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.

First time at the Voodoo Card Club, mainly due to their regular tourneys being very small buy-ins. I have to say the staff in the place were more than welcoming & they had a very nice set up. We got there early enough to allow time to grab some food before the tourney started & to our delight discovered a decent pool table in the back of the place. So we managed to grab a few games of pool whilst grabbing soemthing to eat before the tourney kicked off . . . great start to the night imo :)

The Awards were to be presented at the break & I was nominated for 'Most Improved Player 2009'. If I'm being honest I didn't think much about my chances of winning or what would happen if I did win. I was seated beside Dave Kinane for the first few levels of the tourney & he mentioned that he was there to represent JP, incase he won any of the awards. The conversation then turned to how when accepting an award a speech would be appropriate . . . fcuk . . . I could feel the colour draining from my face. I never for one second assumed I would win this award, but now I was faced with the prospect of having to say something if I did. Whilst I can be overboard chatty with people I know, I'm often tongue-tied when it comes to public speaking, particularly when not prepared at all!

So the moment comes & for some reason I can feel myself getting a lil nervous which Dara picks up on & does his best to make me feel as little at ease as possible to wind me up. Dave Curtis steps up to present the award I am nominated for & it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out I've won when he starts reading out my tournament finishes for the year. Needless to say my speech was very short & sweet & slightly retarded. Obviously I was well chuffed to win a poker related award, particularly because it was a public vote. It's very flattering to think that people rate you enough to vote for you, albeit in my opinion whilst I have definitely improved over the last year, I know that I wasn't a complete dunkey last year & possibly may not have been the best improved in the country. However the only way to measure improvement is via results, & thankfully there have been a fair few of those this year :)

As my so-called speech was very jibberish on the night, obviously I owe a huge thank you to Rob, who taught me everything I know about poker pretty much, from how to avoid string bets to squeeze plays, thanks honey. Clearly I have developed my own twist on things since then, but it certainly helps to have concrete foundations & I have no doubt that there is noone better out there to teach me what Rob has. Massive thanks to anyone who voted, I am both humbled & flattered by the result. Thanks also to Dara & Alan who were as congratulatory as ever, as was everyone there that night including Liz, Phil & Lorraine to name but a few. Think there should also be recognition for Iain & the amount of work he has put into the Rankings, the radio shows & their respective websites. I think the radio show has improved dramatically over the last few months & the effort Iain puts into it is very evident, wp Iain.

I was also approached by a couple of people who told me they read this blog, surprised would be the main word to sum up my reaction to that. I guess I always assumed this blog was only read by a select few, so I was quite chuffed to think that people spend the time to read my ramblings, hopefully I don't waffle on too much :)

The rest of the night was very uneventful for me. I went quite deep in the tourney but busted out when my Ax shove from late position met Wally's KK in the BB. No miracle A & I'm gone. I played some cash afterwards & hung on even after that to see the conclusion to the run in for the rankings title. WP to Dara & Wally who kept it close to the end & congrats to Wally on clinching the title.