Photo credit: Danny Maxwell and Irish Open
The Irish Open’s place as one of the highlights on the European poker calendar was solidified with the 2024 edition. Recent years’ success, marketing to different geographic locations, and a partnership with PokerStars brought many new players to this year’s festival and it really felt like the Irish Open was the world stage of poker on Easter week.
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I arrive a couple of levels into the festival’s traditional opener – the €350 6-max Championship. Last year’s winner Noel Hayes sits down to my right and before we’ve even settled into our seats, I find myself shoving the river.
At 200/400 and a starting stack of 30k, Noel raises 800 on the button. I look down at Ac2c and 3-bet to 2400. Noel calls and the flop comes KTTssc. I continue with a small bet and Noel calls. The 9c comes on the turn as I pick up the nut flush draw. If we bet and get shoved on, we’ll have to fold – never an appealing prospect with a strong draw. Despite this, I still think the A2cc is a great candidate to continue firing with. We’ve a strong range here so I don’t think BU will be getting out of line with too many raises and there’s plenty of hands we fold out that would have called the flop. Noel calls and the river makes everything a bit easier as the Qc rolls off. Time to go for max value – I shove and Noel deliberates and eventually folds.
The tournament progresses well and it’s fairly smooth sailing. With about 80 left and 55 paid, I lose a pretty standard but crucial hand blind v blind for 15BBs each. As the blinds creep up and the bubble gets closer, we’re pretty much at the mercy of the deck. Need to win a flip or ensure we win a few pots without showdown. With 57 on the clock, I have 6BBs left after posting my BB ante. UTG limps and I check my option with A8o. The flop comes AQ3 and it goes check/check. On the 10 turn, I bet 15k of my 30k stack into a pot of 21k. My opponent calls. The river bricks and I stick the rest of my chips in. It’s an awkward spot but I’m not check/folding and I don’t think it ever goes check/check vs a hand I’m losing against so might as well try get value from the Qx and Tx type hands. Unfortunately, I get shown the QQ for a flopped set. As I’m standing up, the clock ticks down to 56 and it’s a stone bubble to get the festival up and running.
For tourney #2, I jump in the €550 PLO Mystery Bounty event and punt off vs Benny Glaser. I c-bet bottom two pair thinking it’s a hand I have to go with, but actually we were a bit too deep and a more passive route would’ve been better. When I bust, I hit the road back home.
Tuesday
A civic reception with the Mayor to honour the victorious University of Limerick Collingwood Cup and Crowley Cup teams was scheduled for Tuesday morning so that took precedence over the €250 Hendon Mob Championship. My college years were mainly split between poker and UL Soccer so it’s important to never lose sight of the real priorities in life.
I head back up to Dublin on Wednesday and max late reg the €5k high roller event. As I’m taking my seat, there’s a hand taking place between Conor Beresford and a player who looks familiar but I can’t quite place. The board reads T9666 and Conor checks from the big blind. The other player in the UTG position shoves for 3.5x pot. Conor deliberates a little and utters “you greedy, greedy boy” before releasing his hand. Conversation then moves to discussing the UTG player’s smoking habit. He quit cold turkey and then ended up back smoking 60 a day. Ahhh, I know this guy, online poker legend Girafganger.
The max late reg gave me 50k at 3k big blind. I get a few open and c-bets through as well as a couple of reshoves and find myself with about 65k an hour into the day. With these late reg spots, your first all-in is always going to be crucial. My spot comes up when the CO opens and Girafganger 3-bets from the SB. I wake up with jacks and shove. “Well, I of course have a sh*t hand again…but I have to call” says the former #1 ranked online poker player in the world. Bert turns over A3o and I’m looking good until the river on 952K before the 4 of clubs wheels me out (geddit?).
The 5k was the biggest buy-in of the week but when max late regging, you have to be mentally prepared to walk in, torch 5k, and walk out. I take a walk around the block and grab a coffee and then jump back into the action by regging the €350 Americas Cup. This time it’s the former #32 ranked online poker player in the world that takes me out by the roots as BIGMICKG busts me when my top pair runs into his two pair.
