The Venetian are holding their deep stack extravaganza throughout June. $540 for 7,500 chips and 40 minute blinds. For an extra $10 (which apparently goes directly to the staff) you get an additional 2500 chips. This essentially makes it a $550 tournament. Who in their right mind would give up 50 BBs in a monkey tournament for $10? The tournamnet should be advertised as $550. Its a nominal amount so I wont go on, and I had no problem giving the dealers $10 but this sytem is easily abused. For example, The Alladin (RIP) did the same in 2005, howver they gave you an additional 50% chips for a donation of $10 to the staff. Their tournament however was $20 to enter! Again, nobody had a choice, but it turned an advertised $20+$5 tournament into a $20+$15 tournament.

Been here 2 weeks or so. The house we rented existed which was a relief as I'd given some random bloke 7k online with only a word document as proof, and with 10 (or more) irish relying on it as accomodation I was happy to see the key worked!

Myself cardshark bohsman nicnic straddle46 derek valor sam goodluck2me and most of the daves from irish poker are staying here. I played in the Venetian deep stacked (will post report later) and a few other random tournaments while I have been over. My plan is now to play in one WSOP event and a few satellites.

We've been fairly well behaved in terms of booze however myself and Valor had a fairly heavy night which resulted in talking spirituality with Andy for a few hours. We told Valor we'd give him $50 if he grabbed Todd Brunsons hair. Valor went straight up and started chatting. I joined them and we must have talked for over 2hrs. He was by far the most intelligent poker pro I have ever met, a really decent guy too. He told us a lot of gossip from the Big game which was interesting. I got home at 1pm the next day. Valor arrived in half an hour later after falling asleep in a gang neighbourhood. A cop woke him up on the lawn of some house mid-day 115 degree heat.

There's a great next-day effect when you hit big money in a tournie that I dont think anyone really talks about. I call it The Grin Effect.
I'm grinning like a loon now in fact.

Last night, in fact early this morning, I chopped the Big Slick 250 game (I took second and a lump of extra cash). €3,500 for my trouble. Annoyingly I had sold Mike 20% so as usual had to fork over 700 notes to him. :) I also made the worst deal I've ever made with Ken Powell who, in drunken, euphoric congratulations offered me hard currency for a % when I was a shortie on the last 4. I would have been annoyed with myself but he's a mate and watching him playing pitch-and-toss against Mike in the hotel room party afterwards, the "ton" seemed miserly to begrudge!

On the poker front nothing much has been happening in my life recently. I ran bad for a couple of months which was fine in the sense that I was financially prepared for it. What wasn't fine was that it came at a time when I was wondering if this was really what I wanted to do. Not that I dont think that every two years regardless of what I am doing for a living at the time. The concept of committing my life to one thing for a long long time is simply anathema to me. I can't do it, I can't stay working at something for years on end. I get itchy or something.

Running bad has to be the worst feeling in the world. Everyone runs bad at some time. Its like the line from Fight Club "on a long enough timeline, everyones's life expectancy falls to 0". Play for long enough, you are going to run bad. If you DIDNT then something would definitely be rigged!

So I played a freeroll in four aces in Galway, and these two hands knocked me out and I decided not to rebuy in for a second time.

[Hero] has A3 suited
[Villain] has A10o

Flop is A3x

I go all in, seeing as i'm pretty shortstacked, I get a call from the villain.

turn is a blank.

river is a 10.

well okay that one didn't really piss me off that bad. I rebought.

But the second hand did.

Some guy goes all in with A9 or something. I call. 2 others call.

[Hero] has KQ suited
[villain] has A3o
[villain 2] has A9o (I think)
[villain 3] has 36 clubs

Flop is x3clubQclub. I go all in. I get 2 callers, Villain 1 and Villain 3.

This is how I feel about poker at the moment

Its a rare enough month I don’t make money from poker but like all players there are times when the deck just seems to hate you. This has almost been one of those months. I don’t talk much about the financial side of things for me, most people don’t know what levels I play at or how much I make. I don't talk about it because its part of my income and in some ways none of anyone else’s business....but sometimes a blog demands a blunt kind of honesty. This hasn’t been a good month for me.

Since Vegas I haven’t had much of a chance to play to be honest and when I have it has been in bitty sessions snatched between meetings and travel for reports etc. Any serious player will tell you that that is a recipe for disaster. Don't play "just for 20 minutes" because you will automatically play looser because in the back of your mind you know you only have those 20 minutes to play and so you'll get involved and push situations you shouldn't.

Ok, so I had been playing a little nuts but what can this guy have called with!?

MTT Table 35 14111439-20 Holdem No Limit 30/60
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Hand Start.
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 1 : Aces678 has $1,940
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 2 : DeVore has $1,760
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 3 : billo1 has $2,910
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 4 : shepili has $9,690
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 5 : devldude has $4,450
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 6 : gregior has $6,220
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 7 : baggino has $4,000
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 8 : andriblich has $7,970
[Dec 15 20:27:00] : Seat 9 : yigal7 has $8,940

Last year I played in the christmas cracker at the sporting emporium and after a good start got all my chips in a 45k pot preflop when the average was around 12k. I had KK and Stormin Norman had QTd and flopped a flush. This year I was looking forward to going a bit deeper and take down this great little one day tournie. The structure suits my game and although I got about 3 hours sleep the night before I was fired up and ready to go at 2pm.

My starting table had Declan Barker, Rory Rees, Sean Paul Fagan and Mick plus 4 players I did not know. After dropping down to 7k form the 8k starting I gradually got up to 10k before a nice pot was collected just before the break when I was allowed to see a river cheaply and hit my gutshot. I was check raised and my re-raise was called to leave me on 16k. The player who gave me the chips was visibly annoyed and soon after the break I had the rest of his chips when I called a raise with 56s on the button and the flop came T63. I checked behind and called a 1500 bet into a 1200 pot on a 3 turn. The river was an 8 and he hurriedly shoved his remaing 3.5k into the pot. I figured I was ahead of the majority of his range and even if he did have me beat calling would put people off trying to bluff me later on and after a giving a minute or two's thought and adding in my read of his body language I made the call. He had AJ.

Another month rolls by and nothing changes internet pokerwise. My online bankroll continues to ride like the biggest rollercoaster in town. 90 miles an hour up and then 140 miles an hour down. Enough of that.

Whoo hoo I managed to get some live poker in!

First off I made it down the Regency Hotel to play in the satellite for the EPT. After the topup I had 3050 chips which was 50 more than if I had bought in and topped up at the end of the rebuy period. Not looking good...Looking worse when the first hand saw me lose 2000 of those chips to a rivered straight....

Somehow the poker gods decided that I was worthy and I slowly got myself back into the game and in a posion where a luckbox two outer on the river gave me enough chips to get my way to one of the tickets for the €5000 event. Fortunately all the satellite winners got to play on day two so a bit of rest could be had. I did spend most of the first day updating but arrived back to start my 5th large buy in tournament fresh and confident.