Irish Open 2014:So, we wake up at 9am on Thursday morning and ring our travel buddy Alex Spencer to ask him what time he was picking me up - about 10.30pm . He informs me our flight is at 1.15pm and we need to be there no later than 1pm. He also asks me to print off the boarding passes for our Ryanair flight.. cool can do. About 9.45 I go to print off the boarding passes; flight time: 12.00pm... Marv. Now, my house is around 2 hours away from Manchester Airport and Alex lives 45 mins away from me, so him picking me up is no longer an option - we agree to meet there. I ring the airport carpark - who informs it is too late to prepay, and that paying on arrival means I will be paying £50 per day. The woman on the phone eventually agrees to let me have the prepay rate of ~£10 per day so thanks to her for the money saved. I managed to arrive at the airport desk with 3 minutes to spare. Result! (It's also a really good job I've got a new car as there was no way on earth I would have made it in the corsa).
The venue of the Irish Open was the Hilton Double Tree in Dublin. Possibly a little too 'posh' for two youngish lads to stroll in wearing joggers. Still everyone was really friendly, and the room we we're given was absolutely amazing. (Picture doesn't do it justice).
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The room where the event itself was being held was absolutely huge. Around 100 tables all surrounding a boxing ring with a single table in the centre (the feature table). The picture below, again doesn't do it any justice at all but its the best I could find. Anyway, cliffs for Thursday night; Alex won a seat via the super satellite into the main event and we managed to make a buyin @ 2/5 so pretty good!
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Friday marked the start of the Main Event, and also contained the only blip of the entire weekend, which was me receiving a wrong starting stack and only being given 29,925 chips instead of 30k, even though the dealer was insisting I was counting wrong, which I argued (the principal more than anything). Anyway it turned out a player on my table (Chris Dowling I think was his name), had been given my extra 75 chips and quickly flung them across the table to me so problem solved! Day 1 of the main event dragged quite a bit and finished around midnight where we bagged up 70,500 going into day 2 when average was around 47,000, so another pretty good result there!
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Saturday was a pretty eventful one in terms of poker happenings. There's too many hands to list so will just give cliffs; however theres one hand I'm pretty 'proud' of, but also pretty disappointed in. At 1500/3000 we're in the big blind playing 150k when CO opens to 6k playing 110k. We defend with
. Check Check on a flop of
. We lead the
for 7100 for protection and value to be called. The river is
which we check, in order to allow him to barrel all his missed draws and also to allow him to bet all his one pair hands for value (I feel he's pretty capped to one pair hands at this point). Anyway he complies with a bet of 16800 and we think for around 90 seconds before cutting out and raising to 45800 (Choosing to turn our hand into a bluff as I would check raise hands e.g. sets / straights / two pairs for reasons stated - allow him to bluff and make him always - or so I though - bet / fold one pair hands). Anyway after a tank of 6 minutes he sigh calls with AK. Before his chips hit the felt I told him AK was good. It was really annoying as I really felt I took a really good line. The only problem was it was vs the wrong opponent (we had no history and I kind of based his ability on his look). Around 2 hours later, after chipping back up quite significantly, we then had to effectively call off our tournament life with
after 3betting the SB vs a button open, getting peeled. Flop going check check, then check calling two bombs on
. We would have been left with 11bbs had our river call been wrong but I don't think he ever has a Jack in his check back range other than J9 suited (which I have a blocker too), as he doesn't peel J8 often and bets J10 for protection / value on the flop, he also barrels most Jacks with no pair / bets a made straight. In my mind he had J9 s (which I blocked) or 66 and a lot of total airballs. He quickly mucked A5 and we bagged up 237,000 to go into day3 with. We then had a few drinks with Alex and played some 2/5 cash where we won a 2500euro pot (one of the biggest I've won). Cliffs: Playing 2/5 with us Mississippi Straddling the button to 10euros (for those of you who don't know, the action then starts on the small blind), who makes up the 10euros, as does the big blind and one more player, before a middle aged lady playing fairly loose (I was surprised too), makes it 30 from my direct right. I make it 100euros with
, everyone folds and she peels.
flop. She checks, I bet 165, She raises to 375, and I go all in covering her 1.2k euro stack, to which she declares what the hell and puts it in. I ask her if she has an overpair and if she does, would she like to run it twice (before I reveal my hand), to which she pretty 'nastily' snap declines, at which point I tell her her queens are losing. The board bricks and we scoop and end up winning around 3 buyins on the session, heading to bed pretty late.
1pm Sunday marked the start of day 3 with 59 remaining and 47 paid, so having woke up at 12.50pm was a bit worrying. Luckily after 10 minutes of rushing around I just managed to make the first hand noticing I was sharing the table with fellow 'Sheffielder' (I'm actually from Chesterfield but hey close enough) Fraser Bellamy. We had a good laugh for 4 hours or so until Fraser got kind of coolered A10 < AQ SB vs Button for 20bbs each. We quickly chipped up to near the 500k mark coasting into the money (in and around the bubble was golden for chipping up as we didn't meet too much resistance and opened nearly every hand). At 7000/14000, playing 6 handed. UTG opens to 28k. We 3bet
to 67k. UTG 4bets to 125k to which we 5bet jam a total of 434k. UTG tanks for around 5 minutes, asking me if I'd show if he folded to which I was silent. After another 30 seconds he flicked a chip in to call and as soon as I tabled my hand he said exactly: 'Yes, that's the best I could have hoped for' and tabled his
. The board bricked for us, even though we turned a gutshot and 2 overs and after counting stacks, he had me covered by 3k. Meaning we finished ANOTHER somewhat disappointing 27th for 3,800 euros - minus 20% which I swapped with Alex, (somewhat disappointing in the sense of losing a flip for 900k of 9mil in play with 27 left and 200k euros for the winner), however I guess had you offered me it at the start of play I would have probably taken it! Anyway after a few drinks at the bar, we played some 5/10 which was pretty slow, so me and Alex decided to take the night off and see what kind of nightlife Dublin had to offer! It turned out we both got pretty wasted pretty quickly and the night was kind of a blur, however the brief memories I have of it:
- We got taxied about in one of these ^. And was inches from death as we nearly got hit by a bus in it.
- 90% of places were closed due to it being Easter Sunday.
- The club we did find, Alex got refused entry to as it was apparently 'over 21s only' and Alex is only 20 - I'm calling BS. After the bouncers declining to let us in for 20 euros, they snap took 50. They saw us coming a mile off, however it was the only half decent place open and we'd both had a really profitable weekend so I guess it was worth 50 euros to save us being bored in the hotel.
- Chasing Alex, (him clutching a wad of euros) down the corridor of the hotel at 4am, as he was going to try play 5/10 (and was in no state). Him slipping and skidding down half the length of the corridor on his back and getting a huge carpet burn (I've actually got a hilarious video of this on my phone and will upload at some point when I get chance).
Monday kind of sucked. I was hungover, Alex was really really hungover with a sore back and absolutely no idea until I showed him the video. We wondered down to the 'poker room' at around 5pm to play for a few hours before our 10pm flight, and jumped into a 2/5 game. Where I only won 200euros... and that SUCKED. I'll let the status I put on facebook sum up why:
And that's that! Irish Open 2014 over! Must say I really enjoyed the weekend. Oh and by the way Dublin is an amazing city, but if you do decide to go for a night out...etc, make sure its not over Easter!
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