May 2009 Archives

The Poker Show, this week begins its World Series of Poker coverage, appropriately kicking off with Jesse May interviewing living poker legend Doyle Brunson.
 
Brunson will discuss his plans for the Series, Chip Reese, the future of the 'big game', the 'internet kids' and his days as a Texas road gambler while roving reporter at the Rio, Padraig Parkinson, checks in every day with all the news, gossip, and opinion from the Amazon Room.

In the last hand we're going to look at this week, we're down to 20BBs when we find a playable hand in a raised pot and have to choose between calling and re-raising to commit. With a 12.5k stack and 300-600 blinds, I picked up 9s 8d 6h 5h in third position.

UTG, who started the hand with 10K, opened the pot to 2100. I decided to re-raise the pot, a 7k stack behind me called the re-raise and the original raiser also called, leaving only 3k behind. The flop came 9h 6c 5c so the rest went in. UTG had A532 with hearts, the caller behind had AKKT with clubs, and I filled up on the river to triple up.

Over the last few days I have played very little poker. I've mainly been chilling out and trying to get myself rested and re-focused for what is going to be a very busy month. Pretty soon I'll be getting stuck into a bit of poker and the month will end with the biggest tournament of all, the WSOP.

As we get deeper into the tournament and the blinds go up, there's less room for multi-street play and, like in any poker tournament really, hand selection and being the aggressor becomes more important.

The next hand we're looking at, the blinds were 80-160 and I picked up Kd Ts 7d 6s third to speak. UTG limped, pot raised to 720, and it was folded around to the limper who called. The flop came Td 8c 2h, he checked, I bet the pot and he folded.

Congratulations to MartyR on winning last week's caption competition with the following entry:

"I haven't played omaha before, but I'l give it a sqwhirl."

Today we're going to look at two hands, there wasn't much action in either, but I think both could have been troublesome had I over-played them.

The first was fairly straightforward, but it's such a common situation, that it's well worth hearing what the pros think. A little later in the tournament, I had 7500 chips, blinds were 60-120 when I picked up As Ah 7d 2d UTG. I open-limped, there was no raise, and six players took the flop Jc 3d 2c. I check-folded my hand.

Boylepoker.com go heads up with Andy Ward.

Music by The Gorgeous Colours.

With the ECOOP $1000 (One Rebuy) PLO coming up on Saturday, it's time for me to get some much-needed advice and tips from Pot Limit Omaha World Champion Marty Smyth (not a bad start!) and high-stakes PLO cash player Dave Callaghan.

Every day this week I'm going to put forward a hand I played in a PLO tournament recently for the guys to dissect. The first hand is the one I mentioned in my last post.

To quickly recap, it was a full 9-handed table, playing 15-30 with 5000 chips. There was a limper, a pot raise and then two callers to me in the big blind with 8s 7d 6d 5d. I called and we took the flop five ways. The flop came 9d 7c 3d, I led out pot and the second player (who originally limped pre-flop) called. The turn was the Ad, making the flush, I checked and he checked. The river was a blank 8h, I bet 1000, he raised all-in to 4000 and I called. He showed 77 for a flopped set and I doubled up.

Apologies for the lack of posts, but there hasn't really been much for me to write about lately. I haven't played any live poker at all since the San Remo EPT, because Monte Carlo cancelled all their PLO tournaments and then another couple of tourneys that I had hoped to play clashed with a friend's wedding and also Karen's birthday.

The plan for this month was to play very little and to devote a bit of time to trying to get used to some of the software that everyone's using these days. On a friend's recommendation I downloaded 'holdem manager', but found it totally impossible to set up. After a lot of effort my brother eventually managed to set it up for me, only for me to slip going down the steps at the front of our house whilst carrying my laptop out to the car, completely wrecking it.

Well I exceeded my own expectations of losing $35k and did $37k for the week. I lost €6k in Celbridge on Wednesday night and then a further $4k online.

