Round up, round up

This will be a short post. Well at least I think it will. I never realy plan these things out and just attempt to (as Gary clark puts it) talk freely.

Went to Citywest for Vera's birthday bash. Quite a few runners. Too many infact. The free entry, while it encouraged lots of people, a €50 buy-in would of resulted in a quaility over quantity field.
Most of my citywest action was intially focused on the table games. And was quite the swingy adventure. Down at Blackjack. Sicko dealer. I start with 7,4 to an exposed 7. Double down please. Ping a King, Bingo. Gets to the dealer, Peals a 4, then a 10. push. The first of many runner runner 21s for the dealer.
Change to the hot blonde (dealer) table, instantly back in the black.
Lets try roulette. I spin up, I spin down
Reload. imporve to €100
€100 on black, Keith Rooney trys to talk me out of it explaining how its a losing bet. I had to laugh, how is it a losing bet, if it hits black I win a €100. Red.
Walk away.

Return and repeat. I need karma, Sammy sticks the case 40 on black with me. Black, robusto. Dump the €100, and spread the board, three winning spins dumping €50 each time sees me showing profit for the night when the forth spin misses.

Jump into omaha. Blinds 1/1 Sit in with €300.
Straight draw flush draw. All-in. Hit the straight. Double double.

Then, a sick hand.
I've AKT9 in the BB. UTG+2 raises to 6, 6 see a flop.
Flop AKK
Turn a J, manage to get all in 4 ways. Two stacks of 300+ and 200. Other has my 550 covered. PF raiser has AA, god knows what the others had. Some how I take the side to have only lost 100 or so.

Win a few, then this
I've QQ8x in the BB. Its made 5, 3 players call. I call.
Flop is Q93
I check (the table has be betting alot with draws and such, but little or know raises on the flop (unless made 5 card hands),
its checked around.
Turn an 8
Not good, I check. MP bets 40. SB makes it 120 (he has 300 or so behind)
I fold, not happy.

But dispite these set backs, the AKK the biggest i'd played (bar tourney final tables with more on the line), I managed to leave the table a reasonable winner. Just shy of 800.




Currently focused on quailifying for the Irish Festival. Bought into the weekly final last week and started wekk, made a ridic move rep'ing the flush. Set calls.
This week I said I'd enter via the daily route. I ticket bubble tuesdays sat. I should of tightened more. I take a ticket on thursday. Its kicking off right now.
Here goes.


Update:
I decided to hold back on posting this until the optimum moment. posting it early surely results in angering the poker gods, wishing for luck etc is bad form.
So under the guise of an update, heres the wish me luck part.
its the second break, i'm 13 out of 27 remaining (72 started). Have been dealt good starting hands early. KK twice and AA, but failed to see a flop twice, and the secong i didn't go past the flop. Online tellbox obviously.

Going for Gold

Well, its that time again, another Olympiad has past and Beijing 2008 kicked off in impressive style. The events have kicked off today, with a few green stripes appearing. So, in a quick run down, I'm posting my tips of the games.
Ireland has won medals at 7 the last 8 games. Granted the gold last time was taken away, and Michelle Smith was disgraced (She however did retain her medals). So. I like to hope that we can pick up something this year.

So we have a 54 strong squad in china. Most made the A grade (Ireland's Olympic council decided to only send A grade to be a competing nation), with three exceptions, two swimmers and a runner who each just missed the A times.
Out of the 54, I reckon we have two who might be in a medal position.

Historically, Ireland's best Olympic event is boxing. With 9 out of 20 medals in the ring. So my first medal pick is John Joe Nevin at Bantamweight. 40-1 to pick up any medal. Also, the captain Ken Egan is in at 8-1 to pick up a medal, although this is a poor price due to his easy draw in round one.

Derek Burnett was a hopefull, as he is the only irish team member to have beaten everyone of his oppondents at soome time. A poor first round has seen him slip.

Following on from last year, I think we can save facr with a win in the showjumping under Dennis Lynch.
So thats it, only real hop is with Lynch and Nevin. Fingers crossed.


Poker
I played the Weds €40 freezeout in the jackpot. 59 runners. I took it down for €920 and a ticket to a winterfest sat. Overall I was happy with how I played, got it in behind twice, obviously sucked out. But even with the good old 20/20 hindsight. I wouldn't change how I played.

Next in poker, I'm hoping to quailify for Big Slick's Irish festival in Kerry this october. So, i've spend a week gettingused to laddies software and will shortly try a few sats.

I know that the general poker world loves stories of degeneracy. Sadly, its been a quite week. Are the poker loons start to cop on, have they started to quiten down, or is this the calm before the storm. I like to think it's the latter.