The Galway Races

If you've never been. Go. So many people I know this week are going, and I couldn't be more jealous. If you're not into gambling it doesn't matter. You will still have an unbelievable time. I would recommended going to Galway anyway, but when the festival is on the place just comes to life. You can just go to take in the atmosphere in and around Ayre Square at night. Every club is hopping, everyone is your best friend, there is just a feel-good factor about the town. However, if you are there to gamble, the games in Eglinton casino are usual quite juicy around the festival, full of people who may have had a Guinness or five too many. Then of course there is the Races.

Galway is the only place I have ever gone to horse-racing. This of course means I havn't got much to compare it to. However the reason I don't want to go anywhere else is, I just feel it will be a let down. Of course it can be quite tough to win, the bookies generally like Galway. However the buzz in the crowd, using what's left up of your voice screaming your horse's name as they come up the hill is something you just need to experience. You could be standing beside someone with 10e or 10,000e on a horse in the crowd, but the expression of escalation as the horse edges towards the finish line in first place across the punters face is the exact same. 

The first time I went to Galway was when I was 16, a friend and I booked into the Clarion hotel over-looking the race track. Two King Size beds, a couch in the room, we couldn't believe it. Were we staying within our means? Nope. But we thought we'd do it in style. We got down on the Friday morning, after playing a few 5e sng's on the bus on the way down, what ballers we were. We both had pretty much every penny to our names with us, (bear in mind we were 16 so wasn't millions exactly) and we were coming home broke or rich in our eyes. After getting breakfast into us, we went back to the hotel with the intention of catching the first race at 2pm. I gave Shane 300e belonging to me, and took 300e off him so as we would have money for the weekend regardless of the result. Got into the races, and we had entered our version of heaven. We seen Ruby was riding a fav in the first race, so naturally we lumped on. I mean I had backed him at the start of the week in the bookies at home, and he romped home, obviously would do the business down here aswell right? Not quite, he fell jumping the last fence, the whole crowd let out a gasp, needless to say he was heavily backed. Unfortunately it set the tone for the day, after 6 races I hadn't picked a winner. I'd bearly even encountered a sweat. 

The bulmers we had been drinking thanks to our top notch (Not really, they were terrible, will try find a pic) IDs was starting to go to my head. The last race of the day was a 6 furlong, 7 horse race, novice handicap. Why would anyone back this? It seemed like a good idea, so Shane's 300e was swiftly removed from my wallet and 200 of it placed on the fav at the nearest tote. I mean they were taking betting without my horse so it couldn't lose. Well, it didn't even get close. Dead last. Rigged! We left pretty down, however, Shane told me when we got back the the hotel he'd also backed with my money on the last race.... On the 2nd fav. Also got nowhere near. We couldn't help but laughing and decided to drown our sorrows with the last of our money and headed into town and ended up having one the best weekends I can remember, even though our dreams of heading home rich had been dashed!

Random Video of the kind of banter around the festival!

Just a quick note on the poker front, have decided to end my stake with the TagTeam who were nothing but good to me. However with my decision made now to go back to college, I need to concentrate on working a lot and saving money so won't need to do crazy hours when I get back. I still plan to get sessions in on my own dime from time to time, and will still get regular updates in, just feel I couldn't offer what is needed in a full-time stake. 

Ireland ftw?

It’s funny how things can change so rapidly. This time two weeks ago, I thought it’d be easy to make a new post every few days, now I’ve realised it’s so easy to lack motivation. Also more importantly, I was set on going to live in Spain. Now, it looks increasingly like I’m going to end back in college. I was really excited about the prospect of living in a foreign country, grinding away seeing if I could actually make a living at the game once and for all. However all the possibilities have one at a time fallen apart.

My parents will of course be delighted that I’m going to go back to college and finishing my degree. And the general consensus is, if I don’t go back and finish college I will live to regret it. With the state of the economy in Ireland, I guess it will do no harm for me to have a degree under my belt. There is also the fact that, I think I would have felt rather guilty I think in a year or two also, due to the fact that my parents put me through school and I would have had nothing to show for it. The course is a Computing degree, with some business thrown in. Hopefully I can attain decent results, Full Tilt get’s a positive hearing, and I can hustle my way into a job in their for my 3^rd year work placement. If not I’ll apply to Stars, go live on the lovely Island of the Isle of Man (For some reason I picture a place with no electricity or internet ha). That really would be a change of loyalty. Working for Stars.

Like I mentioned previously, it can be so easy to lack motivation. That has been the case since Sunday when it comes to poker for me. I had a decent week last week, again was profit, however not as large as the week before. Although I have come off the back of a 40+ hour week in work, which happens to be quite rare for me. Also, finally got out of bed early enough to go and submit for my provisional licence. I passed it on the 21/07/2009. You have two years to claim it. I submitted it on the 20/07/2011. Ye that’s how I roll. There is one person who can’t help but motivate you, and I couldn’t write this entry without mentioning him, Eoghan O’Dea. Dublin has a November 9er!! In such good shape to win it also, second in chips when play resumes in four months. Ben Lamb is clearly the one he has to beat in my opinion. Was talking to a few of his friends last night in work, they are renting out a house for 24 people for 2 weeks, 11k. With $750k GTD that it is going to be some session regardless of the result. And from the whole of Ireland I would like to use our 1 time!

One for Eoghan's November playlist?

Profit, golf, sun, nice!

