Last Saturday night I headed into the popular Fitzwilliam Card Club in Dublin’s fair city for some hardcore live No Limit Holdem action, they run a well-structured €120+€5 tournament at 7pm on Saturdays and since I had come 2nd the one and only other time I played, I thought the game might suit me. The field was made up of 50% familiar faces and 50% random players - give me someone I know anytime over a stranger, much easier to play against! In any case, although with the decent blind levels and big stack there is no pressure to get too involved in big hands early on, I managed to almost double my stack over the first two levels.

Of particular pleasure was a hand where I was holding in late position and called a minimum raise in mid position made by a typical Dublin regular. He was extremely active early in the game when blinds were low, but I knew he would quieten down a few blind levels down the line. The blinds and an early position limper also called so five of us saw a flop. It was folded to the regular and he fired out a 1/2 pot bet. This screamed ‘continuation bet’ to me so I decided to flat call and re-assess on the turn should he fire another bullet. The turn was a , which he checked. At this point I feel I am in control of the hand (he either has nothing or could have a J) but decide to check again to see what the river brings, as he could call a bet knowing he was behind if he has any kind of draw (and the board is very draw heavy). The river was a , giving me a weak two pair but putting three diamonds on the board - if he checks again, given what I know of the player, he was basically giving up on the hand. He duly checked, I threw out a tiny value bet (maybe 1/5th the size of the pot), he announced ‘I’m not paying off your flush!’ and folded, and I couldn’t help but flash him the to needle him. Great move, as he went on tilt and was quite upset with me, losing 1/2 stack over the next level!

There were only three tables of players, but with the great stucture it took about 4 1/2 hours to get to the final table of 9. Five prizes were announced, with only the first 2 worth hanging around for in my opinion. Another one of the regulars suggested we think about doing a deal on the payouts (with 9 remaining of less than 30 runners!), but I shot her down. I came to the final table with an average stack, but after knocking out the 9th, 8th and 7th finishers I was a big chip leader! This is where poker is fun!

Marc Bolton, a fellow Paddy Power employee, was still rockin’ and rollin’ with a playable stack, a French player seemed half decent (despite auto-pushing over bets when he had a flush draw) and the rest of the table were Dublin regulars that didn’t worry me much. When we got down to four players my stack started to dwindle somewhat and my chip lead disappeared, and it took quite a while before the 4th place finisher was knocked out. With the clocks changing at 1am, it was suddenly 3am and since myself, Marc and the French guy all had playable stacks, so we decided to split the prize pool 3-ways (after taking some off the top for the good dealers of the Fitz), each taking home more than the 2nd placed finisher would have received if we had finished it out. It was great fun, in any case, though having an hour less in the sack on Sunday morning was a terrible cross to bear!

Last night I performed the unique juggling act that most of us have perhaps become accustomed to: watching the Champtions League match, playing online poker with my laptop on my knee and trying to eat my supper at the same time! Someday I’m sure the dinner will end up on the laptop or the laptop in the dinner - a post on the hidden dangers of online poker will have to wait until another day I’m afraid!

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