Poker
The first major tournament on Irish soil took place last week in Galway. The IPC was a very successful event, the more so for being the first to be held outside Dublin. Just two shy of three hundred turned up for the two thousand euro Main Event. Many of the usual suspects were there including locals, pros and journeymen players from all over Europe and indeed the United States.
It's that time of year again where I think about donning the red suit and fake white beard and start “Ho ho hoing!” about the place. Let's face it, I have the figure for it. But for the first time in eighteen years Santy won't be visiting the Dim household.
The Fight The Fatboy Bounty continues to be a popular bit of fun on PPP. [$100 bounty on my head each Thursday night at 19.00hrs] While playing I’m often asked if I’m a Pro Player. The answer is a definite No. I’m often referred to as a Semi-Pro, but I don’t think that’s right either. I’m also regularly referred to as a Fish, a Donkey, a Padder and a Shark. The truth is I’m an amateur. I’m one of you. I know a fair amount about the game, and I’m lucky to play in some big tournaments. I’ve been stupid and vain enough to pay $10k of my own money into a WPT. I’ve been good enough to occasionally win relatively large amounts of money. About $20k was my biggest one off win.- And as documented on here I’ve been bad enough to lose $10k my biggest single loss in one night. But this is my day job – writing.
It will be interesting to see how many runners the EPT gets next week. If the Irish Open is the people’s championship, it could be argued that the EPT is the elitist tournament in the Irish calendar. Due in no small part to the hike in entry fee. It now costs the equivalent of $11,000 to enter the main event, and that is bound to put it out of the reach of the average poker player. So as an average poker player I am privileged to get a chance to take down the title for Ireland. It won’t be easy as so far it has been won by two Englishmen Ram Vaswani and Roland De Luck… I mean Roland De Wolfe… and one Swede, Mats Gavatin. If I want to be the first home-grown player a number of things have to happen, first I have to get past fellow players Andy Black, Padraig Parkinson, Scot Gray, Donnacha O’ Dea, Rob Taylor, Roy Brindley and at least a few hundred others. Secondly I have to brush up on my accent and Third I have to actually start playing a lot better than I have been.
Fatboy headed up to Dublin this weekend to play poker and forgot to bring a coat with him. Doh! The weather was predicted to be cold and wet. So early Friday evening I scoured M&S looking for a coat suitable for a middle aged fatman who still has fantasy’s that on a very dark night he still might be able to pull a very drunk girl - in theory if not in practice. [Please don’t tell the missus]
It’s a well known fact that alcohol and poker do not mix. Playing against someone who is both drunk and obnoxious is never great. However, many online players swear by the fish who come swimming into the online poker rooms of the world after the pubs shut on a Saturday night. In our time zone that equates to about two O’clock Sunday morning. What we inaccurately call the Saturday Night Fish Fry.
The Dims headed down to Killarney last weekend for the Cue Club's mini-summer festival. The Cue Club is a fantastic place tucked away down a small cut through, just off the main shopping street. For those who really want to find it, the cut through is opposite Paddy Powers – So it's easy peasy lemon squeezy to find yourself sat in one of the friendliest card rooms in the country...
Last year Jamie Gold was about as popular as a dose of Chlamydia. This made for great coverage as it's always easier to have a figure of hate to root against rather than an idol to root for. It's simple math.Say your poker hero is Phil Ivey and mine is Padraig Parkinson. Well once Phil and padraig are out what do you do... you look around for your next favourite or you latch on to the guy everyone detests.
Paddy Power Poker must really hate me… The Bounty Tournament has been running for a good while now and so far I’ve only finished in the money three times and got beaten by the wife heads up on the first outing. To make matters worse on the 21st and 28th of June they are upping the bounty to $200...
Pity the fool who laughs in the face of the poker gods. After my most recent article concerning luck, I went on a little roller coaster ride of my own that brought a Fat Boy to tears. I managed to qualify for the WSOP main event a few weeks ago....
