Betfair Official Blog

Irish Open Updates

Welcome to the Irish Open Updates - apologies for the delay in bringing these to you, but hopefully they will be more frequent from here on in!

Day 1A took place yesterday with 306 entrants. By the end of the day and after a fair amount of carnage, just 120 remained. Leading the way for betfair is Sorel Mizzi. With everyone beginning the day on 10,000 chips, Sorel impressively grew his stack upto 52,000, closely followed by Graham Clarkson (F Badger) with a similar stack. Our last remaining player from Day 1A is Graeme Newman (Grazza) still in there with around 12k in chips. Already departed were Plonquer, Niamh Peters and Hitandrun, who never hit all day but did run!

And so on to Day 1B.

A further 360 players taking part and a tasty €200k overlay, sees Friday begin in optimistic mood for many. This mood is short-lived though for betfair players, Ben Grundy and Lewis Pilkington (Bladelew). Both bust out early, pocket rockets being the reason for the pair of them (pardon the pun!). Grundy, short-stacked on the big of his beat, moves all-in for nearly 3k with pocket 10s and gets two callers. A Jack high flop leaves him confident only to see an Ace on the turn. Sure enough the two callers show Ben KQ and A9 meaning the milky bars wont be on him tonight!

Hi all,

Just an hour to go until the beginning of day 2 and I am delighted to report we have nine players remaining. Going into the tournament with 17, to see over 50% get through to the second day is excellent, particularly when you consider that well over 50% of the overall field have been eliminated.

Notable performances today saw Craig Burgess build up a healthy stack of chips (33k) and Craig Johnson claw his way back twice from less than a 1500 chips, only to end the day short stacked on the 5k mark.

Below are details of all the qualifiers and their stacks (or not in some people's case!), but all eyes today will be on Sorel and Graham Clarkson, both of whom have over 50k and are keen to make their mark early.

Chip Counts Going Into Day 2

Sorel Mizzi (imper1um) 56225
Graeme Newman (grazza) 12650
Graham Clarkson (F Badger) 51300
Craig Burgess (hangman) 33250
Craig Johnson (jbong) 5975
David Smith (the bill) 21800
Jeff Sharpe (sshooter) 23150
Tony Salmon (meadowsman) 13775
Jonathan Sadler (joffy) 16300

Out

Scott Gray (plonquer)
Ben Grundy (bennyboi)
Janne Lamsa (kuna)
Janus Thoegersen (swalbart)
Niamh Peters
Phillip Peters (Philly)
Lewis Pilkington (Bladelew)
Chris Bruce (Hitandrun)

We have just reached the break after 4 hours of action packed poker for Team Betfair. First to the bad news. Craig Johnson's short stack saw him exit inside the first half hour and was swiftly followed by Jeff Sharpe. Then in the last hand before the break, Jon Sadler went all in short stacked with AJ and was met by QQ. With no Ace on the board, Sadler has made a swift move towards the bar.

Now to the good news. With just 126 remaining, Team Betfair still has six players left. Leading the way and on the tv table is our very own Sorel Mizzi. Sorel has already knocked out two opponents on the feature table and sitting with a comfortable stack against a tourney average stack of 53k. He's not the only one flying though and in Graham Clarkson (90k approx) and Tony Salmon (70k approx), the betfair colours are well and truly being seen. Graham has never looked anything other than at home here and Tony, a poker player for only 6 months, is showing little fear for anyone at the moment.

Our real short stack is Dave Smith on just 20k. Seeing no hands today, we will probably see a move very soon after the break from Dave and hopefully he just might get the double-up. Graeme Newman is clawing away, desperate for some chips, but still in there on 38k and Craig Burgess (46k) is currently licking his wounds after losing 40k with QQ against an all-in of AQ. Sure enough, Craig who bubbled in the Aussie Millions with the same hand, saw a flop with two Aces and now knows never to play with the ladies again!

