Travel Report, EPT12 Dublin, Day 7 -- Pub Talk

Was focused primarily on Day 1 of the European Poker Tour Dublin €10K High Roller for the afternoon and early evening today, an event drawing all the usual suspects and since it featured a single re-entry there was a decent amount of action through the first several levels. Shaping up to be a big event, perhaps to produce another of the star-filled final tables these HRs often do.

Managed to get out before it got too late, though, and so made it over to a place not far from the venue, Searsons of Baggot Street, for what turned out to be a long and relaxing dinner full of fun conversation, not to mention a good dose of Irish pub ambience.

Had the lamb shank which was tender and delicious and came with braised carrots, asparagus, and a small Shepherd’s pie on the side. Then as my mates were all ordering more Guinness and I was having water, I went for the cheesecake afterwards and went back to the home-away-from-home mightily satisfied.

While there I enjoyed hearing more from Howard and Stephen about the early years of the EPT, kind of a sequel to our conversation from a couple of nights before. I’d heard some of the stories earlier, but our new colleague Jack had not and I didn’t mind hearing them again.

From there we got onto a number of other topics, including a lot about sports as Jack is a big NBA fan and Stephen a lifelong baseball obsessive. I always kind of delight in talking American sports with non-Americans, and it was again fun going over favorite teams and games and stories with a couple of Englishmen.

Another theme of the evening was the important place games have in people’s lives, with poker naturally coming up as an example. We swapped stories about ourselves and others illustrating the point in different ways.

Going back in tomorrow and likely sticking with the €10K High Roller for what will prove a more interesting day as the re-entries end, the money bubble will burst, and the serious contenders for the title will emerge.

Travel Report, EPT12 Dublin, Day 5 -- Gutshots

We had a somewhat shorter day yesterday with the EPT12 Dublin Main Event as Day 2 only lasted six 75-minute levels, meaning we were done before 9 p.m. or so. The rest of the evening was also short for me before getting back to the hotel around 11:30, although the time spent in between was very enjoyable.

First came a delicious dinner at the Italian restaurant called Belluccis which is just across the road from the Royal Dublin Society. Went over with my colleagues Howard Swains and Stephen Bartley and had a terrific caprese salad followed by a ribeye steak while listening to the two of them share stories about the Gutshot Poker Club.

Open from 2004 through 2007, the Gutshot was essentially an illegal poker room in London that purposely challenged the Gaming Act, eventually losing the case brought against it and closing thereafter. Howard and Stephen spoke of a brief revival of another club with a different name, though that, too, only had a short run before getting shut down.

Was fascinating to hear about the various characters associated with the Gutshot and to compare how the club, Late Night Poker (which originally ran in the U.K. a few years before), and other details of the explosion of poker’s popularity in London paralleled the “boom” in poker that happened in the U.S. during those same years. As both Howard and Stephen played at the club and in fact helped chronicle it by writing about it at the the time, I told them they needed to compile an oral history of it (or some kind of narrative about it). They’d surely be the best to do something like that, if they wanted to.

As entertaining as the conversation was, I couldn’t stick around long post-meal, though, as the media tournament was scheduled at 10. I ran back across Merrion Road and soon was seated along with around 40 others for the tournament, among them Lex Veldhuis of Team PokerStars Pro Online and Friend of Team PokerStars Felipe “Mojave” Ramos.

We played in the cash room which has actually been set up inside the Royal Dublin Society library. Was kind of a comfortable setting for your humble scribbler, the walls around us all lined with shelves full of books from floor to ceiling. (That pic above taken by Mickey May is from the tournament, although you can’t see the books over to the side.)

I know Felipe pretty well from covering LAPT events -- in fact, most recently in the Bahamas I talked to him at length about poker’s growth in his native Brazil. He and I ended up playing a somewhat memorable hand in which he raised under the gun, got a caller in middle position, I called from the button with K-J, and someone from the blinds came, too.

The flop came 9-10-J, giving me top pair and a gutshot straight draw. Felipe jokingly asked the dealer if king-queen made a straight before continuing with a small bet that only I called. I called another slightly bigger bet after a blank came on the turn, then the river brought another jack and a check from Felipe.

I’d made trip jacks and thought I was probably best. I’m sure I would’ve called a bet again, and perhaps even for all of my relatively short stack (given that we were playing lightning-quick 10-minute levels). But after he checked I thought about it for a few seconds and decided just to check back. He turned over K-Q, and when I showed my cards the table was surprised I’d escaped without losing more. But I couldn’t see him calling any bet from me on the end there with worse.

