DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

Day 2: Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
* I beat Fill Good in a morning €25 Omaha Heads-Up to go €35 up over all.
* After dining in Dublin's most popular and most famous restaurant (The Elephant & Castle), Rounder63, Dr Fill Good and myself were joined by Dave 'Thefloof' Block for some cocktails. Rounder made it an early night while the three lads went to the Colossus Casino to play some €1/€2 cash-game. It was positively the worst standard imaginable yet Fill somehow lost one and a half buy-ins. I made a little over €250 but the big winner was TheFloof who cleaned up, making almost €400. Luckily for Fill and myself, we both owned a third of his action each so Fill might have only lost a smidge overall. The highlight of the evening, however, was watching Fill get verbally bitch-slapped by the dealer after he made a smart-ass comment about the quality of the lighting in the poker-room. "Perhaps you'd prefer the lighting on the street", she quipped. I insta-tipped her €2 for this classic comeback!

Day 3: Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
* A late night the night before meant a sleep-in for myself and Fill. Rounder took the opportunity to hit the online tables and put in a decent session. Fill and I popped out for some lunch when we woke but we joined him for a few SNGs after. By 8pm, we were bored of online poker and headed out for some grub. I picked an expensive classy joint, prompting a Fill Good freak-out as he calculated just how many Wendy's burger's he could have purchased for the cost of the meal.
* After dinner, we hit the cash-tables, this time at the Sporting Emporium (the scene of our 6-handed SNG from 2 nights earlier). No American celebs this time but we were in the company of Vera Duffy, Ireland's most famous lady poker-player. Topsy-turvy nights for Fill and myself as we both enjoyed periods where we were up over a buy-in. In the end, however, Fill was down €50 and I only made €80. The beast at the table was well and truly Rounder63 who made it his mission to piss every single player at the table off as he turned rags into riches, showing boat after flush after straight with hands like 52, 68 and 93. Five hours of poker amounted to very little for Fill and myself (to be fair, neither of us played well) but Rounder left with about €1000 in profit so it was well worth the trip!

Day 4: Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
* Rounder got up early and beasted an online session while Fill and I kept it lazy and caught some Zs. We headed out for some food at 6pm and to get us all in the mood for our upcoming trip to Spain, I thought we'd check out Dublin's #1 tapas bar. The lads looked a bit worried as they understood nothing on the menu but it wasn't long before they got the swing of things, feasting on foie gras, patatas alioli, gambas and mini-steaks, all washed down by a trio of exceedingly fine sherries. Warm Spanish doughnuts with a warm chocolate sauce would finish off the meal just right and we took a stroll through St. Stephen's Green with our Butler's cappucinos and hot chocolates.
* A mini-online session saw Rounder drop $2K in 30 minutes only to scramble his way back to almost even by the end of play. Fill Good feasted a sick $1/$2 PLO hand, scooping $1200 as his turned nuts held against a big wrap. Meanwhile, I won a couple of 9-handers and made a deep run in the $30 Turbo, eventually finishing 2nd for $1500 to another Irishman after we both flopped trips (my J5 to his A5 on a 556 board).
* Buoyed by our success, we headed out to Whelan's - Camden Street's trendy bohemian nightclub - where Fill got shot-down by about 23 women (it might have been more, I lost count!). On the walk home, Fill insisted on making a U-turn and hitting the Colossus again. Rounder was keen to hit the hay, but good host that I am, I obliged and we took our seats at the softest €1/€1/€3 PLO cash-game known to man. Fill played two hands before excusing himself to use the restroom. Two orbits later, he still hadn't not returned but I was €300 richer. Finally, he emerged, looking pale and acting sheepish, having destroyed the restroom with both ends of his body. "Can you give me the keys?", he asked. "I'll come with you", I said, "just give me 'til my next blind". Fill seemed to be in pain and it was clear that the sherry, beer, Guinness and vodka-redbulls had taken their toll on his fragile Canadian athlete's physique. I feasted another €150 pot and then joined my light-weight friend for the short walk home. On arrival, he destroyed my bathroom so badly that I had to hire a professional cleaning crew!

Case Study: The Sporting Emporium, Dublin

Day 1: Monday, July 20th, 2009
I woke up on my couch at the ungodly hour of 6.30am yesterday morning and stumbled down to Leeson Street where I caught the Aircoach (a coach to the airport, not a flying coach). Rounder63 was already there when I arrived, his flight from Washington having touched down an hour ahead of schedule. Dr Fill's Toronto flight had just landed but it was another hour before he joined us in the Arrivals Lounge. We took a taxi back to my place where Rounder63 immediately hit the hay, 40 hours of being awake having taken its toll. Fill and I did some grocery shopping and went to lunch but it wasn't long before the gambling itch made it to the surface of our respective skins.

