blonde poker forum

Play was due to commence at 2pm, but they are yet to start.

(1) Ciaron Burke -- 281,000
(2) Dermot Jacob -- 103,500
(3) Scott Byron -- 1,003,000
(4) Terry McDaid -- 468,000
(5) Jens Klaning -- 365,000
(6) John Clancy -- 259,500
(7) Stewart Samuels -- 97,500
(8) Keith Cummins -- 417,000
(9) Colette Murphy -- 149,500


Prize structure (although the one they just announced was slighty different for some reason):

1st = €140,000
2nd = €70,000
3rd = €38,000
4th = €28,000
5th = €21,000
6th = €17,000
7th = €14,000
8th = €12,000
9th = €10,000
10th = €9,000
11th = €8,000
12th = €7,000
13th = €6,000
14th = €5,000
15-18th = €4,000
19-22nd = €3,000
23-27th = €2,000

Action already!

Dermot Jacob is OUT and becomes the 9th place finisher winning €10,000

Dermot Jacob moved all-in with Aspades Kc

Scott Byron smooth called with 7s 7d

John Clancy pushed all-in with Jd Jc

Scott Byron passed

Board = 3c 8h 5h 9d 6s

And we have our first exit of the day.

And another one!

Hot on Dermot's heels, short stacked Stewart Samuels moves in for 84,000 prefllop.  Announcer Fintan Gavin says, "And Stewart is all in.  Action is with Keith.  Who can aff-"  before cutting himself short as the audience chuckle and go, "Yeah - call!"  I remember being amused when a similar thing happened in EPT Baden, when the TD basically said, "And another raise here, it's a steal folks."  Funny, but not cricket for the players...

Anyway, Keith Cummins decides to call the all-in with his 9d 9s; Stewart shows Aspades Kd.
Flop:  4h 9c 2h
Turn:  Td
River:  Js

So Stewart Samuels finishes in 8th place, winning €12,000

As for the slight discrepancy between published prizes and what was announced a minute ago - it turns out that €2,000 was taken off the top two spots to give 28th and 29th a prize too.

Thanks to the all-knowing Paul Whiting for the only really reliable information we've received in the last 24 hours.

Blinds up to 6,000/12,000 ante 1,000

Just now 100k changed hands with no flop as Ciaran Burke raised, Keith Cummins re-raised and after a self-count, he passed.

Double Up for Colette Murphy...

She gets a call for her all-in with Kc Jc from Kieran Burke's 7d 7s.  Another pair vs. overcards setup - so far that's all we've seen.
Flop: Qh 3c Td
Turn:  6d
River:  9s  and those extra outs received on the flop come through for Smurf and she's really in with a chance of the top spots now.

Sorry, Flushy - it's all gone wrong in that unavoidable sort of way...Colette raised all-in with Ks Kc, and found Terry McDaid, who outchipped her, with Ahrt Aspades.
Chilly old final for Smurf - Never any hint of hope from the board, and so Colette Murphy finishes in 7th place, winning €14,000.

More action!

They're not hanging around today.

Ciaron Burke moves all-in from early position for 129k.

Keith Cummins, who was on the button I believe, makes the call after riffling his chips momentarily.

Cummins seems confident upon seeing Burkes paltry A-3 of Hearts and soon reveals his dominating A-Q of spades.

However, his confidence soon turns to dismay as the Flop brings a 3.

No help on the King Turn and the Ace River simply gives his opponent two pairs to his one.

Burke is now on over 250k with the blinds at 6k/12k.

Chip Counts (courtesy of Tom - I just did them, but they all looked a little short.  The reason for that was that grey chips have been introduced, which I assumed were worth 10k, but no, they're 25k).

Ciaran Burke      280,000
Scott Byron      900,000
Terry McDaid    700,000
Jens Klaning      280,000
John Clancy       430,000
Keith Cummins   460,000

Jens Klaning Plays a Hand News Now -

The enigmatic Jens called Scott Byron's button raise to 35k in the big blind.  When Scott bet 80k on the J-7-7 flop, Jens calmly raised all-in and Scott passed with no dramatics.  A quick 130k not bad after waiting patiently for a while...

News from the final

Only kidding, the Button raise, fold fold thing that's been happening for 20 minutes isn't really news.  The blinds are 8k/15k ante 1k so it's not nothing to just pick up the blinds, but it's hard to make that interesting.

One interesting preflop raise came from John Clancy, who'd received three whole limpers on his big blind, taxed them another 60k and was rewarded with folds all round and a free 50k for his efforts.

