Ladies and Gentleman, I am back after a complete cluster-fuck of the last month. I have not posted a blog since just after I found out an acquaintance of nearly everyone in poker; Justin Shronk had passed away unexpectedly. This was kind of a huge kick up the ass for me and I’m sure a lot of other people in poker. Since then I have been working on getting my life in check and getting some perspective while trying to do what I love instead of just wasting away doing something I hate for a living. I have also been travelling a lot over the past month or so. Actually, right now I am in Ireland on a bus home because my Grandpa had wanted to go and see his family heritage, I endured an hour flight and a 4 hour bus journey for it because it may be the last chance I get to do something like this with him.

Last week, I just turned 18 which in the UK and Europe is legal to play poker and enter casinos so on Saturday I took my first venture into the “deep dark world of poker” as everyone here seems to think it is bad and evil and I shouldn’t be doing it, that is only an opinion though. Players here are not experts at the game. They are not even remotely good in my opinion but coming from a worryingly regular 2+2 poster and self confessed internet poker geek, it’s not that insulting or hurtful I guess. It looks like all easy pickings 1/2 NL games a few of which may or may not be dodgy, I have yet to decide and a whole host of badly structured tournaments and sit and go’s again the players are so bad that they kind of make up for the lack of a good structure.  

I sat down at one of the cash games with 50bb at which point it was just starting up and was 4 handed. I was forced to play out of my comfort zone and play loads of pots oop (out of position) because of the nature of the game but was able to take advantage of the lack of interest post flop if no one had hit a big hand and take down some blinds. This got me up around 20-30bb and had actually called time when I started to hit several big hands pre-flop and proceeded to get pounded on every flop/turn.  This happened for around 30-40 minutes when I finally called it a night when it was still 4 handed at 2:30am this told me it wasn’t going anywhere so I cut my losses at about 25-30bbs and left to wait for a better spot after the guy to the left decided to play every hand and crush the table with really big pot poker and really spewy play. I spent the rest of the night watching a loose 1/2 NL game and watching people literally have no clue how to do a thing. There was one hand where a guy in CO+1 picked up AQ and raised 3x and got 5 callers but had position. The flop came down Q 3 5 and he then proceeded to bet out 3x again after it was checked to him and got 2 callers turn came another 3 and MP bets out and he folds. WTF. Guy turns out to have 3 7 and manages to get most of a guys chips at the table who has A 4. Sick Game, waiting list was around 5-6 people though. Many of which had no idea how juicy this game was. I told the guy with AQ that he should have bet out more pre and on the flop and he denied that he did anything wrong. Really Weird.

I am Glad I actually get to talk some poker in this blog, has really been a while since I have actually preached to the masses about something on topic rather than something that is just on my mind and I can’t get rid of. I really want to get out and play more live this summer and get some experience in before the WSOPE where I am hoping to play my best game I can and take down the 1k hold’em bracelet. I can dream right?

I have so much more to say but that can wait till next week.
Daniel
danielreilly0@gmail.com
http://www.twitter.com/DanielReilly