Next up is the €350 PLO 6-max Championship. Day 1 of this tournament was not so much about building momentum but more about not going broke. Going into the last level of the night – 1.5k/3k – my stack is sitting at around 40k from the 30k starting, Thankfully, we get a double the last hand of the night to find our first bag of the festival.
As the PLO was winding down, the 5k high roller was down to 4. My roommate for the trip, recent EPT Champion Padraig O’Neill, was still in as he continued his rich vein of form (listen to my podcast interview with Padraig here). I wander over to the rail and meet Limerick man Tommy O’Rourke. His roommate for the trip, Fergal O’Cathain, is also still in. Tommy tells me that after finishing playing cash the day before, Fergal went to the tournament reg desk and just jumped in whatever tournament was on. Luckily for Fergal, the €250 high roller satellite proved to be a fruitful parlay. On break, Padraig tells me that Fergal was absolutely wrecking Girafganger 6 handed. “He was constantly 3-betting him and Girafganger didn’t know how to deal with it. Once Giraf bust, then Fergal started doing the same to me!”. Also present in the final 4 was another online poker legend Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot.
With €47k locked up for 4th, this was already Fergal’s biggest ever score. As the big chip leader, the 3 pros were handcuffed and Fergal kept the pressure on. Roope Tarmi of Finland busted in 4th which left an extremely short stacked Tonka, a middling stack Smidge, and a huge stack Fergal. Tonka managed to hang on long enough for Padraig to get involved in an unavoidable cooler. The AK of the EPT Champ was no match for the JJ of Fergal and Smidge bust in 3rd place. In the first hand of heads-up, Tonka’s ducks held to get a double and it seemed like a fairytale comeback could be on the cards to give the popular twitch streamer his first ever live tournament win. This is how it transpired and the affable Parker Talbot walked away with €134k and the trophy while the equally affable Fergal O’Cathain walked away with €86k and the run of a lifetime. Seeing local Irish players battle it out with world class pros with big money on the line is always great to see.
Thursday
When packing for the trip, I forgot both my phone charger and my toothbrush. Such absent mindedness may not have been the best sign ahead of week where mental acuteness and cognitive sharpness was needed. I spent the week tactically using Padraig’s charger and getting stung €10 at a time using the portable chargers available at the venue. My social media use has also increased (I was posting updates throughout the week on my Instagram story, follow here) so the battery level of the phone became a more prominent concern. On the way to the venue on Thursday morning, I stopped by the shop for a bottle of water and by the pharmacy for a toothbrush and toothpaste. I then brushed my teeth at the side of the road in Dublin 4 using the water to rinse. Perfect prep for day 2 of the PLO.
The previous night, action was fast and furious and we went from 70 players to 44 in just over an hour. Returning for a day 2 after a night’s sleep (in most player’s cases) tends to slow down the action and so it proved to be as we went a full level without losing a single player. My strategy was pretty straight forward (play tight) but I did manage to take a couple of pots. When the bubble does eventually burst, a flurry of bustouts ensue. I’m in this flurry as I bust in 32nd place for my first cash of the trip.
We don’t hang around long and get back into the action with the flagship event of the week - the Irish Open Main Event. Poker players are a fairly cold and unemotional bunch by nature but for a lot of us, there’s two tournaments in the year that have special meaning - the WSOP Main Event and the Irish Open. In these tournaments with long structures, deep stacks, and lots of recreational players, I think it’s prudent to try to pick your spots well and not put chips at risk unnecessarily. In the third level of the tournament, I find the 4-bet bluff followed by the 3 street barrel off getting all-in by the river against another reg. It worked.
