blonde poker

This week, the blonde update team was treated to an EPT event held in what looked like a town house over four floors. More precisely, the Merrion Club in lovely Dublin, where Mags Manton and the team kept the multiple floors and high stakes players happy. The players, always threatening to boycott events which are in any manner inconvenient or un-player friendly in structure, found the former but not the latter and showed up anyway – it was a full house with the maximum 250 runners paying their €4,000 to enter the Irish Masters.

The seat draw, with its complications due to the spread of tables throughout the basement (or, the Dungeon), the Poker Room, half the gaming floor, the Merrion Room, and two Salons in the attic took less time than we envisaged, and it kicked off less than an hour late. So much could not be said for Isabelle Mercier, whose flight delays left her somewhere between the airport and the club after a full blind level, but who put in a good performance when she finally arrived.

Some well-known blondeites like MalcM and Ariston were too late to register, and gave us a hand updating on Dubai (Dave Shallow), Iwan Jones, Dave Colclough and especially Skalie and DPommo, who put in sterling performances, with David Pomroy featuring on the televised final…more on that later. Other familiar faces who squeezed in to the Merrion were Juha Helppi, Ross Boatman, Julian Thew, Dave Colclough and Mr and Mrs William Hill, Steve Vladar and Xuyen ‘Bad Girl' Pham.

We were all treated to lunches in a kind of tent out the back, with separate tents for the press and the smokers (smoking in any public place is banned in Ireland). There I regularly ran into Bad Girl, who along with Yo-Yo had a chip rollercoaster to contend with but took it all in good spirits. At one point, she doubled her stack in the time it took me to complete a full circuit no less than three times. But the crowd went wild for the young David Pomroy, whose aviator shades made him nice and recognisable for me. That and the big chip stack which followed him throughout both days, reaching a peak during the tense final tables (pre-televised part) when a succession of strong plays and good cards led him to finish Day One as leader, and Day two as third overall.

American blondeite extraordinaire Brian Wilson somehow got sat on Barny Boatman's table, and while the Mobster got off to a good start, nothing went right for Brian, but he left only slightly dispirited for the 888.com televised semi-final, where things went a bit better. Other American Jeffrey Bensinger decided to call me ‘Pokerblondy' and had a one-man support group secretly demanding information on him (in the nicest possible way) until his exit late in Day Two. It appeared that he and his mate Noah Boeken were in the habit of playing for twelve hours, partying for the next twelve and repeating the process. But Tikay and I had a job to do, and that included a 4am breakfast, and a mini Heads Up Series of Poker, which I am ashamed to admit cost me €20 and a trophy made of pride.

It turned out to be a good idea to stuff yourself when food appeared, as there was up to a three hour wait for food at the tables as the small venue's kitchens struggled with the sudden huge demand. They eventually gave up near the end of Day One, and pizzas started to be delivered, to the joy of the hungry players. To his credit, El Blondie tried to get me a hamburger at one stage, using his High-profile Player status with no effect whatsoever. I ate the pizza. He started off well, and it came down once again to a lost race which took him out late on Day One.

The Irish contingent was (as expected) very strong, with heavyweights Andy Black, Donnacha O'Dea, and Jim Reid making the money, along with Michael O'Sullivan and Joe Rafferty. Ram Vaswani was the early chip leader, having flopped a Queen to give his pocket Queens a set against KK, while Ben ‘the Milkybar Kid' grundy somehow beat Joe Grech's flopped set of Queens with a runner-runner straight involving his 84…Simon Trumper and Joe Beevers started strongly too, but exited before the money.

Some of the other players who've had success in previous events this year had a little less over in Dublin, like young, amiable Dutchman Abel Meijberg, and young, amiable Englishman Stuart Fox, who had impressed us all at Walsall. I envied them both their chance to compete in such a good comp, and also their chance to sightsee in such a lovely town once knocked out, however.

As the tables were broken, 20-odd stairs at a time were cut out of the overseeing operation, but as we lost energy (well, Tikay at least - all my conscientious exercise meant that I only felt a dull ache in one knee), the players kept up their strength with beer and caffeinated drinks brought by what are probably the most physically fit valets in Europe. There were occasional moments when they became confused, however, like when Tikay spotted Kevin O'Connell wandering and muttering, “I've forgotten what floor I'm on.” And I kept spotting people hidden away in nooks, like Padraig Parkinson, who after two levels had 17,000 chips (starting stack 10k), Greg Amoils and Bepe from Eastenders Michael Greco, who surprised the reporters by not only building a fair stack early on, but keeping it all the way to the final, eventually finishing seventh. He did get a little help from the deck, however, at one point winning a huge pot with AJ against KK, spiking the Ace and propelling him to the top of the chip counts.

Early Day Two exits included Luca Pagano and a rather unlucky Joep Durkstra, who soothed his troubles by jumping into one of the many cash games which seemed to start up in the early afternoon and just keep going. The whole thing was overseen by Mags, who kept control over the throng with the help of Tournament Director Thomas Kremser and a series of loud PA announcements which covered all floors.

