On Saturday 22. and Sunday 23. October I played the International Poker Open-tournament in Dublin, Irland. I played some pretty damn great poker and ended up as number 20 out of 1388 players! I’m serious with this sport and want to become as good poker player as possible. I know very well that I don’t have that extra special talent that the best players have, but at least I have control of my own abilities and are working to become a better player. It’s always nice to win money, but I’d rather play great and lose money than being an amateur and win on share luck. Everyone can be lucky and win money one night, but the greatest players win more often because of good skills.

There were two starting days and I played Day 1B of the main event. 519 played the day before and 869 players started day 1B, making it 1388 total and Europe’s largest poker tournament. The buy in was 200+25 euros. I played absolutely horrible the first two blind levels and was quickly down to 9.000 from the 15.000 starting stack. I was – and felt like – the fish at the table, not raising when I should, playing out of position, calling big bets with draws etc believing in miracles… I had also drawn seat 5 which I absolutely hate. I don’t have control of the other players when I sit in front of the dealer, and I feel squeezed in between the players making me feel very uncomfortable (I never sit down in a cash game if I have to sit in front of the dealer). In addition, the tournament started at noon which is way too early for me. There was a much needed break after level 3 (120 minutes) and at that time I was ready for breakfast and coffe. The bar took forever making my panini so I got back 3-4 minutes into the next blind period and the first hand I looked down on was two black kings. Nice! I raised (doh!) but got no callers so I only won the blinds, but everything changed for me with this hand. I had gotten a break from the table, got some food, managed to wake up, even settled with my seat(!) and had mapped out the players’ style by this time. I actually felt really good and from then on I was the table captain. No more just calling in position or doing anything else stupid. If I sensed weakness you can be sure I went for it! I started winning and I was well over start stack when the table was broken up an hour later.

I was moved to the main hall and the new table was totally different than the first one. I know very well there aren’t two similar poker tables but I was amazed how different the dynamics were every time I got to a new table in this tournament. And every time I lost between 1/4 and 1/3 of my stack before I had analyzed the players and adjusted to their play. You can’t just sit back and play good hands – you have to play to get information and get into the opponent’s minds. If you don’t adjust your play to every player then you will never win. If a very tight player raises UTG you’ll need a very good hand to call (or if you dare to raise). In one of the hands a tight player UTG raised, then another player reraised. I folded my suited AQ on the button and it was the correct play no matter how good my position was and how pretty those cards are. You’ll have to try out which strategies work. An old trick that worked well was calling on the flop to bluff on the turn – especially if a scare card came on turn (like the third card for a flush) it was “easy” to bet and take down the pot. I also took down pots betting the flop (usually on a semi bluff), getting raised and then reraise. I think I bluffed maybe 15 times and was caught only twice! You’ll have to pick your spots for winning with bluffs of course – I mean, you don’t bet into an old man when there’s an ace or a king on the flop… But of course many times I had the goods too! I won almost all flips the first day and a half. If I was all in preflop with QQ against AK I won, If I had AK against QQ I hit the K on flop, 99 against AK etc… You have to win flips in order to get far in a tournament.

I played five different tables in this tournament and here’s some of the hands I remember:

I limp with 10 8 off in late position. Four players see the flop 48Q rainbow. I bet and a short stack behind me waits a microsecond before he goes all in. The blinds fold and I call with my second pair. The opponent shows J4 suited and he’s out of the tournament. If he hadn’t waited that microsecond I would have folded. You need to pay attention and see those small things. If you only play the cards and not the table then you won’t get far.

Level 12, 1000/2000 with 200 ante. Early position raises and I’m the only caller with K10 of hearts, and I put him on AK off. Flop is 29Q rainbow and preflop raiser makes a strange continuation bet which makes me 100% sure he does have AK. I just call. Turn is another queen and he checks. I check too. River is another 9 and he checks again. I bet 3/4 of the pot. He thinks for a loooong time and finally folds. Phew!

Level 13, 1200/2400 with 200 ante. I raise to 5400 in mid position with 44. Small blind raises to 11200 and I call. Flop is 10 4 3 and the guy quickly proclaims “All in!” in front! “Heh? Did you say all in?” I ask. He has more than me and I obviously call with my set. The guy shows AA, moans and can’t believe he’s being beat. Blame yourself for poor play mister! I have 200.000 after this hand and is probably chip leader.

