the bets to the wheel, “No more bets” calls the dealer, the lull, you hold your breath, you hit, the celebratory roar, my favourite of these is belong to Christy The Morbid One “ Go on magunya”, if you hear it 17 has just hit., the dealer passes you your winnings but you’ll have to wait for the lull in the next spin, there’s betting to be doing, and these dealers ain’t paid to hang about, it’s time to strap in your going for a ride.

I have only recently started play a bit of roulette, a game I have actually laughed at people for playing before, and I am hear to tell you, if you’re an SDG and haven’t ever tried it, next time you find yourself with some disposable cash, stay away from the blackjacks and the brags and give it a go. Don’t misunderstand me, I take back nothing I ever said about it before, it is idiotic and you need to be mentally ill to play it but the same can be said for most things in life the can truly give you a great high.

Stick with me, I’ll make ya famous

My 15 minutes of fame has come, I will be on the roger tonight, actually playing poker with some really big names. When I spoke to other players at the event the general consensus was that they would hate to be on the tv table, the standard of opponent seemed to be a little higher, despite the complete random nature of the draw and that being on the box would make them more nervous. Well I am here to tell you that they are wrong wrong wrong, if you have any fantasies about making it big in the poker world then tv table are something you got to get used to, and the sooner you experience it the better, because it does take some getting used to. And as for the standard of player being higher , I am not sure this is a bad thing, playing tight and disciplined against them will work, they actually notice a guy who hasn’t played a hand in an hour and give the respect he deserves. All n all I got to say I loved the experience and feel I am a better player for it, of course lasting 5 hour in a 3 day tournament does leave the maximum room for improvement in ones game.

Thanks to Sharon O Grady for the photos

The Circus has a arrived in Galway.

I got to the Eglinton early this evening to set up to cover the satellite that’s on tonight but then the circus showed up. Mad Marty Wilson and Jesse May have arrived with a massive pile of prizes spread over 2 poker tables for a raffle during the tourney break. All we are missing is a big top and an elephant, (feel free to post any wise cracks in the comments section). The attendance tonight is unfortunately a little low but there does promise to be a fairly good cash game given the stature of some of the players in attendance, Padraig Parkinson, Rory Liffey are here along with Marty and Jesse. Hopefully we can get a couple of interviews with them later.

And we're off, the pre-tourney favorite is Rory Liffey,
oh hang on, Mad Marty has just bought in, so obviously there is no alteration to the betting.

Ciaran O' Leary, a winner of a WOSP bracelet, here tonight trying to get a cheap ticket, and I tell ya if he can survive the seat he has been given he deserves 2 tickets. To his right is James "The nicest lunatic in the world" Walsh and to his left he has John "Ya want to bet I won't go all-in with this pile of shit" Ward

Ok, we have got to the first break in tonight’s satellite and have lost 16 of the 57 starters. As predicted, Ciaran O Leary found himself out of his depth surrounded by 2 of Galway’s finest. He was forced to rebuy early and then luckily got moved to a different table and is hanging in there now.

Our pre-tourney favorite, Rory Liffey, is short stacked but now that the rebuys are finished we are expecting him to start moving through the field. The chip leader is Pat Morris with 54000, enough to make the final table if he can straighten up and fly right for the next couple of hours.

Mad Marty was one of the early casualties but at least that frees him up to run his raffle desk, from which all the proceeds is going to a worthwhile charity.

The prize pool tonight is €9400, so there is a fair chance 5 tickets will be given out tonight. Hopefully I can get my hands on one. Taking a break now for so chicken ala Fintan, so if I survive that I will give up an update in a while.

Forgive me for not keeping you updated on the tourney but I was playing and actually got a few chips together. you will all be delighted to hear that I have indeed won a ticket for the IPC, yeehaw.

See you all on Friday

Even the great ones slip from time to time

I recently heard a wonderful story involving a well know Dublin poker player and MILF. Our hero, we’ll call him Tom (not necessarily his real name), was visiting Jamaica for the cricket world cup with a small group of friends. The group had booked into a holiday complex that was primarily a family resort. On day 4 while Hanlon and one of his travelling companions were descending the apartment block in the elevator, toms mate commented that there was a lot of MILF around. It was here that our hero made 2 mistakes, the first was a simple one that anyone might make, he asked what MILF was. The second mistake was far greater and absolutely unforgivable, he accredited his friend with far too much imagination and leapt to the wild assumption that he had made up the acronym MILF, and he loved it, it was their little secret.

This, of course, lead to the inevitable result of Mr T(om) standing in the middle of the pool a couple of hours later pointing at a very attractive young mother and yelling across to his mate,
“Hughie, MILF, MILF”, resulting in the entire crowded of about 100 people around the pool area falling into a complete and deeply shocked silence, broken only by the voice of an 8 year old girl asking "Mammy ,mammy, whats MILF?". As the light started to dawn on our hero, visions of an angry husband, police and having to pay a large cash fine to a local Jamaican magistrate filled his mind. But not our hero, lucky bastard that he is, he managed to pick a woman with a sense of humour, proving without doubt, I feel, that he is indeed the luckiest man alive, she simple stopped, looked at him for a few awkward moments and said,

“Yes, I do look good, don’t I”, and walked on proudly

At which every person in the vicinity roared with laugher. Tom regards the walk from the middle of the pool, through the crowd of people rolling around with tears running down his face to get to his towel as one of the longest of his life.

