August 2008 Archives

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I see the office blog has taken a back seat now that Paul is on holidays and not standing over the team with a big stick - personally I think it's time Ciaran made a post... maybe he could reflect on whether or not he has any regrets about the move he pulled in Cork last weekend?

Now I've noticed that over the last few weeks Boyles have been using my name and image in some internet adverts for the poker site... "BOYLE POKER - HOME OF WSOP PLO CHAMPION, MARTY SMYTH, AND SPONSORS OF THE IPO"... that sort of thing.

I don't really have much to write poker wise about the rest of my weekend in Cork - the only other tournament I played was the main event and I busted after about an hour when I got it all in with a pair and a flush draw against an overpair. To be honest, when I put my last raise in I knew he had a big pocket pair and I didn't expect him to pass. On another day I might have played the hand differently, but I was quite happy to either double up or to bust early as the craic had been good all week and I had a few friends there who weren't playing the tournament.

I don't consider myself to be a man with a violent disposition. Apart from having a generally sunny demeanour, I am too short and way too unfit to look for fights; an ungenerous but dispassionate onlooker might even label me as something of a coward.

As much as we love to while away our afternoons writing humorous blogs for your enjoyment, we do have a lot of work to do and occasionally social lives to enjoy (except for Gerry), which also place demands on our schedules.

Writing a blog, where do I start, it appears that I have a phobia, no, maybe more a fear of all things internet postable. I don't have a Bebo, Myspace or Facebook account and I loathe posting on any kind of forum, even though this can be part of my job at times.

Recently in the office the words blog blog blog has been wielded like a lightsaber at a Star Wars convention. My boss being the decent skin that he is, could see the unease that would come over me when the word blog was mentioned in my presence and has kindly spared me the trauma by recently posting about our GUFRGHJFHKPT Luton trip. Luckily I have managed to duck, dive and dodge the blog bullet thus far, but realised that my time was running out, I have decided to jump before I was pushed, so here goes.

Last year, before I graced Boylepoker with my presence, I used to earn some extra drink tokens (cash) dealing at some of Ireland's bigger poker events (dealing cards that is!). As jobs on the side go, this one was perfect as these events generally took place on weekends, hotel and travel costs were picked up by the company, and there would be all the fun that comes from having to walk through a bar with friends on your way out of work. It usually took us at least six hours to make that 20 metre stretch!

We went for lunch yesterday and came up with some even more great ideas, one involved monkeys, celebrities and drinking, so it is most unlikely to happen, but we do keep surprising ourselves. 

In case you don't already know, let me introduce the IPO team.

I've had a really enjoyable time since returning from London last week. On Thursday, myself and Karen drove to Dublin to meet up with two friends, Michelle and Kevin, who then accompanied us to the beautiful town of Kenmare in County Kerry, stopping off for a night in Kevin's home town of Ballylongford on the way (a small village where the publicans have scant regard for the legal closing time or for the indoor smoking ban). This was my first visit to Kerry and I'm already looking forward to getting back again, although hopefully with better weather.

And so it was, that Friday past Gerry 'The Bishop' Bishop (original I know) and I  descended onto England's green and pleasant land, except it wasn't; we landed late on a wet crap sodden Luton.

We were there to have a look at how a GUKFUMJPT tour event is run and pick up some useful tips for our forthcoming IPO event in October.

The hotel was exactly as you would imagine; if you are a fan of Alan Partridge that is.

Although this year's trip to Vegas was my most enjoyable and memorable to date, for the last few days of the trip I had really been looking forward to getting home and getting back to normal.

Luckily, I had the perfect tonic for all the madness that is Las Vegas, in the shape of a week in Donegal. We had booked a house in a small village on the north coast called Port na Blagh with 4 bedrooms, so that some of our family could come down and stay for a few days as well. It's hard to imagine 2 more opposite places than Las Vegas and Donegal, and the whole week was exactly what the doctor ordered.

One of our responsibilities here at Boylepoker is to ensure that our sponsored money making machine (Marty Smyth) is well looked after whilst representing our brand, which is why CC (Ciarán Corbett) and myself went to London on Sunday evening last. Marty was playing his heat in this year's poker million early on Monday and wanted to make sure he had a little entourage as a WSOP winner.

The next day was a rest day and then I had to play Day 2 of the Main Event on the Tuesday. There had been a redraw for seats and when I checked out the players on my table on the Hendon Mob database, I found that most of them had a bit of prior experience and a few cashes here and there.

I got off to a terrible start and lost 17k in the first hand I played. If I had played it differently, as I almost did, then I could have been almost bust or I could have won the pot. I had raised in mid position to 2k with AdJd. A guy directly after me re-raised to 4K. In my experience a minimum re-raise like that is usually a very strong hand like QQ upwards. But still he had given me a tremendous price to call and I thought that if I could outdraw him then I could win a big pot. I called and the flop came 842 with 2 diamonds. I know that betting out here is not going to make him pass, so I check. He bets 6k and now I have to decide if it is worth raising to try to make him pass given that I had some outs if he does call me.

By now Paul Spillane from Boylepoker had arrived over for a week and I arranged to meet up with him the next day to have a talk about things and get a bit of lunch. I should have known that meeting up with Paul so early in the day was a bad idea, and so it proved. We had a sensible enough lunch in the café at the front of the Paris hotel overlooking the Bellagio fountains. We were joined by Padraig Parkinson, his partner Veronique and a few of the lads from the house.