Irish Open 2005

ionapaul

Could some of those who played this year (Pokertroll and Shortstack, any others?) or those who attended give their thoughts and review of the event at City West? I followed the action as closely as I could, via the blondeforum pages that I think Shortstack mentioned at some stage.

One thing I am curious about - how different was the standard of play there / for any high buy-in tournament compared to, say, the monthly €270 or €220 games in the Fitz and Merrion?

DeVore

I was there for most of it but didnt play in the big one. The play seemed poor at the start, curiously, but once the more-money-then-sense guys were knocked out the standard seemed to shoot skyward. I'll leave it to the guys that did play to comment further.

The play in the 100 euro rebuy tournie was foul, some of the worst I've seen at that level and thats not because I found someone who (with about 55 to go out of 170) figured his inside straight draw was worth calling my all in for 2/3rds of his stack. I think my head has come down from orbit after he hit it. Maybe I just expected better but I had the almost over-whelming urge to ask the guy how he thought he should be allowed into the building to be in the same room as players that were there. Possibly while doing a monkey impersonation.
The fact that that came at the stroke of midnight on my birthday just makes it kinda funny in a desperate humour sort of way

DeV.

*ouch*

Shortstack

Good Points

The field was full of top players

The Venue was excellent

Paddy Power supported it well

Turnout was good. 138 for €500, 178 for €100 and 174 for main event, even Omaha got 69.

The craic was good

If you could avoid the bad beats then the cash action was good.

Bad points

The structure was not great, the three blind system did not work. It eliminated position and the speed of the levels in all events turned them into crapshoots, which should not happen with these size of buy ins.

They began only paying out 13 places, they did change this after the first event though. No consolation to those who made it to the top 18 on Thursday, me included ( i'm not bitter )

The dealers managed to mess up the chip race three times, Julian Gardiner came back to find himself 20,000 short after one break. It was sorted but took about half an hour as all chips needed to be counted.

There was only one 'two table satellite' run as far as I could tell.

€2 for a crap coffee


Standard of play

Mixed. The lower buy in events were similar to playing in the Fitz. The €500 & €2000 events had a better concentration of 'top' players. It depended on what table you got drawn. There were still plenty of people willing to give there chips away cheaply and there were also plenty of bad beats. The two rugby players built big stacks by getting lucky. Both their exits when holding a lot of chips would not have happened to many on here. If you looked at the final 27 players in the main event there was not anyone who you would think shouldn't be there. They had disposed of the weaker players early when the structure was not too bad. Ante's are a pain but they work better than three blinds.


Summary

The opportunity to showcase Irish poker was not fully realised. I was speaking to Thomas Kremser and I got the impression he was very unhappy with the structures and payouts. If you are going to get Europes top tournamnent director then why not leave it up to him to sort out the important stuff.

There will be an opportunity to fix all the glitches for the EPT event later in the year. Let's hope the lessons have been learned, we are nearly there.

Shortstack

DeVore wrote:

The fact that that came at the stroke of midnight on my birthday just makes it kinda funny in a desperate humour sort of way

DeV.

You never said it was you birthday. It was Karma that we both perished as the bar opened though

mewso

So the Merrion chose the antes etc. and not Thomas Kremsner who continually gets praised for his structures. Makes sense.

I heard a good one about Shane Horgan folding to an all-in with 6666A on the board.

DeVore

I watched that hand. To be fair he thought the only reason the bloke would bet at him was that there must be some rule about breaking a tie or something and folded a weakish hand.

Yeah, it was my 35th birthday, I didnt really mention it partly because its not really polite to run around going "its my birthday" to everyone and partly because I was still so angry about that moron.

Btw, I dont normally do this but if you are reading this, you are a MORON of the highest calibre who should have been waiting tables, not playing.

The hand was:
Me:AK
Blinds: 500-500-1000

Raised to 4000 out of a stack of 13000 by me, midposition. Flop comes Kd 9h 4h. I look, freeze, and then agressively push all in. (I want a caller, I just want the flush draw to get the wrong odds).

Guy calls me in a fookin heartbeat and flips over QJo. No hearts.
I cant really even see any outs since I dont care now if he hits his Q or J.
River is a 10.

The dealer pushes the chips towards me, the player himself doesnt seem to realise but I see it and so do a few others. I cant fathom WHAT he was thinking. At least, as Mike says, the bar had just opened!
Happy Birthday Tom, here's a kick in the bollox. :rolleyes:

I agree with Mike's analysis of the good and bad points too, I thought Mr Kremser decided the structure though, no?

Shortstack

musician wrote:

So the Merrion chose the antes etc. and not Thomas Kremsner who continually gets praised for his structures. Makes sense.

I heard a good one about Shane Horgan folding to an all-in with 6666A on the board.

That one is true. He busted calling an all in with AK post flop on a low board.

Shortstack

DeVore wrote:

I agree with Mike's analysis of the good and bad points too, I thought Mr Kremser decided the structure though, no?

Definately not. He was adamant about this. I heard on more than one occasion say he has no control over the structure or the payouts. He was very polite about it but you could see he was not comfortable with it. I think they will find it hard to get him again unless he has complete control.

DeVore

The blinds in the 100 game jumped from 300/300/600 to 500/500/1000 which I thought was disgraceful. Obviously since I'm saying this, Paddypower had no say or prior warning about the structure, I think everyone knew that too.
Other then that it went really well I felt!

DeV.

jem

who won it ?

Samson

John Falconer (England) won the main event.
Alan Betson second, Tony Cooney third.

BigDragon

jem wrote:

who won it ?

"Burnley" John Faulkner who happened to be on my table on Friday with PPP-PitBoss as well. I was blessed!!


