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!"

_ I’m all out of whack this week. A back spasm on Saturday night sent me to the hospital on Sunday where I got ultrasound and was told I had probably damaged a facet joint and the muscular spasm was my body’s way of protecting the injured area. Consequently, I haven’t been able to sleep well and have spent most of the last three days in a daze. Standing and walking is more comfortable than lying or sitting so I been strolling around Dublin in daylight, something I haven’t done in months. Painkillers haven’t made much of a difference but tonight, the pain became more of a dull ache so I think I’m on the mend.

I napped this evening between 5 and 8, waking up hungry and grumpy. I have been on a healthier food kick since new year but last night I needed some Crackbird (posh KFC… but not even that posh) to cheer myself up. The guilt of that prompted me to ditch take-away plans tonight and instead buy some soup and guacamole with crudités. Tasty enough and good brain food for a long session at the tables. I played 29 tourneys, cashed in 6, made 4 final tables and took 2 2nds, banking almost $1600 profit. While I certainly haven’t found my best form yet, I have been playing pretty damn well and I certainly can’t complain with how my return to poker has gone so far. I’m up almost $14K in 15 days and last week, to my surprise, I came 5th in a Weekly PokerStars SNG promotion called Battle of the Planets – Uranus (the $60 level). On top of a $275 cash prize, I have been entered into a $50K Triple Shootout at the end of the month.

_ Between September 2007 and March 2011, I made my living as a poker player yet when asked what I did by strangers, I would respond ‘I’m a writer’. Curiously, since March, I have been working as a writer yet when asked the same question, I respond ‘I’m a poker player’. When I try to deconstruct this, I come to only one conclusion. While I have been very successful in poker, I am not proud of my accomplishments nor do I anticipate a good reponse from others. Now, if I had enjoyed similar success as a writer, I would be proud of that but to my own chagrin, I haven’t.

In 2005 and 2006, I wrote a 60,000 word thesis on Hermeneutic Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Literary Theory (which has thus far been read by 3 people). In 2007, I wrote a TV Show called ‘CIRCUS’ which was commissioned by the Irish National Broadcaster. Unfortunately, three episodes into the six, the project was shelved. In 2008, I wrote a feature film called ‘Nothing Left To See’ but made no effort to get it funded or made. 2009 and 2010 were big years for me in poker so I wrote nothing in that time (apart from this blog) and instead concentrated on an altogether different type of story-telling.

Post Black Friday, I caught the writing bug again and quit full time grinding, putting in less than 15 hours a week on average in the last 9 months. My new baby is ‘ROLL’, a 4-part drama series set in Ireland. It follows the adventures of two immature young adults on the periphery of society who inadvertently become embroiled in the money laundering efforts of a criminal gang. In June, I enlisted my good friend Ray Kane to co-write the show and to date, we have created a cracking Series Bible (a scene for scene breakdown of the entire show). The plan is to get started on a pilot soon but as per my new year’s resolution, I will be putting in more hours at the tables to keep the wolf from the door. If the show gets picked up either here or in the UK, I will be giving it my 100% but until then, it will be a balance of 100 hours of poker with 80 hours of writing each month.

2012 has started brightly with a handful of solid results. Last Wednesday, I won a live satellite to the WPT Main Event (€2500). On Sunday, I took 3rd in the WPT side event (€4250). Then, on Monday, I won two online tournaments on the same night (one on PokerStars and the other on Irish Eyes) for a combined total of almost $3500. I have also had three other modestly profitable sessions on the cyberfelt.

Next week will be more of a writing week as I get started on the script for Episode 1 of ‘ROLL’. Next week, if you ask me, ‘I’m a poker player’.

Ok, so yes there has been a bit of a break since my last post. But you see, I was meant to be moving on to bigger things. Full Tilt Poker commissioned me to write an article for them last month and the very day it was due to go up, BANG, the site is brandishing FBI stickers, having been indicted that very day by the Department of Justice.

It was a nice little piece on the 'Cultural Differences Between Poker in Europe and North America', 800 words of pithy observations and jingoistic abuse that will now be reconciled to my desk drawer to join my TV Series scripts, feature film script and countless other unloved, discarded shreds of dead rainforest that have yet to make the light of day.

Fingers crossed, Full Tilt will find a use for me in the coming months. As my friend Michael Craig pointed out, my value to them should, in theory, have gone up now that the US is no longer a viable market. If they do, I will at least be able to add one more 'difference' to my list.

Fueled by several mojitos, issues of faith, art and the interconnectedness of things were discussed at length (my friends would say 'ad nauseum') over the course of the hours that followed the gig. Were we duped into thinking we were special? Was our night a grandiose fabrication? Did it really matter if what we experienced was a pre-arranged shtick? Inevitably, our answers could be boiled down to our philosophical differences.

