I'm leaving for Dublin in a few hours. Nothing has been packed. I always do this; browse around reading boring stuff on the internet thinking about how I should pack, and only doing so once the imminent fear of missing my flight sets in.
Since I'll probably write about the tournament (and the trip in general) fairly frequently, I think I'll do it all in one entry, this entry. I'm playing on Thursday, Day 1A. If I am fortunate enough to make it to Day 2, I'll have Friday off to do some site seeing. If I don't make it to Day 2, I'll have the rest of my trip to do some site seeing. One time limited time for site seeing!
I don't really know much about Dublin, but I talked to a friend who said it's small enough that you can get around on foot. Sounds good to me. Ciao!
****
Wednesday March 19thSo I finally made it to Dublin. It was a pretty long day of traveling. After a four hour layover in London, I crashed in my hotel room for a couple of hours. Thankfully, my alarm went off. If it hadn't, I might have slept all the way until 1:00 am which would have totally screwed up my sleep schedule for the tournament.
I met up with (sort of accidentally) the other guy who won a seat in the Bodog Satellite I played. The two of us hit on some Irish girls working a booth for Paddy Power before going to grab some dinner.
It's about 10:30 pm here and I'm pretty damn tired. It worked out perfectly though. I'll be able to get a long night of rest before the 2:00 pm start time for the tournament tomorrow.
The venue here is a mad house. Poker players (coupled with a few tour buses of some Florida high school band) are everywhere you look. I was really impressed with the room where the tournament will be held. For some reason, I pictured the tournament being held throughout a bunch of cramped banquet rooms in an old hotel. In reality, the set-up here bears a resemblance to the Amazon Room where the WSOP is held.
Well, I'm going to stop rambling since I really don't have anything to say. Hopefully tomorrow's entry will be a little more interesting.
****
Thursday March 20thWe're on dinner break. I had a $10.50 piece of chocolate cake for dinner that tasted like a $3 piece of chocolate cake. It's amazing how overpriced food is in Europe.
I have 7,600 chips. We start 150/300 (no ante; the level after is 150/300/25) after break. Things went fairly monotonously with the exception of one hand. During 50/100, two players limped. I made it 550 with QTo from the CO. The button called (much to my angst) and one of the limpers called. The flop came T32 rainbow. Limper checked, I bet 850, button called (much to my angst), and limper called. The turn was another 2. Limper checked, I checked, button bet 2,500. Limper folded, I thought for a few seconds before calling. The river was a blank. Check, check, he shows pocket jacks.
That might seem like a fairly standard hand, but I think I made a pretty significant mistake by calling the turn. I was fortunate that he didn't value bet the river (which he probably should have). He had been playing tight. After the hand was over, the more I thought about it, the more I realized there's virtually nothing I beat on the turn that he's firing 2,500 with. The best I can hope for there is something like 88 or 99, but I don't think he was aggressive enough to make that play.
So that hand knocked me down to 6,000 or so. I won a bunch of small pots here and there in the next few levels to build back up a little to my current stack.
I played at Sorel Mizzi's table, but only for about 5 minutes. The table I'm at now is something of a mixed bag. No one strikes me as particularly good, but there are certainly two or three competent players. I'll need things to go my way in order to make it to Day 2. We're playing four more levels today (the last of which is 300/600/50).
****
Quick update on a break. I've got about 11k as we're set to start 200/400/25. I had an interesting double-up hand. During 150/300 (no ante), I raised to 800 in the CO with KQspades. It folded to the button who shoved all-in for 6,300 total. Background: two orbits before, I raised in the cutoff (probably with air), and the same player shoved all-in. One orbit before, the button raised his bb, he shoved all-in, and the button folded.
I started talking to try to get some information, "ace-king or ace-queen?" Thankfully this guy was more than willing to share. "I told you, I'm sick of my blind being stolen. It's re-raise all-in everytime now.... I don't care what you do." I thought about it for a while and calculated I needed about 40% pot equity to make the call. The range I put him on was something like: any pair, most aces, quite a few broadways, and a little bit of air. I wasn't exactly sure how I fare against that range (they don't let you open up a laptop and use PokerStove at the table), but I had to figure it was at least 40%. I went ahead and made the call and won a race against his pocket tens. It was a good thing, too. I would have been left with about 1,200 chips if I had lost that race.
We have two more levels tonight. Hopefully I can make it to Day 2 to have something to look forward to.
PS: Against the range I put him on, I was about 50%... so I'm happy with the call. We could debate if the range I put him on was too loose... but I think given the information I had, it wasn't.
****
Well, I'm out.
During 200/400/25, I started the hand with 11k. Two players limped. I joined them with KsTd on the button. The blinds completed. Flop was T53, two spades. Blinds check, first limper bets 2k, second limper calls, I shove, folds to second limper, he calls with A8ss. Six of spades on turn. Ship the average-and-a-half stack to the flush draw.
