I arrived at the Citywest Hotel, Dublin on day 1(a) (due to play day 1(b)). I checked into my room on 2nd floor and headed down to the bar for some drink and some poker on the laptop. I noticed Roland De Wolfe and Neil Channing in the bar getting food, and soon the place was full of poker players playing day 1a. I sat at the bar and 5 tabled for a bit while eating lunch, and I ran good and made about 2k Euros, which is never bad.
Irish Poker Open 2008 Prizepool- - €3,001,400
1 € 801,400
2 € 420,000
3 € 275,000
4 € 220,000
5 € 175,000
6 € 135,000
7 € 100,000
8 € 75,000
9 € 50,000
10 -12 €32,500
13-18 €24,000
19-27 €18,000
28- 36 €13,000
37-45 € 9,000
46-54 € 6,500
55-63 € 5,500
64-72 € 4,500
Day 1 kicked off at 2pm (315 Players), and I wandered around snapping the players without challenge really.. Irish hopes included Andy Black, a bunch of players from Boards.ie and some satellite players.
Other big name players on day 1(a) included Sorel Mizzi, Doyle Brunson (who could be seen zooming around on one of those old-people carrier thingys, or assisted by a crutch), Trond Eidsvig (this guy runs like god, and has Final tabled the last 4 EPT’s iirc.), Roland de Wolfe (who spend the first 90 Mins of play getting a Massage), Todd Brunson, Joe “BigEgypt” Elpayaa, John Duthie (EPT founder), Mike “Timex” mcDonald on same table as Dave “devilfish” Ulliot, to name but a few. I also recognised Jen Mason, Ram Vaswani, and spoke to micky wernick and HendonMobster Barney Boatman (both of whom were very nice and let me take their pics..)
The first elimination of the day was given a big chocolate easter-egg in a basket thingy.. (expensive egg, at 4500 Euros!)..
Irishman Andy Black grinded up to about 45k pretty quickly, however he busted out pretty soon when his opponent rivered a backdoor straight. D’oh!
Irish Poker Open Chipcounts at end of day 1(a)
Top 10
82,250 Jay Renehan
78,700 AlexanderFitzgerald
72,375 Carsten Joh
69,325 Mazhar Nawab
60,100 Thomas Dempsey
59,275 David Gregory
59,150 Keith Littlewood
56,225 Sorel Mizzi
55,225 John Keown
53,800 Doyle Brunson
51,300 Graham Clarkson
So I headed to the bar and chatted to some young americans (the only guy I recognised was Timex tbh). It turned out I was sitting with Jim (mr_bigQueso) and Isaac Baron (mrMenlo), Anthony and some other ballas whose names excape me now As a Cardrunners Member (menlo makes Vids for CR) I felt it my duty to tell menlo that his vids had improved my game.. and to get very drunk with the boys. It did amaze me how young the american players were (these guys have made MILLIONS online, and looked 18-23!). It was also refreshing that there was not a bit of ego about these guys.. they were humble, happy to dish out the tips to someone without vast live experience in big BI tourneys, and of course they were more than happy to get high with me! haha 
So we got drunk and smoked some doobs outside (I managed to find some skins eventually as the hotel didn’t sell any! WTF).. then Queso did a 5k Coinflip (literally) with Roland De Wolfe in the bar (Roland said he won, but Queso said he won.. Hmmm..) as well as some drinking games. Met Chris from cakepoker and talked shite to him and drank a few then I hit the sack about 6am as I was due to play the next day at 2pm..
Day 1(b)
I awoke about 12 and as soon as I opened my hotelroom door, I could smell some TASTY WEED. I proceeded to lunch and joined some of the guys from the night before. It turned out the weed had been purchased by my new american friends, and security and the hotel manager had been knocking on their door, suitably unimpressed. haha.. I saw Soren Jensen, bigegypt and mark teltscher floating around, and after I had drunk about 10 glasses of water and had my lunch I went to play my game.
So it turns out Paddy Power didn’t sell as many seats as last year, so they were trying to sell a few seats by running some 1 hand satellites (350 Euros buyin, 2 tables, 1 hand - winner takes all, 2nd place gets his money back).. So half an hour later they announced that there was an overlay, and poor old Paddy Power were paying the remainder to make up the guarantee!
