Being Irish, Padraig Parkinson likes three things: beer, poker, and more beer, and when those elements combine, the world is treated to a feast of poker anecdotes that are destined to tickle not only a couple of ribs, but the whole damn cage.
So, it is with great pleasure that we inform you that everybody's favourtie Irishman is back in Vegas for the umpteenth year, this time putting pen to paper to jump aboard the blog bandwagon and retell his very own version of events of everything WSOP related.
As a legend of the game, Padraig boasts a record of results as long as Mr Tickle's arm, including a Late Night Poker title and a third place finish in the WSOP Main Event. Not only that, but he is also one of the most liked players around, his bubbling personality combining with his wicked sense of humour to bring you one of the most enigmatic characters in the game.
In association with Padraig's sponsors Poker Trillion, blonde poker are proud to bring you an amalgamation of all those qualities in the form of Padraig's World Series of Poker blog. Every so often, we will gather together some of Padraig's entries and publish them here on blonde so together we can delve deep into the warped mind of the Irishman.
Having been in Vegas for a few weeks now, Padraig has already penned a few entries, of which can be found below. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did and we thank Poker Trillion for allowing us to share them with the blonde viewers:
(1) When Benny Met Terry - 27th May 2008
Back in the days when donkeys had four legs and hoodies were called anoraks, eccentric Irish bookmaker Terry Rogers dropped in to the Horseshoe during a visit to Las Vegas to see what the World Series of poker was all about and met the colourful Benny Binion. It was the beginning of a real and lasting friendship.
Benny was impressed at having met an Irish visionary who could look forward rather than backwards and Terry liked meeting a guy who'd shot a few people because he could think of several guys he'd like to shoot himself if it wasn't illegal in Ireland at the time (it's ok now). It was to be the start of the annual migration of Europeans to the World Series. On arriving home, Terry founded the aptly named Eccentric's Club and immediately began running satellites for Benny's tournament. It wasn't all one way traffic as a couple of years later the best players in the world, including Doyle, Chip and even Stuey with a brand new passport, travelled to Ireland to take part in a series of tournaments in the Killarney Castle Hotel. Terry, ever the showman, turned it into a media circus as only he could. It all went great, except for a minor hiccup when the cashiers took the money with them for safekeeping when going on a dinner break. They forgot to come back. It all worked out fine because Terry paid everybody anyway and the punters got a free laugh.
The cream of Irish poker (and some of the milk) turned up to do battle with the Yanks including the legendary road gambler Laramie. Laramie likes to drink almost as much as he likes to play poker and as life is short he manages to fit both in at the same time. This isn't unusual in Ireland though it's normally considered a good idea to at least start the poker before the drinking but Laramie always did march to his own drum. During one of the tournaments, he had a huge chip lead and an even bigger drink lead. It looked like the double was on until Laramie disappeared. After a frantic search he was found asleep in a cubicle in the toilets but the search was a complete waste of time as the searchers were drawing dead as far as waking him was concerned. Eat your heart out Vinnie Vinh!
I was in Dublin last week and there was some speculation as to why Andy Black was bringing such a large entourage with him to Vegas. The younger guys were a bit confused but the veterans think they know. At the first hint of him hitting a chip lead the team will be under instructions to lock him in the nearest toilet for at least three levels. If you can learn from the past, you can earn more in the future.
(2) Diplomatic Relations - 30th May 2008
I could never understand why, when poker was booming all over the world and the Irish were punching way above their weight, the Irish media en masse insisted on ignoring the elephant in the middle of the room. It was doubly mysterious because the Irish have always loved a gamble.
A champion race horse could easily have won a seat in Parliament or even become Prime Minister if it looked like it should be selling fruits and veg in a market. Luckily, in the last few years, the national broadcaster had a change of heart and now shows the Irish Championship and the Irish Open almost live. This year, Mike Sexton and Doyle Brunson have been the stars of the show. They've shown how true ambassadors of the game should behave and when they left town everyone thought a lot more of them, the game and the country they represent.