Wager 1: A €25 game of 25 BBs deep NLHE Heads-Up
Outcome: Fill Good victory
Summary: Massive flip decided it all early on when with the 82 of clubs, I flopped open ended with a flush draw on a 679 board with two clubs. Pretty much all the money went in and Fill showed 67 for bottom 2. I missed my uber-draw and he drew first blood.
Net Total: -€25

Wager 2: Another €25 game of 25 BBs deep NLHE Heads-Up
Outcome: Fill Good victory
Summary: I took an early lead in this one but after half an hour, Fill came back strongly. 3-1 behind in chips, I limped A10, he raised and I shoved. He called with KQ and spiked a Q on the river.
Net Total: -€50

Wager 3: A €25 game of 50 BBs deep PLO Heads-Up
Outcome: Yet another Fill Good victory
Summary: The chiplead flip-flopped twice before I eventually asserted control. With Fill down to just 18 BBs, he got it in bad but live with a draw versus my made hand. Cruelly, he hit the river and doubled up. Twenty minutes later, it was I who was rocking the short-stack and yet again, Fill won the flip to make it 3 in a row.
Net Total: -€75

Wager 4: A €25 game of 30 BBs deep PLO 3-Handed
Outcome: LAPPIN victory
Summary: Rounder63 awoke from his slumber and immediately wanted in on the action. It was about 4 hands before Rounder raised, I called, Fill shoved, Rounder called and I was left with an interesting decision with J963 rainbow. Realising that in all likelihood they both had high cards, my hand looked super-pretty. I made the call and cracked their far superior hands.
Net Total: -€25

Wager 5: 10 €5 Omaha hands where our hands are turned up
Outcome: LAPPIN and Rounder63 victory. Fill Good Loss.
Summary: Fill donated €10 to both LAPPIN and Rounder, proving that he sucks at neutral EV wagers.
Net Total: -€15

At 6pm, we headed out into the world. Dinner in Cafe-Bar-Deli went down well with the lads as did the two glasses of prosecco that accompanied it. From there, we went to the Sporting Emporium for what we hoped would be a multi-table tourney. No such luck as only 6 players showed up. A winner-take-all short-handed SNG it would have to be instead. Well, at least we bumped up the potential prizepool for ourselves with some bounty-action!

Wager 6: A €25 Bounty on Each Other in a €65 SNG in The Sporting Emporium
Outcome: LAPPIN victory
Summary: I KO'd Fill in the following hand: With the blinds 100/200, Fill raises his button to 500. I call from the SB with the 47 of spades and the BB also calls. The flop comes 56J with 2 hearts. I check, the SB bets 500, Fill makes it 1200. I contemplate a fold but when the SB acts out of turn, calling and not raising Fill's bet, I make the call. The turn brings a non-heart 3. I donk-lead for 600, the SB calls and Fill makes it 2500. I call and the SB folds. Fill has 4000 left and I have him covered. The river comes a non-heart 4. I take a minute before firing 1400 into the 11K pot, Fill shoves and I insta-call. Fill immediately announces that he has nothing. I flip up my hand and he shows the K3 of hearts. I laugh hysterically. He takes a nap on a couch until the tourney ends.
Net Total: +€10
 

Scott Cook bowed of this year's WSOP Main Event in 40th place. By his own admission, he allowed 'tilt' to get the better of him over the course of a two hour period on day 7 when his stack plunged from a healthy 4 million to 1.5 million. However, there were numerous mitigating factors for Scott's uncharacteristic bout of tilt; the pressure of the lights and cameras on the feature table, a mouthy opponent in the form of Jeff Schulman, the fact that he hadn't gotten a proper night's sleep in over a week. Scott was put through the ringer both physically and psychologically for 55 hours of poker and there is not many of us who would go that long without making a mistake.

Scott's run was characterised by selective aggression, risk aversion and patience. He did not bulldoze his way through the 6500 man field, relying on lady luck to double up time and time again. Instead, he tip-toed through the minefield of players, dodging marginal situations, trusting is reads and raking in small pot after small pot. Along the way, he encountered and took chips off many of the world's best players. He made thin value bets and induced bluffs from Bertrand Grospelier, Phil Ivey and Joe Hachem.  

