January 2009 Archives

It was only as I drove down to Galway with Marty and Karen in tow, that I began to realise how utterly stupid I had been in allowing our VIP manager Ciaran three weeks holiday in January. I mean the bloke's barely through the door and here he is skiving off to the States, whilst the rest of us are left holding the baby; I'm getting soft in my old age (28).

Congratulations to Tony on winning last week's caption competition.

For your chance to win €25 and have it deposited into your Boylepoker.com account*, just leave a comment.

Well it's been a very rough few days, I started to play around midnight on Monday night on the 5c 10c tables and to say I ran badly is a massive understatement. There's three hands which really stick in my head, the first one is pretty horrible, where I flop the nut house after raising pre-flop wit 58dd and got it in v 2 opponents on an 885 board with two hearts. One guy had K7hh and the other guy had A8cc, which obviously bings the Ace on the river. I can't find the hand history for this hand, but I think it was close to $30 or 3 BI in the pot.

Boylepoker.com go heads up with Luke Ivory.

Come back next Thursday to see another exclusive "Heads Up" interview.

Music by The Gorgeous Colours.

The PartyPoker.com Irish Poker Championship kick-started the year with the first major tournament of 2009. Enthusiasts wondered would the trophy and title stay in the Emerald Isle or would it travel overseas to its new home abroad once the deed was done. The €2,000 buy-in televised event attracted many poker thoroughbreds such as Mike Sexton, Kenna James, Donnacha O'Dea, Marty Smyth, Padraig Parkinson, Ciaran O' Leary and Julian Gardner. But it was one young up-and-coming Irishman who topped the 255-strong field and sailed easily to the finish line, after making a comeback late in the event. Card Player wanted to learn more about the winner, Dubliner Rory Rees Brennan, and so caught up with him straight after he received his first major title, trophy, and €160,000.

Okay I'm definitely finishing the IPC on this entry, I promise! Before I do that I'd just like to congratulate Flipper on winning the CPT event, well done buddy.

So, to continue from my last post. The situation was nine handed and we had to lose one more player before the final table. Unfortunately, we lost Rory Liffey after his KK got done by JJ in pretty brutal flushing fashion; poker can be cruel but gg Rory. Also, gg Rory Brown who had a great tournament and got unlucky to finish in 10th, well done and well played.

After I got knocked out of the main event in Galway, I decided to do the sensible thing and go to bed at 9 p.m, to try to shake off whatever viruses were attacking me. Vero stuffed me up with lots of herbal medication and promised I'd be in good shape for the charity tournament the next day. It all went according to plan, well nearly.

It's been a few days since my first blog entry and what a swingy few days they have been! After a successful first night, my hopes were high for the weekend. I have basically been sleeping all day and playing right through until the early hours of the morning.

So I came back with a decent, but not a huge stack by any means. Day 3 went really well considering I had a couple of really big hands and then they allowed me to make a lot of steals and also put in a few re-steals on people.

Around this time last year I received an email from someone asking if I was interested in talking to a couple of chaps who were setting up a poker training site; they got lucky as their timing couldn't have been better.

I met Anthony and Donal at Boyle HQ after a few rounds of phone calls with my gaffer, the real guv'ner. The boys made a decent pitch and after a few more meetings we shook hands and agreed on a deal.

Boylepoker.com speak to Peter Murphy, the man behind our Murphy's Multiplier challenge and he seems confident that he can come up with the goods! Good luck Peter.

I finally got started after a sick session on Wednesday night playing until 11am on Thursday morning, so I slept most of yesterday to get ready for my new challenge. I got my $100 dollars lodged into my Boylepoker.com account and saw that I had been awarded 200 bonus dollars, but needing 250 VIP club points to clear each $5 I was unsure as to how long it would take to release this.

So just after midnight I hit the tables, my original plan was to multi table 2c 4c until I had 15 BI to move up to 5c 10c. However as I played a few tables of these games I found it very frustrating and hard to concentrate knowing that the pots involved where pretty much worthless.

Congratulations to 'rob' on winning last week's caption competition.

For your chance to win €25 and have it deposited into your Boylepoker.com account*, just leave a comment.

Donal O'Connor from PokerSwat phoned me with an idea about 10 days ago and now it's live, 'Murphy's Multiplier'.

The proposal was simple, would we be prepared to put up a prize if Peter Murphy could turn $100 into $10,000 in a set time?

I'd met Peter a few times this year, chiefly at the IPO where he final tabled and more memorably at the Brucepoker festival where I have never met a man so drunk yet unable to fall over. Of course, though I had met him a few times I had been closely following his progress and like Donal I was and am of the opinion that Mr. Murphy is one hell of a talented poker player. I think his record in 2008 is phenomenal.

Boylepoker.com go heads up with Poker Million champ Marty Smyth.

This was bit of a strange day. I don't think I have ever had a rush of starting hands like I did in the first level today and at the end of it, I was left scratching my head wondering how I'd managed to get knocked out.

I had 65k at the start of play with the average being 44k. I normally play pretty tight in tournaments and rarely amass big stacks early, so this was an unfamiliar situation to find myself in.

