Pretty much everyone has suffered some travel woes over the last few weeks and the heavy snow looked in danger of having a serious detrimental effect on the recent UKIPT Galway, also known as the Irish Poker Championship. Black Belt Poker run good however, meant that Jamie and Kevin had their flight diverted to Shannon airport, easily shaving a couple of hours off their journey time and avoiding Dublin which suffered the worst of the traffic and weather chaos. My own trip took a little longer than scheduled but opting to travel by rail meant I was warm, supplied with tea and sandwiches, and got to watch a movie and a couple of Deucescracked videos. The tournament organisers took the sensible decision of postponing the event by a day to make sure that everyone had ample time to arrive safely and even put on a €10k freeroll on the original start day to occupy those already at the hotel. There was enough evidence from the quality of play at my freeroll table (which featured just players registered for the Main) and from my profitable cash game session the previous night, that we had reason to be optimistic about our chances in the Main Event.
It was more than a little disappointing then to see a starting table that featured; Luke Marsh, Sam Grafton, Mick Hill, Chris Brammer and David Vamplew. In the first two hours I managed to chip up a little, renegotiate a bet of 5/4 on Season 2 leaderboard points with Chris Brammer in favour of evens (I’ve too much ego), but on the whole had an enjoyable time as I like the aforementioned players as people and I had a relatively good seat on an undoubtedly tough table. No one was too surprised when the tournament was entirely redrawn after 2 levels when it transpired that the seat draw was not random and we were all seated in the order we were bought in. It’s a human error and I don’t blame the tournament director who handled it as best he could. My redraw should have been softer then, right? Wrong. Jason Herbert, Peter Murphy, Tom Finneran, Big Mick G, Jason Tompkins and James Browning were the names at my table over the rest of the day. I thought the standard throughout the day was particularly high, each of us nipping away at each other, putting pressure on, stealing pots, and the only times both parties got their money in tended to be in cooler situations. I feel like I played well, eventually shipping AK to isolate an all in shortstack only to find ‘theMultiplier’ wake up with QQ in the blinds. I just want to say that I was particularly impressed with Big Mick Graydon who despite not seeming to win a pot all day made it through to day 2 with a stack for yet another deep run.
By Saturday night, we’d all had a successful weekend to varying degrees and felt like we’d earned a drink to celebrate. As we were railing Nick Abou Risk who was still in the Main we decided that rather than head in to Galway city we’d have a relaxed sit ‘n go; Max Silver, Andrew Ferguson, Vamplew, Jamie, Kev, Paul McGovern, and Marc Convey, with the short stack at each blind level getting a round of shots in while the big stack drank double. Things only got better when Jesse May ambled over and offered to be dealer/commentator for the evening. Plenty of additional forfeits, impromptu stud hands, running the river two or three time, sick bluffs, rubdowns and needles ensued, while Nick Wealthall and Liv Boeree looked on, envious that they weren’t in the game. Good silly fun. Congrats to Nick, who went on to win his second UKIPT title, I was happy to have a small % but it really couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, and obviously an absolute tournament beast to boot.
Online I have been struggling of late in all honesty, and it’s really starting to get me down. One way or another, that needs to change, as I can’t rely on %s of Burland and Nick to pay the rent every month. I’m looking to add Pot Limit Omaha to my repertoire: lets face it, Heads Up No Limit Holdem just isn’t swingy enough for me! I’ve been watching more PLO videos recently and playing HU, so far it’s been going well, and I think that will probably be my most regular game in 2011 with a bit of work. Hopefully, I can tap in to the mind of some of the more accomplished PLO players on the site and get a few skype sweat sessions going. Is it wise to get inside the head of Mr J Bradpiece? Doubtful; but I’m sure it will be enlightening stuff.
This weekend I played a tourney at my local casino, The Quay in Wexford. The field looked pretty soft on the whole and I decided to stump up the monkey (Triona reckons I should let civilians know that means €500) buy in myself. I think I was possibly the second person out, and I have posted my trouble hands on the Black Belt boards if anyone wants to offer an opinion. I did stay on til the wee hours playing cash games every night as there was a bit of extra action due to the tournament, and that managed to get me out of it. Breaking even seems to be the trend for me currently.
To end things on a happy note, this will be my last blog this year so I want to wish all of the Black Belt Poker community, and everyone else who reads my blog, a very happy Christmas, and a prosperous new year. I’ve just put up and decorated my little tree in our flat, it looks great and I’m feeling positive about Christmas and beyond despite my struggles to make significant strides pokerwise lately. Some things are more important, so enjoy the time with friends, family, and loved ones over the holidays.
