Tuesday 5 April 2011

IRISH POKER AWARDS 2010

IRISH POKER AWARDS 2010
By Mick McCloskey

These awards, organised by Irishpokerrankings.com, were held in February at the Fitzwilliam Card Club in Dublin. The awards were the result of a public online vote and the winners of each category were as follows:-

Best Irish poker blogger – John O’Shea

Best poker forum – Irish Poker Boards

Biggest Contributor to Irish poker – Boylepoker

Best online poker site – Poker Stars

Best club/casino/tour in Ireland – Poker Stars UKIPT

Most improved player on Irish poker scene – Sean Prenderville

Best TD/Organiser/Club manager – J. P. McCann

Best poker event 2010 – Boylepoker IPO

Best online player – Jude “J. Thaddeus” Ainsworth.

Player of the year – John O’Shea

Lifetime Contribution to Irish Poker – Padraig Parkinson

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees for these awards in 2010.

SUNDAY MILLION

There has been some talk lately that online poker was struggling in the current economic climate. If all the sites are struggling like Poker Stars they should be doing OK thank you very much. The 5th anniversary running of the Sunday Million has just taken place on Stars, who guaranteed a total prize pot of $5million for this $200 + 15 buy in event. The winner was guaranteed $1million as well as a brand new Lamborghini Gallardo 5.2 litre V10 super car. In the event, the amount of money up for grabs was more than double the guarantee at a staggering $11,825,600. The number of players trying their luck was a record breaking 59,128. Can you just imagine how big a venue you would need to run this as a live tournament? The number of players who made the cash in this event was 7,450. This number is something like the total number of entries to the world’s biggest tournament these days, the WSOP main event. There seems to be a bit of life left in online poker yet.
For the record, the winner was Luke Vrabel from Connecticut, U.S.A. who took just over $671,000, as well as the car, after the final 9 did a deal to chop the remaining prize money. Nobody actually got more than $1million with the top cash payout being around $844,000 and the smallest being $263,888. Not a bad return for a $200 investment.


NEWS

IRISH OPEN

The main event in Ireland this month is the Irish Open, scheduled to run over the Easter holiday weekend in Dublin’s Burlington Hotel. Things kick off on Thursday 21st April at 7pm with a €200 + 20 super satellite with rebuys for the first three levels (90 minutes). The four day main event, starting on Good Friday at 2pm, has a buy in of €3,200 + 300 and this year features a 20,000 starting stack with 60 minute levels for the first 6 levels and 75 minute levels after that. Ireland’s richest festival also features a full schedule of side events over the weekend, including a €825 Pot Limit Omaha event and a €330 Ladies Championship event.

JP MASTERS

The beginning of May sees the 4th edition of this popular festival being held in Dublin’s Ballsbridge Inn from 5th to 8th of the month. Things kick off on the Thursday night with a €150 short handed tournament at 8pm. This is followed at 10pm by a €100 super satellite for seats to the €560 main event. On Friday there is a €100 last chance turbo satellite for main event seats. The €500 + 60 main event starts at 6pm and features a 30,000 starting stack with 60 minute levels, increasing to 75 minutes for the final table. There is a full schedule of side events over the weekend including a Pot Limit Omaha tournament and nightly turbo events for the action junkies.
Full details of the festival and hotel deals can be found at www.irishpokerboards.com

If you have any news views or events, you can contact me by email to mickymccloskey@hotmail.com