Poker Blog - ionapaul

Hello again again!

Well, as I mentioned in part I of my Vegas Vacation report, I want to spend a little time writing about the cash game action I experienced and heard about in Sin City.  Since I was there during the WSOP, obviously there were many more poker players and random degenerates in town than usual, so the cash tables were hopping in every poker room I visited.  I played most of my cash games right there in the hotel I was staying in, the lovely Venetian, which as I mentioned in my last post has a MASSIVE poker room with hundreds of tables in total.  I concentrated on $1 / $2 NLH games, buying in for $250 each time, and had reasonable success, coming away with a small profit for the trip.

Cash

The standard of player varied hugely from table to table, you’d have your live grinders who knew what they were doing but were somewhat exploitable, you’d have tourists there to drop a few hundred and enjoy themselves, you’d have ‘old timers’ who were either super loose or super tight, you’d have young internet players who were taking a break from the WSOP or deep stack MTT series to play live cash for a while…basically all types of poker players! Read More

Hello again!

I’m just back from Vegas and thought some of you might be interested in what I got up to in the land of Poker heaven, the real Sin City, lovely Las Vegas!  I had been looking forward to the trip for a long while and it didn’t disappoint, in fact I’m already planning my next trip back in November!

We got a great deal on our flights and accommodation, in fact we had snagged a suite in the Venetian, one of the swankiest places on the Strip.  When checking in I did the ol’ Twenty-Dollar-Trick (slip the check in person a $20 and ask for a ‘complimentary upgrade’) and we were moved closer to the elevators and given a much-nicer strip view suite.  The suite was the business, complete with a really nice living room space and a massive bathroom (with his-and-her sinks, sweet!), though I didn’t really plan to spend much time there to be honest!  We were in Vegas for a few more important things - Poker, Shows, Partying and Sight-Seeing (in no particular order ) Read More

I’m going to be taking a break from full-time work for a while and the summer is definitely the best time for it!  Particularly with the sun shining outside as it has been doing this week :)  Tomorrow is my last day on the poker floor of Paddy Tower, and I’ll definitely be leaving with a heavy heart, remembering all the fun I’ve had with the rest of the team!

However…less work means more time for poker, and I’m planning to get a lot of play in over the next few months.  I’ll make an attempt to join Team Paddy in Las Vegas by playing some of the great WSOP qualifiers on PPP, while also playing as many of the mid-stakes MTTs as I can - watch out for me on your table!  Additionally, I’ll probably keep on contributing to the blog on an occasional basis, firstly from Las Vegas, where I’m going for a pre-WSOP trip in ten days time….I can’t wait!

The Irish Open 2010 TV coverage starts TONIGHT on Sky Sports 2 at 10pm - there are four episodes in total, so something to look forward to over the next month of Tuesdays!

Some of our Paddy Power Poker heroes are playing live this week; both Rob Sherwood (Irish Open 2010 €100k Sole Survivor) and Derek Thorpe (Paddy Power Poker Pro) are taking part in the Coventry leg of the GUKPT - we’re hoping they’ll do Team Paddy proud and achieve a one-two result, or at worst both final table it!

I’ll let you know how they get one…I’ll be playing online this week, I’ve been getting small results in both NLH and PLO tournaments over the past fortnight so feel like a big score is just around the corner for me.

Yep, there is a lot going on up on the Poker floor in Paddy Towers over the next week or so - time to take advantage of all the extra cash flying around!

1) The Mini ECOOP starts tomorrow evening and we’re paying up to ten places after the bubble in each event!  Yep, move over the banks, we’re bailing out our players instead!

2) At midnight on Saturday our latest cash race starts, the €5,000 Run On The Euro - only play at Euro tables will count, but we are paying the top 100 players and the winner snags a tasty $500.  Forget about trying to time the currency exchange rates, become a currency trader by taking down a cash prize in the race!

3) We’re not forgetting about our loyal casino games players either - we’ve got two WSOP packages AND a whole heap of cash prizes to hand out in our Vegas Sweepstake of Poker raffle.  You earn tickets once you meet set wagering targets in our side games, and the top 100 ticket accumulators in each of the two counting periods will go into the main draws which have a WSOP package and 30 cash prizes up for grabs each time!

