Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Letter from Doke (30th August 2011)

Hi,

Doke here again. Another fairly typical week for me: lots of online grinding during the week, and then some live late in the week. I busted the Unibet Open late on Saturday which left me free to do a Sunday grind, rare enough for me these days. I had one deep run, making the second last table of the Party 200K. There was almost $80k for first so it would have been a good time to run well but instead I lost a huge flip to bust in 17th. I've still been enjoying a fair amount of success in the ten euro rebuys on Irish Eyes: the smaller field sizes and fact you can survive an early bustout suits clearly my game. I started as an online 9 man sit n go specialist, and when I was transitioning to multitable tournaments enjoyed a fair deal of success in the 45 mans on Full Tilt. Live, I cut my teeth playing nightly tournaments with 40-60 runners in the Fitzwilliam Card Club in Dublin.

Speaking of the Fitz, I played their end of month game last Thursday. I was short throughout most of it (watching from a cash table after he busted, I heard my friend Lappin tell someone "Doke spends almost his entire life between a third and half the average") before going on a rush two tables out to move close to the chiplead. I then lost a massive threeway flip on the bubble. Holding AK, I initially outdrew Marc Brody's tens who barely covered me when a king appeared atop the flop. The dealer spread the flop to reveal a ten lurking beneath to more or less kill me. The shortie's AJ pulled ahead when a queen appeared on the turn, and the king of the river did nothing for me but housed up Marc's set of tens. It's always annoying to bubble a tournament but I had no regrets about the manner of my exit as I was more interested in playing for the win and the 11k up top rather than locking up the 400 min cash. My chips went to a good home for once as Marc who was clearly the best player left in my view went on to win.

I also ran into Terry Loughnane, currently top of the Celtic Poker Tour league, in the Fitz. Very nice guy.

My Unibet Open main event was similar in many respects. I hung around well below average for most of it until I was on the right side of a threeway cooler just before the bubble, my kings holding against queens and jacks. Unfortunately, the chipleader (and eventual winner) then got moved to the table. He was hammering us with nobody playing back at him apart from me. Just after the bubble, he raised the button, the small blind reshoved for just over 10 bbs, and I liked my AQ enough in the bb to reshove. It's well ahead of both ranges here and I can't just flat for a third of my stack so the shove is standard in my view. Unfortunately the chip monster on the button had a real hand this time (kings), and an ace which would have saved my day and propelled me into the chiplead never appeared. So all in all a strange mixed feeling of disappointment and pride at another deep run as I was led away to collect my min cash which seemed particularly min given there was over 100 grand for first.

I'd run into Roy the Boy Brindley when I went to dinner in a nearby restaurant with my friend Daragh Davey. Roy was doing the commentary for the live stream and asked me if I'd come on to do some co-commentary if I busted. Since I'd enjoyed a similar gig with Neil Channing at the Irish Open I was only too happy to agree. After my exit the Unibet co-ordinator came scampering over to make sure Ididn't sulk off, so I did some commentary with Roy for a few hours which was good craic.

I am looking forward to EMOP Barcelona on 29th September. Should be a very good turn out. I see on the Irish Eyes Poker lobby there are 125 entrants registered to the event already and there are satellites and qualifiers running right up to at least the 18th September, so many more I expect. Plus Barcelona usually gets a good number of direct buy-ins on the day.
If you want to join me there, as well as sats and qualifiers, Irish Eyes are running VIP-point freerolls starting on the 2nd of September and ending on the 18th September. There is one package to EMOP Barcelona worth €2,000 in each freeroll. Each package consists of tournament buy-in of €1,100, accommodation in a nice hotel for five nights and €350 in travel contribution that is credited to the player's poker account.

Good luck at the tables - unless I'm at the same table :)

Doke
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Click on the links in the menu for details on all Irish Eyes Poker promotions, including:

Iron Man Barcelona Promotion (€18,000)
September Freerolls (€36,000)
Raked Hands Race (€40,000)
Sit n Go Leaderbaord (€30,000)
Upto 45% rake back
Team Irish Eyes Poker promotions.

Keep up to date on my blog
(http://dokearney.blogspot.com/) and on Twitter (daraokearney).

