And The Winner Is . . .

Tonight marked the final Irish Poker Ranking event as well as the night of the Irish Poker Ranking Awards.

Going into this event I was 7th in the rankings meaning there was a decent chance I would be one of the automatic qualifiers for the STT in January. The one potential problem was the fact that the last ranking event was worth double points meaning there were a few people within over-taking distance if they went deep.

Irish Poker Championship / UKIPT Galway

*** Warning - This blog post may irritate due to severe whining at the beginning! ***

I was working the night before the first day of this event, got home about 7.45am & I felt like utter $hit! I'd developed a chest infection earlier in the week, managed to get an antibiotic, but it was finished & it appeared my chest infection had not. For this asthmatic, that meant more discomfort than for the average person, especially at night when breathing proved a lot more difficult than it should have. Rob was obviously playing the event himself so we packed up the car & headed for Galway.

Monaghan Harps GFC Charity Game

Rob & I nearly slept in for this one. For some reason we thought the tournament started at 6, well it didn't, it actually started at 4 & the 1.5-2 hours travelling time meant we nearly missed it. We got woke up by chance due to an unexpected phone call & shortly afterwards Rob happened to have a quick look at boards to see if there was much interest in the tourney. It's a good job he did as it was only then we discovered the 4pm kick off, doh!

As it turned out the game was delayed anyway, but at least we made it there in time :) Most tables were self-deal which to be honest I hate. I hate it for several reasons, firstly I'm ridiculously bad at dealing, slow clumsy etc, secondly it slows the game up dramatically and thirdly it tends to lead to even more time wasting & uncertainty due to everyone not knowing what most of the rulings are. My table was self-deal for several levels early on, apologies to anyone who was at my table for I know I suck as a dealer!

Fitz Poker Festival 2009

During this festival I happened to have only one night off work meaning the only game I could play was the €75+R on Monday night. I hadn't been sleeping great for a few days & there was a large part of me resigned to spending my night off catching up on some sleep. Rob however was determined to head in for this game & somehow managed to drag me into town with him.