Scott's secret was how he controlled the size of pots, understanding brilliantly when to keep it small and when to inflate.  He was measured, thoughtful and deliberate and at no point did he get out of line, chase a draw at the wrong price or make a reckless bluff. His tweeter-style updates on the badbeatspoker.net site allowed his friends to enjoy his experience vicariously but it also serves as a diary of his progress and an insight into his composed mindset. With the exception of the last couple of hours, Scott truly was in the zone and it is for the 53 hours of near perfect play that his run should be remembered.

Scott takes away a cheque $170,000, a prize that I imagine looks better now in the cold light of day than it did immediately after busting. It isn't $8.5 million but it is by far his biggest poker achievement to date. I know he feels like it was an opportunity lost but that is only because he is extraordinarily self-critical. A diligent student of the game, he analyses his own performance with a phenomenal amount of honesty. "I got so close", he'll say. That is true Scott but you also went so far. I hope that in the days to come, he will begin to realise just how great an achievement this was and take a moment out from the inevitable post-mortem and hand-analyses to afford himself a well-deserved pat on the back.

Congratulations Scott. Your story is an inspiration to us all.

Ten Minutes ago, The 2009 WSOP Main Event came back from its Day 6 Dinner Break. 100 players remain and among them is none other than Dublin Bellybuster and BadBeatsPoker.net Forum leader Scott 'Chipless Wonder' Cook. He is guaranteed a minimum of $47K but with $8.5 million for the winner, his sights are set higher. Everyone on the 'November 9' Final Table will earn over a million dollars.

Scott agonised over whether to play this tourney. A poster-boy for bankroll management, he knew it would mean breaking the rules by which he swears. However, buoyed by the recent success of his good friend Dave Walasinski, he decided to take a shot in the big dance.

You can follow his progress on the WSOP site at www.worldseriesofpoker.com or alternatively join in the railing excitement on the badbeatspoker.net site where he twitters via several of his best poker friends.

Ever since I began playing online poker back in September of 2006, I have always dabbled in cash games. Up until February of 2009, the word 'dabbled' could be replaced by 'donated' as I spent 13K hands (admittedly not a huge sample over 30 months) dumping $3K into other people's accounts. The difference between cash-game and tournament poker is simple. In cash game, you are always playing 100 or 200 BBs deep (assuming you always buy-in for the max) and in tournaments, your stack size is always fluctuating relative to the blinds/antes.

Cash game poker strategy is similar to that of early deep-stacked tournament strategy when hands like AA and KK lose value and hands like 33 and 89 suited gain value. Why? Because, when you are playing 100 or 200 BBs deep, it generally takes a 'nut' or close to nut hand to win a big pot or stack an opponent. Remember for a decent opponent to lose an entire buy-in in one hand, they will usually have to have a big hand against your bigger one. Hands like AA have great value when you have 15 BBs late on in a tourney but with 200 BBs, it is a dangerous hand as one pair (even an over-pair) will almost never be good in an action packed hand of raises and re-raises.

My poker-strengths have always been my ability to play 'small-ball' poker, out-manouvering my opponents with little bets and positional raises, stabbing at pots, taking minimum risk for maximum reward. The structure of tournament poker makes this an effective style, a winning formula when survival is of paramount importance. Cash-game poker, on the other hand, is a value game. If an opponent wins your chips, you can instantly rebuy so survival is not an issue.

Transferring my successful tournament poker modus into the cash game arena proved costly. For over two years, I struggled to adapt - to find a winning strategy even at the lower limits. 2009 came along and I made a promise to myself that I would plug my leaks and become a lucrative cash game player. I would dedicate a proportion of my poker hours to the pursuit of cash-game success. I would find a way to beat the game and move up the levels.

To help me stay focussed and analytical, I kept a poker-diary of sorts - a few scribblings from sessions that went well and badly, a few notes on what seemed to work and what didn't. As usual with poker, there was a minefield of variance to take into account. I knew well that my most profitable sessions would not necessarily be my best, nor would my losing ones be my worst. I hoped that by keeping track of my thought-process, I would be honest about my progress.

It's been a weird start to the month. I spent three days losing a K a day. Then, I kicked ass for an evening, winning about 2K. The next morning I dumped a few hundred but got it back and more in the evening. Then came Sunday, 'the day of rest', or, as we in the online poker business like to call it, 'the day of mega-multitabling your ass off'. That's right, while most of the world is enjoying their day off, we don't take more than a five minute break (tyty Full Tilt, by the way) for fourteen hours straight.