To make matters worse, Craig's table has just been selected as the tv table after the break, so he's not best pleased to be going on under average.

Elsewhere in the last couple of hours defending champion Marty Smyth has exited along with the legend that is Doyle Brunson and last year's runner-up Roland De Wolfe.

END OF DAY 2

And so to the business end of the tournament. The last four hours of day two play saw some significant action. For Team Betfair it proved to be end a tough few hours. David Smith, Craig Burgess, Graeme Newman and Graham Clarkson all bit the dust. Clarkson and Burgess in particular saw some very tough beats throughout the day, demonstrating the cruel reality of live poker.

After an exciting few hours we reached the bubble and were left wit 72 players, all of whom were guaranteed a minimum of €4,500. For Team Betfair the good news was that we still had two players remaining. Sorel leads the way with around 180k at the close (average stack 129k, 52 players remaining), but at the moment the real story has to be qualifier Tony Salmon. Tony has made it through to day 3 with 90k in chips, but when you consider he only began playing the game 7 months ago, you begin to realise just how well he's done. Not only is he a rookie, but he almost gave up his seat before the beginning of the tournament. Stuck in Wales yesterday on Friday morning, Tony was waiting on his boat to set sail and with galeforce winds was delayed for some amount of time. In the end he arrived into Dublin at 1.30pm and I dashed up to collect him and drop into the tournament, already half an hour in! Maybe just maybe, the journey was worth it after all!

I'll be back tomorrow with more updates, but for now congratulations to Sorel and Tony and all of Team Betfair who have played some great poker so far this weekend!

DAY THREE

4.20pm GMT -
Today started with 52 players, two of them being Betfair's very own, Sorel Mizzi, and Betfair internet qualifier Tony Salmon. To give you a quick update we've only had 2 hours of play and the field has already shrunk to 35, which means playing down to the final table may not take as long as expected! Tony Salmons is on the TV table and has a stack approx. 90k. Sadly Sorel has lost a big chunk of his chips when his K J was no good against his opponent's A Q on a Queen high board. He's down to approx. 70k, just moved in with A J but no callers. Average stack is currently 190k, so come on boys, one more double up!! Updates on Tony's progress and Sorel's comeback coming soon! :)

4.34pm GMT -
Some more bad news, Sorel is now down to 10k after the board was no help to his Ace Ten against his opponents Ace Queen. Come on Sorel, chip n a chair!

4.44pm GMT -
We've lost Sorel.

His last remaining 10k went into the middle, without looking at his cards. He had 3 callers. One of the players bet out on the flop, and the 2 original callers folded, leaving a 40k pot between Sorel and mystery player. The opponet flipped over a flush draw which the turn and the river didn't complete it so Sorel's Ace High won the hand!!

The next hand, Sorel thought he would try his luck again and pushed the 40k into the middle before the cards were dealt. The big blind called with 9 6 and had Sorel's 6 4 dominated. The nine of the turn meant that Sorel was drawing dead.

Well done Sorel, brilliant effort!

With Sorel's exit, we are now counting on Tony Salmon. Tony's on the TV table which has meant access is limited and we can't get too much info but he's hanging on in there with approx. 90k. Go Tony!!

Team Betfair's hopes have just ended as Tony Salmon moves all in with pockets 9's against pocket 10's. Tony has exited in 22nd position and walks away with 18k. An epic journey in itself, Tony's story is a bit more exiting when you consider he first played the game 7 months ago. On Wednesday night unable to find his passport, he cancelled his flight and booked the ferry from Wales. On Friday morning, with high winds, Tony informs us that he may not bother go if the boat doesnt sail by 12. Eventually it got away and we picked him up at the harbour, dashed him down the road, with the tourney already 40 minutes in. 60 hours later, he finds himself €18,000 the richer, exposed to television interviews and holding the honour of being the last surviving betfair player.

Well done Tony, a memorable journey and you came so close!