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Letter from Doke (23rd Aug 2011)

Hi
Doke here again. This week, I headed to Cork to play the Macau Classic. I don't recall ever cashing in a tournament in Cork and I didn't break my duck this time either. Highlight on day 1 of the main event was knocking out November Niner Eoghan O'Dea in an interesting hand. It started with Richie Lawlor (one of the best tourney players on the scene at the moment who came within a hair's breath of the remarkable and unprecedented achievement of cashing in 4 UKIPTs on the trot) opening to 750 utg at 150/300. I flatted with ATs two behind, as did Eoghan O'Dea two behind me. The flop came 764 with two of my suit, Richie led for 1050, I called, Eoghan raised to 3800 with 10k behind. Richie tank folded (queens according to his Twitter) and I had to think now too. Folding didn't seem great when you play ATs and hit a two overs and a nut flush draw flop, calling seemed unpalatable too, so I ran through the math quickly to see if shoving was ok. I figured Eoghan's range as 44+ (that is, sets, overpairs and pairs with a straight draw). I have about 42-43% equity against that range so even if he never folds the shove is plus Ev. If he ever does fold it's even better for me. Also, if I widen his range to include worse flush draws like KQs, my equity gets closer to 50%. As it happened, he had a hand I'd never even considered (76o for top two) but even if I include 2 pair hands (I excluded them because Eoghan was playing very tight and didn't think he'd play something like 76o from mid position with less than 50 bigs) I'm basically a 5/4 dog against the range so the shove's ok with the dead money. And there's always Plan B, hit the flush,
which I duly did. Hopefully Eoghan's getting his run bad out of the way before November.

I ran bad on day 2 though, losing a bunch of races to decimate my stack down to 4K (4 big blinds). I did rally back up to 50k but in the end went out about 20 from the money. The side event was one of my shortest journeys ever: I managed to get over 100 big blinds in second hand with aces against AJs, and lost to a flush. That's poker as they say: the job is to get the money in as good as possible, whatever happens happens after that.

My travelling companion Mick Mccloskey cashed in the side event. His continued involvement meant we didn't get back to Dublin in time for me to play the 35K on Irish Eyes or most of the other Sunday majors.

Instead I signed up for later stuff including the €10 rebuy on Eyes which I ended up winning. There's a few of these on every night and I'm enjoying a bit of success in them (I also won again the following night). They're nice fast tournaments (turbos are still my bread and butter online), you can win a decent pot for a €10 outlay, or if you're in a gambling mood you can treat it as a €40 or €50 game and gamble to get a stack early on.

My next live outing is the Fitzwilliam End of Month on Thursday, followed by the Unibet Open in Citywest at the weekend.

Good luck at the tables - unless I'm at the same table :)

Doke

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

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Best regards
Irish Eyes Poker

Monday, August 15, 2011

Letter from Doke 15th Aug

Hi,

Doke here again. Not much to report this week, I didn't play live so I've been just grinding away online. I final tabled my favourite nightly tournament, the €10K guaranteed on Irish Eyes one night. I was so short on the bubble that I basically had to try to fold into the money. Having done so and staged one of my trademark recoveries from one big blind, I was optimistic of going all the way but it wasn't to be. A few people have asked me how I keep staging these recoveries and all I can say is that no matter how low you are you should never give up, and it's important to know your preflop equities. A lot of people just shove the next hand after they're crippled or the next one folded round to them, but that's not the best approach. When you find yourself that short, you have no fold equity, you will get called, so it's important to assess what is the likelihood you'll win when called.

For example, if it's folded to you on the button with 3 big blinds and you find 32, just let it go. You're getting called if you shove and no matter what the random hand you're called by is, you're a 2 to 1 dog at best (and 4 to 1 against any pair other than 22). On the other hand, any picture card is good enough in that spot, as you'll generally be no worse than a 6 to 4 underdog and you might even be ahead.

I've also been trying to sort out my live schedule for the next 6 months. There's so much on both at home and abroad that I can't play everything I want. I've decided to skip the Barcelona EPT because it clashes with the Unibet Open in Dublin. It seems a bit silly traipsing off to Spain for an EPT when there's a 1500 event on my doorstep. I'll also miss London as it clashes with the Barcelona EMOP, although I'll go to London straight from Barcelona which should allow me to play some side events as well as the Country of the Year freeroll (Ireland won EPT Country of the Year and as a result the 13 Irish players who cashed in an EPT last year have been invited to a 10K freeroll on the last day of London).

