#172: “IPO 2012″

The Irish economy is in the toilet and will be the for the foreseeable future so poker festivals like the IPO are vitally important. Brilliantly and ungreedily run by Stephen McLean and Ciaran Corbett, last weekend was a small buy-in, come one, come all, celebration of the game. Boylepoker did a great job with the satellites and an especially comprehensive job with the coverage. If you went to the IPO page, you could simultaneously watch a livestream feature table, keep track of the chip-counts (Big Iain’s EVCOUNT made its debut), follow the blog coverage, scan the tweets and listen to poker celebs like Padraig Parkinson (this year’s inductee to Ireland’s Poker Hall of Fame), John O’Shea, Neil Channing, Jesse May and Nicky Power waxing lyrical on such diverse subjects as betting on rugby, betting on golf, betting on the NFL and betting on the upcoming Pavilion Punch-Up between John and skinny Ross Johnson.

The Main Event attracted almost 1200 players, split into two day 1s. I would have played 1A but for a prior engagement with Bryan Cranston at the ‘Argo’ premiere. I know, I know – tough life. Day 1b started very well and With 3 levels left, I had 174K in chips and was second on the leaderboard behind my friend Chris Dowling who was running rampage with 230K. Neither of us would bag up a single chip! I don’t know what happened to Chris but a mis-step 5bet with KQs into AA cost me my big stack and the rest went in a somewhat peculiar hand where the small blind induced with J9s and dogged my A10. I was a bit disappointed at the time but all in all, I had great fun with the highlight being the several hours when I was to the right of the always flirtacious Smurph!

Congratulations to all the winners of the Boylepoker Awards, especially my good friend Dara O’Kearney who recently got planning permission for an extension on his house in anticipation of these awards creating the need for a second trophy room.

Next up in this month of non-stop live poker is the Burlington hotel for the Irish Winter Festival. I sattied in last night through PaddyPowerPoker.com so if you’re looking for me on Saturday (and hopefully Sunday and Monday), I’ll be one of the ‘Six Survivor’ eejits proudly wearing some ghastly coloured hoodie!