DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

_Influenced by my friend and fellow poker pro Dara O’Kearney, I recently bought PokerTracker for the first time. After some teething issues with the software, I got it up and running and must admit it is a huge aid. It has provoked me to make plays in spots that I previously would have ignored. Some of these plays have back-fired spectacularly but most of them have shown a tidy profit. I pretty much ignore the HUD through the 15-20 tabling portion of my session (generally the first 3 hours) but then as I grind down to my last 10 or so, I have the time to incorporate the basic statistical info displayed. Once my session is down to its remaining 5-6 games (generally the ITM games), I have time to use PokerTracker’s more detailed analysis of my opponents and this is where the real edge is to be found. Tutored on how best to interpret the data by Dara, I have learned how to better exploit the villain’s tendancies, take advantage of his leaks and be better aware of my own image from his POV.

Dara or ‘Doke’ as the Irish poker community know him (but I refuse to call him) is, in my opinion, the real deal. A double threat both live and online, at 46 years old, he might just be the oldest ‘internet kid’. His style resembles that of a hooded, Scandinavian, ‘Beats by Dr Dre’ wearing 21 year old but for two years, his opponents on the live poker circuit mistakenly categorised him as a rock, giving so much more credibility to his maniacal plays than they deserved. He is a Nash Equilibrium expert, playing a flawless short-stack game. He understands game flow and with what I believe is an eidetic memory (essentially a human HUD), he also has this eerie ability to remember all the past hands he has played with his opponents. Most of all, though, Dara is a student of the game, always looking to improve, always analytical and always open-minded to new ideas. He is both humble and sensible and he knows that the most important attributes of a pro are good game selection, disciplined bankroll management and exemplary personal management. It is unsurprising that he counts poker genius and author Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospelier amongst his poker buddies.

If Dara has any weakness, it is that he is what my grandmother would have called ‘a soft touch’. Off the felt, his non-confrontational approach to life means he entertains far more dribbler bullshit from the dregs of Irish poker life than he should. Whether it is putting his hand in his pocket to ‘loan’ some spastic 50 quid for a buy-in or giving some gobshite the time of day to listen to his bad-beat story. He’ll defend this, telling me it’s all part of the ‘Doke’ brand and I’ll abuse him for speaking in the third person. He will point out that ‘Doke’ is his poker alias and not the same person as Dara and I’ll point out that he’s not David Bowie. 

Dara and I have swapped 10% in every live event we have both played in the past year. He has also bought pieces of me in live events that were outside my bankroll rules. Thus far, he is slightly up on that arrangement but I’m fairly sure I have the best of that deal (see… ‘soft touch’). He has also done me the good deed of agreeing to take a % my action in any online buy-ins over $60 until I get my mojo back after a big break away from full-time grinding. Thus far, this month, I have semi-feasted but not in bigger buy-in games so, until tonight, Dara was down a few hundo on our deal. I managed to reverse that tonight with a deep run in the Sunday Million on PokerStars. 67th place in a field of over 7000 was good for over $2K and his cut more than compensated him for the losses incurred to date. I wish it had been the $200K top prize but it was still a good result and I ran well to get that deep. I normally don’t like to sell action online but I am really happy to lower my exposure in the first few weeks of the year so my plan is to keep this deal in place for at least another month.

Formerly the resident pro for Bruce, media-savvy Dara is now the Team Captain of the ‘Irish Eyes’ skin on the Entraction Network. Thanks to his contacts, we recently commentated together during the JP Masters Final Table, an experience that was loads of fun and something I would like to do more often. Dara has the most widely read blog of any Irish poker professional, a publication which, despite my cease and desist letters, has mentioned me relentlessly for the past 6 months. Then, two weeks ago, I start my blog up again and Dara’s only comments are ‘Why haven’t you mentioned me in it yet? Don’t you know I judge people’s poker blogs by how often I’m mentioned in them’. Well here you go David Bowie – an entire blog dedicated to just you. I assume you will link it to your Facebook, your Twitter and your Irish Eyes Blog and literally within minutes, it become the most widely read entry in my blog’s history.

To use my catchphrase as you recently termed it… “I hate you!"