Marty who?

Since my last update I've played the GUKPT Main Event in the Vic and the Unibet open in Warsaw. I busted pretty early in the GUKPT without ever getting much of a stack together. This happened when I semi-bluffed with AcQx on a low board with 3 clubs, against a guy with two red Jacks. Maybe I should have played it a bit more cautiously, but I had made a decent sized raise pre-flop and really thought I could make the guy pass a hand like the one he had.

Warsaw went a lot better for me, and I had another good finish, just missing out on the final table. I'm pretty happy to finish 12th, although it's obviously a bit disappointing to pick up a relatively small amount after fighting through 400 odd players and getting so close to another big score. I had a good stack with 2 tables left, when an AK/QQ cooler left me crippled. I did make a brief recovery, winning a 50-50 and stealing some blinds. I would have been back in decent shape if my JQ suited had managed to outdraw A9, but unfortunately it wasn't to be.

If I'd won either of those pots I'd have been in with a great chance, but overall I certainly couldn't complain that I was unlucky, and I had to win a few races to get as far as I did. It wouldn't have entered my head to play one of the Unibet Opens only for my friend, Fuat Can, who won the last one in Prague and asked me to come with him to this one. I'm glad I listened to him as I really enjoyed the tournament and I'll definitely play some of them next year.

The events are well run, with a good atmosphere, and are much better value than a lot of other tournaments that I play. The organizers really look after the players too, putting on free food over the 4 days, and having two party nights with a free bar.

Karen tells me the live streaming commentary was pretty funny, when I was on the feature table. One of the commentators knew who I was, but the other one thought that Marty Smyth was actually the young guy who was sitting beside me. Apparently they managed to commentate like this for about an hour, with neither of them realising what was happening. They were coming out with stuff like...

- "Marty Smyth raises to 15k"
- "No, It was the guy to Marty's left"
- "No, I think it was Marty Smyth"
- "Err... Are you sure?"

...and one of them commented that he couldn't believe I looked so young, when I had results stretching back so far. I'm going recommend they get Rory Liffey in to cover the next one.

I stopped off in Boyles HQ on my way to Dublin last week to talk a bit about next year, and one of the things that I think I'm going to do is set up my own external website. I'm not sure exactly what I'll have on it, but one of the ideas was that I could 'Twitter' some updates directly to the website whenever I'm at tournaments. In the mean time I've set up a Twitter account (as MartySmyth, if any of you use it) and will maybe use that to send some updates while I'm playing, until I get the site sorted. It should save me a fortune with the amount of shareholders that I usually have to text updates to!

I'm off to Telford with Jon Kalmar to watch the snooker today; using the tickets that we bought at a charity auction in the summer. The highlight should be O' Sullivan v Matthew Stevens, and I'll probably back Stevens on the handicap market for a bit of an interest. After that I'll be making my way over for the IPC, where I hope to set a new personal record, by lasting more than 5 hours in a poker tournament in Galway.