DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

Dublin Bellybuster and Badbeatspoker.net forumer, Dave Walasinski aka Otbdave spent the last three days grinding his way through a field of almost 2800 players in the WSOP Event #51. Last night, it was lights, camera, action as he took his seat at the final table. He was the short-stack with 700,000 chips but a double-up would put him right in the mix.

Over the course of the next few hours, Dave went into overdrive, raising and re-raising, bashing his way into the top6. An audacious bluff saw him climb higher and by the time it was 3-handed, he was sitting pretty in 2nd spot with 4 million chips. First place was worth over 660K but Dave took a bad beat and bowed out in 3rd for just shy of $275K.

Congratulations to Dave on his incredible achievement!

Congratulations to Dublin Bellybuster's very own Michael Craig who, in the small hours of last night, took 2nd place in Event 44 of the World Series of Poker. The event was won by all-round Stud maestro Jeff Lisandro who bulldozed the Final Table and took home his third bracelet of the Series, not to mention the $180K+ first prize. Michael won $116K.

In his own words, "I played the best poker I could play today. Good cards helped, of course, but I knew the right situations to push marginal cards and the right situations to bet for value. I did a very good job sizing up my opponents and how to play (or not play) against them. Despite the structure making us short-stacked, and having just half the chip average at the beginning of the day, I don’t think I was ever in danger of busting until I was heads-up with Jeff Lisandro."*

Lawyer, author and friend of Full Tilt, Michael can now add another moniker: Razz-Machine.

Ok, so fresh from being schooled by the flesh 'n' blood Dutch masters ("Do I not like orange!"), I returned this week to the cyber-felt. Having put in minimal hours for over a fortnight, I was keen to get back to winning ways asap. Friday night was a feast as I won two $24 and one $69 45-man SNGs. Saturday was a famine as I made numerous final tables but only cashed twice for a pittance. Today, I woke up and pledged to put in a big session. Four hours in and I was down a grand with just one or two games brewing. I decided to be brave and entered a pair of live tourney satellites - the $300 Late Night Poker Satellite and the $200 Full Tilt Series Espana Satellite. I normally wouldn't buy in to tournies this big but both of the fields looked super-soft (I already won one of the Spanish Satellite thingies a few weeks ago in what I can only describe as dismally poor company).

An hour into both tournies and I was dicking around with slightly less than starting chips. A gear change was the order of the day as was a double-up on both tables. The Eurodonks obliged and I was back in business. Two hours in and I was 11 of 16 and 13 of 22 - lots to do but definitely in the mix! I lost a flip in the Late Night Poker Satellite but won one in the Spanish one. 10 of 10 in the former, I re-shoved 910 suited BvB and was unlucky to find him with A10. He had been aggressive for the previous half-hour so I think the play was fine. I flopped a flush draw but missed turn and river to be sent packing.

The crucial hand in the Spanish Satellite came when I smooth called a button raise with the A9 of clubs in the SB. I had 13K and was 2nd in chips. He had 16K and was 1st. The flop came AAQ, I checked and he bet 1500 into a pot of 3500. Feeling at this point that I was either miles ahead or miles behind, I decided to smooth call. The turn came the 9 of diamonds, putting 2 diamonds on board. I donk-lead for 2300 into the 6500 pot, hoping to represent a queen. The Button called. The river came the 4 of diamonds. I lead for 3500 into 11K and he re-shoved. A moment of panic followed as my internet connection vanished before I could snap-call. Luckily it returned in time and with teeth grit, I hit the CALL button. Please no AQ, please no AQ! BOOOOM as he flipped up the A7 of diamonds and the mammoth pot was shipped my way.

From there, I had more than double the player in 2nd place and it was easy to play positional poker, stabbing small pots away from scared oponents. The satellite format has its own set of game theory principles and I love to pressurise the donks. Playing the big-stack aggressively, I coasted to the final table with half the chips in play. It was a brief affair as the short-stacks departed quickly. The 5-handed bubble was also brief as, after two hands, the short-stack shoved with JQ suited UTG, I called with Aces and they held!

