JP Masters 2009

This was my first JP Masters, but I'd only heard good things about this event. The dealing standard as I would expect from a JP event was second to none and the tournament was very enjoyable from the off. I felt like I played some really good poker, had some tricky decisions in the few levels after the dinner break and came through them quite well.

I made it through to day 2, which was a big enough deal to me. This is certainly the biggest tourney on Irish soil I had made day 2 of. I started the day quite well, initially getting a double up then stealing pots when I could. I then had a couple of tricky tables where stealing just wasn't quite as easy. Half way through the day with about 50 left I get moved to what I thought at the time was a 'table of death'. It included Tom Hanlon, Michael Muldoon, John Eames, Big Mick G and Mark McKeever to name but a few.

I had a reasonable stach at this point but was short in comparison to the rest of my table, very short in fact. I lost a couple of pots early on with AK and AQ and decided the only was I would survive on this table was to connect with any flop, stick it in and hope for the best. I reckon I was being bullied post flop, so I needed to accumulate some chips if I were survive this table in particular.

My exit hand was a loosely calling a button raise with suited rags in the BB, flopping a flush draw and check shoving. I guess I don't need to point out the obvious that my flush draw missed and my JP Masters experience was killed off there and then.

Would definitely play it again next year, great tourney, fantastically ran with a superb structure.