I had 7 different tables throughout day 1 (pretty sure a personal record) and it was a long grind of a day. I feel like my day was a lot of calling 3-bets with speculative hands and whiffing flops. That said, when it came to winning the crucial hands, I managed to do that. My day really came down to 3 key hands. The first was the aforementioned bluff. The second hand, my QcJc gets all-in versus the 22 of Tom Kitt on a Q32cc flop. A lucky club on the turn kept me alive and had my stack up to 60k. With one level left in the night, I’m playing 21BBs. I open AQo UTG and there are two calls from the field. The BB opts for a rejam for his 22BBs. I call it off and hold vs the BB’s KTs.
Day 1B ends and I’m putting 155,000 chips in the bag. This stack will be slightly below average for day 2, but having never peaked at much higher, I’m very happy to get through on one bullet and not have to slog it out again the next day. With the venue at full capacity on the Friday for day 1C and 1D (the turbo flight), it means those of us that bagged have the day off.
I wake up on Friday to see a visibly hungover Smidge sitting in his boxers at the end of his bed staring at his phone. “They’ve put my table on the live stream”. It’s about 12:30 now and day 1C started at noon. Having woken up to a tweet informing him of the news, Smidge is sitting there trying to think of a witty response to explain his absence.
Knocked it out of the park Padraig.
Friday is a very quiet day for me. I sleep late, get some exercise in the hotel ‘gym’ and spend most of the day in the hotel bar drinking coffee and reviewing some hands from the previous days. I head to the RDS to join some of the lads on dinner break but that’s as close as I get to the action.
Saturday
Day 2 of the Irish Open main starts out with a rainy walk to the RDS from my hotel. I arrive about ten minutes before the start of play and spend some time outside the front door trying to dry off a bit. As I witness all the day 2 hopefuls enter the building escaping the Irish rain, I’m struck by the juxtaposition of the people going from the worst of what Ireland has to offer (a spring rain that’s just a bit too heavy to be pleasant) to the best. The situation is best summed up by one of these hopefuls Deborah Worsley-Roberts with the line “I usually like being wet…but not this wet!”.
Day 2 started out with 743 left and 480 paid. Average stack was 130k and I was coming back with 115k at the 2k/4k level. I expected the bubble to burst about 2 or 3 levels into play and I would’ve bet on myself at 4/5 to make the money at the start of play (4/6 if the max bet was big enough 😉). The cards are in the air and not much is happening for me. A few of my opens get 3-bet and the line for me cashing moves from 4/5 to even money. As experienced as I am and as much as I understand variance, the mind can’t help seeing patterns in the card distribution. I start thinking, I haven’t gotten aces, kings, queens or even ace-king the whole tournament, a little card rush wouldn’t go astray right now. Moments after having this thought, I look down at KK and you know what happens next. I open and action gets to Darren Harbinson who pauses. Pllleaaassse 3-bet I think to myself. Darren 3-bets and I have an easy shove. Darren calls with the AK and the board runs out clean right up until river when…
Great book, great title.
With so many people around, slinking away after busting is never easy. I get about 5 paces from my table when I run into Ger “George” Harraghy carrying two chip trays holding a healthy amount of €100 chips. “I played an insane hand”. You hear a lot of hand histories throughout the week but I think this one tops them all.
The game was 2/5 hold em, but was changed to 1/2/5 to avail of lower rake. This hand, they forgot to put the straddle on so it’s playing as a 1/2 game. UTG1 opens for 15, UTG2 3-bets to 37, CO flats, Ger makes it 125 on the button with aces. UTG1 5-bets to 300 and Ger, playing 3.5k, 6-bets to 750. The UTG1 player, who covers Ger, shoves. Ger calls and they agree to run it three times. The first board runs out KQTxx and the third board runs out QJTxx so Ger is not feeling too pleased with things. The UTG1 player looks at his hand, then looks at the boards. Then looks at his hand again. “I don’t think I win any of them”. He looks at the boards again trying to find something that might give him a portion of the pot but gives up and flips his hand over in the hope that someone else will see something he doesn’t. 52 off suit no good. Aces scoop the lot.
