Poker Blog

I’ve been in Brazil ten days now and I can’t describe how fantastic it is. The national surfing championships are taking place on the beach ten minutes from where I am staying all this week and its about 35 degrees out there. I’ve clocked a lifetime four hours surfing now so I think I might get on a board and show these boys how it’s done.

Our party of twenty has now become five and when the last four leave tonight I will be all on my own - Billy no mates. Well that’s not strictly true – I’m staying in a villa which has staff whom I have got to know. But I am the last man standing out of our group. I can’t speak any of the lingo yet so I’m sure to feel a tad isolated. But when you see sights like the one in the picture I’m about to show you, I really couldn’t give a monkeys!

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Yet another good news story for you!  Paul ‘logie11’ Logue won his seat in the Irish Open 2010 via the IO freeroll tournament on Sunday March 7th, run in partnership with CardPlayer magazine.  He will join hundreds of other players competing for the approximately €2,250,000 prizepool and of course is now eligible for the €100,000 Sole Survivor package…here is his report of how it all happened:

Starting with 2k chips and a decent blind structure was a big bonus for a freeroll. After about an hour or so a player came to our table with over 24k, he was seated directly to my right and he was involved in nearly every hand. At this stage I had around 8k, I managed to double up against him, then a few hands later he min raised my BB, it was folded around to me I called  with 64 o/s, flop came J44, I checked, he moves all-in with A8 and I do a jig round the kitchen floor. From then on I just stayed out of trouble and before I know it I’m at the final table. I started the ft with 240k, got it up to 340k, lost half my stack in one hand and doubled up again the very next one with AA. It wasn’t until we were down to five players that I actually thought I had a chance of wining, so I changed gears and started to push at pots.

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In October 2009 Derek Thorpe triumphed over a table of our top online players in Citywest Hotel to become paddypowerpoker.com’s very first Paddy Power Poker Pro, winning a €60,000 pro package.  He achieved this by maintaining a high level of play throughout summer 2009, playing the online grand final down to eight players and knocking the other seven out when the final table restarted live during the weekend of the Irish Winter Festival.  Here is his first report as our sponsored pro:

It has been just over four months now since I managed to win the first Paddy Power Poker Pro competition. After a rather uneventful first outing under the sponsorship, which ended in an exit early on day two of the Irish Winter Festival, it was time for a brief stint in Australia and as a result there have been no live appearances since.

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Phil ‘flukesfla’ Flavin recently won $110,000 on paddypowerpoker.com by taking down six Fort Knox Jackpot Sit’n’Gos in a row.  This is Part II of his own account of the night he won six in a row and captured $110,000:

Game 4 (01:45 Feb 20th)

In the first hand of the fourth tournament with 8 (Spades) 10 (Spades), under the gun calls and has A (Diamonds) Q (Clubs). I’m on the button and I raise to 60. He calls. The flop comes down J (Spades) 2 (Spades) 7 (Diamonds).  I raise 75 (half the pot) and he calls. The turn is Q (Hearts). I bet 150 and he calls. The river card is 4 (Spades). I bet the pot (585) and he calls. Nice start to the 4th tourney

I eventually finish that player off about 3-4 hands later with 9 9 against Q 9. After that it went very quiet for a long time but I stayed chip leader, robbing blinds whenever I could.

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Time flies so fast! It only seems yesterday that I was hitting the “send” button for last week’s column and now I’m writing another one. I’ve been so busy it’s as if I literally haven’t had time to think in the intervening week.

There’s a reason for that – I’ve spent practically the whole week travelling. Planes trains, buses, tubes, taxis – you name it. After visiting a friend in York last week I made what was supposed to be a two hour trip down to London on Sunday evening. Well it would have been a two hour trip if we hadn’t got stuck right behind a train about 25 miles from our destination which had broken down because of a lack of power. We were too near to switch tracks and reversing wasn’t an option.

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Phil ‘flukesfla’ Flavin recently won $110,000 on paddypowerpoker.com by taking down six Fort Knox Jackpot Sit’n'Gos in a row.  Phil has been one of our top players for years and has already won his seat in the Irish Open 2010, so will take part in the €100,000 Sole Survivor promo (if he feels the need for another six-figure score!).  This is Part I his own account of the night he won six in a row and captured $110,000:

I started playing the six-seater tournaments at about 5 minutes to midnight on Friday 19th, after I had taken a bad beat in the 100k tournament. With about 100 people left in the 100k, I came up against AJ with my AK. AJ hit another J on the River and I was gone.

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Exciting news for anyone who likes free cash (I consider myself among that select group of people, by the way!): we’ve just announced Paddy’s Cashpoint, a new giveaway promotion that promises to pay and pay…there is no limit on how much cash we’re handing out in March!

Basically, you need to visit the Paddy’s Cashpoint homepage and Opt-In by inputting your nickname.  Then we take a look at the ten days during the period (runs until the last day of March) where you accumulated the highest Paddy Points total (so all PPP poker will count, be you a Sit’n'Go, tournament, cash player or all of the above!) and award you cash based on your lowest total during the 10 highest days.

