Revenge is sweet - Boylepoker Blog

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.

It's actually not the results that I'm claiming as good news, more the fact that I feel I played very well in the tournaments and that the small fields contained some very good players. Also, in Jude Ainsworth, Derek Murray and BigMickG, I was up against exactly the sort of young internet whizzes that scared the life out of me every time I got into a pot with them at the WSOP.

I've been trying to think about why I was comfortable playing a lot of pots aggressively against these guys in Galway, yet whenever I played against players of similar quality in Vegas, I was afraid to get into hands with them and ended up just playing very tight. With it being Galway, everyone was having a few drinks and even though we were playing a €500 re-buy or €1000 euro freeze-out, it just felt like a group of friends playing a small home game.

The $1000 WSOP tournaments have a similar buy-in and the overall standard is worse than it was in Galway, but the atmosphere is a lot more serious and I just don't feel as comfortable making bluffs or playing my natural game. I could probably overcome this by getting drunk any time I play the young aggressive internet players (and I often do have a couple of drinks to settle myself), but I know realistically this isn't a good long term plan and I have to just learn to relax more and try to have a bit more confidence.

I played three S'n'G tournaments over the three days, winning a €500 re-buy and finishing 2nd in the main 1K freeze-out. They started off as winner-takes-all but there were deals made at the later stages in all of them, and overall I made a half-decent profit for the trip. They were all great craic too, with a lot of good natured slow-rolling, bluff-showing, and general piss-taking by all of the players. It was also good to see Nicky taking down one of them for a bit of a return to form.

Before heading to Galway I made the trip down to Tramore for the 2nd annual Waterford Masters tournament. I was second in this tournament last year, although it was a bitter-sweet result, as I had to hand Nicky €1400 afterwards because of the 10% that he had won off me on the golf course. This year he won 20% before the start, so there was no chance I was going to win this tournament and hand him 3k. I was starting to get a bit worried when I finished day 1 with 1.5 x the average but I got the hand I was waiting for early on day 2, when my ran into and didn't improve.

Tramore's one of my favourite tournaments of the year. It's strange; when I first drove into the town last year I thought it looked a bit dated with a bit of a Blackpool feel to it, and I wasn't really expecting much, but when you look past the fun-fair rides it's actually a lovely area. The people there are as nice as I've encountered anywhere. I really hope the tournament becomes a regular fixture and I can't see any reason why it shouldn't.

I played a bit of golf over the week as well, and learned that Tom Hanlon isn't just a good Bridge and Omaha player, although when you gamble with Tom Hanlon on something, a €150 loss is a pretty good result. I did have a great result in a grudge golf match with an old school friend, Darren Long, when I got back up to Belfast on Friday though. The grudge stems from about five years ago, when having not seen the guy for a while I met him in a local bar/pool hall. After noticing that I was considerably more drunk than he was, he challenged me to a game of pool for a nominal fee of £1. He knew the bragging rights that came along with it would be worth a lot more than the money involved.

He finished up with an easy black to the middle, but instead of potting it straight, decided to double it off the side cushion into the opposite pocket for the show-boat finish. This would be bad enough, but to rub more salt in my wounds he also looked up at me and winked as he played the shot. I have to hand it to him - it was a world class rub down. I felt like I'd just been slow-rolled in a 10k pot.

We've been meaning to get out golfing together for a while now and it finally happened on Friday, when we played on his home course where he's about to become captain for the year. He's an 8 handicapper and I hadn't played this course in a couple of years, so I didn't really hold out much hope of beating him (I'm not sure what I am but probably around 18-20). Regardless, I suggested he give me a chance to win back the pound that he took off me, as I knew the upside of a highly unlikely victory for me greatly outweighed the downside of him beating me. He actually gave me a handicap and I won that match easily, but coming onto the last hole I was actually one up on him without the handicap and just needed to match him on the last to win off scratch (I'd have made myself a 50/1 shot for this at the start). When I tapped in my 18 inch par putt it was one of the most satisfying victories of my life in any game.

The most satisfying part was when I texted him later to ask if he thought I should use his pound to buy a lotto ticket or else keep it and use it as a card protector when I'm playing poker. He replied saying, "Maybe you should use it to buy one of those energy bars that you had on the back 9, for when you're scamming your next victim... either that or else shove it up your arse".

Mission accomplished.