Women take center stage
For as long as I’ve been playing poker, Galway has hosted the first major live stop every year. First there was the IPC, then the UKIPT (the first UKIPT was held here), and more recently the IPT, all the brainchild of Fintan Gavin. This year was no different, as the first IPT of the year was held at the Galmont Hotel. The festival included a wide range of events with strong guarantees, all of which were comfortably smashed. The €600 ($657) buy-in main event had a €300,000 ($329,000) guarantee, but 833 entries over six flights on day one generated a €433,000 ($474,000) prize pool.
The IPT has cemented a new golden period for grassroots poker in Ireland. Another feature was the emergence of women’s events, and Galway was no exception. Not only did Sia Browne take down the women’s event hosted by IPT Ambassador Tanya Masters, she also won the opening freeze (defeating Game of Gold star Lukas Robinson) and took part in a four-way cut for the Monster event (a cut which also featured legendary Irish lady Wilhelmina “Willow” Connolly).
Two of the top six spots on the overall leaderboard are female
Other women with deep runs include Liz Kelly, fresh out of the Dublin main event in November and who finished fifth in the Claddagh Cup (just ahead of partner Derek Baker – more on him later), and Katie Harrington, who won the race. opener. At the time of writing, two of the top six on the overall leaderboard are female (Sia and Katie).
The old ones are better
That other great forgotten demographic in poker, the seniors, also had a pretty good festival. I organized my first live event in ten years: the Paddy Power Twitch 5k free course. I tried to make the argument to anyone who would listen that this was actually the hardest (and therefore most popular) event ever, as you had to win a Twitch game on Paddy Power to qualify (so everyone in it was trashed online) and there was no getting back in, But no one was buying it. Although I’ve never been one to put a lot of trophies in my poker trophies (when visitors to Doke Manor ask about the few dozen trophies in my locker, I take great pride when I show them the ones I got after winning the 24-run Irish The Championships Hour, the World Indoor 6 Hour Championships, the New York 60km Championships, and I also take great pride in my Leinster Chess Champion Trophy, but not so much because of the “this one I got for winning a lot of somersaults, and this one where I beat a runner by a runner” kind of thing. ), it felt good to be involved in a live tournament, even if there was once again more than a sizable slice of luck involved.
All my “best hands” but one held out
The final table was a real rollercoaster: I entered at eighty Of nine it was the shortest for most of it (I dropped below two BBs on more than one occasion), but I was able to get ahead every time except for the last hand. All but one of my ‘best hands’ are up, an ACCA-like form of disguised luck on a set of favorable odds that all come up, meaning that when I got a heads-up with Ger Keenan, I had most Luck chips for once. On the last hand, Ger hit Queens too short, and when I raised all-in on a T-6-2 flop, he found himself facing one of the best possible hands of Queens, Q -6, but another 6 on the river made the cut. Deal for me.
Several seniors took part in most of the events across the festival, but the best was saved for last when Derek Baker came out on top of a very strong main event final table which included four of the best Irish professionals over the past decade. These professionals included Cathal “Shiner” Shine (who had a great festival overall, winning the 1k High Roller and making two other final tables), Mark McDonnell, Tommy “Lucky Mo” Gelizionas and Ivan Tononi. When I went down with five lefties, Derek told me he needed help with only 15 BB, and that help came because he was on the right side of two big hands against Cathal.
This time last year, Derek and I found ourselves in the final three seniors at this festival with Jay O’Toole. As this went on longer than expected, Derek joked that our carers were becoming worried about us. Derek went on to spend a full year on air, making it to several final tables on the IPT circuit and even ending up qualifying for the year-end leaderboard qualifiers.
Derek is a guy who’s been a popular figure in the ring for as long as I’ve been playing, but he seems to have taken up the game since live poker returned after the coronavirus lockdown. In the next two years, he raised nearly five times as much live cash as he did in the 10 years before the pandemic.
Fun times at the tables
Many of my foreign friends were visiting Galway for the first time, and they all commented on the wonderful spirit and kindness at the table. I saw several examples of sharp Irish wit during the festival. At one point in the main event, I was sitting next to the incomparable Dermot Allen. When Andy Black wandered over to talk to him, Dermot opened by saying: “I’d like to tell you you look good, Andy, but you’re not. You look ridiculous. Get yourself together, man.”
Later, Paul Carr, last year’s leaderboard winner, wandered over to chat with Dermot.
“I looked for Dara’s shirt and saw you immediately.”
“I was looking for you, but I couldn’t see you. Then your daughter said: He is sitting next to Dara, so I looked for Dara’s shirt and saw you immediately.
One of my students was less fortunate, as Ciaran told Connie that he had never met me in person. Kieran scanned the room for the top shirt in place, quickly spotted it and pointed it in the right direction, then set off. The only problem is that I wasn’t wearing one of my shirts on this occasion, but rather Colette “Smurf” Murphy was wearing one of her blouses!
Let’s talk about smidge
The festival also saw the first appearance of EPT Prague champion Padraig “Smidge” O’Neill since his win there. Fintan and the IPT crew marked the occasion with a special display of Ireland’s first true EPT champion (as I pointed out in my speech, Fintan, while taking the lion’s share of the EPT Barcelona, did not take home the trophy, and as much as we all love Steve O’Dwyer, he himself will admit As Irish as Lucky Charms).
Someone I have always admired as a player, but more importantly as a person
Most of my speech lamented the fact that if I had not been in Prague, as I was, I would certainly have received a share of the million he won in barter. Still, I found myself tearing up when speaking about someone I’ve known since the beginning of our careers, someone I’ve always admired as a player, but more importantly as a person. I’ll be doing a full interview with Smidge here soon.