Anyhow, felt a little like I was freerolling after that, but soon lost my short stack in a hand that saw me pushing with A-10 and getting called by K-10. If I wanted to be dramatic -- or press forward with some sort of leitmotiv here -- I’d call the king that came on the flop a “gutshot,” but that would be misleading. Was a fun hour or so of poker, and I didn’t mind that much having an early night of it for once.

Ending up having to walk back to the hotel through a pretty steady and cold rain, but I wasn’t soaked too badly and am glad to get to sleep at a decent hour.

Back at it on Wednesday for Day 3. There are 127 players left from the 605 who entered the EPT Dublin Main. Check the PokerStars blog for more today.

Photo: courtesy Mickey May/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report, EPT12 Dublin, Day 2 -- Ineluctable Modality of the Visible

Woke up on the tired side this morning -- internal clock is still not quite adjusted from EST to GMT just yet -- and after getting some breakfast got some work done with an idea I’d be taking it easy for a few hours. I wasn’t due to go back to help with coverage of the €25K High Roller until later in the afternoon, and so was thinking mainly of resting in the room.

That’s when my friend Gareth Chantler shot me a note to see if I might be up for some further touring of Dublin to see some literary-related sites. I jumped at the opportunity, and before long we were on the train headed down south to Dalkey, a hilly seaside resort that looks over the Dublin Bay.

Upon arrival we started out with a great lunch at Finnegan’s of Dalkey, an excellent restaurant made well known a couple of years back when Michelle Obama and her daughters met Bono and his wife there for lunch. It was also a favorite place of the novelist Maeve Binchy who was born in Dalkey and is one of its most famous residents.

From there we passed through a few streets as Gareth told me some of the history of the Dalkey Quarry and we looked upon the remains of the Norman Castle (pictured up top). We then took a turn and began working our way up a hill, and soon Gareth pointed out a house that was in fact the schoolroom described at the end of the second chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses (pictured at left).

Was kind of uncanny to see, in part because I’d picked up Ulysses a couple of weeks ago and reread the first two chapters, so the scene involving Stephen Daedelus and the headmaster (the ironic “Nestor” figure of the episode) was still very fresh in my mind.

We continued climbing, surrounded by greenery and high-reaching rocks. Eventually we circled back up through Killiney Hill Park where there was a lot of activity with children playing and a lot of dog walking on a crisp Saturday afternoon. We stopped briefly by the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, a site Gareth suspects might be the inspiration for the Majestic in J.G. Farrell’s novel Troubles (which after hearing Gareth’s summary I’m now going to have to read).

Soon we were high and clear enough to enjoy some breathtaking views of the sea on one side and the city on the other. It was cold and the wind whipping up top added to the chill, but such was a minor price to pay to enjoy such sights.

That line up top by the way is the first sentence of the third episode in Ulysses (“Proteus”), one that I think for many readers ends up being the one that forces them off the path entirely never to finish the book. It leads into one of the more opaque-seeming chapters in the book, where the stream-of-consciousness style already exhibited in the first two chapters is let loose even more experimentally.

To me the line has always generically referred to the preeminence of sight over our other senses, although I know it is a more complicated allusion to Aristotle and an involved, philosophical explanation of the process by which vision works. In any event, to me it works as a signpost of sorts highlighting the kind of sight-seeing I was able to enjoy today. Or is it site-seeing? Which is correct, and which is the Joycean pun?

We went back down the mountain, stopping at one point to marvel at how high the waves were crashing against the wall barrier along which we walked -- some 30-40 feet. I snapped a few more photos, then suddenly another rush of water leaped over the barrier and doused myself, Gareth, and a couple of others standing nearby. Was kind of hilarious, actually, as though nature itself was dotting the end of our journey with a loud, cold, and wet punctuation mark.

Got back to the hotel in good shape and over to the Royal Dublin Society venue where for the next 10 hours or so I helped with the €25K High Roller coverage. The always entertaining Mustapha Kanit carries the chip lead to Sunday’s finale (you can read a Day 2 recap here).

Very grateful to Gareth for guiding me through another fun excursion through a different part of Dublin. Gonna try to sleep late on Sunday and recharge a bit before going back in to help with the start of the Main Event. As always, head over to the PokerStars blog for updates throughout, and remember you can watch the High Roller final table on EPT Live (starting at 8:30 a.m. EST/1:30 p.m. GMT).