As Ger finishes telling me this hand history, Cathal Shine arrives over having just busted. As Shiner and I start chatting, Ger heads to the cash desk and Conor O’Driscoll joins us also having busted. We all lament our luck and Conor suggests we get out of here quick before we run into anyone else. We head down the road to the The Bridge Bar and order some lunch. The JP Masters is starting soon and the €3k high roller starts later in the day. Shiner, Conor and I chat about poker, babies and life. Shiner has two kids and Conor has one with another on the way. Us poker players are a unique breed and are invariably the weirdos and outliers in real life, so it’s always interesting to talk about navigating life with other people in a similar boat to yourself.
As we finish our lunch (a lovely brisket burger for me and a half rack of ribs for the lads), the topic of pints is broached. Shiner maintains he’s perfectly to happy to have one and being tempted by a second or third won’t be a worry. Me and Conor fear otherwise but there’s enough will between the three of us that one round of Guinness get ordered. The upside to busting the Irish Open is that I’ll always remember where I was the day Newcastle got a dodgy penalty to kickstart their comeback from 3-1 down to overcome West Ham in the battle for 8th place in the Premier League. The lad on the table next to us walked in as it went 3-3 in the 83rd minute and mentioned he had Newcastle in his Last Man Standing. “Ah, still probably no hope” he says. Yeah sure buddy, that’s like standing up and putting your jacket on when you’re 8% going to the river, I know your game, well played.
By Guinness number 3, Conor makes the executive decision to get the bill and ensure we’re not too far gone with a full day of poker still ahead. As a successful Twitch streamer, Conor was giving me some content creation advice. When using the Chwazi app to flip (ie randomly decide who pays a bill), ‘loser pays’ is always better content than ‘elimination’. We then flipped and Conor lost and Conor paid the bill. Thanks for the advice, Conor!
I head back and reg the JP Masters and as luck would have it, I end up sitting next to Shiner. We debate about another pint but decide to leave it a while. We play for a couple of hours before our table breaks and I get moved to the left of an old primary school pal of mine, Brian Hanrahan. My bustout comes when I reshove 88 from the SB and Brian calls me with AQ on the BU. Brian went on to final table the event finishing in 6th place for a 5-figue score. He mentioned that he was playing a bit more online lately so nice to see that experience standing to him.
I round out a miserable Saturday by busting the €3k high roller. 24hrs previous you’re in pretty good spirits envisaging a possible run in the Main. Before you know it, you’re looking down the barrel of a potential one small min-cash festival.
Sunday is the day people start to believe. If you’re still in on Sunday, you got a shot. Going into day 3, plenty of top Irish players were still in the mix including Paul Carr, Doke and Lappin, and 2nd in chips Simon Wilson. Aidan Quinlan, who I first met at the UL Poker Society, came back for day 3 in 4th place. Local Limerick player Kyle Slattery came back for day 3 in the middle of the pack hoping to keep his run going.
Limerick father and son duo Brian and Kyle Slattery
Irish poker legend Padraig Parkinson also got a very deep run eventually finishing in 13th place. Parky finished 5th in the Irish Open in 1999 – the last Irish Open to be held in the Eccentric Club – when there were 76 entrants. I guess 5th is better than 13th but a top 0.4% finish is better than a top 6.5% finish! Padraig was a huge help to me when I started the podcast. He put me in touch with numerous future guests and told so many good stories in his interview. The history and folklore of poker is such an important element of the game and I’m so grateful to people like Padraig for shining a light on the poker world of previous generations.
Watch Padraig Parkinson podcast interview here
My Irish Open Sunday starts with a max late reg of the €3k. I swiftly bust that and then max late reg the €1100 PLO Mystery Bounty and finally put a bit of a run together. There’s an open, two flats, and I look down at AAA9. I squeeze, getting in about 80% of my stack, and pray there’s a reshove behind to get me heads-up. They all call and when all three streets are tentatively checked down, I think just maybe my aces are good. Indeed’n they are and I’ve more than quadrupled up.
