Paddypoker.com Irish Open - Day One : At A Glance

[JungleCat03]

  and welcome to Day One of the Irish open!

The City West Hotel should prove a fitting locale for this prestigious tournament. With the grandiose forecourt, plush decor and no less than FOUR helicopters parked in close proximity, even the glamorous characters of poker such as Doyle Brunson in attendance will feel at home here in Ireland.

Doyle was predictably a big draw for the players last night as they flocked round the poker luminary like moths to a light, all hoping to meet their idol and pick up signed copies of Supersystem 2 (something tells me e-bay may be a tad busier than usual tomorrow!)

Other players of note who will be playing in the main event include Roland De Wolfe, Ran Vaswani and many other regulars of the UK circuit such as the inform Jen Mason, Mickey Wernick, Ian Woodley, Steve Jelinek and Jeff Kimber. Let's not forget the goldenboy himself, William Hill sponsored Julian Thew, who will be a danger man as always.

With such a star studded field, there will be undoubted fireworks even without the unpredictable local Irish talent aiming to shoot down the big names. A field of 750+ runners is expected and an epic five day's poker is the tantalising prospect in store for us all. I don't know about you but I'm salivating already!

One final word before the start of proceedings. One more star name will be gracing us with his presence. Initially pencilled in as an updater,  this titan of the poker world picked up a last minute seat to the main event by crushing the assembled media, leaving his colleagues (including myself and Dana) trailing in his wake. He will soon be appearing to tell you of his achievement but for now, let's all pay homage to the man with no equal.  I give you...



HOMER!

What a guy...

Join us at 2:00 pm for the start of the first day. It should be a cracker!

[danafish]

Go my assorted percentages, and Trond!

I worked out how to make the internet work from Jen's room. 

Muchos congratulationes to El Senor Floppy, and good luck to all, particularly those still drinking in the bar when we left, eek. Should be a fantastic tournament. I'm afraid we won't have any of this new-fangled GUKPT/EPT namby-pamby player card nonsense, so welcome back Mr Mateyboy, and please get in your shout-outs/boks now for anyone you know for sure is playing, so that Junglecat and I have something to distract us from our mission to find breakfast...

I'm off to sleep fro a bit now. See you at 2pm!

[danafish]

By the way, lots of people are milling in the unbelievably huge, garishly be-chandeliered tournament area/ballroom, but there is absolutely no sign of them starting on time.

By the way what with the €3million guaranteed and all, there is currently a half-million overlay. Could well change by roughly this time tomorrow, though.

[danafish]

Concerning your picks -

The seating draw is up, and it looks like none of the Frenchmen are playing today, nor Chris Welsh, nor Jeff Schnettler. Will keep an eye on Rory Matthews and Graham Clarkson though.

In fact, here is the seat draw -

[JungleCat03]

Less than 30 minutes in and we have an elimination.

A fierce debate is running through the press camp as to the unfortunate players' name but Bruce Fern seems to be the consensus. As he is not down on the official list, we can only surmise he was a last minute entry. No brucie bonus today, bad luck sir...

[JungleCat03]

I somehow luckboxed into witnessing what I beleive was the 2nd elimination of the day.

1106, Paul Baird had set 1108 (Leo Kam on the list, although as I know Leo, I can promise you it WASN'T him) allin on a K-K-Q-5 board. Player 1108 called and showed K-J for trips, only to find Paul holding the superior Q-Q. He didn't even stay to see the river muttering "merde, merde, merde"(French player i presume!) to himself as he barrelled out of the arena.

The river changed nothing, in fact a Q gave Paul four spanking quads and a big double-up, whilst the unknown Frenchman departed so fast, this was the only shot i got of him(not much to go on I know...)



This part of the update is a bit ike crimewatch. Do you know this man? Have you heard him muttering obscenities to himself after suffering a cooler? If so call our hotline...or failing that, just post on here and let us know.

Thanks chaps!

[danafish]

Mr Liam Flood has just now told us that there's going to be another €300 rebuy super-sat at 6pm tonight, for anyone who fancies it. Same rules as yesterday, although the tickets are absolutely non-transferable, so I wouldn't play it if you already have a ticket/have no intention of playing the main event tomorrow.

[JungleCat03]

Pic and chip count of Caroline Manson (T 12 S 3) cheers.

Slow start for Carloline, sitting on 8k or so at the moment...

Here she is, looking watchful and perhaps just a tad furtive!




Ram has fared better in the early stages, up to 14 or 15k. Heard laughing and joking with the waitresses as they passed, he is sporting a trendy haircut with highlighted tips.