So if you play 15 days during Paddy’s Cashpoint and earn 1,000 points on 5 days, 1,000 points on 5 days and 500 points on the remaining 5 days, we only look at the 1,000 and 500 points days and give you a cash reward based on the 500 points total!  In this case, you would be awarded $25 at the end of the month, as the award is $1 for every 20 points.

Even if you don’t earn enough for a cash reward, there is something to be won; just earn 1 Paddy Point or more during 10 days during the period (you have to Opt-In remember) and you’ll gain entry to a $2,000 Freeroll in April!  Obviously if you earn a cash reward you also will get entry to the freeroll.

For all the details, visit the Paddy’s Cashpoint page and be in control of the cash reward we give you at the end of March!

Alex ‘alextimi’ Pupsa won his seat in the Irish Open 2010 via a special IO freeroll tournament on Monday February 15th, ran in partnership with Poker Europa magazine.  He will now compete for an approximately €2,250,000 prizepool and of course the €100,000 Sole Survivor package…here is his report of his great victory:

The Poker Europa IO Freeroll started just like a regular tournament and my only hope at the start was to improve my game, my stats and in fact was only dreaming of finishing in the first 25 at the end, to win token to an online qualifier. Little did I know I was about to win it all!

I tried to play as tight as possible but I was often tempted to play more hands, as lots of players were sitting out. The first important moment was, when holding KK after a raise preflop, two of the other players went all in, but one of them was shortstacked so I had to risk it. I was up against AA and JJ, but a King on the flop made my life much easier

I was left with a stack of 10K and and amazingly everybody else on the table was sitting out. It was a boring 20 minutes or so, until a live player  finally showed up, just after I managed to double my chips to 20K. At this stage, I said to myself that I have a good chance of getting in the top 100. Almost three hours later I managed to achieve this, but my stack wasn’t too promising and I must say that some lucky hands helped me go through, the most important one I can remember was a 3 on the turn to complete my 33 hand for a set.

When there were just less than 25 left, everybody was acting very different, but in a stranger way than you would expect, probably because we were playing for almost 5 hours and many of us were happy just to get the qualifier tickets! The final table started and although at some moment I was as low as 5th out of 5 players, some top pocket pairs helped me to scrape through.

Suddenly there were 3 players left, with two of us holding 2M chips while the 3rd one, a Russian who was chip leader most of the time during the last part of the tourney, had about 800K. The climax of the three-handed play was a strange 35 hand on BB, where I was raised by the player on 2nd place after a flop of 335. Turn and river were T and 7 and he went all in, so I had no choice but to call. He showed KK and was out, leaving me Heads Up with the Russian.

Having 4 times his stack made it easy for me and I won the Irish Open seat after a nice flush on the river. It was clubs, so just as lucky as Irish clover for me

I’ve never been to Ireland before, so I can’t wait to get there. It’s my first major live tournament and I will try to stay in as much as possible, mainly for the atmosphere and the feeling of such a great event.

Thank you Poker Europa and Paddy Power Poker for this opportunity. Cheers!

I’m going to tell you about a hand I played in a $100 tournament in Las Vegas which didn’t quite work out. I remember it now because I just heard about another hand played recently by a famous player in the European WSOP which ended in glorious failure.  I think there is a lesson to be learned from both of these hands.

First of all, here’s my hand from the summer of 2008. Like I said, it happened in a $100 tournament in Las Vegas, in Binions Horseshoe. It was about 45 minutes in and I hadn’t got any cards at all so I’d just been folding for the most part and had a tight image. I had about 2200 chips from a starting stack of 2500 and the blinds were 50-100

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What do you think of the copy I wrote for our new Irish Open 20-Seat Guaranteed super sat page?  We had to think of something interesting to grab people’s attention, and have a list of reasons why you should qualify for the IO with paddypowerpoker.com rather than other poker rooms (even though the €100,000 Sole Survivor should be reason enough, right?!!!!).  Check out the page HERE

Played a £100 well-structured Holdem MTT in the Vic in London last week while there for work; what a great location for poker!  I was well above average in chips after the first 2 1/2 levels, but was knocked out by the table chip leader just before the break when we both hit a flush on the river, he held AQ clubs and I held KJ clubs.  It was folded to me in the cutoff, I raised to 600 (blinds were 100/200), all folded but the villain in the BB.  The flop came down AJ5 with one club, he checked and I bet 2/3 pot, he flat called.  Very suspicious, I figured I was behind but might take it off him on a later street.  The turn was the 3 of clubs, check check.  The river was the 7 of clubs, so we both hit our flush!  He made a bet of 1300, I raised to 3500, he reraised to 7000 putting me all-in.  I knew I was almost certainly behind here, but called with a sigh hoping to be shown the Q-high flush or a set.  Bah humbug!!!  I’ll be back to the Vic tho