That stings pretty bad anywhere, but it stings a little worse when you flew across the damn ocean for it.
Time to make good on the second reason I came here: Irish pubs.
****
Friday March 21stI hung out with some poker players last night. It was surprisingly fun.
So after I busted, I got in a cab and took the €30 ride into Dublin. The hotel where the tournament is being played is sorta out in the country a little bit. When I got to town, tons of drunk people were out on the streets. For good reason too; all the bars had just closed at midnight since no alcohol is served on Good Friday. After wandering around town, sober, for an hour, still mad from the tournament, I finally got a cab. Another €30 later, I was back at the hotel. Bad beat.
Things turned around for me when I realized that the bar in the hotel was still open. "What time do y'all close?" Wait for it... wait for it... "4 am." !!!!!!!!! Good beat. Time to start drinking.
Beers 1-2:
I talked to Ram Vaswani for a while. What a nice guy. I only approached him because beer had lowered my inhibitions enough to inquire about what happened between he and Phil Ivey in that huge prop bet debacle last year. "No comment," was his response. He was super friendly though, even going out of his way to ask me small talk questions like "is this your first time to Ireland?" and "did you win your seat online?" and "are you still in the tournament?" Top notch guy.
Beers 3
I find myself standing next to someone who I think is Issac "westmenlo" Baron. "Are you Issac Baron?" Clearly drunk, but having a good time, "oh yea man!" I doubled him up in last week's Full Tilt $500, so I asked him how that wound up going for him, as if there was any way he'd remember if he hadn't final tabled.
He told me how he busted out of the tournament. It sounded pretty spewy, so he kept saying, "I'm so bad at poker man... I'm seriously soooo bad." So I was like, "right... right... I'm sure... what were you? Like #1 or #2 in the world last year?"
I asked him if chicks dig westmenlo, he was like, "man, no one even knows who I am." I replied, "surely you've got a nice following of hoes." He said something to the effect of, "man... the only people who follow me around are 18 year old boys." LOL.
"Was last year like six-figurish for you, or more like seven?" Him: "More like seven." (tilt). "What do you drive?" Him: "I've got a Maserati." (more tilt). "Where do you live?" Him: "I just bought a $2M house in Los Gatos." (life punt).
Keep in mind this kid is only 20. TWENTY!!!
Beers 4-5:
I walk by Roland de Wolfe who just finished playing paper-rock-scissors, or "ro-sham-bo" for you purists, with some kid. After they were done, I noticed the kid bent over and picked up €50 off the ground. Stop everything.
"Wanna go €50?!" as I pull one out of my wallet. I barely even had time to get into his soul before his fist was in his palm. First to five wins. I was immediately up 4-0. There was a little crowd gathered around, so I pulled out the needle and told everyone how I was inside his soul. Of course, after saying that, I enjoyed a good little sweat before winning 5-3.
I notice Todd Brunson sort of observing everything while mostly standing alone, so I talk to him for a while about why he and his father flew all the way to Ireland for a $6,750 buy-in. "Well, some place paid for us to come out here." LDO, dumb question, Cory. He, too, was super friendly and talked all about his fall from 50k down to 10k before the day ended.
While we were talking, a few feet away Issac Baron and (I think) de Wolfe were about to flip a coin for €5,000. Well, after he lost, Baron insisted it was for $5,000, but we all agreed that simply saying "five-thousand" to a European while in Europe pretty much implies Euros.
The funny part was how much of a hustler de Wolfe is. He was trying to get Issac to give him odds on the coin flip, LOL!
Beer 6:
de Wolfe and Baron start doing first-to-ten ro-sham-bo for €5,000. They're such huge degens that they couldn't even bother to slow down enough to keep their own score, so there was like a team of Baron's internet groupies (oh... who am I kidding... I was doing it too) collectively keeping score for them. I mean, these guys literally did not slow down between throws. Only when someone reached nine would they pause long enough to appreciate what was going on.
I'm pretty sure de Wolfe got the best of him in this. After only getting to three or four in their first few matches, Baron started talking about how awful he is at gambling and how he's such a failure at everything. Fucking twenty year old with a Maserati. Still on tilt, btw.
Beers 7 and beyond:
A cute Israeli girl looked at me and just said, "Cory Albertson." "Uhh... how do you know me?" Motioning towards her friends, "we're all reporters, I was following you today, we all jokingly referred to you as McEnroe." Reason behing was because I was wearing a headband McEnroe style.
There was actually a really funny entry from the live updates blog this chick was writing: "Next up Mcenroe Cory Albertson raises from late position, only to find Waterford Winter Festival winner Michael Trimby shoving for 6k or so yet again!
"You com after me big bloind, Oi'll set ya in!" warns Michael to the former tennis star.