I captured him during a contemplative moment in which he seems to be running an internal philosphpical debate on the nature of the poker chip...

[JungleCat03]

few random counts...

Timex 11k
Todd Brunson 12k
David Rudling 15k


A quick word on David. We had a chat in the bar last night where he was kind enough to buy all the blonde updaters a drink following his success in finishing 4th at the recent London GUKPT.

He told me he was looking to start fast and apply pressure early today and from the looks of his chips stack, he might just have been doing that with aplomb. Good luck David and thanks for the drinks!

[danafish]

Updater Update

Chris has more or less been folding his way to victory so far. He has played two hands so far. In one of them he made it a mere 75 with Pocket Jacks, only for their resident table crazy raiser to make it 500. The big blind called, and so did Chris. When crazy raiser bet over 1k on the Q-7-3 flop, both Chris and the big blind gave up. Mr Crazy Raiser was apparently holding A-Q. The big blind had been holding A-K...

The other Floppy hand played involved him holding 6-7 suited on an A-6-6 flop, but wussed out a bit when another Ace came on the turn, and failed to get paid. The other guy was holding K-Q though.

He's on a like-he-never-played-a-hand-at-all 9.5k.


Other Updater Update

Jen has around 7k remaining. She snuck some chips back from Praz, but not as many as she previously lost to him, and looks angry. I am not going to massage her shoulders because others may also sk me for massaging services and I am Not Up For That.

[danafish]

A double up for the below finger-sniffing gentleman, apparently one Lorenzo Maestro (AWESOME).

The further below gentleman, one Fuat Can (AWESOME) according to our possibly-no-longer-accurate seating plan, bet 2k on a -4h-Jc-2c board, for Mr Maestro to go all in for another 6 or 7k. After some dwellage, says Mr Can, "I gamble." And yes he does.

Mr Can -
Mr Maestro -

And the river must have been music to the ears of Mr Maestro. Double-up!

[danafish]

Players are on a short break. Also, we found us a lovely waitress lady, and we have given her some money to bring us sandwiches! This truly is the land of the, well, not free, but moderately priced when compared to Copenhagen.

[JungleCat03]

We are down one big star...

50-100, Devilfish raised to 350 from the cut off and was re-raised to 1,000 by Kieran Small from the SB.

Shove from the Fish, insta call from Small with his A-A (unsuprisingly) whilst Devilfish's A-K looked highly unlikely to win and that proved the case as a board of blanks ensued, meaning Kieran had caught himself a



and Devilfish leaves the tournament at this early stage...

[JungleCat03]

Jen was just involved in a decent pot...

...After Paul Marrow made it 325 preflop from the hijack, Jen raised to 1k from the button. Marrow... short dwell...call.

FLOP:

Paul Marrow: CHECK
Jen Mason: 800
Paul Marrow: CALL

TURN:

Paul Marrow: CHECK
Jen Mason: 1600
Paul Marrow: RAISE to 3200...

I have intentionally left description of the actions to a bare minimum as up to this point all bets and actions were done with the minimum of fuss. Once Jen was check, min-raised on the turn, her shoulders slumped, she exhaled in a disappointed manner and eventually quietly slid her cards over the lone in submission. Down to 5.5k now.


I grabbed a quick word with hitsquadder Praz Bansi in between hands at his table. "Good luck...but stop taking chips off Jen. It's not allowed!" I politely requested. "Well she keeps raising my blind...what am I supposed to do??? Isn't that right Jen?" asked Praz leaning over to chat to Jen. "What can I do?"

"You could fold!" was the chirpy response from Jen. Much laughter did follow.


I realise we have already posted up a few pictures of Dena but if there is a camp who beleive you can have too many pictures of Dena, I've yet to encounter it.

Once more, here's the ever popular Dena in action, professional as always.

[danafish]

Not yet reported on here, but now reported OUT in unknown circumstances by Mr Mike Lacey, Marc Goodwin.

A few chip counts and whatnot...

Mr Craig Owen - as I walked up to his table, he was in the process of raking in a fairly sizeable pot, possibly taken off of Sorel Mizzi, as Mr Mizzi wasn't looking happy. Craig's on around 17k now, Mizzi on 9k.

Trond Eidsvig - a magnificent 13k
Joe Grech - 9k
Brunson Jr - 25k
Brunson Sr - 17.5k
James Honeybone - 8k
Roberto Romanello - 12k
Thomas Fougeron - 13k
Peter Gould, not content with Hoodie Of The Day, also possessor of T-Shirt Of The Day and Suki's arms underneath that glorious shirt, 7.5k