LUCK: A chance happening? Something which happens beyond our control? Fate? Superstition? Can it be quantified? Can it be managed? Does it exist? As Donal MacAonghusa is so fond of saying “Lucky beats good any day of the week.”...
It may be evident that I’ve been sulking since the Irish Open. I’d like to extend my congratulations to Marty Smyth … But feck him! Did you see how he played pocket twos? I mean if it was anyone other than Ronald he was playing against ...
It’s bigger, it’s better and it’s almost here. Yes the Irish Open is almost upon us. There’s a real buzz in the air and that’s because I’ve got my shaving clippers ready. How do you prepare for such a big game? Well everyone is different....
You can change the tank, you can change the water… but at the end of the day it’s the same old fish. Finding Nemo has never been easier with the new buddy system on PPP. Click on players and you can select as many Piscine Pals as you like. I’m sure I appear on a good many lists. Somebody described me as dead money recently, I replied I wasn’t so much dead as decomposing. I like the CHAT area at the side...
I don’t usually play the freerolls on Paddy Power Poker. But I’ve been getting my arm in for the bumper week of freerolls ahead. And I have to say I’ve been having great fun with them. Sure you get four hundred plus runners and if you get to twenty seventh you win a dollar, and you’ve wasted time that could have been spent more productively elsewhere, but you still get a buzz when you win one of these things. It’s good practice too....
I’m the last person in the world to advocate collusion. But I had to throw my hands up in the air somewhat on Tuesday night. Forty five players turned up for the pub game in Westport and it paid four places. €600, €300 and €140 for third. Now it’s a cheap night… but it’s the principle of the thing. We get down to three players and we’re all in the money....
Happy New Year to you all. Hardly original but I guess the only way to start the first column of 2007. I hope Santa brought you everything you wanted for Christmas and more. I got a PSP game, a pair of socks, pants and Brandi Hawbaker’s phone number. Plus a discount on Dutch Boyd’s Vegas hotel room any time I want to use it. Very cheap I don’t know why. But let’s hope it’s a great year for some of you out there. I say some because we can’t all be winners can we?
Yes it’s that time of year again and Mrs Dim is wondering what she can buy the poker player who has everything apart from talent. IE: Me. I did suggest some x-ray specs so that I could see other player’s hole cards, but apparently they are just plastic frames with swirly bits of card for lenses and they don’t really show women in their underwear. Boy what a dream that was. If only Isabelle Mercier was sat opposite me and not Mary Harney. However it got me thinking of a few seasonal gifts I wouldn’t mind buying some players; and who knows maybe Paddy Power’s will put them up as points4prizes.
Mrs Dim is getting a reputation around Westport and believe me it’s deserved. We have taken to visiting a locally run tournament in Jester’s pub on three occasions now. The number of runners between thirty and forty each week, and she has taken it down twice. True the quality of play veers between the Ok and special needs… but there are some good players there and I’ve only managed to finish in the money once.
I should have known my luck was out after three hands in. I was playing last nights Super Sat at the Regency Hotel. 186 runners, €200 in and €100 unlimited rebuys for the first three levels. It was going to be a crapshoot and we all knew it. But this was the last chance saloon for me if I were to play in this years EPT main event.
Yes – Scarborough. Forget the Ryder Cup. Forget the London EPT. Forget the National Ploughing Championships in Carlow and Bertie’s financial indiscretions. The biggest event of recent weeks took place in a caravan park in Scarborough. But I can’t tell you about that. What I can tell you about is the Ireland v Great Britain Heads up Challenge for Charity. The ICHUC. Organised by the guys at Poker4charity and One Percent Pledge.
Some poker players are born with great names, Chris Moneymaker for example. Some poker players achieve their name through deed, achievement or even notoriety such as Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and Phil “The Pokerbrat” Hellmuth. And some poker players have great names thrust upon them. Who wouldn’t want to be called the “Devilfish”. And of course there is another category… Those who are named after their location. Texas Dolly, Amarillo Slim and Ballyhaunis Bob.
