Green Joker Poker Festival

by Djinn
Submitted by: jen on Tue, 28/11/2006 - 8:54pm

For some reason, the end of November is a particularly busy time for UK festival players, with Walsall happening closest to home, and the Caribbean tempting those with S.A.D. tendencies, while Drogheda, near Dublin, was the one which caught me and Chris ‘NoflopsHomer’ Hall.  Why?  Well, we’d been told by organisers Mike Lacey and Tom Murphy that they’d designed a tournament they’d want to play (and couldn’t – how unfair life is).  €1,000 freezeout, 15k starting stack and hour blinds, starting at 25/50.  That was enough to hook us and we took a flight which was only just more expensive than the train ticket to Walsall, and arrived in Dublin, a mere half hour away from our destination.  Or two and a half hours if you count my totally unnecessary stubborn walk from the bus station.

Around 150 others were similarly tempted, but just a handful of English players joined us on our quest – Booder, Pab, and Rick were the ones we found and made our little hanging-around-the-bar gang.  They were latecomers, however – Chris and I got there a day early, and although not in time for the satellite, I did pop down to a cash game, for which loose was nowhere near a descriptive enough term.  ‘Back of a pub’ wasn’t quite the location either – tables were set up in a separate room above a large bar which featured salsa dancing on Thursday night.  I nearly headed out upon wandering onto the dancefloor but someone noticed my distress and pointed me in the direction of the poker, where I stayed until the respectable time of 4am.

That was fine, though, as the tournament didn’t start until 8pm on Friday.  And went on, and on, and on, the way one would hope with a structure like that.  Homer had a rough start, laying down a set when a flush/straight danger card hit and his opponent (over?)confidently bet his top two, while I got handed a set-over-set stack from Rob Taylor, who got the short straw and a hand I would have gone broke on any day.  Oh, and Pab just passed his Kings in that hand in an, “I can see right through you, ahahahah” sort of way.  After knocking out the first player, I greatly enjoyed having lots of chips, but didn’t really like the five pairs of Queens which between them cost me 75% of my stack at the low point.  Two post-flop laydowns, two losses at showdown and one steal of the blinds later, and I ended the day with 5k less than I had after 15 minutes. 

NoflopsHomer had been feeling rough as sandpaper, and was regularly dosing himself up with cold and flu medication.  That can’t have helped matters, and he went out lateish on Day One, while I swapped a little percentage with Norwegian BA Kildalen who looked like he was going fantastically well on Day Two.  It must have been weird for him not to be surrounded by his Scandie brethren, and I heard someone refer to him as “that American guy.”  Anyway, representing his countrymen well, his raising with 63 and the like got him eventually all in with KK against AQ, but the pot that would have taken him over 110k actually ended with his being flushed out, as it were.  So the pressure was on me, and I felt the best way to deal with it was to raise frequently and see what happened.  This eventually paid off when raising with 44, hitting a set and betting out lots got the desired re-raise and a double-through.  I proceeded to eliminate my chips in two big hands within 15 minutes, however, meanwhile learning a valuable lesson about re-raising the person who’s just been moved to your table with AK.  He had no reason to suspect I was raising with an odd range of hands, and I had every reason to be more cautious with my 70k, but no – running smack into Aces spelled the beginning of the end.

Those were my ‘highlights’ – now on to the people who actually did well:  the results of the tournament, courtesy of Antesup:

1st Lloyd O'Farrell        €32,141
2nd Brendan McKenna €31,734
3rd Liam Barker            €29,223
4th Paul Higgins           €13,500
5th Mick McCloskey     €10,000
6th Marq O'Neill             €7,500
7th Patrick Tobin             €6,000
8th Eugene Hanratty         €4500
9th Conor Doyle               €3000
10th Stewart Dobbin         €2200
11th Niall Murphy            €2200
12th Oliver Boyce            €1500
13th Kevin Fitzpatrick      €1500
14th Eoghan Lyons           €1500
15th Aidan McCormack   €1500

A brief aside on Marq O’Neill, whom I first met while still with a proper job, dealing at Gutshot, and then played in the first heads up challenge against Ireland.  Always a pleasure to outdraw someone who can actually play Omaha 8/b, that first challenge was even more satisfying as he had to shave off his beard for a side bet when he eventually lost.  He was on my initial table, along with the formidable Jim Reid (whom The Claimer eliminated early, much to my relief) and eventual fifth place Mick McCloskey, and despite getting a bit of luck with some Deuces in the middle of the tournament, played fearlessly and sensibly all the way through.  My fingers are always crossed for dealers when they get to play tournaments, and it would be a pleasure to see him wandering about the circuit, even if his table talk at the beginning included nudging his neighbour, pointing to my hat (which I ‘borrowed’ from Peter Roche) and saying, “You know, that’s actually a girl under there.”.

The end of the tournament showed the improvement a truly good structure makes to a comp just as much as the start did – three days was just right, and if they get to maximum capacity next time (I am pretty sure they will) they might need another.  Eventually the last three, Lloyd O'Farrell, Brendan McKenna and Liam Barker chopped up the money in a reasonable way, but that wasn’t out of structure-desperation, just the usual evening out of a top heavy payout.  I read over the AntesUpdates, and without exception, praise flowed from the players for both the main event and the two side tournaments.  I think word of mouth will be enough to encourage others to forsake their local tournaments and head on over to Ireland when they do this again – Chris and I were convinced, and BA is threatening to alert Scandinavia, too, to this novel approach to running a tournament – making it just good, overall.