blonde poker

Last week, the picturesque town of Killarney, Ireland became the latest location to jump aboard the poker bandwagon when it hosted the highly anticipated Ladbrokes.com Irish Poker Festival. With tournament sponsors Ladbrokes Poker having served up a variety of satellites, it was of no surprise to see a record-breaking 832 players turn up, all with their eyes firmly fixated on that mouth-watering €100,000 first prize. In fact, the €500+50 main event was so popular that the initial capacity of 625 (and then 750) was thrown out of the window in favour of an alternate system that could cater for the overwhelming demand.

With the Ladbrokes.com guarantee of €250,000 being smashed to smitherines, some of the biggest names in poker were inevitably lured over to Ireland to battle it out for their share of the eventual €416,000 prizepool. Among the masses were a number of familiar faces including Ladbrokes' own Roy 'The Boy' Brindley, as well as pot limit Omaha world champion and former Irish Open winner Marty Smyth. However, although the stars were out in full force, the final table line-up ultimately comprised of less familiar names, with Cork's Jimmy McSweeney leading the way with 2,900,000 in chips.

Seat 1: Jimmy McSweeney 2,900,000
Seat 2: Steve Johnson 900,000
Seat 3: Nick Heather 1,700,000
Seat 4: Hugh Whelan 700,000
Seat 5: Ian Smith 720,000
Seat 6: Barry Hand 1,000,000
Seat 7: Bo Ericshen 2,200,000
Seat 8: Andrew Roberts 2,600,000

Although Whelan was the short-stack, it was Barry Hand who exited first, finding himself all in with pocket tens versus McSweeney's A-K. An ace high board propelled McSweeney up to a commanding 4,000,000 ,and Hand to the rail.

With Steve Johnson snapping up seventh, it was Ian Smith who dropped next. All in on a T-6-3 flop with A-J versus the T-6 of Whelan, Smith was in piping hot water which showed glimmers of turning cold on the ace turn before finally bursting into flames on the five river.

The next battle saw a short-stacked Nick Heather push over the top of McSweeney’s opening raise with Q-J only to get called by A-J. The board didn’t throw up the necessary queen, leaving Heather to exit in fifth for €20,000.

Whelan, who had recovered from having just one ante four tables out, was next to bust. After raising his button, he was put all in by Andrew Roberts in the big blind. Roberts had J-J and Whelan had 3-3. The board ran out A-5-4-J-K and Whelan went home in fourth.

 

With three left, it was still anyone's game, with three separate nations being represented in the form of Ireland, England and Denmark. However, it was the latter of those three that would miss out on a long awaited heads-up encounter, Bo Erichsen's departure looking imminent as he ran pocket eights into McSweeney's dominating pocket nines. A raggy board later, and the Dane was gone in third.

Although the event had showcased some of the year's finest poker, the final hand would be a simple coin-flip for the title. He had the lead, but McSweeney needed his pocket sixes to stand firm in the face of Andrew Robersts' A-9. And stand they did, a K-Q-Q-2-J board giving McSweeney the most important pot of the night as well as a nice fat cheque for €100,000.

Bryan Coleman, Irish Territory Manager at Ladbrokes.com said, “We’re absolutely delighted with the turnout and would like to thank all the players who made this festival such a success. Our heartiest congratulations go to Jimmy who is a worthy champion and we’re sure we’ll be hearing more of him in the future.”

 

1st  Jimmy McSweeney -- €100,000      
2nd  Andrew Roberts -- €65,000      
3rd  Bo Erichsen -- €35,000      
4th  Hugh Whelan -- €25,000      
5th  Nick Heather -- €20,000      
6th  Ian Smith -- €15,000      
7th  Steve Johnson -- €12,000      
8th  Barry Hand -- €10,000