Life for the poker player on the road isn’t all sex, drugs and rock n roll. Unless you’re Padraig Parkinson of course. “If you have no respect for money you have the makings of a great poker player.” He said “If you have no respect for the road…. The road will annihilate you.” The man is quite simply a genius. He has seen it all, done it, bought the t-shirt, worn the t-shirt, shrunk the t-shirt in the wash, used it as a dish cloth, napkin and tourniquet and still wears it when the mood takes him. And then he does it all over again.
This coming weekend sees the birth of the All Ireland Irish Poker Cup at Citywest. Organised by Pokerevents they run a good tournament and I wish them well with it. I have to I’m the Mayo Captain. I’m not sure if Paddy Powers are offering betting on this event, but it promises to be a very competitive affair. With the likes of Padraig Parkinson, John McGill, Dave Murray, Rob Taylor and Dave O’Callaghan squaring up against Paul Lecky, Ivan Donaghy, Pat O’Callaghan, Lawrence Gosney, Joe O’Neil and his lucky poo. Thirty two counties represented by teams of ten… a field of three hundred and twenty. You can’t fault my maths.
It’s great to see the Irish contingent doing so well in the main event of the world series. At the time of writing there’s ten players going through to the official day three. That’s if I’ve counted correctly. With David Murray leading the charge and stalwarts like Don Fagan, Ken “KPnutz” Powell, Ollie Boy Boyce, the ubiquitous Joe O’Neil with his lucky poo and Irish/ English dictionary handy [No F bombs this year Joe?] and Norwich Fan Rob Taylor all in the mix.
They say the worst day in a poker player’s life is the day that he gets knocked out of the WSOP main event. Nah… The worst day of a poker player’s life is the day he gets beaten heads up in an internet qualifier to the WSOP main event. On paddypowerpoker.com as well. Sicker than a parrot with bird flu. But I wish the Monkey well. And I’m not being rude as that was indeed his handle or something very similar.
TJ Cloutier was wearing a pink shirt and called out “Hey Kid Poker!” To which Daniel Negreanu responded with a wave and a joke I couldn’t quite make out. Or was it Negreanu in the pink shirt. Who knows? Who cares? I was, I must admit, star struck. There was Doyle… There was Men The Master, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Phil Laak, Erick Lindgren, Phil Ivey, Scott Fischman, Evelyn Ng, Jennifer Tilly, the Toti from American Pie [ Shannon Elizabeth] , Barry Greenstein, Eric Seidel, Kathy Liebert, Dewey Tomko, Michael Mizrachi, Michael Graz, Hasan Habib, Josh Arieh, Allen Cunningham, Richie Cunningham, The Fonz and Potsie. Happy Days indeed.
$80 isn’t a bad price for a silk shirt, especially when its motif is cards and dice. Mrs Dim said it looked like a pimp’s shirt. That was good enough for me, so I went and bought it. I had my lucky shirt. I had my Navajo lucky stone. I had my Zany sunglasses that double as an MP3 player now all I needed was ten grand and an ITIN number and I was on my way to a table at the Mandalay Bay WPT main event in Sin City – Viva Las Vegas.
By the time you get to read this I'll be knee deep in Elvis impersonators and chocolate brown poker chips. Yes I'm off to Sin City... and I'm bringing the Dims with me.
It's often said always the bridesmaid and never the bride. I don't look good in a dress but what the heck. I'd wear a green tutu to the Irish Open if it meant a seat. Fortunately I had qualified online and so only had to wear a t-shirt with a Paddy Power Poker Last Longest sticker. It may as well have been a bullseye.
I once read a very interesting article on internet tells. Well ok it wasn't that interesting as I can't remember that much about it. But the basic idea that it is possible to have tells online intrigued me. Such as calling too quickly. Pausing before an action. Even your nom de plume is supposed to be a tell. But the author didn't seem to take into account such things as connection, Broadband, dial up or ISDN? Anyone who's delved into online multiplayer shoot 'em ups knows that ping is the all important factor.