The bounties get introduced with 31 left (23 paid) and I’m sitting with about an average stack. Then the carnage ensues. With 27 left and a couple of severe shorties to my left, I limp with QQJ5. One of the short stacks obliges and a big stack from the blinds pots it. The bounties are worth about €2400 and first place is €17,000 so you really have to go after them. Combine that with the fact equities run so close in Omaha – a fancy way of saying, you’re never that far behind. I call and get the adrenaline inducing flop of KQ7ss. The big stack leads out for a small bet. Only one option for me, I pot it. He tanks for ages and eventually gambles with JTT9.
The turn comes a brick and the 8 river has me triple checking my opponent doesn’t have a straight but thankfully the dealer ships me the huge pot plus the bounty to ease my concerns. The very next hand I get in another huge 3 way pot where I cover both players. My AKQ6ds loses to AJ97ss this time.
The action is fast and furious on all the tables and before long we’re redrawing at 18. At this point, my stack is more than double average and I’ve collected 4 bounties. I’m on the right side of a huge cooler with 14 left when my AAQTds runs into the KK86ds of Andy Toole blind v blind. Andy had a stormer of a festival cashing in 3 of the 5 Omaha events on the schedule including a win on the final day in the €550 PLO 6-max. Andy announced himself on the Omaha scene in Killarney 2022 with a victory in the €2500 PLO Irish Championship defeating the formidable Liam O’Donoghue heads-up. Since then, he has amassed 6 tournament wins – 3 in Omaha, 3 in Hold ‘em.
Following this hand, I cool off a little and don’t play many hands until the final table. I come into the FT 5/9 and don’t get into too many spots. Players bust around me and I find myself 4 handed – me and one other short stack, along with two big stacks. I get several chances to ladder whilst 4 handed but on three occasions the at risk player survives as an underdog and by the break I’m comfortably 4/4.
Of my 5 bounties, I decided to pick 2 early and keep 3 for later. Bounties ranged from €1k up to €10k and unfortunately my first two picks were €1k. On break, there’s 10 bounties remaining including two €10ks and one €5k. I have 3 bounties to pick which means over 50% of the time, I’ll bink a €10k. Unfortunately, I go €1k, €1k, €2.5k to run about €5k below equity in my bounty picks ☹. No ladders and no big bounties, I come back from break a little bit tilted. A few more all-ins occur and I manage to ladder from 4th to 2nd which cheers me up. With a big chip deficit heads-up, I lose the first all-in and it’s second place and a much needed score to turn the week around.
The last event on that night is the turbo flight of the Mini Main. I jump in and begin to run like God. If my main event was encapsulated by calling 3-bets with speculative hands and whiffing, my Mini Main was the very opposite. The best example of this comes when I open 76ss UTG to 3200, UTG1 3-bets to 9600, the BB cold calls, and I call to see a flop. 985 rainbow. Bink. We check to the pre-flop 3-bettor who shoves for 1.5x pot and then the BB, who covers me, reshoves. JJ and TT are not in great against my flopped straight and I scoop a massive pot. We get through to the final 8% of the field which qualify for day 2 as I bag 655k going back to 10k/20k.
Monday
The Mini Main resumes with 400 players remaining and a chunky €80k up top. Players drop like flies and 400 turns into 200 very quickly. With the quick structure, you never have much breathing room. With around 100 left, I’m in desperation mode having whittled down to 5BBs. I shove UTG with 98o, MP flats, and the BB reshoves. MP folds and I get lucky vs AQo to more than treble up. The very next hand I reshove KQs vs an MP open and get there versus AJo. This brought me up to 1.8mil chips which was 30BBs at the time. This was my peak and I end up busting with 70 left when I get in my 15BBs with A6o vs A3s blind v blind. I’m dead by the turn as the spades come in.
A long and enjoyable week of poker comes to an end when I bust a couple of turbos on Monday evening. The Irish Open is always a great week and sets things up for a busy period of live poker. I’ll be traveling to Monaco for EPT Monte-Carlo at the end of April, and then it’s WSOP time in June. Gloria in Aeternum.
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