Friday, February 10, 2006

Advertising doesn't always mean you have to spend money.

Just 4 live games since my last blog entry.

I played the Drogheda tourney on January 27th and got busted out nearly immediately after the break, in the most non-eventful tourney I've played in. Delighted that Scotty won it.

I had caught a very bad cold, so as well as playing poorly, I was feeling poorly and this was the start of 6 or 7 days of not feeling 'The Mae West' ... I never get sick, so this was difficult to get used to.

On the Saturday, the Vegas Nights monthly game was on, a very good tournament, and I got busted by the most stupid call I've ever been the victim of.

Blinds 200/400, I have 6000 after taking a bad beat when an ace spiked on river ten mins earlier to kill my Kings.
I have Jh Qh on the button, folded to me, I raise to 1400, called by BB who is a largely stacked calling station fish.

Flop comes down Js Qs 6d .... a great flop for me, but I don't like the apparent flush draw. Fish bets out 800, and I want to finish this pot now, I can't afford to slowplay with just 10BB, so I move in.

He says to me "I don't think that flop hit you" and said call. I was sure he was on the flush draw, I hated his call, he wasn't getting the odds tocall, but he was a fish, so I'd just have to hope no spade came.

Imagine my absolute amazement when he turned over 4 4 ! This fellah was putting at least 50% of his stack on the line. I looked at him and just said "What the hell are you doing?"

So of course readers you know what happens now don't you ... a 4 comes on the turn .... and hey, guess what, just for good measure, a 4 comes on the river, giving our superstar Quad 4's ... and all my chips.

Cleaned up on the STT action during the day though and drowned my sorrows, BrianMc was going great until the wheels came off, and NTLBell was in a 4 way chop for 1st place.
Felt for BrianMc, as he played well, and he actually showed me when I was a complete newb, how to milk a fish (me) on my first visit to the Fitz 14 monnths or so, I told him that story as well to his amusement. He won the next day in the Fitz €20 rebuy, so he is obviously on form now.
Myself and NTLBell ended up in the Fitz, where I played my first cash game live, and I trebled up for the night with some very very loose play, and finished the day with more money than if I had won the Vegas Nights tourney.... but still that fecking 4 4 call was pissing me off.

I played the Fitz €30 tourney the next day, and chopped that with Andy, although I was involved in two lucky results, one which was just one of these things, when Rounders123 had a pocket pair counterfeited and I ended up with a bigger full house http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054882321&highlight=luckbox..... and one hand I played very poorly when down to 3, and I sucked out on Crumbs http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054882443&highlight=luck+box.

The win rounded off a fantastic January for me.


Played Drogheda then Feb 5th.

First, what a great tournament, layout, dealers .. the atmospehere was great, very amicable and alot of familiar faces, I play Drogheda alot so I probably knew about 3 faces on every table at the very least.

I was on my first table only about 10 mins, KarlH (who made the money, Congrat!), Scotty and one of the Poker Lounge lads, so it was a tough table, but I didn't even get to play a hand, as I was moved to a newly formed table within 10 mins.

The newly formed table included The Snapper, a very good tourney player and no-one else that I knew although Shane Devlin who made the money as well was on it, I didn't know him at the time.

I felt quite comfortable at the table, and felt happy enough I had a read on most players, so was settling in for a long day.
Nothing for until the 100/200 level, won a small pot post flop with JQ on a J high board to keep my starting stack of 6000, lost a couple of minor pots and was at about 5000, when the first of my 3 defining hands happened.

UTG got JJ which I limped with, the table was reasonably active with a couple of Ace Rag merchants who were calling raises so I expected there to be a raise later on in the orbit which there was to 600, so there was 3 players, one of them the small blind was was playing his first hand, so alarm bells were going off.
I figured a raise wouldn't take the pot preflop (hence the limp), and was obviously hoping for a low flop, but both an Ace and a King flopped so I knew JJ was no good at this point, SB checked, I checked, the preflop raiser put in a pot size bet, which the SB called, so that was enough info for me to get out then. So stack now 4400

About 20 mins later, I get AQs in CO, one limper so far, I raise to 600 and the BB pushes all-in. I don't think this guy is a great player, so my first inclination was he had a mid pair, so that means a race. AK would have been even worse and was also a very probable hand, and the more I thought about it, I couldn't really call this. I folded my AQ face up hoping he would show, and he did, he had QQ, so I suppose it was a justified fold.
However Stack is now only 3800.

To make things even more interesting Dathio joins the table, first time I played on his table, but I didn't get too long to witness the legend at work really.
3rd and final definging hand ....Last hand before the levels were to go up. I'm dealt QQ on the button.

Daithio raises to 650 from UTG, he has a caller from an Ace Rag merchant, so 1600 in pot already with blinds, and I've 3600 left.
Purely based on Daithios reputation, I briefly considered folding the QQ, but I couldn't make another laydown, I needed to win this pot really, so I pushed.
Daithio folded (10 10 I believe), and I knew Ace Rag merchant would call, but what would the rag be, anything from 2-K would be in this guys range.
He has AK as it turns out, so I can't berate his call, and the flop brought an Ace, and that was the end of my tourney.

Short and Sweet.


Finally, www.vegasbabypoker.com is absolutely flying, I have an advertisment http://media.putfile.com/Vegas-Baby-Radio-Ad running on Newstalk106 at the moment, but the best advertisment of all is word of mouth, and Irish players seem to be winning big and telling their buddies.

I'm sponsoring Nicky O'D on his Vienna ESOP tournament, so I'm sure he'll be on the final table in front of all the cameras.

More on http://www.vegasbabypoker.com in my next blog entry, I'll go more into my thoughts then.

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