Other than that, Scott Byron has probably get more than his share of blinds, er, and Ciaran Burke pushed Keith Cummins off a 110k pot on a board of 6s Th 9h Js with a 195k all-in bet.  Snoopy has more.

Biggest hand of the tournament now!

In a battle of the blinds, Keith Cummins (small) and Ciaran Burke (big) see a cheap 3c 9h 2d Flop.

And from this seemingly harmless flop, it all goes crazy.

Cummins bets out 35k, Burke raises another 60k, Cummins sticks in what looked to be about another 80k before Burke announced all-in for another 256k.

Following a brief session in the think tank, Cummins makes the call and shows T-9, but he is in deep trouble as Burke reveals 2-9.

Turn = 5s

River = 7h

Entirely unexpectedly, a printed list has appeared from Poker Events with the full rundown of the placed players in the €750... so here they are:

1  Michael McCool       IRE  €40,000
2  Soran Kongsgaard  DEN  €24,000
3  Baden Carsten        NI   €14,000
4  Thomas Nolan        IRE   €9,500
5  Fintan Gavin           IRE   €6,500
6  Steve Holden         UK    €5,000
7  Dan Connolly          IRE   €4,000
8  Glen McCabe          NI    €3,500
9  Chris Coore            IRE   €3,000
10 Benjamin Kang      GER  €2,500
11 Jim Kerrigan          IRE   €2,000
12 Matt Tyler             UK   €1,500
13 Gergory Jonin               €1,250
14 Sunny Chattha       UK   €1,250
15 Phil Baker             IRE   €1,000
16 Kieran Walsh         IRE   €1,000

Double up for Keith Cummins - he got it all in with Ad Jc against Jens Klaning (who seemed to have gathered a small Scandinavian support group who showed the enthusiasm for him on this hand seeing as he himself looks to be totally impassive), who held 8d 8c.
Flop:  Jh 9c 2d
Turn:  Qh
River:  4s   and Jens is down to the felt (50k) while Keith is back in good shape with just under 400k.

Jens Klaning is OUT and becomes the 6th place finisher winning €17,000

Forced down to the felt by the previosu hand, he decided to move all-in from the small blind for his last 67.5k.

John Clancy in the big blind (10k) made the call blind.

Klaning = 8s 5c

Clancy = 6d 3c

Board = 3d 9d Tc Aspades 4c

McDaid calls under the gun, small blind Ciaran Burke makes it up, and Scott Byron checks the big blind.  Flop:  2d Ts 7s.  Ciaran bets out 70k and faced a raise involving a stack of grey 25k chips from Terry McDaid (after Scott got out of the way).  He eventually passed.  This isn't the first time I've seen him bet out early and get pushed off by a raise from late - I wonder if he's got nothing and bets unappealing flops, releasing if anyone shows interest, or if he's hitting a little bit and just playing it weak.

Chip counts - unashamedly copied from Tom Murphy's notepad:

Kieran Burke (apologies if I've been spelling this with a 'C' incorrectly)  920,000
Scott Byron       610,000
Terry McDaid     750,000
John Clancy       550,000
Keith Cummins   300,000

OK - We're going to settle on CIARON for the spelling of Mr. Burke's first name.  You've got to understand, to say some of the names on the original sheet were illegible is an understatement - they bore little relation to language, more like cave paintings. 

Blinds are now 12k/24k ante 2k.

Chips (roughly)

Ciaron Burke     750,000
Scott Byron      625,000
Terry McDaid    940,000
John Clancy      270,000
Keith Cummins  480,000


Only seen one hand shown, and that was the Aspades Qc of Keith who moved in on the button, picking up the blinds and antes.

After Cairon Burke took two sets of blinds in a row, we suddenly found ourselves with a four way pot with Cairon in the Big Blind.

Byron folded, McDaid called 24k, Clancy called, Cummins made up the blinde and Burke checked.

Flop = 3s 2d 7h

Cummins checks, Burke checks, McDaid bets 100k and Clancy, who can is pictured below at this very moment, pushes all-in for 251k.

McDaid makes a swift call only to find his 7c 6h dominated by his opponents Ad 7d

Turn = 3h, River = Jh

Double up for Clancy who is now on over 500k.

Keith Cummins is OUT and becomes the 5th place finisher winning €21,000

Battle of the blinds with John Clancy in the small and Keith Cummins in the big.

Flop = 7s Ad 5s

Clancy bet 100k and Keith called.