I suppose Tom was fortunate to have a group of friends with him that I am sure consoled him in his time of great embarrassment and who, he was sure, would abide by the credo ‘What happens in Jamaica stays in Jamaica”

Merry Christmas to all.

Just thought I would give you a quick report on the league final in the Eglinton, which was held on the 20th, please forgive the delay but just for my own piece of mind I had to embark on a rather perilous journey which involved some heavy duty mining equipment and a lot of digging, but i am glad to report that Hell has indeed frozen over. So baring this in mind I give my heartiest and unreserved congratulations to Dave "Mid-life Crises" Curtis.

I have no idea who else made up the top positions as I was only at the final table for a few brief moments, just long enough for Christy The Morbid to crack my Queens, and it’s a hard pill to swallow getting knocked out by someone that isn’t even there, and I know he couldn’t have been there, because the little trouble making shit kicker is barred. After that I was far to drunk to care what happen, actually I probably wouldn’t have known Curtis won the damn thing but for the fact that he spent the remainder of the night wandering around the club drink beer from the oversized trophy he got and singing “I am the Champions”. It’s at times like that you find yourself thinking, where’s a cataclysmic event when you need one.

But truth be told it was a cracker of an evening, with booze, some free money and as much gambling as any man could want. I mean where can you have so much fun for €3000 a night.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.

I hope to be covering events live from the IPC, so please by all means keep an eye on the blog for updates.

And We're Back.

I have decided to move back to this blog as i never really felt comfortable writing under a different name. But it is Wednesday night again and we will be bringing you the trills and spills live from the €100 freezeout at the Eglinton Club. League points is all people are concerned with at the moment, with only 7 days remaining to get points to make the top fifty and gain entry into the €10000 tournament at the clubs Christmas party, rumor has it that money has actually changed hand to get someone who has scored points to give in a different name to the person tracking the points, seems a little sad to me, I really can't understand what all the fuss is about. And of course with the IPC just around the corner, tickets are the other thing at the forefront of everybodies mind. I tell ya, you could cut the tension around here with a spoon, big time poker is coming to the Galway, the men of the west are so nervous, there is nare a banjo being played and the sheep are fierce lonely. I for one am keen to see how many will make the long arduous journey from that smallest of english counties we call Dublin, I realise the even looking in a westerly direction makes some of the natives of this strange and often magical land go weak at the knees and the actual trip itself seems more daunting the scaling Everest, but lets keep our fingers crossed.

Just going to head into the club now so I'll be back soon.

Ok, since we last spoke, I have won a sat for the tourney and got myself onto a table with the craziest shower of bastards to come down the pipe. The Flying Dutchman to my left, Frank" I can't stop the voices" Healyto my right and Vinny Longlad looking straight across from me. God help us all.

And The Flying Dutchman has sank without a trace just 15 mins into the tournament. The voices in Franks head must have all screamed call in unison when Dutchy when all in on a stone cold bluff.

Oh dear, oh dear, the Longlad is gone, after losing most of his chips on some ass end up read, he launched the rest with 88 and ran into AA. If this keeps up there will be none of the top players left.

Acceptance Speech

One may have thought that the awards season had reached its peak with the Oscars on Sunday night, but you would be mistaken. In a poll which closed at 4am Wednesday morning, with a whopping 30% of the vote, I was crowned Boards Blog Writer of 2006.
I find myself wishing I had watched the Oscars to get a hint at how other great award winners carried themselves, but alas we will have to wing it. I believe the normal thing is to thank all the people without whom I could never have hoped to win this award.
Thanks to
Pat “I’ll be very surprised if I don’t win tonight” O Callaghan, for the nomination.
Len “The Impresario” Collins, for being lead in my favourite blog entry on bluffing.
Donal “Tight Weak” MacAonghusa and Conor “Just Tight” Maguire for (badly) proof reading my blogs.
All the other wonderful character that have made up the blogs, John “Finger Rims” Honan, Dave “Midlife Crisis” Curtis, John “The Mean Drunk” Cullinane, that wonderful Ferrari Laptop, and most importantly,
Paul “The Hangman” Roper, just for being you.
Also, I think my popularity on boards is no secret, so I really have to say thanks to the 18 bad mind individuals that voted for me in this poll.
To my fellow nominees I would like to say that there is no shame losing. Unless, of course, it’s by a lot, like a crushing defeat, ya know, if you found yourself completely outclassed and dominated. Not that this was the case here. So well done to you all and better luck next year.
Finally, I feel this award will spur me on to even greater things in 2007, I’m telling ya, before you know it I’ll be bigger then Jesus.