HOLLAND: 5
LAPPIN: 0

SPAIN: 0
LAPPIN: 2

Viva Espana, once again!

Case Study: Holland Casino, Amsterdam

I arrived back to the Holland Casino, having indulged myself with a crybaby blog (see my last entry for details of how I dropped a grand on the tables and fed another hundo into a racist roulette machine), to find Michelle mid-decision for the majority of her stack. Having raised to 1000 from the button, an old dude went all-in from the Big Blind, insisting to his table-mates that the 'little girl' couldn't call. It was a further 3800 chips to call and from Michelle's body-language, I put her on a medium ace or small pocket pair. I figured she wasn't putting him on much but I also figured that she wouldn't want to call off a big portion of her stack with a marginal hand.

After a minute of contemplation, she made the call. The old guy grimaced and tabled K9. Michelle flipped up A8. "Great Call Honey", I hollered from the rail, "Now Hold!" Neither of them hit the flop, making Michelle over 75% to win. Boom comes a 9 on the turn and suddenly she is 14-1. No justice on the river and Michelle was left with 1500 chips. She got them in two hands later with A9 but found KK in the small blind. The Kings held and she was eliminated in 28th place.

As we walked back to our hotel, we bemoaned out luck and bitched about the dealers. The Dutch poker fraternity are a chauvinistic bunch, taking every opportunity to belittle female players. Michelle was the only woman in the room and in three short hours, she was talked down to on several occasions. Bizarrely, the worst offender was the female dealer, who twice joined in with the players at the table. Her snide remarks got Michelle so ruffled that, at one point, I thought she was going to summon her Super-Obama-Ninja-Fly-swatting powers and slap the bitch from across the table.

Crossing the Leidseplein, we agreed that we were done with poker for the trip. I also pledged to never again put money into a gambling machine. In the words of George W, "Fool me once, Shame on...Shame on you... Fool me, you can't get fooled again." However, like the book says: "You may be through with the bad beats, but the bad beats aren't through with you." Two days later, I completely miscalculated the time and we missed our flight. We arrived to the airport 40 minutes before take-off but we had a bag and they said it was too late to check it.

We were re-directed to the Aerlingus Help Desk where I booked the flight for the following morning. We went downstairs and booked a hotel for the night. We went to the pharmacy and bought Michelle some cold-medicine. We got coffees in Starbucks. We went out to the bus-stop where we waited for 15 minutes until our complementary shuttle bus arrived. 10 minutes later, we pulled up to the Novotel. Stepping off the bus, Michelle directed my attention to a plane flying overhead. Before looking upwards, I looked at Michelle and sighed - "Seriously?" Her expression was enough. I no longer needed to look up... but I did.

Fuck me, I'm running bad this week...

Tuesday Night: Go to bed with a pain in my side.

Wednesday Morning: The pain moves to my groin.
Wednesday Afternoon: Pass a stone from one vital organ into another.
Wednesday Night: Pain moves to my lower back.

Thursday Morning: Michelle convinces me not to take my painkillers.
Thursday Morning (an hour later): While eating the most disgusting and disgustingly over-priced breakfast at the airport, the pain in my side returns. I thank Michelle for her marvelous wisdom and chew down my tablets.
Thursday Afternoon: Can't find my hotel in Amsterdam. Michelle begins to doubt it exists.
Thursday Night: Lose $500 in less than an hour of live cash game poker in the Holland Casino (two coolers when I ran Ace-8 of hearts into 99 on a 873 board with two hearts and a set with the nut flush draw into a boat on a AK9K board).
Thursday Night: Bank charges me a $22 fee to release another $500 of my own money from my account - the transaction was completed before I realised that I had been royally fisted!
Thursday Night (an hour later): Michelle flops the nuts and I flop a flush draw with an over card. Needless to say I was in no mood to slow-play my draw. Her 'nuts' rightly holds and I am felted yet again.

