IO IO its off to work we go

Not much to report on. Played a couple of €100 games locally last week. Friday night wining the game in Olympus casino; the numbers have been increasing well for the lads over the last few weeks. I recommend this tournament to anyone looking for a good weekly game in the price bracket, hitting between 35/45 runners each Friday. Saturday I played the Pronutz €100 game in the grand hotel, Tramore, going out early. This had a super turnout of 85 runners. Wayne O'Halloran runs Pronutz and I'm sure as promoters they are well on there way to running bigger events if the weekend is any measure.

I was planning on going to London for leg three of the GUKPT at the Vic but I don't think I'll bother, as I just don't fancy it. The second leg of the Brucepoker.com live tour is on Friday in Brucepokers home base of Maynooth. I expect another good turnout and ill be heading up for this.

All eyes are firmly focused on Ireland's premier tournament with it being just over three weeks now. What I wouldn't give to get to play on the stage pictured above again. What a final table that turned out to be with future main event champ Eastgate, Marty, Mizzi and De Wolfe in the line up for the final nine. I'm forever giving out about the structure and I feel that the organisers are not keeping with current trends. The WSOP main event and the EPT final have both increased their starting chips to 30,000 stack. I don't think the chips need to be increased in the IO but I do think the structure needs tweaking to ensure value for players. I feel a few more levels like 250/500 2500/5000 3500/7000 and increasing the level times after the first 10 levels to 75 minutes would allow for the playability the tournament deserves.

The organisers need to open there eyes to worldwide trends in tournament poker and show some flexibility to the players wants. When a tournament can be run in Killarney with 800 runners over three days with a better structure then the IO then there is really no excuse for not improving the existing structure. In general most tournaments have to much play early and to little late but recently promoters such as JP and Ken Corkery in the Macau have produced excellently balanced structure where loads of play is possible throughout the tournaments so its not as if the templates aren't in place. Having said all that the juices are flowing in anticipation of this magical event.