Last Sunday, however, was supposed to be different. Last Sunday, I had a cricket match in Portlaoise (just over an hour from Dublin). Dragging myself out of bed after about 2 hours sleep, I crawled down to Leinster (my cricket club) to get my lift. An hour later, we were at the Portlaoise ground. Five minutes after that, we successfully slipped away to the local food emporium, evading the detection of our captain who would undoubtedly have enforced some form of cruel muscular warm-up and sadistic stretching-routine. I had a full breakfast and my friend Rob had a giant garlic-bread pizza - the breakfast of champions! Twenty minutes later, we sheepishly returned to the ground to discover that we were fielding first. Uuuugh - fielding on a full belly!

Two minutes prior to the start, the heavens opened. An hour of sitting around ensued. After we finally got out there, it was only ten minutes before another downpour. Another hour of sitting around followed. This is something you have to get used to as a cricketer in Ireland. We tried one last time to get the game going but it was only twenty minutes before a third shower ended all hope. Everyone bailed into the cars and an hour later (an hour that I slept), we arrived back to Leinster. After a swift pint with the lads, I headed home to my faithful laptop. It turned out that Sunday would be business as usual.

While loading up some SNGs, I noticed that the Full Tilt Series Espana Satellite was starting. Weeeeee for free money! This tourney had been my ATM for the previous few weeks, so obviously, I was compelled to register. Three hours later, I bagged two $69 45-man SNG victories and I was the chip-leader at the final table of the Spanish tourney. Plain sailing would ensure another $3K seat but sadly, rough waters sunk my ship!

With 40K, I could perhaps have folded to the seat but that is neither my style nor a smart satellite strategy. I knew that $50K would put me in the clear and it should be easy to pick up chips against players who would not want to tangle with the big stack. Having gratuitously raised with ATC (any two cards) for the previous hour, I picked up JJ in the cut-off. A player raised from early position so I decided to tread carefully and just call. In this spot, I know an opponent is more worried about me so, in general, he will play honest poker, happy to keep the pot small if he whiffs. The short-stack in the BB squeezed and the EP raiser folded. With 13K in there and only 7K to call, it was an easy decision. He flipped up AQ but flopped a queen to double up. The hand didn't do severe damage and I was still chip-leader. That was, of course, until the very next hand when I picked up KK in the HJ. I raised to 2.3x and the player in the CO shoved. Hating the potential downside of being bad beated by an inferior hand, I clicked the call button with squinted eyes. My opponent flipped A10. The flop came 10-3-6, the turn brought another 6 but of course, of f**king course, the river was another 10. Mother-f**king C**k-sucking Jambox Bastard C**t!

Having enjoyed a massive chip-lead just 2 minutes earlier, I was now 5 of 7. An orbit later I picked up QQ in the SB. The short-stack with just 6K shoved and I made the easy call. He had A3 and insta-flopped an ace. No queen and I was suddenly the short-stack. OMFG! My misery was complete 5 minutes later when I picked up A9 in the BB. The SB raised to 3500 and I shoved my 16K. He called and flipped...ACES! F**k my life! It's a sick thing when you win almost 2K in a session and are on suicide watch. Luckily, I was clean out of razors and I recently had my bath replaced by a shower.

Today, I opted for a MTT-heavy session with just a few SNGs thrown in. Most ended in disappointment but the 15K Guarantee Super Turbo went well. 767 started but within an hour and twenty minutes there were just 30 left. I had blasted my way to a chip-lead and was in jambot mode versus a table of medium stacks. With 10 left, I raised from the button with QQ and the BB shipped it in with 55. I was first with 65K and he was third with 40K. The flop came 855 and all I could do was laugh.

Rocking the short-stack for the next three orbits, I got myself back up to the chip-average by final table time. 4-handed, I woke up with AA in the BB and the button shoved with A7. The chip-lead was mine again and it wasn't long before I disposed of the 3rd place finisher. Heads-up, I had a 3-1 advantage but for the second time in two days, it wasn't to be. With only 5 BBs, he shipped it in with Q3 and I called with A9. The river brought the cursed 3 and he was back to level. I went card-dead for 5 hands and was suddenly a 3-2 chip-dog. The blinds were massive and so was Q9 given the cards that preceded it. I shoved and he called with AJ. The flop gave him 2 pair and I was eliminated in 2nd place. A $4800 score but I couldn't help feeling that I left $2500 behind.  I guess there's no pleasing some people, huh?