IPO 2008

The International Poker Open in Dublin was my destination courtesy of Boylepoker.com, who invited me to play as a guest and a bounty. Little did I know that this would involve wearing a Sunderland shirt for the duration of the day! This pained me a little bit being a lifelong Liverpool fan but we all have to suffer for our art sometimes.

I was standing around at the Killarney tournament recently and the talk was that the bar had been raised. Some of those who weren't paying attention fully went on a complete tilt because they thought that they'd have to climb over rubble to get their next drink. But they calmed down when they realised that it just meant that a new standard for Irish tournaments had been set. The IPO certainly met that standard, thanks to a fine piece of organisation from Stephen and a marvellous team effort in the hospitality department from the Boylepoker team. They don't use the term team lightly.

The Killarney tournament that I went to a couple of weeks ago was one of the best events I've ever been to and as I said in my last blog, I really hoped we could reproduce that atmosphere at the IPO. I knew that we had a hard act to follow, but I actually think we managed it.

Jonathan Gelston has just doubled up, winning a pot approaching 3 million chips.

His opponent in the hand was Ruari Coy.

375k raise by Jon was met with a reraise to 900k by Coy. Jon promptly re-re-raised all-in and Ruari called, turning over his pocket Kings. Jon had an AJ offsuit.

Flop Q 3 2
Turn A
River 4

A cruel blow on Ruari who has been playing some smashing poker... but well done Jon.

Raymond Kerley has just knocked out Tommy Moir and Andreas Nilsson in a 3 way pre flop all-in situation.

Raymond's KK fended off the 6 6 of Moir and the 10 10 of Nilsson

This moves Raymond up to 1.75 million in chips.

Manager that is!

Padraig talked to Level One Liffey earlier today. Padraig should be eating his words now as Level One is still involved in the action and it's level 11.

Richard Forbes is having the time of his life. He tells us he has loads of chips, he must be hiding them though! He came from England to be here.

Richard says this is the best tournament he has ever been to. This is possibly because it's the only tournament he's ever been to!

Dave Callaghan was the latest big name to bite the dust as he went all in on the button pre-flop against Portuguese player Joao Monteiro. Dave was sporting a Q 10 offsuit and they were no match for Joao's pocket Aces.

Joao marches on, his stack looking a lot healthier now at 18k and he becomes the latest player to join the Sunderland supporters club; literally winning the shirt off Dave C's back.

Thomas Boivin was all in pre-flop with his 14000 stack and found 1 willing caller in Irishman Aidan Connelly (7600 chips). Thomas turned over the cowboys while Aidan displayed his AQ offsuit.

One deep breath later and the flop fell J 4 6, another breath saw the turn card, a 10. Thomas couldn't look as the dealer turned over the river card. His luck held as an 8 fell to send Aidan packing with a warm applause from the table for a game well played.

Thomas showed his appreciation to the dealer by hugging him enthusiastically.