Cory creates a bit of a
racket as he interrogates Michael further and ultimately
nets enough information to
let him make the call with King Queen. Michael flips over Ten Ten. [The flop was Queen Queen Eight, the turn was a Nine]. I'm semi-rooting for a Jack or a Ten just to see if Cory comes out with, "you cannot be serious!"
LOL, I probably would have said it too!
Now:
I just woke up at 3:00 p.m. here. I have no idea what I'm doing today. I'm not sure I want to do the whole €60 roundtrip into the city again when all of the pubs will be closed.
Tomorrow is a €1,500 two-day event. I'll probably play it since I'm generally getting a bit bored. All for now.
****
Saturday March 22ndNYET! Bad beat.
I took a cab to this mall about five miles away from the hotel. While there, I found this store called Heatons that generally seemed to market itself towards a lower clientele group, but a store needn't have an aura of pretentiousness to get my business. I actually found some pretty cool clothes there that were priced well, by European standards, anyway. But none of this is here or there.
After getting dropped back off at the hotel, I checked my left pocket while walking back to the room... NO CELL PHONE! Sprint back to the drop-off point and hope the cabbie hasn't left with a new fare. One time? Nope! He gone!
Now I have to hope he both connects the dots as to who the phone belongs to and additionally has the heart of an angel to drive it all the way back out here to me. There's €20 in my pocket with his name on it if he does, but I'm not holding my breath.
The real bastard of it was that I've been waiting to get a new phone until the 3G iPhone is released this June. Maybe I'll just score some POS off of eBay to use in the interim. Ideas and suggestions appreciated. Also, phone numbers appreciated too.
It's funny, last time I was in Europe, I went back home without my wallet (because some god damned gypsie picked it from me while I was on a subway in Barcelona). This time I'm probably going back without a cell phone. I'm good at keeping stuff in my pockets like that.
Well enough about that. I registered for the €1,500+€150 which starts in about two and a half hours. Last night, I walked up to a display booth manned by three gorgeous girls like a bug towards a lamp. They were there to raise money for some specific charity that helps out kids who live under communist rule in Belarus, some 100 miles from site of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Since these kids and their families are prevented by their government from fleeing the area, they all live fairly short lives due to the high radiation levels (one of the girls quoted a life expectancy in the neighborhood of 50 years). Anyway, I guess this charity sponsors these kids and brings them to Dublin for three weeks out of the year. That mere three weeks is enough to add three full years to their life expectancy due to the recovery their immune systems are able to achieve. It's incredible all of the awful things that are happening in the world. I mean, here's this horrible tale of these kids forced to live in areas of high radiation and I hadn't even heard of it before yesterday. I gave them €20 and pledged to give them 5% of my net winnings in today's tournament. They all told me in their own little Irish way that they think I'm hot shit. It'd be kinda mega-balla to take down this tournament and flip them a few grand as I walk out of the poker room.
Oh by the way, if you're interested in reading more about that charity, it's the
Chernobyl Children's Project International.
The tournament is two days. I'll most certainly be playing poker tomorrow in one way or another. I had been plagued with guilt about how I wanted to play all the Sunday stuff online, but that I'd feel like a bag of ass sitting in a hotel all day playing poker when I could be out seeing Dublin (which I have seen very little of). Then my cab driver (the same one who drives the car that my phone is riding around in right now) reminded me that tomorrow is Easter. Everything's closed! Sweet! An excuse to play poker all day
and not feel like a bag of ass while doing so. Things are really coming together for me like that!
****
Update on dinner break.
Good news:
I walked by the concierge and he stopped me to tell me that the driver of the taxi I lost my phone in was able to track down where I was staying. Apparently, he texted "Dad Cell" on my phone. I guess my Dad was able to tell him I'm in Dublin for a poker tournament, which is really all the driver needed to hear. Of course, there's good reason he wanted me to call him before he dropped the phone off at the hotel. To squeeze me for a little.
Before I called him, I asked the concierge guys if €20 seemed reasonable, they said it did. However, while I was talking to the driver on the phone, he mentioned that he lived in [Such and Such] County, which I repeated outloud to guage the concierge's reaction. He winced. "How's €40 then?"
Well played, cab driver.
I threw the concierge €10 for taking care of things for me. Oh wallet... my how you hemorrhage in this continent.
Neutral news:
At dinner break, I have 6,900 in chips (we started with 7,000). We're about to play 150/300, followed by 150/300/25. We've only played four levels, and they said we're playing ten (or down to 27, which won't happen) before the night is over. There's something like 250 runners with €130,000 to first.