As a devout atheist, existentialist, humanist and sceptic, I always want to see behind the curtain. The contempt that accompanied Thomas' incredulity was misplaced. He should have been exalted for doubting, not ridiculed. There is nothing wrong with wanting proof and if none exists, there is nothing wrong with leaving an abyss. There is supposed to be cleavage between the phenomenal and the noumenal. An abyss should not be a canvas for pretty pictures.

I want to find the abyss and stare into it. Not in a morose way, mind you, but in an utterly positive, optimistic way. Sure, I might discover something that shatters a lovely illusion that I was enjoying. I might see that things don't happen for a reason. I might be reminded that I'm going to die. But these revelations or recollections are not -EV. They are just me acknowledging what is real. And by doing so, I can move forward and live a more authentic life.

It's like when a poker buddy reads your hand history and tells you that you should be raising your draws in a specific spot and not calling with them. You tell him that he's wrong, that playing the hand that way has lead to positive results. But then, you run the maths or simulation and it turns out that he is right, that while his way has higher variance, it will lead to more longterm profit. Not only that but his way will prevent you from conceding equity against the better players who will not pay you off when you hit, thus spoiling the implied odds aspect of your line.

You are faced with a simple choice. If you want to improve and make more money, you must plug the leak. If you're content to remain at your current level, make less but endure lower swings, then you can ignore it. This is actually a very common conundrum I encounter when coaching students. Unconsciously, most players like to remain within their comfort zone, the level they know they can beat. It's understandable when you consider how much money and time they had to invest to become profitable at that level. Therefore, it can be a battle to convince them to make adjustments to their games, adjustments that will necessarily mean more variance and thus more frustration. From their perspective, you are espousing a masochistic route and they defend their status quo with comments like "that might work for you but my line more suits my style and image".

Painful and bloodier as this masochistic route might be, it is also the road to self-betterment in the context of the game and from the perspective of one who has made the adjustment, it seems like you were being foolish and closed-minded before. Sure, the swings might be bigger but your long-term expectation has increased. Your horizon has been broadened and your former outlook now appears narrow and ignorant. 

I think 'Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros' are a tremendous band. I think they put on a great show. Were some of the more 'spontaneous' aspects of the night actually pre-orchestrated components of the 'Edward Sharpe' experience. I think so. Does that make them cynical. No more so than any other artists who balance the dual priorities of artistic credibility and commerciality. What about the fact that part of their charm comes from the organic appearance of their composition and behaviour. Well, that just shows that their play their parts extremely well. Does knowing that ruin my experience of them from now on? I don't think so. They are performers and, as such, they are in the business of magic. Do I believe in magic? No. But will I suspend that disbelief when next I attend one of their shows? Absolutely.

Under the dimly-lit archway, Jade played us a song while people sporadically stepped over her, people who had tickets in their hands for her gig. We thanked her and began to make our way into the venue when we realised something rather obvious. If she is sitting here, there's no way she's on stage in there. We politely asked whether she would mind us staying a little longer and she rewarded our interest with a rendition of a song not yet released. It was surreal, a truly memorable few moments shared with an artist of enormous caliber and modesty, a moment that was so authentic... or so it appeared.

The street performance that followed the gig was pretty cool. Alex Ebert wrangled the masses into a 'round the camp-fire' sort of formation. He sang 'Om Nashi Me' and 'Brother' and welcomed a sing-along for every verse. Another magical moment... or so it appeared.

Immediately after the set, people scrambled around, asking for autographs and instigating chats with various members of the band. It was pretty cool of them to be so generous with their time but it was at this moment that the sceptic in me reared its ugly head as I became particularly aware of the camera-crew who were capturing every moment. Come to think of it, Alex's reason for not playing an encore inside the venue seemed a little flimsy. And what's this? As we make our way out of the tunnels, who is sitting in the archway, playing the same song from earlier? Jade. This time for cameras. Replacing us were 5 women, sitting on the steps beside her, steps which were papered, something I noticed but of which I took no notice earlier. Our moment, it now seemed clear, was a rehearsal.

For me, our special memory had been robbed of its authenticity, an opinion that divided Michelle, Toni and Ray. Michelle couldn't have disagreed with me more while the others conceded something small was lost but that I was entirely overstating the stagedness of it all. The problem was I couldn't help it. I saw what I saw and I was responding to what I saw. Something in me necessarily felt betrayed. I felt like a pawn, like my 'magic' moment was merely a component of an artist's greater poetic conceit, the artifice of which was cruelly exposed to me.

Is this a pot which I see before me,
The chips move toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, profitable session, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A feast of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the tilt-oppressed brain?

                                        - LAPPIN (after Shakespeare)

A hand holding. A winning session. An upswing. None of these things seem real to the paranoid 'tilt-oppressed' brain. After a $23,000 downswing, I am finally on the uptick but it just doesn't seem real. The last fortnight has seen me take my longest ever break away from the tables and I can honestly say that I haven't missed poker one little bit. I finished with some positive sessions two weeks ago and I have just put in two positive sessions in a row. This should make me happy but in all honesty I am numb. The break has given me perspective. It has made different things seem important. At the risk of sounding like Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Lacan or Slavoj Zizek, I have rediscovered 'The Real'.