Poker - A game of Skill or Chance

This is a debate that has been going on for years, in university studies, the courts and I’m sure has been brought up in every poker room in the country at one time or another. Being a poker player and for the most part a sick degenerate gambler, I have always stood firmly on the skill side of the argument, but some of the things I have witnessed recently have started to make me doubt this position.
Last night for instance, I saw Pat “Connaught till the day I die” O Callaghan, an otherwise intelligent guy with a reputation as a poker player, limp first to act, call a massive raise preflop, flop 2 hearts, call bets to the river, hit a heart and move all in and get called by the poor bastard who flopped top set and turn over the 7-2 of hearts.And the cocky shit sat back with a satisfied look on his face as if he had just done something truly brilliant.
How about this one, Pat “There be no deals, I want to practise my final table play for the Irish Open” once again first to speck comes out raising and catches a massive reraise from a kid that has sat quiet for an hour without playing a hand, and I mean quiet, he had a hoody shadowing his pale gaunt face and was slumped so low in his chair he was almost under the table, he could almost have been an apprentice to Derek “The Sith Lord” Murray, Christy “The Morbid” goes all in for a few shekels and Pat calls the Kid. The Kid has AK, Morbid has QJ and Pat show AJ, no problem to him, a jack on the flop and that’s all she wrote. I realise that a lot of Pats superiority at the game can probably be put down to being from Cork, but all of it?
Moving away from my own recent personal experience, I put forward a view point of someone whom I am sure gets to witness every aspect of the game on a nightly basis. Sylvester, the boss man of the Corrib Casino, when asked who had won the €100 freezeout the previous Monday, replied “I don’t know the 2 who got heads up, haven’t seen them before, but I reckon if you tied them both together and shoved a copy of Super System II up their ass, ya still wouldn’t have the makings of half a poker player”. Almost poetic isn't it.
I am afraid it is indisputable, the idea that poker is a game of skill is simply a romantic notion we have that helps us justify the feeding of the sickness we all have within us. Remember lucky always beats good and

THE DEMON IS YOUR MASTER.

IPC Report

What a hum dinger the IPC was, 310 runners in the main event, 160 in the €750, 116 in the €500 and more sit n’go action then you could shake a shitty stick at. The hangover hasn’t passed yet but I am starting to feel almost human again.

The weekend started of well with a Mega Sat on the Thursday that attracted 140 players, a good omen or what. 20 minutes into this I found myself sitting at the bar with Lawrence Gosney enjoying a pint. This is not a bad result as Lawrence is one of the great gentleman of the poker world, who loves a pint and a joke and absolutely hates poker stories, so much so that whenever a player, Paul “The Hangman, I know this should not surprise me but he has hangman business cards” for example, wandered by and decided to stop and tell us some riveting bad beat story, Lawrence would turn to me and ask my opinion on some feature of the building architecture. Harsh but fair I feel.

The main events started at 6 the following day and it was an absolute blast. I have never played in an event this big and deep stacked before, so I was happy to make it to day 2 ,especially considering I wasn't getting good cards. I got to meet and watch a lot of very good players in the course of the event and found most to be pleasant and full of chat. I am sure this changed when it started to get close to the money. I did encounter one incident of ugly behaviour when Stephen “The Brat” McLean threw all the toys out of the pram after a hand for no apparent reason, he did win the hand, and tore into an English guy at our table called Tikay, whom both before and after the incident seem to be nothing but a complete gent. He did have some connection with the SkyPoker team that was filming the event so I don’t fancy Chalk Dusts chances of appearing in too much of their coverage.

No sooner were we out of the Main Event then we were playing in the €750, hang the expense I’ll just pretend that it was someone else’s money. This I really enjoyed, I went really deep, just missed the money, and got really corked to not cash. It was a bit depressing but I played well and feel the cash is coming. I did have the pleasure of being at the same table as Padraig Parkinson for a few hours when we were down to 4 tables, and wow that was something to watch, I recommend it to everyone that wants to play poker. In 90% of the hands he played the cards were irrelevant, he would simple put people into impossible positions where they either give up a hand or gamble for it all with no real idea where they were in the hand. He pulled of a beautiful bluff on a German dude at the table who had he own cameraman filming his tournament. After the German folded Padraig showed the outrageous crap he had played with and the German’s head started to steam. As he sat there mumbling to himself Padraig said “Jasus you’re a hard man to read………. but your cameraman didn’t think much of your hand”, I nearly wet myself I laughed so hard, and needless to say filming stop immediately.

Later that night, in a haze of alcohol, I lost my hole playing notes poker with Pat O Callaghan, John Cullinane, Eoin Olin, Mike Lacy and Keith McInerney. It was 6 the following evening before I felt healthy enough to venture out into the fresh air. Myself and Conor “I can’t believe I came up here to play poker and somehow Fintan the bastard roped me into doing live updates on the forum for the weekend” Maguire hit the road for home. As I was leaving the Poker room in City West ,just as the €500 was getting under way, a tired and broken man, I heard the booming voice of Sligo John calling after me "Hey, Manus are you not playing this Mong Fest". I was never so happy to be leaving.What a beautiful description of an event. It doesn't matter if you are good, bad or just ugly, at this stage of the weekend your brain is a pile of Kentucky fried chicken and all the players would be much better off dragging their knuckles back to their cave and sleeping for a week. Like Racing has its Bumper, now for me the final day event of a poker festival will forever more be known as the Mong Fest.