It doesn't always work out quite so well. Not too long ago player A and player C decided to take a cruise on the Mediterranean. I don't know why player B didn't join them but I'd guess he might have been a bit concerned that the ship wouldn't be carrying enough alcohol, especially as player A and C were going to be on board. The first day at sea, player A and C gave it the holly and tried to drink the boat dry. In the middle of this mission, they came across a bunch of Americans playing No Limit Holdem. They got the tactics right initially with player A joining the game and player C in charge of the drinks. Player A was the class of the field by some distance. In the third hand, he got a present of 300 bucks. Five hands later they gifted him another 800. Player A doesn't normally play that many hands but after all he was on holidays. He got to thinking about this and that: this being how much money these guys had in their pockets and that being how much they could get access to before they hit dry land. Player C was playing the game of his life just by keeping his mouth shut and had indeed set a new personal best in that department. This couldn't last forever and eventually on hand number ten, he decided to join in the conversation. His opening gambit, "What business did you guys have invading Iraq?" could have been better thought out. It upset player A even more than it did the Americans because strangely enough there was no hand eleven.
(3) Treacherous Kickers - 5th June 2008
I made my first mistake of this year's WSOP about a month before we came here. I booked our flight on American Airlines rather than Air France. I like American Airlines but confidence is what this game is all about and Air France inspire a lot of this by not asking for details of your next of kin.
On the first leg of the trip, Veronique was preparing for battle in Binion's by reading Harrington's cash game book. As I know everything already, I don't have to bother with that shit so I contented myself by studying the NBA playoffs in the newspaper – if you can call USA Today a newspaper. I was rudely interrupted when Vero asked what "treacherous" meant. I patiently explained that it was a word invented several hundred years ago by the Irish to describe the English when it transpired that they were only having a laugh when they signed the Treaty of Limerick. Surprisingly, despite his Irish ancestry, that wasn't quite what Dan had in mind. He seemed to think it could be used to describe weak kickers. I let it go. We arrived in Chicago two hours before our scheduled flight to Vegas. No problems there. Except when we got to immigration there was a queue a mile long. Obviously, we weren't expected. Vero was surprised but I explained to her that in all probability the joker who was responsible for the six hour lines at registration for the first event at the Rio last year had had a career change. Two hours later, we were still in line and I had a panic attack when I got to thinking that if Harrah's were involved in this mess maybe ESPN were as well, in which case our new connection mightn't get us to Vegas until November. The immigration guy was a nice lad and couldn't wait to tell me that Chris Ferguson had been one of his customers. He was particularly impressed by Chris's ability to inflict unspeakable cruelty on assorted fruits from a distance. I told him I also thought that this was indeed marvellous. Vero was next up and the guy was now really getting into the swing of things and hit her with two poker stories. Apparently he'd lost two big pots when he had the same hand as the other guy, except there was a slight difference in the kicker department. Luckily Vero didn't use her new found knowledge on treacherous kickers to impress the guy or we'd probably still be in Chicago.
The next day, I went to the Rio and my suspicions re Chicago were confirmed. There was no line to get a player's card so I got one. There was also no queue at registration so I assumed this was a sign from the Gods and registered for the first $ 1500 cavalry charge. It wasn't. Three levels and one treacherous kicker later, I was on my way back downtown to see if I could get a quick read of Dan's book without Vero noticing. This wasn't a problem because having read the book, she was still in action in Binion's.
(4) Broken Dreams - 9th June 2008
A dream is what's brought us all here. Dreams are fine unless they become an obsession and start to eat you up inside. The guy who said "If you can dream it, you can do it." was a tad optimistic at best. He may well have been an idiot. What if everybody has the same dream ? I spent most of the last week hanging around the pool in the Golden Nugget – what's left of it anyway. Some guy who obviously had no intention of actually staying here himself worked out that it would be a great idea to put a shark tank in the middle of the pool. It's great for the kids but not much use if you want to swim. The sharks don't seem to find it ideal either. Anyway, I've been sitting there dreaming that just one shark would escape and bite one of the little fuckers. But it's just not working out. I'm going to just let it go.
