There is a Life After the World Series of Poker

Sometimes it seems you can learn more about poker by observing life than by watching a poker game. Or maybe I'm just dumber than I thought. The end of the World Series of Poker coincided with a major terror alert in the UK, which left thousands of people stranded in airports, holidays ruined, businesses in chaos, and Padraig in a freeroll. PartyPoker was sponsoring the Ken Lennaard Invitational, which was staged in conjunction with its Scandinavian Masters event in the UK.

A couple of places became available at the last minute due to the terror alert, and I got parachuted into the event. Well, I wasn't exactly parachuted, but it sounds better than Eurostarred. When I started playing live poker in Dublin, it was in such exalted venues as the Eccentric Club, which was over a bookmaker's shop, and the Jackpot Club, which is beside an abattoir. Well – things have changed. This event was held in an English stately home in the country called Brockett Hall, with suites named after the kings who stayed there, butlers, golf courses, the works … everything except alcohol. The English mightn't be the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but they are not dim enough to let a bunch of drunken Scandies loose on their hallowed ground. It's a pity they didn't … somebody might have played worse than me, but then again, maybe not. Being Irish, I hold English aristocracy in much the same regard as an astronaut would a fart in a spacesuit, but the previous owner of this particular palace was by all accounts a cut above the rest. Allegedly on a famous occasion when he was a little short in the cash department, he decided to get a few quid out of his collection of vintage cars – not by selling them, but by parking the lot at the bottom of the lake beside the house and neglecting to tell the insurance company that that's where they were. The story goes that the plan was going along quite nicely until the insurance guy noticed unexplained tyre marks that ended abruptly at the edge of the lake. In life, it might be a good idea not to park cars in lakes just after it's rained. In poker, it might be a good idea to try to keep your tells to a minimum if you're going to run an otherwise well-thought-out bluff.



Globe-trotting



I went to Ireland a couple of weeks later to play in an intercounty teams tournament run by Poker Events. There's 32 counties in Ireland, so naturally the event was made up of 31 10-man teams. Nobody seemed to think this was strange, but that's Ireland for you. I'm not normally a fan of team events in which two or more players of the same team can be at one table, as it can cause a lot of complications, real or imagined, but in this case, I had no such qualms, as it was basically a fun event and most of the participants would have been too drunk or too stupid to work out any more than what two cards they held.



As is the case at most Irish venues, the real fun was to be had in the bar. There was some suggestion that far from colluding with their teammates, more than one player engineered their own exit from the tournament just in case they might be missing something. It would be hard to blame them, as stories real, exaggerated, or downright fictitious were flowing as fast as the Guinness. Popular Northern Ireland pro Ivan Donaghy told us a story that he claims was in the real category. Ivan captained the Northern Ireland team, which put in a brief appearance at the PaddyPower Grand Slam in Birmingham. One of his team members was a pig farmer named Henry, who's quite a character. Observing Henry, you'd fancy the pigs' chances of escaping if they so desired, or at least taking a few quid off him in a poker game, but you'd be wrong. Henry is actually a deceptively good poker player who'd take your money while you were still trying to work out how he'd managed to find his way to the poker game. The story goes that Henry isn't a very experienced traveller. An hour or two after the team arrived in Birmingham after a 25-minute flight from Belfast, Henry wasn't feeling too good and asked Ivan what jet lag felt like, as he thought this might possibly explain his discomfort. I have it on good authority that the Northern Ireland team was drinking brandy and champagne in the airport in Belfast, but obviously this wasn't even considered a possible cause of Henry's discomfort.



I'd like to congratulate the winners of the event, but I've no idea who won.



Read Padraig's WSOP blog at: www.888.com/poker/wsop.