"Start as you mean to continue", that's how the old proverb goes anyway. Unfortunately, I've never been a person for this whole clean living malarkey, but only getting two hours sleep the night before the Celtic Poker Tour grand final was a bit extreme, even by my standards. I actually had intended to be well rested, but as it turned out Friday night had different plans for me. Nevertheless, I found myself at The Park Hotel in Clonmel at 2:45pm on Saturday - 15 minutes before kick-off.

I wasn't intending to post a blog again so quickly, but there are a couple of very interesting hands from the first day of the main event. I don't usually make too much effort to get to my table on time for the start of a live tournament, usually ambling in some time during the first 30 minutes.

Welcome back guys. I arrived in Melbourne yesterday. I didn't find the journey too bad at all; I think people build it up a bit too much for my liking. My advice is just don't sleep the night before you go and you'll end up sleeping for half of it anyway. Also I'd definitely recommend Singapore Airlines for anyone going that way!

There's a lot of give and take when it comes to chat box abuse in online poker.

You have to dole it out in spades because most people, whether they admit it or not, are susceptible to tilt when they or their play are abused by an opponent who has just won a pot off them. It is therefore, a +ev play to harangue everybody at all times. And you have to take it because, well, all of your opponents use the same idiotic logic that you do.

I think next January I'll just go down to Galway for the craic, because I don't seem to do well at the tournament there. I set myself a modest goal this year of lasting longer than the 30 minutes or so that I did last year and I managed to do it. I almost wish I hadn't now though as from a poker point of view the tournament was pretty painful going.

Congratulations to Padraig on winning last week's caption competition.

For your chance to win €25 and have it deposited into your Boylepoker.com account*, just leave a comment.

As Marty, in his wisdom, foresaw the collapse of sterling and headed for Australia to win some real money, Paul suggested that Vero and I toddle along to the Aviation Club to represent the Great One at the European Poker Awards ceremony. I immediately agreed as accepting a trophy on Marty's behalf was as close as I'm ever going to get to getting my hands on one.

Things didn't look too good when we arrived because the first person I met was Nic Szeremeta who told us we hadn't been included in the dining arrangements as he'd heard we were in Dublin. This was a bit of a surprise because I told him twice in Galway (once when I was sober and once when he was) that we'd definitely be there.

Boylepoker.com go heads up with Irish poker pro Scott Gray.

Come back next Thursday to see another exclusive "Heads Up" interview.

Music by The Gorgeous Colours.

I've been gambling in Galway since I had my first ever bet at the races when I was seven years old. I know every pitfall there is there, but knowing and using that knowledge are two different things.

My first mistake was to arrive in Galway on the 30th of December, which is practically suicide if you want to play a tournament starting on the 2nd of January. I did have an excuse: my friends Mike Sexton and Kenna James were arriving that day from the States and I couldn't let them have a good time without me! Mad Marty and Katherine also came into town that day, so it wasn't long before things got out of hand.

Well it's been a while coming...but I have finally started my blog (regretting it already). However, in light of recent events, and also because of my plans for the next few weeks (tournaments at the Aussie Millions and the APT Manila), I think that the timing is pretty ideal. To those of you that say I refused to start a blog until a major score I say....well observed.

Anyhow, I would firstly just like to thank Boylepoker for hosting this blog and also for their sponsorship; they have a great team behind them and it seems basically all you have to do is lash on some Boyles' gear and tournaments basically beg you to win them!

Congratulations to SimianNo5 on winning last week's caption competition.

For your chance to win €25 and have it deposited into your Boylepoker.com account*, just leave a comment.

Boylepoker.com go heads up with Irish poker star Rory Liffey.

Come back next Thursday to see another exclusive "Heads Up" interview.

Music by The Gorgeous Colours.

I started my employment with Boylepoker at the end of November 2007 and the first thing I was keen to prevent was an overlay in a decent promotion the previous incumbent had created; we were giving away a WPT bootcamp package worth about $7000, the tournament entry was $100 and there were 19 entrants when I joined.

I phoned a few of my savvy poker friends and bumped it up to over 50 but we fell short of 70 runners. Oh well I thought, some lucky punter will love us as a result, I was later informed the winner of the tournament worked for PPP in Dublin, irony is a devious mistress sometimes.

Congratulations to Boylepoker player Rory Rees Brennan, winner of the Irish Poker Championship 2009. Rory defeated a field of 254 players, earning him the title of Irish Poker Champion and a whopping €160,000 prize money.

To celebrate Rory's success Boylepoker.com will be hosting a bounty tournament. If you knock out RoryReesBrennan you will earn yourself a cool $500 bounty. The details are as follows:

Event breakdown:

Name: Rory Rees Brennan Bounty

Date: Thursday January 8^th

Game: No Limit Hold'em

Type: Rebuy - 1 Rebuy + 1 Add on

Start time: 21:00

Buy-in: $10 + $1

Prize: $500 added bounty on RoryReesBrennan

Starting Chips: 1500

Blind levels: 10 minutes

Congratulations to chuboots on winning last week's caption competition.

For your chance to win €25 and have it deposited into your Boylepoker.com account*, just leave a comment.