News / John Tabatabai / 15 April 2009 / 4 Comments

The Paddy Power Irish Open in Dublin is supposed to be one of the most heavily anticipated tournaments of the year - in the past some of the biggest names in poker have turned up for this event such as Antonio Esfandiari and Doyle Brunson and it should be great considering it's only a £3,000 buy-in event so close to home. So why is the Paddy Power Irish Open so well respected?

It beats me.

Whether it's the high profile players or the great Irish characters who compete or the amazing Irish spirit and the ever flowing alcohol I just don't know, because I was very hard pushed to see what the fuss was about!

The tournament had just over 700 runners and was very well run but the hotel where the tournament was based was a £50 cab ride from anywhere, that's a minimum half an hour ride. Therefore, you couldn't just pop easily into town as the location was so remote.

The room service ceased to exist after 22:30, although on the first night I was so hungry I resorted to ordering their two available sandwiches - egg mayo + chicken stuffing. To say I was surprised when the delivery boy turned up with shitty pre-packed sandwiches in one hand, and a bowl of crisps in the other hand was a severe understatement - even funnier he wanted £20.00 for it!! To top this off, the internet in the hotel worked as well as it did back in the 20s.

To make matters worse,even though the cash games seemed inviting there was no way of ascertaining money to play. You could use the ATMs for a few hundred euros but to play bigger games there was no way you could get money.

A tournament of this size and there was no facilities to use debit cards, credit cards, cheques or wire the money to them. You had to CARRY that kind of cash through airports to play. I am still shocked that they expect you to carry 5-6 figure numbers on you. Outrageous. Anyway, I cut my trip early and after I busted at the end of the day.

The Empire slaughters The Vic

The only other thing worth talking about is a live situation that happened yesterday which highlights the intelligence of management in the London Casinos.

The other day I was playing in my local cardroom, the Vic in London and as seems to be the trend lately the HENL games start when I turn up. Great sign lol. Anyway, it was a 5-10nl game and a friend of mine who plays pretty loose was on the table and he sat with around £10,000, the rest of the table were nitted up and had no more than £2,000 in front of them. I sat with a similar amount to my friend.

After a while, I'm in for quite a bit after a bunch of bluffs went wrong, but I magically win a cooler hand against my friend and take him out completely. He couldn't be bothered to go to cashier and wait twenty minutes to get more cash out, so I gave him another £10k from my stack so he could keep playing.

At this point, the dealer gave me a "player behind" button indicating I had another £10k behind me. We carried on playing as normal for a while then after a couple of dealer changes, the new one randomly said that I have to get the money I am playing behind to put on the table. Now, at this point I covered the entire table with what I had in front of me anyway, no one had more than £3k apart from my friend and I covered his stack regardless. I tried explaining to the dealer that it was pointless and he demanded that it was against the rules. Every player on the table said it doesn't matter he covers anyway. I pointed out that if someone got close to my stack or sat with more I would go and get the money. (the problem was that I had no more at the Vic and it would have taken 10-15mins to sort it out and I didn't want to leave the game for that long, nor should I for such a reason).

It was truly unbelievable, the two players who made the game, myself and my friend (raising 10xbb+ 95% of hands looool) and they want to make us leave. I tried explaining to management that the players on the table don't even care and they want us to stay and keep the game going, they insisted that I had to get the extra £10k or I couldn't continue to play.

What happened next? Well, quite simple, they forced my friend and I to leave the game and go play HU for 7 hours at my hallmark casino, the Empire, oh the memories! Anyway, im pretty sure after we left that game broke or they just bore themselves to death checking AA in position for "pot control"!

We turned up at the Empire, I asked the cardroom manager there if we could get a dealer and play some HU. What was his reponse? "Certainly sir, let me check to see if we got any available dealers and we can arrange that for you". Amazing the difference between different card rooms. They got us a dealer, two massage girls, changed our chips for us and we were playing within three minutes of arriving there. Quality.

Anyway, it just irritates me that you try to apply logic to certain situations, you try to make people see your clear thought process to help everyone yet for some unknown reason to me people don't seem to ever want to change their minds. Perhaps its an admission of wrongdoing and as a nation perhaps we are too stubborn.

Who knows? All I know is that even though the rules state that I have to go get the chips, it's a game based around the players. They should cater for what the players want, without them there is no card room.

In this instance every single players wanted both my friend and I to stay and not one had an objection or even cared about the "playing behind" status and yet the dealer who is not involved in the game has the authority to overrule the players and break the game. I know rules are rules, however, the rules should be adhered to with logic and flexibility, like the law.

It's political correctness gone mad:)

Best of luck all,

kunku

Play against John on the Betfair Cash Tables