Dublin Poker

Decided to venture down to this as I haven't been playing live much due to my new job. Met up with Shane (De Deraco on boards) beforehand for a pint, then strolled down to the fitz. Game started at 4:30. On the way Shane told me that it wasn't a €30 freezeout as I had expected. Instead it was a 'shoot-out'. I actually hadn't heard of a shoot-out before, but Shane filled me in on the structure. Its basically like loads of seperate STT's where the winner of each goes on to the final table. Since we only had 4 tables it was decided that the top two would go through. There was a nice starting stack of 4,000.

Started the game off well, playing tight enough until I knew what I was up against. It didn't take me long to realise that there was only one other player that looked anyway decent. Two of the people had never played before, and the rest didn't seem too confident. Now most of the time it is good to have one or two fish at the table, but when its full of them.... you could drown! It's harder to bluff, etc.

I tried to stay out of most of the big pots, only playing quality hands. We were down to 4 quickly enough, while the other three tables still had 8 or 9 players. There was an unbelievably lucky woman who was sitting at my table. It was her first time ever playing live and she knocked out 3 players from our table on ridiculous river cards. She was calling EVERYTHING! I was happy to sit back and watch her infuriate the rest of the table! Eventually I picked up KK and put on an oscar winning performance to get her to put all her chips in. Flop came down A K x, and her eyes stared at the Ace for a few seconds longer than the rest. Thanks love, you wouldn't have an Ace by any chance?

I checked, and she raised pretty big. I took ages to RELUCTANTLY call... Turn was a jack, and I waited until I knew she was looking at me, and then threw her a false tell. I stared at the jack, then my cards, then the jack... etc. River was the final king. Hmmmmmm... I looked at her and announced, "I don't think you have an ace or king, I'm going all in". She immediately pushed all her chips in and proudly turned over A 9 shouting "Haha, I have the ace!!! Beats your Jack!" ..... I turned over the kings and almost felt bad to see her go. Almost...

Anyway, down to three and Shanes table was down to six. Other two were still on 7 or 8. We stayed at three for about an hour and Shane had decided to destroy his table, and somehow got from six players to two in about 15 mins! He finished up and went through 1st with about 26K. We finished up soon after, and I went to the final table with about 17K, about average. Table 2 finished up at about 6:30, so now we were waiting for table 4 to finish. Somehow there was still 5 players left!!! So we waited... and waited...and waited. TWO HOURS later it was still at 4 players!!!!

Me, and Shane were playing cards with Rounders123 and some other boardsters, and ordered food, and STILL we were waiting! We went over to watch the table at about 8:45, and eventually it got down to two. Now it was final table time! The payout wasn't great, I think it went

8th 50
7th 50
6th 50
5th 50
4th 70
3rd 100
2nd 200
1st 320

There was no-one at the final table that worried me, and I had a healthy enough stack. Only problem was that table 4 had been playing soooo long that the blinds had gone up a LOT! When we had finished up the blinds were 200/400. When the final table started it was 1000/2000!! I started off in BB and my blind was robbed straight away. Same with the small blind. Got NO cards in the first round, then saw my BB getting robbed again! In fairness Shane had AA and knocked someone out so I can't complain. I was down to 12K now and needing to pick up a hand. Thankfully it came the very next hand and I looked down to see KK. Button went all in for about 8K with A7. 7 on the flop but no more help and he was out. Soon we were down to 4, and after Shane knocked another player out, we were down to 3.

Shane was monster chip leader, but he was getting great hands on the final table. Aces, Queens.... With the blinds 1500/3000, I went all in for about 25K with K6 to try and get the shortstack out and get heads up with Shane. He only had about 6K left so he had to call. I was delighted to see him turn over 67. OBVIOUSLY he hits his 7 on the turn and now I was in a bit of trouble. A few hands later Shane raises up to 20K. I look down to see A10 so its an autocall. He flips over 33. ...50/50 time. I hit a 10 on the flop but the biatch hits his set! I even hit an ace on the river but it aint enough. Ah well, the better hand won. 3rd place - €100. Not too bad, but Im pissed off that the other bloke got lucky on me on the previous hand. I was looking forward to getting heads up with Shane!

Anyway, Shane finishes him off soon enough, taking 1st and €320. Fair play to him, he played well. I think he went down to play the €20 rebuy afterwards. So, a good night, another good finish. I've only played the Sunday game twice now, and I've got 1st and 3rd. I think the cost/ structure suits me well. Happy enough with how I played tonight. Next on the list is trying to win a ticket into the 'Joe Show' tournament!