Not with cards though.

pokertroll

I participated in the 100 Euro rebuy and the 2000 Euro main event at the Irish Open.

It was a really enjoyable experience. I decided to stay in citywest for the weekend so that I could be as relaxed as possible for the main event itself.

First off was the 100 Euro rebuy on Friday night. The place was absolutely packed as the Omaha tournament was also on at the same time.
I think there were about 80 players in the Omaha and over 160 players in the holdem (with a large reserve list). Again it was the fairly controversial blind structure that is favoured by the tournament organiser Liam Flood - 2 small blinds, one big blind and a 20 minute clock. Rebuys were only allowed once you lost all of your chips and there was no top-up option. There were no big names at my table but the standard was very high throughout.

The blind structure had a huge impact on how the game was played as it nearly always forced you to complete at least once on the SB with a
semi-playable hand. It was also very difficult to steal from or near the button as you had to get past at least three players. Because the blinds were shooting up so quickly, this put incredible pressure on the shourter stacks so there were quite a few rebuys on my table.
I still had the starting amount (3k I think) coming up to the last hand before the break and decided to gamble with KJ in an effort to double through against a small pocket pair. My gamble did not pay off so I rebought for the only time.

After the break I tripled through with pocket 10s against pocket 8s and Aj. I also won a big pot when my pocket 3s cracked pocket Aces when I got a flush. For the next hour or so I struggled to find a hand. The same guy, Alan C, kept robbing my blind (each time I had a playable hand) and I eventually made a stand with KQ and his AK stood up. I was down to 5k and pushed all-in with pocket 10s and was called by KQ. A king on the river sealed my fate and I was out of the tournament.

On Saturday, I had to do a TV interview for the documentary that was being made. I'm expecting to be offered a part on the muppet show as a result of this ;-)

There were over 170 players for the main event itself. I drew table 10, seat 2.
The only pro I recognised at my table was Steve Vladar, to my left were Pat Crowe and Crazy Daisy from the Fitz. I played an extremely tight aggressive game. Any time I showed a hand it was either the nut straight or the nut flush. All of my raises were respected, so I won most of my chips before the flop. I had pocket Qs twice and pocket Aces once - both times I re-reraised before the flop and got the raiser to lay down

I had about 13k when when this crucial hand occurred. With the blinds at 200,200,400, I limped in with AK from early position. A player, whom I would have considered semi-tight (silly me) raised to 1500 from mid-position.
It was called by myself and another player. The flop was 10,3,3. I checked and the raiser bet 3K. the other player folded. I sensed weakness in the raisers bet, getting the feeling that he was betting because he was the raiser and wanted to take it there and then. I had the raiser outchipped by 2k and figured I could make him lay it down on the turn so made the decision to call in order to represent a 10 or better. I had position on the raiser so decided that I was going to push all-in on the turn regardless of what card
came up. The turn was another 3 and I pushed all-in. The guy was in the tank for an absolute eternity before saying "i know I'm behind but I'll call".
He showed pocket 9s and my hand didn't improve. I was now in serious danger of being anted away so made a move with Q10 just before my big blind. Was called by the big blind who had pocket 4s. I flopped a 10 but the river was to seal my fate again when a 4 hit.

One of the great things about the citywest venue was the fact that the bar was so close to the cardroom and could stay open as long as the tournament was in progress. This meant people were drinking till 7AM each morning. So I got to discuss this crucial hand to death with a lot of informed people at the bar. The consensus was that it was a poor call by my opponent (esp if he thinks he is behind). Steve Vladar who was at my table thought it was a great move and couldn't believe that the guy called.
I have agonised over that hand quite a lot since and there were a number of ways that I could have played it. I don't regret it too much - I think that in tournaments like this you have to make the occasional move. This time I underestimated my opponent and thought that I could get him to lay down a medium pair.

I stayed and watched most of the rest of the tournament. There were a couple of very interesting hands.

Rory Liffey (with 6,2) reraising John Shoreman (Ak) all-in and hitting two pair. He tried a similar move on the final table but was undone that time.
I was watching Alan Betson's table and thought he was playing a stormer. The only weak player that I saw at the final table was Jimmy Wan (plays in the Fitz and Merrion) - how did he get there, I wondered?

This is an example of how - Final table, Kevin Maloney (a great player, very tight) raises all-in with AQ from first position. Jimmy calls with K10 for most of his chips. What kind of call is that? Of course, Jimmy flops 2 pair to knock Kevin out of the tournament. Kev must have been gutted as I think he had a really good chance of winning it. It was also interesting to see how many times Peter Roach called all-ins with small pocket pairs.

Betson got lucky quite a few times on the final table. Falconer sat back and only played when he thought he was ahead.
Falconer was a worthy winner.

There were a couple of complaints about the price of coffee etc and the tournament structure.

Apparently, citywest would not allow the club to do the catering at the event and insisted on providing the coffee service (2 euro a pop).

In fairness to the Merrion, they did provide a load of free pizzas and chinese takeaways throughout.

Liam Flood (not the club) was responsible for the structures AFAIK.

okidoki987

I heard a good one about Shane Horgan folding to an all-in with 6666A on the board.

bohsman

Credit where its not due - PaddyPower ordered the pizza and chinese.
Well done Mark close call with the nines but I like your push

PPP-Pit Boss

It was great that so many of you made it. And what a weekend we had.. more meeting n greeting than one could shake a stick at and the Pit-Boss had to take yesterday off to recover! Well done Mark competition was tough but it was great to see you play (and constantly repeat the line.. "well I started playing poker about two years ago.." in the interview).