Turn = Jh

Clancy checked, Keith moved all-in (pot was around 250 by this point) and Clancy, after a long dwell, made the call with Js 3c.

As he turned over his 4s 6d, Keith seemed surprised that Clancy had made the call with such a marginal hand.

Either way, the 5d River was close but no cigar and we've lost the man from Kerry.

Rough Chip Standings

Ciaran Burke    1,100,000
Scott Byron       380,000
Terry McDaid      655,000
John Clancy     1,030,000

Recent action has seen short stack Byron pushing in on the small blind, but getting no call, and Ciaran nicking some blinds.  A hand also got checked down all the way between preflop standard-raiser Terry McDaid and small blind caller Ciaran Burke.  Board:  Ks 8d Jh 2d 3s, and I think it was Ciaran's Ace-high which took that one.

Hmmm.

We almost had an exit, but not quite.

Perhaps influenced by the previous hand in which Byron moved all in from the small blind after Ciarán had limped on the button (he folded), McDaid decided that Byron had a foldable hand once he'd raised 110k the next hand.

McDaid pushed all-in from the small blind but was chagrined to hear Byron announce 'call', and even more dismayed when he saw that his A-3 was dominated by A-K.

The 7-5-7 Flop provided split pot potential, but it never quite arrived as the Turn and River came Ten and Six.

McDaid now down to just over 100k and looks to be the favourite to depart next.

As expected, Terry McDaid was all-in on the button the next hand, called by both blinds.  It was quickly checked down until the board read Ad 2s Ts 2d Ks.  The all-in player's hand was Aspades 8h, and neither John nor Ciaran could beat it.  Treble through.  Back in it.

Pics of the final four

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=18813.msg382701#msg382701

Terry McDaid finishes in 4th place, winning €28,000

Not content to sit on his short stack as long as possible, he made a stand with Qc 8h.  But small blind John Clancy wasn't going to let him off by folding, and called with his Ac Ts.  A good decision, especially since an Ace on the flop put Terry in a position from which he was unlikely to recover.  And he didn't.

HUDDLE!

They've gathered over a list of the payouts.  I think a deal might be afoot.  It looks like Scott Byron is in fact the chip leader, and I think with his experience he's the favourite to win it, so if he's up for dealing I think he'll find agreement...

HUDDLE RESULT:

1st is now €114,000
2nd is now €75,000
3rd is now €55,000

That seems reasonable.  Less top-heavy, but still not a chop or a crapshoot-generator.  Nearly €60k between third and first place still.  Off they go.

A huge pot to preface the latest elimination hand now -

800,000 chips have gotten in by the river, half from Ciaran Burke and half from Scott Ryan - they're looking at 5c 3d 7c 6s 9s and Ciaran thinks for a while before calling the 200k bet on the river.  He's shown Scott's 8s 8h for the straight, and is severely shortened.

So much so that he's all in pretty soon with Ac 3c against Scott Byron's Ahrt Kd.
Flop:  Qc 6h Qh
Turn:  Tc  Now there's real hope...
River:  5d  But that's not it and so Ciarán Burke is the 3rd place finisher, taking €55,000



Approx chip counts:

Scott Byron -- 2 million
John Clancy -- 1 million

All-in moment...

John Clancy has quite a ways to go if he's going to remove the 2.6 million or so chips in front of Scott Byron... he just made up the small blind in one particular hand just now, and Scott checked.
Flop:  2h 9c 3h.  Scott bet out (I think it may have been 100k), John raised him to 300k, and Scott said, "All in."  It was kind of too late for John to back out now, and he realised he was in a bit of a sticky situation with his 9c 7s when he saw his opponent's Qs 9d.
Turn:  7c
River:  8c

The spiked second pair keeps John Clancy in the game.

Double up for Clancy!!!

Byron raises to 150k, Clancy sticks in another 300k, Byron announces all-in, Clancy calls after a quick double check.

Eights vs Kings!

King on the Turn is clinical. (3-A-J-K-9)

Byron down to 1 million.

And it's all over...

Finally it all gets in, with John Clancy holding Ahrt 9h against Scott Byron's Ad 6d.  We were in the process of pulling some gaffer tape off our power supply lead when Tom and I heard the crowd murmur around the final table, and so forsaking our laptops which don't have power any more, we rushed over to see a board already out and showing A 2 3 A 5.  The Nine kicker played, and so...

Scott Byron is the 2nd place finisher, winning €75,000

And the winner of the Irish Poker Championships 2007 is John Clancy, winning €114,000