Poker For The Homeless

Padraig Parkinson deserves a lot of credit for the work he and his team put into these events. It's pretty unusual to see Padraig getting players out of the pub to start the tournament as we did on Friday night.

Friday's game was a €100 freezeout and had a tremendous atmosphere.

There was a virtual horse race where the entrants were auctioned off. Eddie Walsh's horse won and Eddie proceeded to donate his €1,600 first prize to the charity, a super gesture.

Top trainer Philip Rothwell gave an impromptu preview of the Cheltenham Festival, which was well received by all the players, I'll reserve judgement until his tips run.

Former international prop-forward Reggie Corrigan was one of the celebrity players. It was quite funny seeing the bouncer refusing Reggie entry when I was leaving. Reggie being the easygoing type he is, thankfully for the bouncer's sake, also saw the funny side of it.

Twenty-seven teams turned up on Sunday for the four-man team event. My team consisted of Ray Kent, Pat Storan, Marty Smyth and myself.

It was touch and go whether Marty would make it, as he was still in the Blackbelt tournament in the Vic in London late on Saturday night. Being the Champ he is, he managed to lose his chips just in time before play ended.

All to no avail though as Marty exited early on Sunday; he did however stay in long enough to win the last longer bet with me.

All in all a great weekend's poker, it's not often that the participation is more important than the winning where poker events are concerned, but on this occasion, that was certainly the case.