Speaking of the Barcelona EMOP, I was speaking to my friend Matt who played it last year. He was telling me there is a festival on there at the time called La Merce. La Merce is Barcelona's patron saint and according to Matt the city is rocking, for 5 days every square has music, concerts, dancing, fireworks etc. Mrs. Doke has decided to come with me on this trip: usually these poker trips are not her thing but she's never been to Barcelona and is looking forward to it. Satellites for Barcelona are in full swing at the moment on Irish Eyes and I hope to see a good few of you there.

On Friday I'm heading down to Cork to play the Macau Classic with Mick Mccloskey.

Finally, well done to Fintan Gavin who won the Edinburgh UKIPT. I decided to skip Edinburgh but will be playing the Dublin UKIPT (qualification secured tonight).

Good luck at the tables - unless I'm at the same table :)

Doke
----------
Click on the links in the menu for details on all Irish Eyes Poker promotions, including:

Iron Man Barcelona Promotion (€12,000)
Summer Freerolls (€37,200)
August VIP Matrix Promotion
Sit n Go Leaderbaord (€30,000)
Upto 45% rake back
Team Irish Eyes Poker promotions.

Keep up to date on my blog
(http://dokearney.blogspot.com/) and on Twitter (daraokearney).

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Letter from Doke (9th August 2011)

Doke here again. After the excitement of Clontarf, it was back to the online grind. I had a reasonable week with its fair share of final tables, but nothing to write home about, or at great length here.

On the live front, I had a couple of outings. On Friday, I payed the Bluff monthly game in Swords and had an early bath. The main damage was done when I 4 bet shoved kings from the small blind over a three bet shove from early position. His fives hit a set to leave me crippled, and this time there was no miracle comeback.

The following day I met my friend Lappin for dinner in town. Although not widely known because he rarely played live until recently, Lappin has been one of the top Irish mtt players online for years. He's playing more live these days (and he got off to a pretty good start with a second in his first ever live tournament in Spain for €60K) so we had an interesting chat about the differences he's finding between live and online. He was heading into the Fitzwilliam for their Saturday night game so I tagged along. No joy on the poker front but plenty on the company front. I learned how to play live poker in the Fitz so I'm seen as one of their own, and all the regulars made a point of congratulating me on my run in Clontarf. While I was waiting for my lift home, I sat into the 1/2 cash game for half an hour and managed to recoup my tourney buyin and more. This was the first time I'd played live cash in years: maybe I should do it more often.

I hear a great night was had in Connie's club in Killarney on Friday night last when the Cue Club lads and some of the Irish Eyes Team had a game and went for a few drinks. Side event queen Shella McSweeney was there as was Sandro Taddei who bagged an EMOP Barcelona package last week on Irish Eyes.

For anyone up to join us in Barcelona, the Iron Man EMOP Barcelona freeroll games are running at the moment on Irish Eyes. The next one is on this Saturday at 19.15. 100 vip points to enter with an EMOP Package worth 2,000 euro up for grabs.

And speaking of freerolls, theres a 1,200 euro freeroll every day at 18.15. Registration opens one hour before the game only though so anyone who wants to play needs to get in around 17.15 before the seats are taken.

On Irish Eyes, in addition to my regular nightly schedule, I've started playing a few of the Wild West turbos. No success as yet, but they're certainly great fun. Very unique tournaments.

Good luck at the tables - unless I'm at the same table :)

Doke

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For details on all Irish Eyes Poker promotions in August, including:

Iron Man Barcelona Promotion (€12,000)
Summer Freerolls (€37,200)
August VIP Matrix Promotion
Sit n Go Leaderbaord (€30,000)

See http://www.irisheyespoker.com/en/Poker/Promotions/monthly-promotions.aspx

Keep up to date my blog
(http://dokearney.blogspot.com/) and on Twitter (daraokearney).

Join Team Irish Eyes Poker and EMOP Ireland on Facebook.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Letter from Doke (3rd August 2011)

Hi,

Doke here again. What a weekend! I'd been telling all my friends for ages that the one Irish tournament I wanted to do well in this year was EMOP Dublin at Clontarf Castle. I played day 1B on Friday. I got a pretty tough first table with Jason Tompkins two to my left. I played a lot more cautiously than usual to keep out of trouble and was very happy to get to day 2 with a well above average stack. Day 2 was a bit of a struggle for me. I managed to get through and increase my stack, but it still meant coming back with only 8 big blinds so I needed some run good early on day 3.