Finished the first week of my new staking deal, was relatively successful. Got off work early on Wednesday night, so decided to load up a few Mtts. New to the 4-max format on stars, but must say I'm loving them. Made a FT but unfortunately came 4th, also made the FT of the $4 quad. Got second place, first time I've ever lost HU in an Mtt, sucked to lose the record, although was pretty tired and reviewed the HH. I was pretty card dead HU. Anyway, it resulted in almost $1400 profit for the week. Which is not a bad start to be honest.

So there I was, starting to think ye, Stars isn't the worst place to ply my trade from now on. Then I go to transfer my backer his profit split. My transfer limits are $215 Daily, $300 weekly, $500 monthly. So I knew that wasn't going to be suffice and had heard it was quite easy to get an increase. Nope. Apparently they've got stricter with new customers. I need to earn 'x' amount of FPPS and make 'x' amount of deposits before it's increased. Just a nuisance. Come back to me Full Tilt :)... There's even a rumor Paddy Power may be purchasing tilt, although could just be clever promotion on their part. They had this picture up on their website, which is fairly suggestive; with the caption July 2011, Pokers changing!!

Other than play poker this week, been chilling out in the sun (yep SUN!!, in Ireland) playing some par 3 golf. At the moment it's tilting the shit out of me. When I was younger I was quite decent at Pitch and Putt, however I now suck. I hate not even been able to be competitive in the games I'm playing. Although I'm seriously determined to get better. Was in the driving range last night, which happened to be closed, so we just hoped one of the walls, collected some balls and hit away for free. After about 20 minutes, I was starting to be able to hit the 7iron quite consistently. Going from 2-3 good shots out of 10, to about 6-7 good shots out of 10. Only problem, the clubs I was using were a mates and quite good. Hope I'll be able to hit just as good with my inbits.jpg clubs :)

Booked time off work for a week in Tenerife just before my 21st and the week of the Dublin UKIPT (Final table is on my 21st) which I plan on shipping!!

Win UKPIT, head Vegas for my 21st birthday = Profit!!

Decisions, Decisions.

How satisfying is it when you make a huge call deep in an mtt? And watch as the pot is shipped your way. Or when you decide to bring an umbrella on your way to work even though the sun is shining, and low and behold it's pouring rain come lunch time. 

One of the reasons I have always been attracted to poker is due to exactly this; decisions. Ever since I decided to relocate with Karl and enter into a new backing deal, this has been stripped from me pretty much. Why? Because I'm playing 180 man sngs on stars. They simple are not poker in my opinion. Karl insists they are the easiest game format to beat, I would have argued Rush On Demands (RODS) are, however you cannot argue your hourly will be higher in 180s. So ye, I sit there clicking buttons for a few hours each day, and hope that at the end of the day, the amount of $ in my account is > the amount at the start. So far it's going decent, up about $260 in 3 sessions. I would play exclusively Mtts, however with working full-time aswell, it is just not viable. I am a professionally poker dealer which I don't think I mentioned prior to this. Have changed my sleeping pattern slightly lately, due to the fact that playing after I get in from work just doesn't work due to the games loading to slow. 

The other kind of decisions which I'm not a great fan of are important life decisions. Like I previously mentioned I was planning on relocating, just one problem. Karl informed me yesterday, he was leaving for Spain..... Today. So ye that's 4 months ahead of schedule. He's going to live with his brother and girlfriend, and I'm not entirely sure on how keen I would be crashing that. We'll see how he says it is anyway. So with that, I got my form in the post yesterday to state whether I'm going to do second year in college this year. If I don't, it means dropping out of the system and paying a bucket load to get back in if I decide to finish. If I do go back, and fail the year, I will be sick. I could think of nothing worse than been in the exact same position this times next year, after missing out on a year of travelling and playing online each day from the money I've saved up over the last few months. 

Then there's the fact I have a girlfriend of two years who clearly doesn't want me to go away, but that is for another post, just need to decide whether to have toast or cereal for a snack before I go to bed?

Post Black Friday.

 Since the day been labelled 'Black Friday' by those of us involved in the poker community, I have lacked the motivation to really play poker to be honest. First there was the panic, I of course like many other europeans thought, yep I need to get my money off Full Tilt as fast as possible. I ended my previous backing deal off the back of my most profitable month online when that shit hit the fan. Then there was the realisation that it seemed like everything was going to be alright for the foreseeable future on this side of the Atlantic. However, before I was playing RODs (Rush on Demands) and the games were just loading so slow. Even 2+2 seemed dead. So I took a short sabbatical away from the game, bar the odd live donkement here and there.

Now, I've decided to play again. So I'm creating this blog to keep myself motivated. I have just entered into a new backing deal. And for the first time I'll be playing on stars, because although like I mentioned above Full Tilt seemed ok, clearly was never the case, as they have lost there license to operate. The client is at a complete stand still. The only positive I can give is, I live in Dublin where the HQ for Pocket Kings is (Run by Full Tilt). I have talked to 4 or 5 people who work there, and there has been no knee jerk reactions, there sitting around doing nothing all day, but importantly they still have there jobs for now. So Full Tilt clearly believes it will get the client running again in my opinion.

Myself and a friend (plays 180s fulltime) are planning on relocating around Novemember to Spain to play full-time and live the life in the sun. I wanted thailand, but he won't commit to it, so whateva. He wants me to learn how to beat the 180s, so starting at the bottom. The 2's here I come. I also am going to use to blog to hopefully post updates about progress in the gym, because that is something I seriously need motivation for. The last thing I will be doing is trying to create the ultimate grinding playlist. So hit me with any suggestions.

I got ambitions.