Blondepoker.com Waterford Winter Festival: Day 1 - At a Glance

[danafish]

Tales from Table Tikay:

Jen is now on about 12.5k, having stolen a few chips from tikay. "That was fun," says she, as tikay is silently giving us the evil eye from across the table.

I choose to ignore the evil-eyeing and walk over to chat to him. He has around 13k. At this point he loses interest in talking to me, and instead decides to raise with from mid position. A gent whom I believe to be Vincent Mcnamee calls from the button.

Flop -

Tikay checks, and Mcnamaybe bets 1100. Tikay makes it 3k. Mcnamee calls.

They both check the turn and again the river which wins the hand for tikay - his opponent shows A-T. Lucky tikay. I guess that puts him on, er... swift mental calculation... 17k.

[danafish]

Crazy chip-monster Anna Colley (Annette_56, according to tablemate Barry Carter  ) has taken out yet another unhappy punter, who this time may or may not have been Eoin Grace.

Either way, Graceyboy is holding and Anna is holding , and the flop they go in on is -7s-8. A harmless non-spade Four and Three later, and Anna yells "SHIP IT!!!" which she yells every time she knocks someone out. She is very close, and extremely loud, and she has been knocking people out at a quite alarming rate. I am developing a bit of a headache.

[danafish]

Play is even now resuming, with blinds now at 150/300. 232 players remain, and average stack is 17,780.

And here's the all-important payout:

1        €37,000
2        €23,000
3        €13,000
4        €9,500
5        €8,500
6        €7,200
7        €6,000
8        €4,500
9        €3,000
10      €2,200
11-13  €1,700
14-16  €1,500
17-20  €1,100
21-30  €950

[JungleCat03]

Snoopy filled me in on some interesting hands, one of them involving the exit of blonde's own Luckylloyd.

After Snoopy took some chips off him, sneakily river check raising his turned set of Kings vs Lloyd's rivered set of Jacks, Lloyd re-raised allin on a board. Conor Doyle told Lloyd, "I think you've got a flush draw" and after vacillating for a while eventually called the extra 6k or so with bottom pair . Now THAT's a brave call!

He was correct Lloyd did have the flush draw, but that's not all. Holding for top pair to go with his nut flush draw he had Conor drawing very thin. But poker being poker, almost anything can happen and an offsuit 2 on the river to give Conor trips sent a highly disgruntled Lloyd to the rail.

He was last seen heading off to the toilets for a bit of this...



The players have just had a short break but are back in action, so hold onto your hats, this could get bumpy...

[danafish]

And while I was happily Photoshopping that, I noticed that mere feet away on Table 1, Barry Carter had moved all in on a flop, and Anna Colley was considering whether to call or not. He'd mentioned to us in the break that she was making it a very interesting table to play on, and he was looking forward to getting an actual hand, as she would most likely pay it off. She eventually folded - no cards were shown, but Barry informs us that he was holding pocket Sevens and he is fairly sure that she was holding pocket Fours and was considering calling for the straight draw. He doesn't seem too upset that she folded though. He's on around 34k.

[JungleCat03]

There has just been an elimination.

Gavin Kelly was short and down to 3k or so. He got his chips in preflop versus the even shorter David O' Mahoney's -7c and showed down the dominating -Kc.

Mahoney was in bad shape but things got interesting on a flop. Gavin had made top set but the hearts gave David a flush draw. He missed the flush as the turn came the and the river the but this gave the lucky David a backdoor straight and left Gavin with a mere 600 chips. He shoved these in next hand with A-6 but ran into the K-K of Mike Rossiter and this time the Kings held, sending Gavin to the rail...

The three chip leaders as we stand are Michael Muldoon with 60k, Kevin Hicky on 57k and Anna Colley is down to 44k. She had been the chip leader but as Dana just related took a big hit off Barry. She remains in decent shape though...

[JungleCat03]

I join Jen's table as she is raising Mclovin's big blind.  All fold and Jen takes it down. "I've ground to a halt" she tells me but I love it when it gets to 150 300 with a 25 ante! [the next level]" she tells me with genuine infectious enthusiasm.

Suddenly there appear to be a rash of allins and I run frantically about trying to catch them, almost sending several of the waitresses flying (that was the excuse I used for bumping into them anyway)

Michael Muldoon has claimed another victim.  Vincent Mcnamee appeared to have got a bit short and shoved preflop with 7-7, only to find the heavily chipped up Muldoon (who had shown down Q-Q the hand before) with K-K. When you run good...