It was all going to plan until I shoved nines into fellow team member Michael Muldoon's aces. I thought that might be it as we were close in stack terms but I had just over 2 big blinds left. With eleven players remaining and half my stack in blind next hand, it wasn't looking good for me to make the final table but then I got some much needed run good. It goes without saying that to recover from 45k to 3.6million (my peak three handed) needs more than a bit of luck. Having done so and moved from the short stack three handed to overwhelming chipleader, I really thought it was going to be my day but in the end I fell at the last hurdle.

It was a great weekend overall for Team Irish Eyes. As the tournament got down to the business end, the Team Irish Eyes shirts started to outnumber all others. Four of us made the final table including my great friend and regular travelling companion Mick Mccloskey, Michael Muldoon and JP Whyte. Robert Shaw, Robert Elkin, Chris Pyke, Sandro Taddei, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Kevin Hanley, Tony Harte, and Gerry Kane all cashed in the main event too. There were also some great performances in the side events, notably from Tony Baitson (who was pipped at the post in the PLO event) and my amigo Feargal "MidniteKowby" Nealon (who hacked his way round the golf course to qualify for the freeroll for a Barcelona package which he went on to win). Pride of place though to the side event queen Shella McSweeney who had not one but two third place finishes.

A great deal for the Team players that played in the main event is they all get an invitation to a Freeroll on Irish Eyes Poker on the 14th August for an EMOP Barcelona Package.

A big thank you to Connie, Matt and the rest of the crew for making this a great event. EMOP Ireland is here to stay and will surely go from strength to strength.

After the excitement of a live outing, it's back to the online grind for me. I managed to snag a Barcelona EMOP package in the satellite on Irish Eyes tonight, and I'm looking forward to it already. Hopefully a good contingent of Team Irish Eyes members will qualify and make the trip.

My only live outing in the next week is Friday's monthly game in the Bluff Club in Swords, run by my friends Larry Santo and Peter Barable, and one of my favourite places to play in the Dublin area.

Good luck at the tables - unless I'm at the same table :)

Doke
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For details on all Irish Eyes Poker promotions in August, including:

Iron Man Barcelona Promotion (€12,000)
Summer Freerolls (€37,200)
August VIP Matrix Promotion
Sit n Go Leaderbaord (€30,000)

See http://www.irisheyespoker.com/en/Poker/Promotions/monthly-promotions.aspx

Keep up to date my blog
(http://dokearney.blogspot.com/) and on Twitter (daraokearney).

Join Team Irish Eyes Poker and EMOP Ireland on Facebook.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

EMOP Barcelona Iron Man Freerolls

In August six Iron Man freerolls will be arranged with packages to EMOP Barcelona as prizes.

Irish Eyes Poker will arrange VIP-point freerolls starting on the 2nd of August and ending on the 31st of August.

There is one package to EMOP Barcelona worth €2,000 in each freeroll. Each package consists of tournament buy-in of €1,100, accommodation in a nice hotel for five nights and €350 in travel contribution that is credited to the player's poker account.

The VIP-point buy-in starts at VIP1 on the 2nd of August and then the buy-in increases for each tournament. It starts out being very easy to qualify but it becomes harder and harder very quickly.

Earn as many VIP-points as you can and get up to six tries to win a seat. A maximum of one package each could be won.

The VIP-points are calculated from the 1st of August until the start of each freeroll.

See http://www.irisheyespoker.​com/en/Poker/Promotions/EM​oP-Events.aspx for more details

TEAM IRISH EYES POKER AT EMOP DUBLIN

Congratulations to Team Irish Eyes Poker Captain Dara 'Doke' O'Kearney on his second place at EMOP Dublin. Great play. Well done also to team members Mick McCloskey, Michael Muldoon, JP Whyte, Philip Shaw, Robert Elkin, Chris Pyke, Sandro Taddei, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Kevin Hanley, Tony Harte, Gerry Kane, who all cashed in the main event, and all the Team Irish Eyes Players, and a special mention to team member Shella McSweeney who had two third place finishes in side events. Congrats also to Tony Baitson on his cash, and to Fergal Nealon who won the EMOP Barcelona package.

We were delighted to have such a large team at the event and hope everyone had a great time.

We are also delighted with the entire event and thank EMOP, and Cue Club events with special mention to a long list of people including Connie and Matt of course, but also all the TD's and staff who were brilliant.

Role on EMOP Ireland 2012 and other EMOP events around Europe, wishing continued success to all current and future Team Irish Eyes Players.

For pictures of the event see our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Irish-Eyes-Poker/112290065454803?ref=mf