Travel Report: EPT12 Dublin, Day 1 -- Something Wilde

That’s Oscar Wilde looking especially relaxed on a rock there in Merrion Square Park, not far from Wilde’s childhood home, actually. Saw that and much else during the bike-riding excursion yesterday about which I was telling you. A suitable enough pose for that whole “life is too important to be taken seriously” point of view, yea?

Things got relatively serious today as far as the EPT12 Dublin festival goes with the start of the €25K High Roller event, the continuation of the UKIPT Main Event, as well as a number of other side events including a “Chess and NL Mixed Tournament.” That latter one caused a bit of a double-take as I walked past and saw chessboards and pieces, not cards and chips.

And of course the work of reporting began in earnest today, and we all know the importance of being earnest. That said, I think everyone -- players, staff, media, and others -- who together make these EPTs run so smoothly well knows how to have fun, too, amid the seriousness.

The arrangements for reporting are fine, and in fact the food at the venue is above average (at first taste, anyway), which is always nice. As Algernon says in Earnest, “I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.”

I greatly enjoyed reuniting with friends and colleagues today while reporting on the event, which as expected drew a lot of big names as it is the highest buy-in tournament on the 67-event schedule.

Gonna cut it short today as it is late and I’m already tuckered. Check the PokerStars blog for updates, features, and more regarding everything happening at the Royal Dublin Society.

Had thought I might sign off with another Wilde allusion, but I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.

Travel Report: EPT12 Dublin, Arrival -- Ballad from Kilmainham Gaol

Checking in here at the end of a very, very long day for your humble scribbler. In truth it was a night plus a day plus part of another night, as that’s what has transpired for me since my last post from the Charlotte airport Wednesday afternoon.

From there I flew up to Philadelphia early last evening, then after a longish layover took the redeye across the ocean to Dublin, Ireland where I landed around breakfast time here. Took a taxi into the city, and despite being a little fuzzy-headed from a lack of sleep on the crowded, narrow-bodied 757 that American Airlines chose to fly me over the Atlantic, I greatly enjoyed the conversation with my amiable driver who taught me a great deal about the current tram strike (“53% pay increase they want!”), the upcoming elections (“They serve one year then get lifetime pensions -- a sham!”), and the identities of those piloting other stop-light-ignoring taxis we witnessed (“Not Irish.”).

Got to my hotel -- my home-away-from-home for the next week-and-a-half -- where I thankfully was able to check in early and rest up a little. Soon, though, my colleague Howard Swains arrived and he recruited me to accompany him on a sight-seeing excursion that wound up carrying us all over the city.

We rented bikes for the purpose, and pedaled clear across to the west side of Dublin where we arrived just in time for a fascinating hour-long tour of the famous Kilmainham Gaol. First built in 1796, the prison was the site of public executions while housing men, women, and children throughout the 19th century. It became a flashpoint during the 1916 Easter Rising as the site where leaders of the revolt were executed almost exactly 100 years ago. The prison closed in the 1920s, then in the 1960s became a museum.

Kilmainham has been used as a location for a number of films, including The Italian Job, In the Name of the Father, and Michael Collins. U2 shot an early video there, too, in which they run about the panopticon-style jail and in the famous prison yard where the executions occurred.

It was an eerie place to walk about, with the tour guide doing well to evoke some of the horrors experienced by those who long ago had tread the same paths through the narrow hallways, in and out of the small cells, and around the yard. (That’s Howard below, serving a sentence of a moment or two in one of the cells.)

We saw a lot else and I managed to take a lot of photos, too, some of which I’ll try to share over the next several days. By the evening I managed a quick trip over to the venue to meet up with Gareth Chantler during the dinner break of the UKIPT Main Event which he’s playing, and we had a very enjoyable visit talking about his many travels, James Joyce, and Jonathan Swift. Then after that Howard, Stephen Bartley, and I had a nice dinner at the restaurant located at the Schoolhouse Hotel not too far from where we are, followed by a visit to the adjacent pub.

I’m a little disoriented but I think that added up to about 24 hours, close to 4,000 miles of flying, around 10 miles’ worth of bike riding and walking, and well over 20,000 steps (says Fitbit) since I was sitting in the airport terminal.

Too tired to scribble more now, but I’ll be back again with more tomorrow, likely after having spent a less manic day watching folks play poker at the Royal Dublin Society. More to come.