That left me with nothing to do so I went to play my second tournament of the series in the Rio. 33 minutes later I was headed for Binion's. Legendary WSOP floor man Scof was at the bar and pretty soon he was telling me a story from a few years ago regarding a deuce-to-seven player whose name he'd forgotten. A big part of this guy's game revolved around stealing the blinds. Manually if necessary. It's a strong play. At one stage he went very broke. It wasn't as bad as it sounds as he got sick and the doctor told him he was going to die if he didn't get a heart transplant. And soon. He also said that finding a donor was very unlikely. I suppose these days if a very important poker player, like Phil or Daniel, needed a transplant there'd be lots of guys queuing up to give them any organ they wanted, even if they were using them at the time. But in those days nobody would want to donate as much as a toe nail to a poker player, especially one who played deuce-to-seven. As he was about to die anyway our man decided to at least enjoy his last weekend on earth so he phoned every bookie he knew and started betting on credit on anything they'd take a bet on. Some people would consider this a little bit of a liberty as he was completely potless at the time. But most of them are bookies. Almost inevitably he won 50.000 and was in a complete state of panic when he talked to his doctor the next Monday as dying isn't quite as much fun if you have a few quid. He never did find a donor but lived long enough to lose the 50.000 anyway, which was nice. I just had to ask if he took another free shot at the bookies before he died but he was unfortunate enough to die suddenly at a time he was feeling quite well, so we'll never know what would have happened.
(5) A Mile In Anouther Man's Shoes - 18th June 2008
It's a winning or a losing thing. Depending on your stack size, a player walking by the Rio with a ridiculous brand new nickname can make you feel like either laughing or puking. If Martin Wilson had been born thirty years later he'd probably be known as "Supersonic Marty" if his agent got to choose or "Hung Like a Horse Wilson" if he got to choose himself. But he comes from an era when your peers conferred the nicknames, so he's known as "Mad Marty" because he's fucking nuts.
It's Binion's for breakfast and before you've got the first coffee of the day in he's answered the waitress's polite "What kind of toast would you like sir ?" with a "How about to the four of us?" Ten minutes later, he's requesting a doggy bag for what's left on his plate, which turns out to be the only healthy item he started with : a thin slice of orange. Next stop is Fitzgerald's. He just can't help himself. He stops a lady and asks her how much she thinks a taxi to the Golden Nugget would cost. She kindly tells him that a taxi isn't necessary as it's only a two minutes walk down Freemont street. Marty then spends ten minutes telling the poor woman that he knows she thinks she's right and is genuinely trying to help but that she's very much mistaken. God help her! Marty assures her that we're off to get a cab! We don't.
As we're walking towards the Nugget, we see Kathy Liebert talking to some guy who's selling hats and caps and stuff. I congratulate her on her third place finish in the opening event in the Rio. Marty is more practical and asks her how much she got. She rather sheepishly tells him it paid three hundred thousand. I bumped into Kathy in the Rio a couple of days later and she tells me our timing could have been a little better. Apparently she was haggling with the stall holder over the price of a cap and when he heard that she just had such a big cash he disgustedly broke off negotiations and told her to just take the damn thing and go. Marty is like that, he can cause havoc, even when he's even trying.
I escaped from Marty and decided to have a sedate cup of coffee outside the Nugget with Jesse May, who doesn't need a nickname. As we were having a friendly bet on whether the next Starbucks customer would be talking on a mobile phone as they ordered their coffee, a larger than life character called Fran stopped by to say hello. The first time I ever played at the WSOP in 1995 there was only one holdem game that wasn't limit, and that was a 10/15 pot-limit game. Fran used to literally fall into the game in the wee small hours and cause mayhem. I kinda liked it, especially as I don't have too much room to criticise others in that department and anyway anything that pisses half the players off has to be good for the game. No matter how wasted he was he usually had a pretty good idea of what he was doing and that pissed them off even more. I'm not saying all the new players lie about their past but if reinventing themselves in TV interviews was a hanging offence we wouldn't need four starting days in the main event. Fran is a new man now and has found God, he didn't pull any punches or avoid any issues as he talked about the years he lived in a haze. He left us with some sound advice : "Don't judge a man till you've walked a mile in his shoes." As we were thinking about this English player John Gee who'd been listening in from the next table added his bit : "I'd walk a mile in any man's shoes. I'd have a new pair of shoes and have a mile start on the previous owner."
(6) Why Can't It Wait Until November? - 24th June 2008
Lots of Europeans think American comedy went into terminal decline after Bilko. They are sorely mistaken. My favourite comedy show on American TV is called "The News". A few days ago they hit new heights. They opened up with a pretty good "Ten percent of Americans think Obama is a Muslim." They didn't say what the other 90 % thought. Next up was a court appearance from some guy suspected of involvement in a shooting. His name was Jesse James. For some reason he didn't get bail.
