Oh what fun we had ....

I think  it's fair to say that last weekends IPO was a resounding success, it certainly ticked all the boxes for my own criteria for a magic poker festival.

The team IPO deserve huge plaudits here as amazingly the main event produced the 2nd largest field ever assembled in the history of European poker, just falling just shy of IPO 2009, which holds the record. Almost 1400 souls turned out in the Regency, which just goes to show how much the poker community love this event.

My own tournament didn't go well, I started badly dropping to 10k, I rallied to 30k fairly quickly, and then lost them as quickly going out in the 300-600 level.

Cal McCarty my mentee in the Boylepoker mentor challenge involving John and myself; thankfully managed to hang in a good bit longer and we scooped that one at least - so big well played to Cal, great working with you through the event.  

My early exit freed me up to do some promotional duties for Boylepoker. I suppose some may question whether drinking copious amounts of the black stuff constitutes a duty. However I feel it's very important to meet people at the various bars during the event.

I did partake in a number of commentary stints over the weekend and if I say so myself, we did a jolly good job on that. The stint I did Saturday night with John and Ciaran will probably go down  as a benchmark moment in live streaming poker history. We certainly moved the goal posts from what is the norm; it was some craic doing it with the lads and the feedback was very good so hopefully we didn't offend too many.

One deplorable incident I witnessed while in the commentary booth on Saturday evening needs to be brought to people's attention. Mick McClosky coolered Iain Cheyne in a hand to knock him out. Upon Iain leaving the table Mick leaped from his seat and performed a number of pelvic thrusts. A truly horrid scene and one I hope to never to witness at a poker event again.

I do have to apologies to one punter over another incident in toilets. I was entering a cubicle and chatted briefly to a lad at the sink when John made it known that he was in the cubicle next door, with cottaging references.

Aghast at such a suggestion I decided while washing my hands, I'd throw some water over John's door. At the exact time the water flew over the right cubicle, John emerged from the left one. We obviously legged it.

It really was such a great few days and after a plethora of nondescript events, this was an Irish poker festival at it's very best. A huge well done to team IPO for producing a tremendous event, and congratulations to the final eight, all who cashed, and indeed all who partook -  roll on IPO 2012.          

   

         

     

             

     

It’s the IPO !!

Well it's time for another Boylepoker IPO festival, or 'the peoples tournament' as I call it. This is probably my favorite poker weekend of the whole year.

The tournament is simply a celebration of the game of poker and a wonderful time is always assured. Win or lose this weekend, everyone goes home with a smile on their face.

If you haven't gotten you place already there's 10 IPO Seats guaranteed tonight in the IPO mega sat at nine and direct buy in registration is open until Thursday.

After the glut of events in September I've been taking it easy last couple of weeks. I did play the John Hennessy memorial tournament in The Poker Lounge, Waterford on Saturday night. This was a €110 freezout with €20 of the buy in going to charity.

There was a good few faces from around the country in attendance, including Jason Tompkins, Paul Lucy and Derek & Phil Baker. I flopped a couple of early sets in the game and got a good stack, eventually chopping it four way for €900.


It was a really good atmosphere in the club, and on the nights over €5,000 was raised for the local Hospice, a fantastic effort and well done to everyone involved, it just goes to show the generosity of the poker community.


Phil Baker deserves a special mention as he did a super job as auctioneer on the night and definitely added at least 25% value to the items sold with his harassment of the bidders.

One class moment occurred when the bidding was on an overnight stay with Dinner for two at the moorings Dungarvan valued at about €160. Someone was slagging Tommy Walsh, and Tommy gave them the two fingers; Phil snapped in straight away with sold to Tommy for €200.

Killarney

I got to play Killeen Thursday for the Kerry mans price of €30, thanks to Keith Cummins for organising it. The extra €30 I lost to him was still well worth it. Derek Murray had booked one of the apartments for us at the Gleneagles complex and this was definitely the way to go, they're a great option and 10 times better then a hotel room.

Obviously the large fridge needed to be filled with beer and when Derek arrived down about midnight and we decided on a nightcap. Unfortunately we seemed to find plenty to chat about at it was pretty late and lots of beers before we turned in.

My day one was an odd one, I can't remember many hands but I did run about eight chunky river bluffs without a single one getting through. Quiet simply this is bad play by me as a large percentage of the field is of an over fifty demographic that come from pub or club games. Everyone knows the way to play this type of player is chunky value betting not bluffs, however they seemed such good spot to me at the time, I guess they put me on AK!!

I managed to get through the day with 32,000, but day two wouldn't last long. About twenty minutes in I raised AK and Larry Ryan 3-bet to 6.5 bigs, I shoved my 27 blinds, which he just covered. Larry went into the tank for a decent while, I knew he had a hand and more or less had his range at AQ JJ or 1010.

There was a bit of banter an I could of induced a fold - Larry told me later that he would of folded if I said yes when he asked would I show - but I was probably optimistically thinking AQ was a decent percentage of his range. Anyhow Larry's Jacks held and I was on my bike to the €300 side event.

This had 200 runners and I had an average stack with 60 players left. It was shallow enough but a lovely game and any bit of run good at that stage and I'd of given myself a right chance. Unfortunately a missed Flush Draw with me as aggressor left me with 10 bigs. I hung in until around 40 players left but my A4 shove found Trevor Dineen's AJ.

The Killarney Festival is such a great event and I do love playing in the INEC, it really is like playing in a poker arena, and outside of the RIO it's probably my favourite venue. Numbers were down this year but clashing with the EPT London and EMOP Barcelona this was to be expected and had the bonus of the absence of a lot of top players. I think all things considered 560 players was a very respectable turnout.