San Remo - Boylepoker Blog

I felt pretty low after Dublin, but by the time I got to San Remo I was actually feeling pretty confident about things again. Unfortunately this confidence turned out to be misplaced and again I lasted a little over 3 hours. I said after my shambolic efforts over the Irish Open weekend, that I didn't mind if I didn't do so well in San Remo, so long as I played well and didn't do anything stupid. After my exit I wasn't really sure how I should feel about the way I played.

I'd heard that the standard of some of the Italian players was pretty poor and that last year people were busting in the first level with top pair, so when I found myself in a limped pot against one of the locals, holding J8 on a JJ5 (2 spades) flop, I got more carried away than I normally would have.

I hadn't been at the table long, but the guy had played a lot of pots and I thought that there was a good chance he had a flush draw or pocket pair rather than a Jack. He did have a pocket pair as it happened... 55. That pot left me with around 4.5k. I lost another 700 with 77 a couple of pots later, when the flop came KQx and then I got my remaining chips in with QQ v AA the very next hand.

I don't feel like I played particularly bad, but at the same time I couldn't say that I played particularly well during the three hours that I played either, so I'm not really feeling any better about poker. I'm not sure if I would have done anything differently in either hand this time last year when I was playing well and full of confidence, so maybe it's just variance and I'm being too hard on myself. Still, I think I've played somewhere in the region of 10 tournaments this year and I have yet to manage a single cash, so I'm feeling under a bit of pressure to get some kind of a result sooner rather than later.

I still had quite a good time apart from the poker though, mainly because there was a good crowd of Irish over. The food in the Hotel was pretty terrible as were the rooms, but it had pretty good facilities and we had a good laugh playing tennis on a couple of the afternoons. None of us are very good at it, but it was actually quite competitive as we're all around the same standard.

It was a pretty bad trip for me overall gambling wise. The poker obviously went badly, I lost a bit on sports betting and I lost a bet playing tennis with my friend Kevin where the forfeit was jumping into the out-door pool, which had no heating and was absolutely freezing. The only bet I won over the week was when we had a drunken bet on the bus on the total amount of hookers that we would drive past on our journey home. The Italian driver must have been a bit confused as to what all the cheering was about every time we passed another street walker.

I'd heard good reports about San Remo before we went, but to be honest I wouldn't be in a rush to go back next year or if I did then I wouldn't hang around after I busted. It probably is a little bit softer than some of the other EPT fields, but I wasn't mad about the town and the cash games are really hard to get into. We left the hotel a day early and spent the last night in Nice - since we had an early flight from Nice airport the next day. Nice was beautiful and I'd like to have had a bit more time there. I'll be making a point of going back for a long weekend before the end of the year.

I was intending to go Monte Carlo this weekend for the 5k Omaha side event at the EPT, but apparently it's been canceled for legal reasons, which is unfortunate as I was quite looking forward to playing a big Omaha tourney again. I've got a bit of a break from live poker for about a month now until I go to Vegas, which might not be a bad thing. I'm going to use the time to play a bit online and try to wrap my head around some of this new tracking software that everyone else seems to be using, and maybe watch a few training videos.

Congratulations to Jesse, Padraig and Matt for a great couple of installments of the Poker Show. I was laughing out loud at some points of it, although I was a bit disappointed that they moved the goal posts somewhat with the phone in competition during the first night.

In case you weren't listening, I correctly guessed 4 out the 5 players that Padraig had selected as his players most likely to win a bracelet this year - and I would have got all 5 only I substituted Andy Black for Julian, because Padraig had been talking up Andy at the start of the show and also because we know Julian won't play many events.

The next best effort was from a caller who correctly guessed two of them, but in the end the $25 prize went to the last caller, who correctly guessed Julian but technically only got one right himself. I don't mean to sound petty, but they can expect a call from my solicitor if the money isn't in my account by the end of the week!