Still laughing, I went down to the Rio to play my 5th WSOP event. During the dinner break, I overheard a girl on the rail say "All the big stars are here, this is so exciting!" She was watching level 2 of a high-low limit event. I must be missing something. Maybe this is why I got knocked out right after the dinner break. I did get knocked out in time to hear Irish man Aidan Bennett talking about one of my favourite subjects: pubs in the West of Ireland. I told him that one of my favourites was in a place called Oughterard. Of course he knew it and said that the last time he'd been in the area he went in for a drink at about eleven o'clock one morning. I took this to mean that he hadn't woken up till after 10.30. The only other customers were two old guys sitting in the corner. They were obviously trying to give the barman a break because they were drinking whiskey by the bottle. As often happens with whiskey drinkers they soon got into a heated argument. It wasn't over anything trivial, it concerned the writing on the label of the bottle. One guy borrowed the other guy's glasses in an effort to clarify the situation. The lenses were the thickest Aidan had ever seen so the guy couldn't see a thing through them and graciously said to his companion "You must be right, you must have great eye sight if you can see through these."
Those who think having the final table of the main event in November must be looking through glasses like these. Maybe they just want to see what suits them. Cast your mind back to 2002: Robert Varkoni won the main event beating a final table that was probably a lot stronger than this year's will be. Lots of people will have forgotten his name but everybody remembers Hellmuth crashing the party and having his head shaved. I don't blame Phil, he's as good a self-publicist as he is a player. I Blame ESPN for allowing him to piss on somebody else's parade. You can see where the TV people are coming from with this new plan. Guys who are as dry as toast in July will still be dry as toast in November. They'll turn it into a battle of the coaches, the finalist having bit parts at best. It sounds nauseating. I don't care, I can always watch the news.
(7) Magic Potions - 27th June 2008
I set a new record the other day. Last year I was the youngest player ever to lose his money in a Seniors event at the WSOP. This year I became the only guy in the history of the event to lose his money before his 51st birthday. When I decide to set records, I don't fuck about.
There's only three rules you need to observe in Seniors poker.
1. Never pass a toilet.
2. Never trust a fart.
3. Turn up at least 20 minutes late if you don't want to listen to Oklahoma Johnny banging on for ever before exhorting you to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States of America, regardless of your nationality.
At least I got this bit right. Before I knocked myself out, I noticed a poster on the wall advertising a super pill which was obviously aimed at seniors citizens. An old buddy of mine, Larry from Texas, was sitting beside me. So I tried to help him out by drawing his attention to the ad and I respectfully suggested he had nothing to lose by giving it a go. He seemed quite interested and touched by my concern for my fellow man but pointed out that one of the properties claimed by the advertisers was that this pill boosted mental focus and sex drive and as he was of the opinion that these were competing forces, decided it was a pass.
I gave the pot-limit Omaha high-low a brief spin the next day, which was a good idea because Adam Heller sorted out the super pill conundrum. He immediately spotted that the correct play was to take half a tablet and keep both the wife and the sudoku handy to be prepared for all possibilities.
My next move was cheaper. I returned to the Seniors tournament to sweat Mad Marty who was making his way triumphantly through the field to the final table. He wasn't doing it quietly either. He talked Men the Master out of a huge stack in a hand we'll have to listen to for centuries to come (at least it will feel like centuries). Men had 9-2 in the big blind and Marty had limped with 5-5. On a T-5-2 flop Men check-raised Marty, who called muttering "I've played this all wrong." I don't know what Men was thinking though I strongly suspect that he just wanted to get as far away from Marty as possible because when a 3 came on the turn he moved all-in. It was probably a welcome relief. Not long afterwards, Marty raised to 60.000. Some guy whose attempts at comedy were quite frankly embarrassing asked Marty if 60 was his age (this was one of his better efforts). Marty replied "No, but it's probably your IQ." The consensus on the rail was that Marty was maybe giving the guy the best of it.
Luckily the final table of the Seniors clashed with the thousand rebuy no-limit holdem. So I got to save a good few quid by joining a very international group who showed up to support Marty. He didn't deserve any less. Bruce Atkinson turned up at the start, impersonating a fat guy who died on a toilet. Unfortunately there weren't any toilets around so he sang an Elvis song instead. Unlucky.