IPO 2009

A huge deal was made of the final table. There was a large set assembled late that afternoon, complete with lights and at least four or five cameras. Things were a fair bit behind schedule with the field scraping by a lot longer than expected. We'd had a rushed dinner break with about 15 left, which involved us all eating whilst at the table playing. We then managed a quick 10-minute break before starting the final table.

I got a rough enough table draw for Day 2, with the overnight chip leader (Rupinder Bedi) sitting two seats to my right, his button my big blind, this was going to go very right or very wrong, very quickly!

I wasn't in Ireland for the Boylepoker IPO before I got a taste of the buzz that it was creating. The first taxi driver in the line of cabs outside the airport was a lad called John. I'd met John in his cab about two weeks before last year's IPO and on hearing about his genuine disappointment that that tournament was a sell out, I had managed to talk the good people in the Boylepoker team into sorting out a seat for him. This year, he'd left nothing to chance. He was in and ready to go.

I had never actually got to play the IPO before. Last year we were in England as Rob was playing a GUKPT event and we only got back in time to play some cash. My brief taste of the atmosphere though, was enough to make me want to play it this year, so I arranged the time off work and made sure I registered in advance as recommended by the tourney organisers.

Congratulations to Markus Sippe, who took down the IPO 2009 for $62,250!!

Some information on the last nine players in the IPO 2009. Here are the final table players:

We started out with 711 players; this has been whittled down to 75 after 12 hours of poker action. A few familiar names litter the leader board.

On vient juste d'annoncer que cette année l'IPO donnerait la possibilité d'acquérir des jetons supplémentaires et il n'est pas étonnant que cela n'ait pas été bien accueilli par tous. Il s'agit d'une idée relativement nouvelle et c'est pour cela que je voulais répondre à quelques questions que j'ai pu lire sur les divers forums et expliquer de façon un peu plus détaillée ce qui nous a amenés à procéder ainsi.

Details have been announced of this year's IPO extra chips incentive and unsurprisingly it hasn't gone down well with everyone. It is a new(ish) idea and to that end I just wanted to answer a few questions that have popped up on various forums and also explain in a little more detail the thinking behind it.

Players can now qualify for Europe's largest live poker tournament directly at Boylepoker.com from as little as $5.50 with three weekly satellites as number of players registered for the event grows.

Boylepoker.com today launches online satellites for the International Poker Open 2009. From today, players can qualify for the $25,000 added, $225 + $25 buy in event from just $5.