With 30 mins left in the day, I pick up pocket QQ’s in the cut off position, I move in for my last 8K, I got called by the small blind with pocket JJ’s, flop 9 5 3, turn A, river J, adios amigos. In the last 2 major tournaments I have played in, I got sucked out with less then an hour left in the day, in London, Patrik Antionus rivered a J to get a straight verses my KK, & now in amsterdam my 2 ladys got done by their younger brothers JJ, ive had a bad run of cards in both tournaments, but there is always next year & i will be back with both guns blazing. So i will leave you with one of the most famous quotes from one of the most iconic films of our generation, platoon “sucky sucky 5 Dollar”.

We broke for the dinner break a few minutes ago. We have played 3 & a half levels. I have Noah Boaken sitting on my right & on the other side of the table is Karl Mahrenholz, from the london hit squad, so its a tough table. About a half hour into the event I picked up pocket kings UTG, raise to 450, folded around to the BB & he re-raises to 1K, i call & the flop comes A 9 8, BB bets 2K, I go into the tank for awhile & i had to fold, put him on a big ace pre-flop so I folded, simple as. Other than that, I have been running card dead for the last few hours but im hanging in there, i have 11K in chips. Hopefully after the break, I will get a good rush of cards & start to build myself a nice chip tower, fingers crossed.

I will report later on all the action.

Play gets under way at 3.00pm, the draw will be made at 2.30pm, I will find out who I will be sitting with then. The casino is very busy at the moment, last night there was alot of action in the cash games, with the likes of Theo Jorgensen, Eric Frieberg, William Thorson & others geting in on the action.

I retired back to the hotel residents bar & had a couple of brewksi’s with some very funny american tourists who are here on a mission to sample all the delights Amsterdam has to throw at them. After a few too many last night, I am a tiny bit worse for wear this morning but I am still ready to tear up the felt, I will have reports up later on how the first few levels go & what the action is like in my 1st Master Classics of Poker, adios !!

On the road again, this time I am in Amsterdam, sin city of Europe . I am here to play in the 2007 Master Classics of Poker in the Holland Casino. I am staying in a good hotel, 100 yards from the casino. I took a stroll over there this afternoon & i nearly got knocked down by 3 to 4 cyclists, I’ve never seen so much bicycles in my life. I know China has alot, but over here, there is an estimated 750,000 bicycles in the city, with a population of just over a million, that is alot of pedal power.

Action begins at 3.00pm tomorrow in the beautiful Holland Casino, levels are 90 minutes, playing 8 levels on the 1st day, so it is not a bad structure with plenty of time to manoeuvre. I played in the Padraig Parkinson Simon Community event in the RDS last Saturday, it was an excellent event & everybody had a great time, with a few celebrities turning up & with auctions at the end of each level, where you could bid to get your hands on some sports memorabillia such as a signed Ken Doherty & Steve Davis snooker cue, signed Irish football jersey, & loads more.

It was all for a great cause & there was a good turnout for the tournament. 170 runners, I finished on the bubble in 19th place, arrrrgh. At one stage, I was the chip leader but later on, a couple of fish sucked out on me & that was the end of that. Overall, i played very well & i hope i can continue my good run of form into the master classic of poker 2007.

I will report on all the action tomorrow , so stay tuned.

My table was broke around 9pm & i was moved to another table. On my left on the new table was the very aggressive Patrik Antonius, to my right was ept winner Noah Boaken & Eric Friberg ( 6th place WSOP main event 2006 ) was next to him, plus other notable pro’s at my table, the table of death to be honest. I was running card dead for nearly 2 hours until i picked up pocket 9’s & took down a pot of 4K. But about an hour later, i found myself with KQ hearts in the Big Blind, patrik antonius raised to 1,600 from the small blind & i called. The flop came 9h 10h Qc, patrik bets 2,400 & i move all in for 6,500 with top pair & a flush draw, patrik calls with AKc, so i was ahead going to the 4th street, the turn was a blank & the river was a J giving him the nut straight, arrgh, i know he is one of the top pro’s in europe but what a bad call, he had 4 outs & hit it.  ” That’s Poker for you “.

The ept has to be the toughest poker tour in the world. I played in the world series main event in july & thats like a lottery, the play is much different in USA than it is in europe, it is actually easier in the USA because you get alot of limpers pre-flop & the action is easy-going. The class of play is excellent in the ept & aggression is the key to winning an ept event & getting the right cards of course.

We all headed to the bar after that & in true irish fashion, all the bad beats were forgotten about after a couple of pints. The craic was mighty after that, so myself, andrew dwyer, keith ” 30 red ” elliott, sean jethi ( played like phil ivey today ) headed down to soho to drown our sorrows.

I would like to thank keith & nic from paddypowerpoker for this opportunity & i will be in amsterdam in 4 weeks time to play in the master classic of poker where hopefully i will get the cards unlike today & roll on to success. So its bye for now & may the cards be with you.

Tournament day has finally arrived. 179 players started yesterday with 70 finishing the day. Today will probably have the same turnout. My tournament preparation consists of 1 hour of yoga, a jog around hyde park & a bowl of museli, ahem, i dont think so. Instead, a full english breakfast, a quick swim in the hotel & a read of the daily newspaper.

Play get’s underway at 1pm. I am really looking forward to locking horns with some of the best players in europe if not the world. I watched alot of the action yesterday & i have to say, I fancy my chances of going deep in this tournament, unless i get a bad beat or start playing like a donkey (hehaw hehaw). There are alot of scandinavian players as usual at this event, so that means that there will be alot of action pre-flop, just the way i like it.

For all the players out there who would like a chance at playing in these wonderful tournaments, go to paddypowerpoker.com & start playing the online sat’s they have for these events, it’s the best place to qualify for tournaments all around the world, i should know this more than anyone, as i have won 5 sat’s to tournaments this year so far, from the caribbean to vegas, amsterdam to london. So, get onto paddypowerpoker & start qualifing for as little as $5 upwards.

Im off to the vic casino now, to get my seat number & get ready to do battle. I will have updates & how my play went for the first few levels at the dinner break later.

I arrived into Heathrow at around lunchtime after an enjoyable Aerlingus flight. My bag was the first one out on the baggage carousel for the first time in anthony donohoe’s travel history. Next, I went through airport security which was as tight as Eddie Hobbs trousers pockets (hehe). With my bag in hand, in record breaking time, my next step, was to find my driver which took me over an hour. Terminal 1 in heathrow is enormous, so it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. On my travels around terminal 1, i bumped into Alan Smurfit, proudly displaying his WSOP Bracelot he won in Vegas during the summer. Eventually, i found my driver, who was tucked away in the corner of the terminal, reading a newspaper. ( Excellent meet & greet service by this company, excuse the sarcasm)

I am here with the rest of the paddypower craic commando’s, to try my luck at an estimated prize pool of 2.0 million sterling the biggest prize pool of EPT season 4 so far .
 

I am staying in the Radisson Sussex Hotel in Mayfair ( very snutty), it is nice and close to the Vic Casino where the action kicked off today with Day 1A getting under way at 1pm with 179 players, notable players playing today were Dario Minieri, Barney Boatman, Vicky Coren, Willie Tan, Patrik Antonious & many, many more.   My action starts tomorrow at 1pm, where hopefully the poker gods are smiling down on me. Im off now to check out the action at the Vic Casino, where i can report later on how all the action is going,

Adios Amigos !