I feel sad to announce that this is going to be my last blog as a Boylepoker sponsored player. I haven't played any poker now since the Amsterdam Master Classics at the end of November and as usual after a break, I feel a lot better about things.

I can't imagine that my blogs over the last year have been a very enjoyable read. It certainly hasn't been fun writing blog after blog about how I've been busting out of tournaments, and I wish I'd had better subject matter.

Usually at this time of year I'd be writing a blog about how the Poker Million final went for me. Unfortunately this year I just had to content myself with watching it on TV again.

I was hoping my form had turned the corner after getting a decent run in the London EPT, but unfortunately it seems to have been a false dawn and things have returned to normal.

As enjoyable as the last couple of weekends in Dublin have been, I'm definitely glad to be back home for a while, to give my liver a break. I didn't have a lot of success in either tournament. I exited pretty early in the IPO and busted a few levels into the second day in the IWF, but I never got about 45k, so I didn't really get much of a sweat.

I've finally had a bit of a result in a big tournament. Okay, 77th isn't really anything to write home about, but it's definitely a big relief to get a half decent cash under my belt after the way things have been going. In fact after my last few tournaments, it was actually a relief when I made the dinner break on Day 1.

Things haven't improved on the poker front unfortunately, but I'm not actually feeling as downbeat as I sometimes do about busting out of tournaments.

I said before I played the World Open, that it was going to be the toughest table that I had ever played at, and having played it I think it was definitely close but I actually feel like I acquitted myself fairly well against them. These TV events used to be complete crapshoots, but now they give you three times as many chips and there's actually a good bit more play in them.

It's pretty safe to say my form has hit an all time low. It's September now, and I'd estimate that I've played 20-25 tournaments this year with only two small cashes, both of which came in two of the smallest events that I've played.

I lost close to a quarter of my stack in that hand, and shortly afterwards I lost another quarter. I raised on the button with Ts8s, was called by both blinds, and the flop came AK3 with two spades. Some people might wonder why I would decide to check this flop, as it seems a great opportunity to represent the ace and pick up the pot, with a flush draw to fall back on if someone calls. There's certainly nothing wrong with betting here, but instead I chose to check for a few different reasons.

After Cork, I headed up to Donegal for the weekend with Nicky, Paul Spillane and Julian Gardner, for a golfing weekend. It was great fun with a lot of money changing hands but ultimately no one ended up winning or losing much, which is about the best I can hope for against these guys really. Unfortunately, the weekend still turned out to be pretty expensive for me.

The main event at Macau is a great tournament, with a pretty good value field and a great structure. I was intending to take it a bit more seriously than I did the PLO.

I've finally gotten off the mark for the year, winning my first live tournament at the Castle Card Club in Castlebar. In fact, it's the first live tournament I've won since the Poker Million in 2008.

Finally, I have some good news regarding poker. I feel like I'm kind of clutching at straws, when I'm reporting a couple of results in 1 table S'n'Gs as good news but after Vegas I'm happy to take any result I can get.

Unfortunately things have not got any better over here. I played the 1K PLO re-buy in the Bellagio and had a good run in it, but came unstuck with 9 players remaining when my top set was outdrawn by my opponent's big draw.

I arrived in Vegas two weeks ago off the back of a nice holiday and full of optimism about the World Series. I'm now without a cash in seven attempts and with only 1 or possibly 2 tournaments left to play here, I'm in desperate need of a late rally to salvage some kind of respectability.

Five years ago I went travelling with my then-girlfriend and two friends on a 9 month round-the-world trip financed by the ridiculously soft online cash games that were available at the time.

Just arrived in Vegas after a 30 hour trip from the Cook Islands and got stuck straight into the action with one of the 1K NLH crapshoot events.

Just got back on the mainland after being on an island off the coast of Australia for most of last week. It's amazing how much you can miss in just four days of being without internet and mobile phone coverage.

Looking at the way the points are distributed, it seems to me that you want to have players who'll be competing in the events that will have small fields, like the stud, horse, etc.

It seems like every time I write a blog these days, it starts with something along the lines of 'sorry about the lack of posts', but the only poker I've really played since the Irish Open has been a couple of online MTTs.

Since my last blog I've been pretty busy with playing the Irish Open, getting drunk, getting handcuffed to a dwarf, and getting married. In that order.

I had signed up for both the Poker For The Homeless tournament and also Neil Channing's 'London Live' event in the Vic, before I realised they were on the same weekend.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I've gotten fed up with slaving away for hours on end multi-tabling small cash games and sit and go's, and have had a bit of a break from internet poker over the last week and a half.