My take on the Irish open

Fatboydim

Up on PPP if anyone wants to take a look.

Lafortezza

It's often said always the bridesmaid and never the bride. I don't look good in a dress but what the heck. I'd wear a green tutu to the Irish Open if it meant a seat. Fortunately I had qualified online and so only had to wear a t-shirt with a Paddy Power Poker Last Longest sticker. It may as well have been a bullseye.

It all started off really well. The long drive down from Mayo with Mrs Dim and the Dim kids in tow was uneventful. This time Dim Junior managed to use the sick bag and not the back of my seat. We got to Dublin in plenty of time to check in to our rented apartment complete with detachable toilet roll holder and squeaky beds. [Why oh why didn't I book Jury's???] So the only action I was going to get over the Easter weekend was in the card room. Which was some relief to Mrs Dim I can tell you. I opted not to play in the €400 rebuy event. Mostly because I didn't want to get involved in a heavy tournament before the Open itself. But Mrs Dim was keen to play a game somewhere, so we headed down to the Fitz and signed up for the €50 scalps. It was a chance for me to get all the suck outs, stupid plays, awful calls, suicidal raises and bad beats out of the way. So I played with Gay Abandon, who I think came from Cork, threw caution to the wind and promptly got knocked out before the sandwiches and fried finger foods had time to curdle in my stomach.

Got back to the apartment but couldn't sleep. A combination of excitement, rowdy drunks in the street below and the couple in the room above us not worrying about squeaky beds. I did wonder whether the poor guy had answered one of those Viagra emails that I seem to have land in my inbox every day. It certainly went on longer than seemed necessary. I was getting a little anxious... So the best thing to do was to head to the toilet with Al Alvarez and read one of the best poker books ever written. At least that's what it says on the cover of The Biggest Game in Town and who am I to argue. It's an evocative account of the 1981 World Series for anyone who hasn't read it. So at last I was able to hit the sack dreaming of going heads up against Doyle instead of twos up with Mrs Dim. No one can say I'm not dedicated to the art.

Up at ten the next morning and decide to walk to Jury's after a quick cup of tea and the usual indigestion remedies. I'm heading off to The Biggest Game in Dublin town. The $1,000,000 guaranteed paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open. It's a nice sunny morning with just a nip in the air. I watch the Luas cross over the Royal Canal at Charlemont Street. I pass tourists photographing each other by the lock... and take a right down Baggot Street... getting to Jury's exactly at 11.30 in time for the Brunch organised by Paddy Power Poker for all the online qualifiers. It was great to put faces to the names of online players such as Ray Wheatley – AKA - The Ace Face; and Amir Ehsan Hosseini – AKA – Gholimoli then of course there were others I knew already... The one and only Ken Powell known to most as KPnuts or on PPP as PanamaKP in reference to his sartorial elegance and Carrigeen – Galway's very own Pat O'Callaghan to name just two and Santiago torres a player I met in Vienna at the Austrian Masters. We were given goody bags and apparel to wear. Unfortunately for me the XXL tops were X*@X! too small. Maybe that had something to do with the Brunch... I had eggs, bacon, chilli and rice mixed together. Well what can you do? It was there... and I have a seafood diet ... I see food I eat.

So I wore my Paddy Power Poker Grand Slam shirt ... which now had the Paddy Power Poker Last Longer sticker attached to it. The last man out receiving a ticket to the WSOP main event. I headed down to registration and picked out my table number. Not only was I going to be on the same table as my online sparring partner Gholimoli... But I was actually sitting right next to him on his left. We laughed... The table was ours... Two aggressive warriors like us would carve the opposition up in no time.

When it came time to sit down Daniel Dodds from the Scottish Grand Slam team, Paul Lecky and Howard Plant a Late Night Poker vet, joined Gholimoli and me at the table as well as my Spanish amigo Santiago Torres. This was going to be a tough table. Daniel Dodds was the first to go... Four others were soon to follow, including Howard Plant who got very unlucky flopping trip nines on a AJ9 board, only to be out drawn on the river by Santiago's AJ when a second ace made him aces full. Gholimoli also got very unlucky, hitting two pair and losing to trips if I remember rightly. Paul Lecky was saved from an early bath only by the size of his stack relative to his opponents when he called an all in with Kings only to find Aces.

My story? - I got involved in a hand with KQ on a queen high flop that cost me a third of my chips early on and never really recovered. It was clear to me that Paul had the AQ but I held the Kc and had four to the flush so felt obliged to carry on. After that I waited and waited until I finally looked down to see AA. I was UTG on a very aggressive table and I was playing tight. I had previously made a good lay down on a K55 flop when I held a KJ and the SB held a five. Surely the best course of action was to limp and wait for a sucker to raise. But I wasn't on a table of suckers in fact by now I was looking around and realised I was the sucker. It got folded around to the blinds and we saw a flop. 459 two spades. Santiago was BB... he bet 1100 his Paddy Power Last Longest sticker glinting in the light. I pushed all in with my remaining chips and hoped he had a draw or a pair. "Do you feel lucky punk?" He called instantly... Too quick. I knew I must be behind. 45 – Two pair – The nickname for his hand being Colt – I had bullets... but he had the gun. A nine an Ace or running pair would save me.... But it didn't happen and I was gone before the dinner break. The sour taste of eggs, bacon and chilli in my mouth.

Gholi and I slopped off to the Sporting Emporium to exact our revenge on the locals playing a €75 double chance tourney. You'll be pleased to know we both cashed.