Michael's cowboys held, consigning Vincent to the rail and increasing Michael's chips yet further. "Great call" says Jen, with just the merest hint of sarcasm and the table have a bit of gentle banter at Michael's expense. He just smiles and stacks yet more chips into his towers of glory...

Sadly the aforementioned winner of the best sunglasses in the tournament, a man who I believe is called Jerom Friatis is also out as is Sideshow Bob.

Here's how he looked as he exited

[danafish]

On Table 14 we have what must be for them a kind of weird creepy deja-vuey situation where Nicky Power, Marty Smyth and Brian O'Keefe, who shared the final table at the Irish Open this year, are again up against each other.

On Table 14 we have what must be for them a kind of weird creepy deja-vuey situation where Nicky Power, Marty Smyth and Brian O'Keefe, who shared the final table at the Irish Open this year, are again up against each other.

[danafish]

Jelous as fook here.. how are the blondes getting on ??

Snoops is on 21k, somehow. Nothing spectacular, he says, just the gentle, boring grindage that is the hallmark of so much of what he does...


M3Boy is back down to his starting stack - he was up to 23k, but lost it back in 3 big hands. Ouch.

[JungleCat03]

Tightend appears to be on 17-18k or so.

He was a bit disappointed with one hand. Holding Ah , he raised from the cutoff and was called from the blinds.

The flop came a nut-tastic giving Tighty the nuts. He bet the flop and was called by his opponent, who unbeknownst to him had -8s for top set.

A further heart though killed any more action for him and he was a bit dismayed at not getting fuill value for his nut flush there. He battles on though.

Tikay's on 18k or so. Jen's doing pretty well on 16k, Compo looks to have taken a hit or two after holding a large stack earlier...

[danafish]

I witnessed an absolutely shameful hand involving Jen Mason and Michael Muldoon, for which they both deserve a big slap on the wrist, and possibly a ten-minute penalty too for fun.

Jen raises to 1000; both Michael Muldoon and Gary Clarke call.

Flop -

Jen bets another 1000; Gary Clarke folds and Michael calls.

At this point I was distracted by some shouting which turned out to be an "all in the bar" as Neil Kelly put it ("glasses breaking" as the rest of us call it) and I turned back to see a turn out, and they were both checking the river.

Michael - er,

Jen - errrr, to win!

Says Jen - "I will never bet again."

[danafish]

Marty Smyth is OUT to the lady posted back on page one, I think - Ms Vera Duffy.

Not sure when the chips went in, but Vera was holding A-K and Marty K-6 on a King-high board. There was much handshaking and hilarity. Said Neil Kelly into the mic: "The bar is still open, Marty, the bar is still open."

Edit: Here's Marty, I'm fairly sure, just after his exit...

[danafish]

Mr Karabiner is OUT - he found Queens and became involved in a raising war with a tablemate. Two or three raises into said war, Karabiner became certain that his opponent had A-K. He went all in and his opponent instacalled with his A-K, and promptly hit. Unlucky, Mr Karabiner. "The bar is still open..."

[danafish]

I was standing in the middle of the room, blissfully staring into space, when tikay flailing around in front of me indicated a big hand going on on his table.

Dewi was Involved in a hand with Jen. Jen had bet before the flop and Dewi called, and they were looking at a board that read  . When I wandered out on to the floor I'd only meant to take a few photos so hadn't brought my notebook, which now results in me not actually knowing whether Jen bet first [EDIT - Jen informs me that Dewi bet out, she raised and he shoved], but at some point on the flop Dewi declared All In, and Jen called. As you do:

Jen -

Dewi -

Turn and River respectively -

Dewi, not so Cool right this second, is OUT. Jen might be chip leader - she must have 60k at least.

Further edit - Jen has 72k! Go, Jen!

[JungleCat03]

Level 7 will be the final level.

We are now on 200 400 with a 25 ante.

It seems as though Jen Mason and Michael Muldoon are the two likely chip leaders at this stage. there are roughly 173 out of the initial 275 entries still remaining. The average stack is 23,843.

hey can i get some news on wayne brennan please thanks

I'd estimate he is around the 13k mark or so...

After raising preflop, he was just seen betting 1.8k on a board, but was quickly reraised by none other than Tightend and folded his cards fairly quickly...

I spoke to M3Boy at the break. He looks like he has struggled to get a stack going, after a couple of good levels early on. "Haven't seen any hands in the last two hours Rod" he told me...no crash and burn jsut yet though.

Snatiramas made a whirlwind start and was swiftly floating in the 20-25k regions but he says he hasn't seen any decent cards in the last 2 hours and is sitting jsut below average at the moment. He doesn't need chips to chirp though as the non stop stream of chat that is constantly heard from him proves!