The primary reason for this sabatical was that Michelle crossed the pond for some fun days in Dublin mixed in with some truly magical nights in London. Staying at Chez-Antonia and joined by the always hilarious (though definitely dark-hearted) Ray, we indulged in two consecutive nights of our new favourite band 'Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros'. Concealed in the Underworld of the Old Vic Tunnels, we were treated to art installations, experimental music, existential cinema, a burlesque show, a puppet show and of course Alex Ebert, Jade Castrinos and their talented posse who played an amazing set and then defied expectations with an impromptu encore sing-along on the streets outside the venue.

The second concert was directly preceded by a very special moment for all of us. Making our way through the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Waterloo Station, we caught a glimpse of an unkempt, impoverished-looking busker, tunefully strumming her guitar in one of the narrow passageways. Walking passed her, we all simultaneously checked our step and looked at one another. Breaking the silence, I spoke up: "Was that...?" Ray finished my sentence: "Jade". We quickly retraced our most recent steps and sure enough there in the darkened tunnel sat Jade Castrinos, her face half covered by a red tea-cosy hat, her hands blackened by what we would later find out was an afternoon of finger-painting. "Hey!", came the cutest of voices from out of the darkness. "Hey", we replied and we sheepishly made our introductions. Her beaming smile oozed friendliness and as we sat down beside her in the dirt, she asked if she could play us a song.

I played well last night. After a great conversation with Nick 'Rounder63' Carrillo, during which we discussed downswings, psychology, game selection and strategy, I hit the tables rejuvenated, sharp and optimistic. "Play the $69 45mans again", he said, "They have softened back up" and while it is a little early to confirm whether that is true, the 'old LAPPIN/Rounder63 goldmine' (Nick's words) was kind to me over a small sample as I took 2 3rds, 2 2nds and a 1st during an eleven game set. I was tighter in the early stages, I picked my spots well with a short stack, I made some good disciplined folds and late on, I ramped up the aggression with some high-wire 3-bets and squeeze-plays.

I also brewed in some MTTs, finishing 27th out of 2300 in the $15K Rush Super Turbo (my 5th top 2% of the field finish in that tourney this past fortnight) and 8th in the $28K Guarantee. In the latter, I was incredibly unlucky late on, when, at the final table, I had the following pair of hands conspire against me in quick succession.

Both were all-in pre-flop and both would have put me top three in chips and given me a great at 11K for 1st place. $800 seemed like a kick in the ass having grinded and grafted my way through a 2200 player field but all in all, $2800 for the night is a significant step in the right direction.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Fine Gael politicians get the bumps while Ireland dangles over the precipice of bankruptcy.

Enda Kenny can celebrate. Just like Tom Hooper and the makers of 'The King's Speech' will be celebrating tonight. But much like King George VI, Enda Kenny has come to power in the middle of a crisis. He has inherited a steaming turd. He has the support of the people now but that won't last long, especially when, unlike George, he lets the Germans get the better of him.

I watched the General Election leader's debate last night and drew the following worrying conclusions.

1. The person who will be Taioseach is a Palinesque public relations fiasco waiting to happen and his party is all slogans and no substance.
2. The person who clearly had the most to gain and lose was a toned-down, insipid reflection of himself.
3. The person who impressed me most is the leader of a party I abhor and served for 14 years in the governments that helped to bring about Ireland's economic collapse.
4. The public are incapable of judging a debate.

Enda Kenny was the tight passive amateur - he tried to convey a strong image by staying silent, not playing too many hands, sticking to script and simplifying the game by raising only his premium holdings but, in actuality, he had no idea how to play and limped weakly into hands only to get himself lost in the minefield of post-flop play.

Eamon Gilmore was the tight aggressive semi-pro - he understands the game pretty well and at lower stakes, he maintains a strong image, sees his opponents weaknesses and times his aggression well. However, he found himself in a big boy's game and, under pressure, he tightened up, allowing himself to be exploited by the laggy maniac while at the same time not exploiting the weak player on his right.

Micheal Martin was the fearless, tenacious loose aggressive pro who adopted the tactic of short-stack attack. He knows he has played poorly of late but he has experience on his side and a much greater grasp of the fundamentals. Responding to a recent downswing and feeling like he has nothing to lose, he came out all guns blazing, raising and re-raising his opponents into a state of paralysis, exposing their fundamental impotence when asked tough questions and put under real pressure.

The average Joe is results-oriented and thus, misinterprets and misapprehends what they are watching. They think the amateur knows what he is doing because they mistake his silence for composure, his suit for substance, his chiplead for skill. And much like Chris Moneymaker, Enda Kenny is going to donk his way to victory. The amateur is going to win this one but not because he is good but because he is lucky and those around him either don't have enough chips or are very bad.

And like Chris Moneymaker, it won't be long before he gives back his winnings and is exposed for the donkey that he really is.