The first four levels were largely monotonous save for two hands I'll share:
In the first one, a 30-something guy from London wearing a Jacob watch that he said cost $95k (I would have guessed more looking at the thing) completed his small blind to 200, I checked with J9o. The flop was T97, rainbow. He checked, I bet 300, and he raised to 800. He had been making goofy bets like this all day against me, and I had been owning him all day. He had about 3,000 left after he made that raise, so I moved all-in, he called with KTo... well played, sir.
Same level, I start the hand with about 4,800 in chips. Some middle-aged donkey raised to 700. I looked down at Jacks in the small blind. I figured I'm a little too deep to shove here, so I re-raise to 2,200 with (ldo) the plan to shove any flop. He calls the raise (lol), and folds to my shove on the Ace-King-Ten flop (bigger lol). The only other good player at the table (I think he said his online sn is "brainwashed" or something to that effect) and I shared a chuckle.
Still a long way to go, thanks for reading.
****
Well I made it to Day 2 in the €1,500.
Relevant details:
267 started. 81 left. 27 pay. Average is ~21k. I have 18.5k. Blinds will be 500/1,000/75. There are quite a few bad players left, but a couple of really good ones too (timex being one of them, I believe).
Going to bed.
****
Sunday March 23rdUgh.
I didn't last long today. During 500/1,000 (with a stack of 18k), I opened to 2,600 in MP with AQo. It folded to the big blind who shoved for 17k total. Online, I probably snap call that, but this had a different dynamic. He was this middle-aged Irish guy (read: donk) who started blabbering about how he's "smart enough to know better than to make that play against a good player with a decent stack". Blah blah blah. He really ran his mouth a lot, but everything he was saying was trying to get me to fold. Anyway, I thought about it for about 90 seconds. I was getting about 3:2 to make the call. I mean, I have no idea how tight his range is to make that play. It was the second hand of the day. If his range is just TT+, AQs+, and AKo, then I have to fold. But if there's even the slightest chance that his range is big there 'cause he's "defending his country" against some "young punk kid from America", then it's an insta-call. And if we say it's 88+ and AJ+, then it's also a call.
Well, there was sorta some additional value I had to factor in. If I call and lose, I can play all of the Sunday tournaments, whereas if it takes me another couple of hours to washout, I'll miss out on most of the stuff. As soon as that realization hit me, I called and promptly lost to Ace King.
That left me with 1,075 chips, from which I almost mounted a comeback. The next hand, after posting an ante of 50, I made the big raise all-in for an additional 25 chips with J5o (a nitty player might argue for me to pick a better hand... but c'mon, I've got 20 antes, I'm pissed about the last hand, and I just want to go back to my room in time for the Sunday Warm-Up). In total, three players called me. I told the table I wasn't going to watch the board, and turned my back. Someone bet the flop and two players folded. I heard, "can you beat a pair of fours?" as I turned around to see the Queen-Ten-Five flop. Lol sweet, yes I can!
That got me back up to 4,500. A couple hands later I moved in with King-Queen and lost a race to pocket tens. Had I won that, I would have been back to ten big blinds. God knows I've went deep in more than one touranment that I had only ten big blinds in at one point or another. That would have been super sick. Oh well. Time to play online.
****
Holy shit, I actually won a tournament!
Nothing major... in fact I'm not even up that much on the day. But I took down a $20 rebuy on Full Tilt with 220 players for $3.4k. It feels much better from a "took one down" standpoint than it does from a financial standpoint.
I feel compelled to confess that I started ordering beers about 3 hours before I took it down. Up until then, I had washed out of everything. Even after just half a beer, I said to the guy sitting next to me, "I'm like significantly confident that I play better while buzzed." Three hours later, won my first scheduled MTT in two years (which I know is pathetic).
Yea yea... "drunken luck" you're thinking. But I truly think I'm onto something. The last time I've played buzzed was like a year ago when I finished 2nd out of 600-some in a $20 freezeout on Stars. Incidentally, I hadn't bested that finish before now. (Okay, okay... I finished 2nd in the Bodog $100k for $14,000 twice last summer while sober... but w/e... it's Bodog! Doesn't count!)
I might do some trial where I pick up a sixer the afternoon before I'm planning on playing all the online shit. It'll be kinda hilarious (and also quite disturbing) if this turns me into a top online MTTer in the next couple of months. :)
I would end this by saying, "I'm going to go celebrate now", but a.) I'm still down a ton on this trip and b.) I'm already teetering on the edge of drunkeness.
Again, thanks for reading. :)
****
Tuesday March 25thJust to put some finality on this entry, I got into London yesterday and didn't really do anything but relax in the hotel room. My flight to Houston leaves in a couple of hours. This has been a fun entry to author; I hope those of you who kept up with it found it at least a little enjoyable.
I'm hoping the McDonald's in the airport here has sausage and egg biscuits. It sounds so good right now, the 8 sterlings or whatever god foresaken ridiculous price they're probably charging for it sounds like a bargain!
Peace.
