We’re all vulnerable to temptation when we’re drunk. Whether it’s chasing women around a night club or developing a bizarre attraction to traffic cones, we all have that moment of sheer madness where we’re 100% convinced that asking for that girls number for the umpteenth time is perfectly fine and blocking that road with cones is in the interest of public safety. Usually it’s all innocent fun though, we eventually realise that our drunken slurs aren’t going to get us laid and we back off and then we get bored of dragging cones into the middle of the road and decide to just put one on our head and go home. However, those of us who have an affinity to gamble usually don’t get off so lightly.

It’s just gone 1am and I’m stumbling around a nightclub looking for my friend. I haven’t been this drunk in all of four days and it takes me a good 20 minutes to actually stop and ask someone in our group where he is. Turns out he’s already gone home meaning I’ve been pacing around for no reason other than wearing down my shoes! My other friends are having one of those drunken heart-to-hearts down in the smoking area that you just know they’ll probably have no recollection of come morning so I figure there’s nothing really keeping me there so decide to leave. And then it grabs hold of me.

The urge to get some hours in at the poker table suddenly envelops me. Our local club runs a cash league which rewards players who spend over 50 hours at the tables over the duration of the league. I’ve been creeping ever closer to the magic 50 mark over past number of weeks but the deadline is looming and I’m still a bit shy of the target so I opt to head up to the club where I’ve been informed there is lively game in progress. I’m fully aware that everyone is going to be licking their lips when they see me fall through the door, so I devise a plan to buy in for only €50 and play tighter than a ducks arse underwater and let them pay me off. Sounded easy in my head anyway!

I sit in and ask for some coffee before taking out my wallet and hand over €100, instead of €50! Not a complete disaster, as I can still play tight and now I stand to win more should I hit a big hand! Unfortunately, if you stand to win more, you stand to lose more and I soon realise that my plan has unravelled when I go all-in on an A-4-5 board that has two hearts after it’s checked to me. It would be an acceptable play if I had something like two pair or even the Ace, but I was playing with 7-8 offsuit! So much for playing tight! I haven’t even finished counting my chips when I see someone else shovel all theirs in! I hit an eight on the turn meaning this anal pounding I’m getting has eased slightly. A ten falls on the river and I’m told that I’m ahead as they missed their flush! I excitedly turn over my eight only for him to flash a ten! The table looks a bit shocked when they see my cards turn over and they all collectively lick their lips when I reach into my wallet once more!

I reach into my wallet once more in the whole hour that I’m there. I finally throw in the towel when I don’t feel confident that my Queen-Jack is good any more after I check-raise on an Ace high board only to find myself getting two callers. Needless to say, it wasn’t! I’m down €240 which translates to pretty much the entire contents of my wallet and at this stage the coffee is starting to sober me up. I really wish it didn’t though, because now I’m kicking myself for shoving with a gutshot and basically throwing money away. This especially hurts because I know I’ll remember exactly how I lost the money in the morning whereas had I not knocked back cup after cup of coffee, I’d wake up not having the slightest idea!

Indeed, waking up is a painful experience! As well as having the obligatory woodpecker going at my head, I have this subconscious voice shouting all kinds of abuse into my ear! I try my best to take no notice and start thinking about tonights game, a €35 freezeout with €1k Guaranteed. It’s a small game when you compare the size of the games in Dublin, but it attracts a nice crowd of players with “colourful” styles so there’s certainly some value to be found. This, I decided, was going to be my make or break night with regards qualifying for the league finals. If I didn’t pick up a result here, I was going to struggle to be able to play in tournaments or sit into cash games for the next week or so. With my fingers and toes crossed, I bought in and found myself sitting down at a great starting table!

Within the first few levels, I manage to build my stack up to 12k from the starting stack of 9k. I manage to flop a house with 8-3 from the blinds and check all streets before check-raising the river and getting paid! I then manage to double up off the then chipleader when I pick up AA for the first time in 3 weeks! It’s raised under the gun to 600 which is called in one spot. I re-raise to 2k from the blinds and get two willing callers. Flop is Q-Q-6 and I check-raise allin after the original raiser bets out 3k. He calls with KK and I hold. My next big hand comes some time later when I raise with King-Jack suited under the gun(!). I find a caller in the big blind who says he feels lucky. The flop comes 8-9-3 and gives me the flush draw. He checks and I make a continuation bet and he immediately announces all-in. I snap call and he curses me and tells me he has nothing. “‘Nothing’ is probably ahead of me right now”, I say to him. He turns over KQ which I really didn’t want to see, but I hit my flush on the turn and all is well in the world once more!

I reach the final table 3rd in chips, but I have the two chipleaders sitting directly to my left which is far from ideal. The player directly to my left has a massive chip lead, with about 30% of all chips in play but amazingly he managed to limp/fold his stack away which by all accounts was an impressive feat. I knock him out when I limp into his Big Blind in the hope that he’ll check his option but I haven’t noticed that he’s now shortstacked and he duly shoves. It’s not much more to me and I’m certain of a coin flip so I make the call and hit my King to topple his Ace high. I pick my spots for the rest of the final table and get into the money.

It’s not all plain-sailing though as I then lose a race with King-Jack suited which puts me down to 5 Big Blinds which really hammers home the fact that anything can happen when we’re playing with average stacks of 10 Big blinds! The chipleader soon finds this out the hard way when he goes from dominating the table to sitting out in his car within 3 hands! This gives me some leeway, as all the players remaining are relatively solid. I get a few pushes through and then I knock a player out when he shoves from the Small Blind and I call with Ace-Ten that holds.

We’re now three-handed and play for a while but it seems as if we’re just passing chips around to one another so I suggest we chop it three ways for €290 each. I feel as if I did have the edge when we were three handed as I certainly had the momentum with me, but I had this mental goal of winning more than I lost the previous night and really didn’t like the idea of finishing third. No-one opposes the deal and we play one hand for the tournament points which I win when I slowroll the bottom pair :) .

So, I shoot myself in the foot one day, but make a full recovery the next! I’m also now presented with a dilemma. I need another 11 hours to qualify for the cash league final which takes place Monday week but this tournament win means I’m now 50th in the tournament leader board, with the top 45 qualifying for the final! It would be agonising to miss both by such a small margin so I think I’ll focus on one of them for the time being. Trouble is, I don’t have a clue which one to commit to!