Although I'm not really too pissed off about it, as I don't feel too bad about how I played. It was more the case of every river card that pop either missed me or hit my opponent.

I'm just back from the weekend in Edinburgh and in absolute bits. I won a nice chunk on Leinster, as I had them backed at 12's and 7's. I also had a few other decent bets that came in, so got just under $10k out of the sports betting for the week. The plan for this week is to play a few ECOOP events and a few satties for the bigger ones, which kick-off from Friday on.

This week The Poker Show checks in with World Series of Poker bracelet winner Michael Keiner from Germany and World Series of Poker Europe bracelet winner, and sometime boxer, Theo Jorgensen.

Presenters Jesse May and Padraig Parkinson will also be chatting to Jennifer Tilly and Annette Obrestad from the Women's World Open and recent Celebrity Apprentice, Annie Duke, drops by to discuss Donald Trump and Joan Rivers.

Congratulations to mustbemad on winning last week's caption competition with the following entry:

"come on lads think how do we get liffy back on the show"

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

Boylepoker.com go heads up with Liam Flood.

Music by The Gorgeous Colours.

Liam Flood

When Ciaran asked me if I wanted to do a promo for the 7 card stud ECOOP event I jumped at the chance. Being an old school pro I like these old school games.

I started playing 7 card stud in the Eccentrics Club 25 years ago against the likes of Don Fagan, Jimmy Langan and Alan Betson. I played many big tournaments in the early days in Vegas, but nowadays everyone is playing Hold'em or Omaha and sadly a good game of 7 card stud can be hard to find.

This will all change with ECOOP Event #4. The 7 card stud event is sure to get some of the guys who played 7 stud years ago out of hibernation!

You will be able to win a % of me by playing in the special tournament 7 card stud tournament Boylepoker are hosting on the 28th of May. I have the experience and the skills to give everyone a sweat for their money and to show all the young guns how exciting the game of 7 card stud can be.

Check out the details here.

Well my run of ugly cards is continuing. It's only Wednesday and I am down the guts of $25k already. For once on a losing streak, I am happy enough with how I'm playing.

When you're running bad, a time out is sometimes the best option, so I'm going to take a break from online cash for about a week. One of my best mates just came back from a year away and he has a tennis court, so I'll do some hitting with him and play a bit of golf. Then I'll try a few ECOOP satties in the evening. Less than a week to go to it and I like to try to get into the bigger events for as cheap as I can.

Last week was pretty disgusting/boring, so I didn't bother writing a blog on Friday. It would have just been me moaning. At one stage I was down nearly $20k but a late rally saw me get it back to about minus $10k for the week, which isn't too bad as I didn't run great and played like a spastic.

Before I mention the promotion I have to mention a hand at the recent JP Masters.

We were six handed and on my right was a player called Tony who had been taking some time to make his decisions. He then got involved in a pot with Scott Gray, was raised on the flop and once again went into the tank. He began cutting out his chips, staring at Scott then restacked his chips, stroked his chin, went back to cutting out the raise then cutting out a possible re-raise, then sighed and put the chips into stacks then put them all into one stack and then began pondering again. Then he cut out some different coloured chips and began stacking them. The table was in complete silence, then Nicky sat back in his chair, looked at him and said: "I bet you were good at Lego as a kid".

Congratulations to Lisa C on winning last week's caption competition with the following entry:

"These prop bets are getting out of hand" says Dave as he prepares to swallow an entire guitar in one go.

This week's prize is doubled with €50 going to the author of the winning caption. For your chance to win €50 and have it deposited into your Boylepoker.com account*, just leave a comment.

Boylepoker.com go heads up with Andy Black.

Music by The Gorgeous Colours.