Friday Evening: I buy into the $200 NLHE Tourney in the Holland Casino and having played good poker for two hours, I donked my chips off to the fucktard who was raising any two cards preflop. I flopped top pair and turned two pair. Obviously he had flopped the nuts! Next hand, he raises from the Cut-Off and with A9 and a stack of only 10 BBs, I shoved. Obviously he had woke up with two queens and flopped a third to send me packing.
Friday Night: I wish Michelle well as she sits pretty with a top10 stack of 60 BBs and make my way to the Roulette machines. I decide to set fire to $100, figuring that if I just put $20 on black, I might get an hour or two of mindless entertainment out of it. I'm wrong as the first five spins all land on red.
Friday Night (10 minutes later) aka NOW: I take Michelle's computer to the bar across the road from the casino to bitch and moan about my woes in a blog.

I haven't gotten round to any scribbling for the last few weeks. Why? Well, you see, we are currently in the midst of some unusual tropospheric phenomena here in Dublin. Every morning for the past 10 or so, I have opened my curtains to find blue stuff where the clouds are supposed to be. Day after day, the Sun has beaten down, with the result that every self-respecting man, woman and child has participated in that well-known Irish game 'Pass the baby oil - I bet I can get skin cancer before you!'

Lying in bed tonight, however, I was compelled to start writing. Poker has been plodding along nicely as I am fast becoming a decent cash-game player but it is not poker I'm going to discuss. This morning I woke up with a bad pain in my right flank. I grit my teeth and went back to bed but a few hours later, the pain had moved to my groin and it was more than I could tolerate. I got up and began writhing around in pain in different positions in different rooms of the apartment. Unsurprisingly, neither my posture nor physical location had any bearing on the intensity of my pain. Twenty minutes of swearing and moaning later, the pain started to subside a little. I rang my doctor's office and told them that the big day had finally arrived... I was about to give birth to my very first kidney stone.

"I can fit you in at 4pm", uttered the voice at the other end of the line. "4pm!", I answered, "I'll be dead by 4pm!" I hung up the phone and told Michelle that, being the hard-man that I am, I was going to tough it out at home. Five minutes later, the pain was back with a vengeance and I was squirming around a taxi on the way to St James Hospital.

On arrival, I was taken in immediately by the nurse and administered with a double dose of morphine and a single dose of difene. I immediately became queasy and lost the feeling in my right arm. On the upside, however, the pain became almost tolerable and it seemed that the worst hour of my life was over. As Michelle lovingly petted my forehead, the doctor asked me how I was feeling. With an earnest stare, I told her that I needed more morphine. She obliged and courtesy of my third 2.5mg hit in fifteen minutes, I dozed off in a opium haze.

Blood tests, urine tests, an MRI and an X-Ray later, I was informed that I had successfully passed the 4mm in diameter boulder from my kidney into its new home in my bladder. From there, it will do one of two things:

1 Dissolve harmlessly and be absorbed back into my body (Relatively painless)
2 Travel out of the bladder into the urethra where it will tunnel its way out of my body through my penis (Excruciatingly painful)

Needless to say, I am 'one time' hollering for the former as the latter sounds like giving birth to a pineapple. The doctor let me leave in the late afternoon with a bag of pills and the promise of a follow-up consultation with a urologist. The pain has moved from my groin to my back but it is only a shadow of what it was this morning.

I've decided not to cancel my trip to Amsterdam tomorrow where I hope to experience a more pleasant type of stonage. Michelle and I have been looking forward to this holiday for months and it would be a shame to miss out. A bastion of culture and sub-culture, Amsterdam shall offer a pleasant dichotomy of attractions - the museums and the coffee-houses, the Vondelpark and the red-light district. The Holland Casino will, no doubt, also see some action so I hope to report on some profitable sessions there in the days to come.