Dublin

Just come back from a mad weekend in Dublin with a few RTR fishes where we drank copious amounts of Guinness and played a bit of poker.
The main reason for going was the Boyles sports IPO which is Europes largest poker event. 1200 plus people turned up to play over the Friday and Saturday with the final running on Sunday along with the Irish Poker awards.
I turned up on the Friday and after a few pints in the pub across the road from my hotel, wandered up to the Regency for the two O'clock start. Unfortunately, it started at twelve and I was being blinded away. When I took my seat I looked at my first hand which was KK. It gets folded arounded to me and before I can say anything the Italian guy to my left says raise. The dealer informs him I'm to play so I raise which means he now has to. The guy two seats further around goes all in and I call. The Italians mucks his cards and I turn over my KK to his AA. A King on the turn and I fluke a double up and some. I then played through until ten or eleven in the evening when the blinds finally caught up with me. I ended up with 16k with the blinds 800/1600 and look down at pocket snowmen. A guy goes all in who I have covered so I snap call. He flips AK and the flop comes QQ2, J, J. Counterfeited by the fooking Ace. I bomb out next hand.
Amatay, Jak and Greekstein had all pitched up so we had a few beers, although Greeky who doesn't drink, played cards like the degen he is til redic o'clock.
On Saturday all the rest of the RTR fish were playing. Snake who I was bunking with pitched up early doors and we made our way up to the Regency around midday with Jak. No cash and his babysitter, a lovely degenerate called Paul, were already in the bar. Cogs, who wasn't registered to play, turned up next. Greeky ambled along with his man bag draped over his shoulder and casually mentioned how he had spunked £2k away the previous evening. Amatay dragged himself out of his wanking chariot about Six in the evening.
After all the guys had found their tables Cogs and I settled down at the bar for the duration. 52 minutes later we were joined by Snakey. And so it carried on until we were all sat around a table having more Guinness.
Several side events were taking place alongside loads of cash tables and slowly but surely all the degenerates soon whittled away. I stuck to my guns and continued trying to drink my own body weight. At some point we headed into Dublin City centre allthough I was totally gone at that point. I didn't last too long and was soon on my way home. No cash managed to convince a couple of girls that he and Snake were millionaire poker players. I think No cash was passing himself off as Tom Dwan and Snakey was Doyle Brunson. This may be a photo of No cash hooking the bird that Snakey eventually got to grips with later on, alledgedly.

Anyhow, after telling all and sundry that I wasn't drinking on the Sunday, I found myself at the bar about middayish and the fun and games continued. The boys played in a few other side events and Cogs, Paul and Jak all cashed in a 100 Euro head hunter. I found myself sat at the bar with Padraig Parkinson who is an absolute legend in Irish Poker circles. A few other guys pitched up including Neil Channing who was a top guy. He hosted the Irish Poker awards which Padraig won best blog for. He walked up to the stage and calmly told everyone that "I feel such a fraud as Jesse May writes my blog".
On winning Irish Poker personality of the year award Padraig then got up on stage and asked, "who the fuck votes for these things? I'd like to thank Jesse for creating me such a great personality".
What a top bloke.
We ended up drinking until the early hours with Amatay and Paul giving me a Poker lesson.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend with loads of Guinness and great company. Can't wait for next year.
Unfortunately I went to work on Tuesday and found out I had been made redundant. Fuck my luck.