I went playing live poker with a few of the Poker team in Dublin city center last night - we played a €40 NLH freezeout in the Jackpot Card Club.  Players start with 10,000 chips and the blinds are 20 minute long, and the game was really good fun!  I liked the structure as you have a lot of chips but the blinds ensure you won’t be there till 8am the next morning.  There were 37 runners and we reached the final table at about 12.45am, I was in decent shape with about 50k chips, a little more than the average.

Unfortunately, I went card dead and there was little opportunity for picking up many chips as most players were experienced and agressive - I ended knocked out in 5th spot for €100 when I pushed with 5 big blinds UTG holding AJ suited, I was called by the chip leader with AT off but he caught his ten on the flop and it was all she wrote!

We want you to constantly improve while playing on PPP (and boost your win-rate through the roof!), so we’ve commissioned more FREE Poker Strategy Videos for our players to learn from or bone up on their existing knowledge.  Take a look at one or all and continue on your journey to poker master

Reading Hands in Online Poker

Poker Tournament Tips

Holdem Draw Cards

The Mini ECOOP (with over $500k GTD) and the ECOOP VI (with $4.5m GTD) are coming up and we’ve FOUR REASONS why players shouldn’t look further than Paddy Paddy Power when deciding where to take part in the festival - to start with we’re going to give away 100 tickets to the Mini ECOOP Event # 1, a $10 + $1 NLH freezeout with $25k GTD, and 100 feeder tokens to the Mini ECOOP Event #5!

To grab one of the prizes, simply OPT-IN on the FOUR REASONS webpage and accumulate at least 50 Paddy Points (a very easy task) between May 5th and May 12th, and you’ll be eligible to play in our ECOOP 100 PLUS 100 freeroll on May 13th @ 8pm.  The top 100 players will win tickets worth $11 for the Mini ECOOP Event #1, while players who finish in 101st through 200th spot will win Sit’n'Go feeder tokens worth $1.20 to Mini ECOOP Event #5.

There is also no reason to fear the bubble when you play in the Mini ECOOP and ECOOP VI on PPP - we’re paying players for finishing in places up to 10 off the final paid place; check HERE for all the details!

We’re counting down to the Mini ECOOP - just over a week to go

April is always fun - the Irish Open is over for another year so we get to concentrate on rewarding our online players as much as we can!  With all the promotions now live on paddypowerpoker.com, there is over $40,000 in PPP-exclusive value over the next few weeks!

- Double Up STT promotion (April 9th – May 2nd): $14,000 to be won by Double Up Sit’n’Go players
- European Championship of Online Poker VI (May 14th – June 6th): over $5,000,000 guaranteed in one of poker’s biggest online festivals, with feeders running daily
- WSOP Blast Off: a variety of World Series of Poker qualification routes are available, with feeders starting from less than a dollar
- WSOP Warrior: a MTT super league with 10 WSOP packages up for grabs
- Irish Winter Festival qualification: the Super Satellites are taking place each Sunday evening, with guaranteed seats!
- WSOP For Free: Opt-In today and play your way to a FREE trip to Las Vegas this summer!

Yep, it’s all go - time to get stuck in and plan for May’s promotions!

Our Irish Open Live Stream is up and the ‘GO’ button is ready to be pressed at 3.30pm on Friday, when the cards are the in the air for the biggest poker event in Ireland…take a glance at what you’ll be looking at and let me know what you think!

We’ve an experienced commentary team lined up, with some special guests to listen out for, and working with our team of four bloggers I think we’ll give you the best Irish Open coverage ever - I’ll be overseeing it all myself so it will better be!

If you haven’t got your seat for the Irish Open, no need to panic just yet…the Irish Open Last Chance Saloon starts on Friday night (March 26th) and there are a total of 29 seats GUARANTEED in this annual series of final super satellites!  That includes a big 10 seats guaranteed in the very last online satellite, the €300 + €20 freezeout on Wednesday, March 31st

Feeders are running daily, so you can get in for cheap if you like…and remember, if you qualify for the Irish Open via any of our online super sats, you’ll be eligible to play in the €100,000 Sole Survivor qualifier promo!

For all the details, click HERE…