#180: “I Dream a Dream”

Two days ago, I went to see ‘Les Miserables’ and since then my internal monologue has been set to the tune of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’. I’m not sure if its making me sadder at the relentless passage of time but I’m confident it is making me sadder in another way. Nonetheless, I have been thinking (as one tends to do in January) about the past and future.

2012 ended well as I secured Supernova with 14 hours to spare. Live commitments plus the fact that I played a lot of low reg fee 3x turbos meant that I left myself a bit to do in December but it was certainly worth the grind as I was way too close to ignore what is a decent loyalty bonus bump for 2013.

I have to say that I am exceptionally proud of what I accomplished in 2012. It was my second best online year and my first year playing the live circuit. For those of you who don’t already know, I took the majority of 2011 off from poker to focus on writing pursuits and other interests. Coming back to online poker after 8 months is like coming back to most jobs after half a decade so my major fear was that the game had passed me by. I knew there would be a steeper learning curve than already exists on an ongoing basis in tournament poker and with a depleted bankroll, I would have to be extra diligent in the money management department. Luckily I had made a great friend in Dara O’Kearney, a man I feel is very misunderstood in Ireland and would probably fit in better in the poker social circles of Continental Europe. He helped me with game selection, was a constant sounding board on strategy but more importantly, he built back up my confidence.

Most people know Dara as the approachable gentleman of the Irish circuit, the maths guy who will help you play a better short stack, the braniac whose brain you can pick at. Well the truth is that when you get to know Dara well, you realise his life is very stressful, that a lot of people depend on him and that he puts the needs of others first. If I had his life, I would run screaming from the room as people tugged on my coat for this and that. If I had his life, I would not have made time for me in the way that he did.

Poker is a cut-throat business. In most endeavors, you know where you stand in that there are benchmarks against which you can judge yourself, methods by which you can rate your progress. However, the variance component in poker obscures all. One mustn’t be results-oriented in the short term so one must invest in the longterm by which time, of course, the damage could already be done. You might only find out your game isn’t up to scratch after you have dumped a small fortune in buy-ins. So, in the interim, it is vital to have good people around you – people who will reinforce how you did the right thing even though the outcome was defeat, people who will spot when a leak has creeped into your game and be able to articulate it to you. Dara is one of those people and I am lucky that alongside him, I have found a great group of friends that are more than just poker friends in Daragh ‘I do well in Sunday Majors but never smile’ Davey, Jason ‘I one-tabled my way to 3rd place in the Sunday Million while wearing a hat that makes me look like a dildo’ Tompkins, Padraig ‘An illiterate child wrote about my big bink in the local newspaper’ O’Neill, James ‘I have a magic card that lets me skip the queue in Coppers’ Noonan and newest Firm assassin, Nick ‘I drive faster than I play poker’ Newport.

I genuinely believe that online poker never stops getting tougher so I tend to be negative enough when setting goals. Another year like last year would do nicely but of course it would be nice to have a few more highlights. A feature of my game and game selection is low variance and a relatively consistent uptick but I do let myself take some shots, mostly in live events. So far, I have satellited into the UKIPT Edinburgh, the EPT Deauville, the UKIPT Cork and the Masters Finale Dortmund. Fingers crossed for a deep run in one of them and a big thank you to Anton Wigg, Dara O’Kearney, Daragh Davey, Dan Wilson, Liam O’Donoghue, Padraig O’Neill, Jason Tompkins, James Noonan, Nick Carrillo and Chihao Tsang who all bought pieces of my EPT. I dream a dream that I will octodectuple your investments.