Back in the basement, which smelled a bit of damp and was covered in stone which meant that mobile phone cards were temperamental and signals of any sort were in short supply for the press (very frustrating), we found out what was happening through word of mouth. David Pomroy and Jon Kalmar seem to have attracted their own support crowd, live and especially online, including Dave Shallow and a stripey Ariston who perched on the windowsills and gathered information on their star players. The vocal and enthusiastic support of the Pom-poms, as we dubbed them, must have encouraged them, and when David Pomroy hit the final table in good chip shape, his supporters were there ringside to cheer him on. A lot.

Before that, there were 31 players to get rid of, and as it got down to two tables the remaining shorter stacks put up a brave effort to double up and make it to the televised eight. One was the American Jeffrey Bensinger, who together with pal Noah nearly made the cut, together with fellow US hoody-wearer Ray Coburn (Exitonly) whose green hair got him plenty of photographers snapping him, even as a (sleeping) spectator of the final table. Jon Kalmar eventually exited tenth, ninth was Swede Jonas Molander, and then it was all change for the final.

No less than a coach was on order for the players, the Pokerstars team and a few lucky journos like me for the first trip to the Royal Dublin Society, in the grand hall of which was set up the full TV table with its stands and lighting rig. Supporters got on the bus the second and third time round, and by the time they started filming, an unusually excitable audience was ready. This might have been something to do with the free food and drink (doled out with tokens – Pokerstars poker chips) throughout the night. In any case, the atmosphere in the library-cum-showroom was great, and the set-up delay no worse than that to which we have all become accustomed.

Besides DPommo, the final table consisted of Ireland's Jim Reid, Michael O'Sullivan and Joe Rafferty, England's Michael Greco and Pete Haslam and the two Swedish players mentioned earlier, Mats Gavatin and the then chipleader Henric Olander. Right from the start, Henric played a stormer, and from the dark corner in which I'd set up my laptop (near one of those precious, precious power outlets) I heard the announcer saying, “Henric raises” almost all the time. He quickly took out Michael O'Sullivan in 8 th (prize: €29,800) with JJ vs A10, and followed that up with beating the same hand (JJ) of Michael Greco with QJ, all-in on a Queen-high flop. ‘Bepe' in his new poker-playing incarnation took €39,800 – not sure how that compares to a movie-star's salary, but he looked happy enough.

Having eliminated the Michaels, it was Jim Reid's turn to fall to the aggressive Swede, who'd moved all in with Ace high on an 8 Q K flop. Jim's ten-high flush draw missed, however, and he finished fifth, winning €49,600. So now Henric was massive chip leader, and had established himself as the most aggressive player on the table. But it was David Pomroy who took the majority of Joe Rafferty's chips hitting runner-runner straight after getting it all in on a flop which had brought Joe trip sixes. To his credit, Joe fought back, doubling up twice and outlasting fourth place finisher Pete Haslam, who ran his short stack into the unstoppable Henric. Incidentally, this was not Joe's first trip to the RDS, as he previously had been involved with cattle breeding, some prizes for which had been awarded in that very hall. Funny what you learn about the players in their three-line bios…

Pete (fireman recently turned poker pro) along with David had been playing a more cautious game at the final, making a good move to nick the hefty blinds with a suited 5 8, but Henric's JK beat him to give him the fifth prize of €59,500. That meant that Joe took €69,500 and left probably feeling a little hard done by, but that he'd put in a good effort. This left David Pomroy to exit in third place, winning €89,300 after his AJ met (now enormous chip leader) Henrc's K8 which spiked two pair to knock him out. His supporters somewhat quietened, they might have been amused to know that a couple of limos had been hovering outside for this exact moment, and a bunch of them I'm sure celebrated his victory in style.

So it was Swede vs. Swede heads up, and rumour had it that although they were friends, there were no deals and they played for the big money like they'd been playing all night – aggressively. Henric Olander never took his foot off the gas, and this may be the reason that Mats Gavatin first evened the chips, then took the lead. Henric doubled his 99 once with 33, and then overplayed AK against Mats' flopped trips. It looked like every time he'd get a conclusive-looking chip lead, there would be one huge all-in hand which undid all his good work. In the end, it was Mats who took the title and the €317,000 first prize, leaving a very even-tempered Henric with second and €174,500, but it was Henric who might have impressed us a little bit more.

At only 20, Henric looks to have a great tournament future ahead of him, especially considering how calmly and with what good-natured focus he played for two straight days. The same can be said of Mats; there are quite a few young players whose playing style belies their good table behaviour. Everyone conducted themselves well, however, and the beery audience cheered them all on (including the dealers). The buses made another appearance, but Mats was last spotted wandering down the road after being refused a ride in a cab due to the oversized winner's cheque he was carrying. I don't think he minded.