Level 17, 3000/6000 with 500 ante. Everyone folds to me and I complete the small blind with Q2 off. Big blind checks and we see the flop A83 rainbow. We both check and the turn is 3 of spade which makes a flush draw. I check, big blind bets about 2/3 of the pot and I call thinking I’m ahead with my Q2 (but I should have raised). River is a red 9. I check and she immediately bets over half pot. I think for 20 seconds and goes with my hunch that she still doesn’t have anything and call. She says “good call” and mucks while I show my queen high and rake in the pot. You got to love play like this – especially when the rest of the table whisper “He called with queen high” afterwards! Now they knew not to try to bluff me.

…I played many hands and it’s impossible to remember them all. Next time I’ll make notes as I did in Las Vegas last summer. The blinds are going up and you can’t sit and wait for the good hands. With high blinds and antes there’s already a small fortune in the pot before the cards are dealt so you want to attack those chips as often as possible. You’ll also see a lot more preflop all in at later stages of tournaments. What ate away my stack was the flips I couldn’t win. It began with a short stack in early position who went all in. I isolated with AQ off and he hit his king on the flop with K4 off… On level 25, 20.000/40.000 with 4000 ante I was crippled down to 43.000. That’s only 2,3 big blinds and I was desperate for chips. I managed to double up with 73 in the big blind hitting two pairs on turn. Then I doubled up again with JJ against 66. Then with JJ against 83 (big blind was big stack, I was shortstack and he had to call with any two). Then another double up with A 1o suited against 55. So in less than two hours I had built my stack from 43.000 to 680.000! Then came this hand (taken from Boyle’s live updates):

We lost Asgeir Mickelson a few minutes ago, after he had just doubled up a few hands previous to 675k, this time around there is raise UTG to 90k and its called in the CO and the SB also calls, Asgeir squeezes all in from the BB, two players step out of the way its back to the SB, Paul Purcell looks like he is in a bit of a dilema as he counts out his stack and looks his opponent up and down, he eventually cuts out the chips and slides them forward into the pot.

Asgeir – AcQh

Paul – 3h3s

They head to the flop and are flipping for a hefty pot, dealer spreads out 8d9c6d turn of Kh and Asgeir can’t catch the bingo card on the river when it comes 10h.

Except for a bumpy start I’m very happy with my play. I did very little wrong in this tournament and I stand by the play I did in that final hand. It was also cool to discover that I ended up as second chip leader on the first day with 217.000 chips. I learned some very valueable new things and I can’t wait to play another big tourney! Also a BIG thanks to my buddy Jacob for the good strategy discussions, bringing me food and drinks at the table, and making me feel like a king in the tournament!

Live stream and updates was here.
Chip count from day 1B is here.
Payout structure here.
The blinds structure can be seen here.
IPO photo gallery here.

- Asgeir

So, I was in Dublin playing the International Poker Open-tournament last weekend. As expected, I didn’t get to be much tourist but I played a lot of poker. I travelled with my buddy Jacob, and on Thursday we walked from the Regency Hotel to Fitzwilliam Card Club to play some cash game poker. The hotel receptionist said it was a 20-25 minute walk. Yeah, right! It took an hour 15 minutes and I was exhausted for two days… But it was a good walk and at least we got to see a little bit of the city and have a stop for a beer. Yes, ONE beer – and no, I don’t like Guinness! The Irish people are very polite and friendly – whenever we stopped and looked at our maps someone would ask if we needed help. As usual I looked at the girls whenever I could. There were many of them (80% of them had ponytails), but I think I only saw two really pretty girls the whole weekend, so in that regards Norway is a lot better.

At Fitzwilliam we played 2/5 euro cash game. I was down 700 euros after three hours of play but ended up with a nice profit after a good run (=skills) the last hour and a half. On Friday we played the 115 euro side event tournament and 1/2 euro cash game in the poker area at the Regency. I was pretty much card dead the whole day and whenever I did have something good the opponent hit his 3- or 4-outer on turn or river… I lost more than I won the day before, but Jacob won the 180 man side event tournament and even got a trophy along with the wad of cash.

On Saturday we played day 1B of the 225 euro International Poker Open main event. Jacob played horrible (to quote himself) and was out in less than three hours. I made it to day 2 as the second chip leader and ended up number 20 out of 1388 players! I’ll cover the tournament with key hands in my next blog.

- Asgeir