Tells, Tales, and Tricks in Dublin

As enjoyable as the last couple of weekends in Dublin have been, I’m definitely glad to be back home for a while, to give my liver a break. I didn’t have a lot of success in either tournament. I exited pretty early in the International Poker Open and busted a few levels into the second day in the Irish Winter Festival, but I never got above 45k, so I didn’t really get much of a sweat.

I was just above starting stack in the IPO approaching the dinner break when I lost a 50-50 which left me fairly short-stacked. Soon after that I found myself on the big blind with pocket fives, facing a standard raise from late position. I had just enough chips left to make my opponent pass for a re-raise if he didn’t have a genuine hand, although I did consider seeing a flop instead. It was a marginal decision and the main reason I went for the all-in re-raise was because I’d had a bet with Nicky [Power] as to who could get the biggest stack by dinner break, and he’d just told me that he’d doubled up to 25k.

I pushed all-in for around 10k and my opponent thought for a while before calling with A-J suited. He rivered a flush to knock me out and I walked over to pay Nicky for the bet, only to find out he’d been lying about the double up and was short-stacking with about 8k. I know I have to watch out for tricks like that from him on the golf course, but I thought he’d be a bit more honourable when it came to poker bets. I think he’s been spending too much time down in Kerry lately!

The Winter Festival was a bit of a disappointment for me. I played a hand badly near the start, paying someone off by 3k more than I should have done, when I was pretty sure he had me beaten. I didn’t really deserve a break after making that call but luckily I caught one, winning a couple of races to get myself up to an average stack nearing the end of day 1. It was a fairly soft field overall and I kind of felt like I should have kicked on from there, but I just couldn’t keep any kind of momentum going after that. Any time I tried to steal without a hand I got re-raised, and the couple of times I had genuine hands I got no action. I’m hoping it was just a case of unfortunate timing, and not some obvious physical tell that I’ve developed.

Both tournaments were a great success, and it was great to see such a good turnout again at the IPO, especially given the changes in some European countries that made it much more difficult for their players to make it over. Next stop for me will probably be the Amsterdam Master Classics. There’s a good few Irish going over, so it should be a good week!