Andy Black

When Jesse May came up with the idea of doing a live poker radio show, I thought he was nuts. He told me we'd be doing it for a few hours a week from home. I must be nuts too, as before I knew what I was doing, I had agreed to sleep on a couch somewhere in East London for five half-weeks while we broadcast from a studio. Not ideal preparation for the WSOP, but about par for the course when Jesse is involved.

Number 26 seed thechamp87 was felled by aya14 who ran like God to knock out the volatile Serie B star. I asked thechamp87 for his thoughts "Its f****** b*******. The f***** ran like a c*** and hit f***** everything. F****** rigged b*******"

zuroph was unable to produce any magic and was ousted by the 147 man.
zuroph said "I've seen Ronnie O Sullivan run good, but Connie would have had got the rub of the green based on today's performance"

After last week, this one always going to be tough one as a come down was inevitable. I withdrew most of my winnings having learned from past experience one is most vulnerable after a big score.

The norm would be to jump up and do about five buy ins at 25/50. Thankfully, I didn't take a shot at bigger games as I have run reasonably bad this week and am down about $7k.

Well, as I said I was going well on Friday up about $30k odd. I won another $5k on Friday and was talked into a night out. I think I had played about 60 hours for the week at that stage so I was able to justify a night off to the boss.

Week two of The Poker Show saw Tom "Durrrr" Dwan and Luke '_FullFlush_" Schwartz discuss each other's skills; week three promises Marty Smyth and Annette Obrestad.

.. or I should probably rephrase that, can a NL donk learn to play Omaha at least as well as most people who play Omaha tournaments, which is a much more achievable goal. We'll be testing this out over the next few weeks as Boyle's top Omaha pros are saddled with the thankless task of trying to educate me in the finer aspects of the game.

I had a massive day yesterday. Ran ill good, but I am not going to make any apologies for that. Think the final tally was a payday of about $22,500 and got most of that playing people HU in 10/20 PLO.

Congratulations to Chris on winning last week's caption competition with the following entry:

"as bedlam breaks out over a lost ball. ciaran slips of to the bar with it in his back pocket

^^thats bound to be lame enuf to win this rigged contest"

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

Sometimes I feel guilty when I think I haven't played enough poker. I think it's because I worry that in a few years the games could be much tougher and I won't be able to make the sort of money (which is pretty sick for someone my age) as I do now.

Boylepoker.com go heads up with former WSOP main event winner, Jamie Gold.

Part 1

Part 2

Music by The Gorgeous Colours.

Jamie Gold - poker pro

Saturday was so ENJOYABLE. I probably hate Munster rugby supporters more than any other following in the world. I am proud to report I was every bit a bad winner after the match as they have been in the past.

April was a good month in many ways other than as written before - we didn't get the Irish Open winner. To be fair, we barely had a player make day 2 so we knew our fate early on. It seems these new logos are not as lucky as the last lot; I might have to send them back! It wasn't just in Dublin were we got let down; we also sent a player to Salzburg after he won a satellite but again came back empty handed.

Any football fans out there had a promotion tailored to their needs with our Champions League Tournament. For $1 you and a friend could be at the Stadio Olimpico on May 27 - promise to take me with you and I might change the settings on your doomsday switch!

I posted a hand on my blog a couple of days ago and I think it's worth talking about on here as well. I was playing the $100 rebuy on Pokerstars, which I must stress first of all is kind of a law onto itself in online poker tournaments. There's usually quite a mix of good and bad players in this tournament, but they almost all play aggressively. Month by month the aggression has been ramped up as egos collide until now I think it's pretty profitable to play this tournament as a nit and take advantage of all this testosterone-fuelled play - which is good for me because I'm the king of the nits :-)

Congratulations to charliebuket on winning last week's caption competition with the following entry:

"mulit talented Padraig Parkinson wows the crowd as he shows them why he is the world siting down dancing champion"

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

I've been potting away steadily for the past few days. I'm ahead about $6.5k for the week, mainly as a result of a horrible beat I put on two punters in a multi-way $6k pot at 10/20.