I was on table 26, seat 2 (iirc), and didn’t recognise anyone on my table except Norweigan Thomas Nielsen. Guy 2 on my left was a young american player called Malachy Hagan, and the rest were unknowns. We started with 10k chips (all tables were 9-handed), 25/50 blinds and a nice slow clock. I chipped up to about 14k by the end of the 2nd level, exploiting some irish guy with tattoos who was mega weak and donkish. He was 4xing hands like jko UTG and making silly c-bets. I asked him how much he had after he cbet a 9high rainbow then I shoved and he folded, and I showed air. This put him on tilt and he shoved A6o into Nielsens AA and it was goodbye from him..
After about 3 levels, I get dealt AA. Irish guy in seat 8 makes it 5x to Go. I RR him to about 11x, telling him if he reraises I’ll probably shove. He goes all in, I snapcall. He also has AA obv. No 4flush ensues and we chop chop. boooo.
Later (2 hands before dinner) the chinese guy in seat 1 (who is kind of short on chips) raises it to 5x. An Irish guy in MP shoves, and it folds around to the original raiser. he flips over KK (not realising someone has called) and his hand is dead. The other guy had AK and won the hand. hoho… luck of the Irish !
After dinner one of my key hands happened. Nielsen has a fat stack with blinds 200/400, and I am on about 13k. He raises it to 2k UTG, and the guy on my right flatcalls. I squeeze by going all in with 55, then I assume the pillar of stone position (shades on, hands over mouth.. trying not to flinch or move). Nielsen stands up and probes for info. “you have tens? jacks?” I can feel my hands begin to shake and I close my eyes tight, staying silent. Eventually he makes the call (he has about 18k) with AKo (I was sure he had a med pocket pair). The flop gives a beautiful 5xx, and he bricked the Aces and Kings anyway, leaving him crippled with about 4k. He soon shoves 99 and gets pwned by AQo. GG sir.
The table is broken up and I end up getting moved to Table 10 (I only recognised Tim Blake and 1 other player). There’s about 10 mins to go of day 1 and my dad gives me a call (”i’m doing fine, 22kish.. a decent stack for 2mor”). Next thing I get dealt QQ in Middle Position. Blinds are 300/600 with a 25 ante. Guy UTG raises to 2k. It folded to me. I shoved for ~22k. It folds to mateyboy UTG. After 2 mins I call clock. with 20 seconds left he says “oh is it my turn?” and flips over aces. “That is the sickest slowroll I have ever seen” I say. Mateyboy protests his innocence, saying he genuinely thought it was the guy on his right to go. hmm..The board offers no queens and it’s goodnight from me. Being such a sporting chap, I shook his hand and said best of luck. [C*NT!] I can’t believe I busted 5 mins before day 2! ARGH£$%£$%&$&*&*(.
Irish Poker open Chipcounts Day 2
Top 10:
99400 Eric Larcheveque
92250 Lars Hougaard
84875 Knut Rysstad
82250 Jay Renehan
78700 Alexander Fitzgerald
76425 Conor Tate
72375 Carsten Joh
69700 James Daly
69325 Mazhar Nawab
65000 Nick Goodall
Day 2 saw the feature table getting opened up, and of course Doyle Brunson was there in his iconic stetson. Sorel Mizzi was on 120k+, and looking good to final table this event 2 years on the trot. Irishman Donal Norton was another serious contender to hit the final table with a huge stack. PokerVerdict’s Neil Channing was also looking good for a FT spot with plenty of chips around him.
Final chipcounts end of day 3
Chip Counts and Seating Plan:
Seat 1: Neil Channing — 2,748,000
Seat 2: Tim Blake — 912,000
Seat 3: Kai Danilo Paulsen — 716,000
Seat 4: Thomas Dunwoodie — 544,000
Seat 5: Edwin Tournier — 562,000
Seat 6: Donal Norton — 1,164,000
Channing ran good on the final table and won himself 800K Euros. He also had £500 on himself at 100-1, so quite a nice payday for Mr C. Irishman Donal Norton came 2nd for 400k Euros. Congrats to both.
See y’all at next years Irish Poker Open
Barry neville busted out of the Main event before the buffet (yummy - thanks bluesquare- Free buffet and free booze =))
