Irish Poker Championship Announced
Pokerevents.ie has announced details of the 2008
Irish Poker Championship, sponsored by PartyPoker.com. The event will be held in the fabulous Radisson Hotel and Spa, Galway, Ireland, Jan. 3-6, 2008. This is the first major tournament sponsorship in Ireland by PartyPoker.com, and is Europe's first major tournament of 2008.
The €2,000 (9 percent withheld) buy-in event is expected to attract 400 players from across Ireland, the UK, Europe, and the United States, and it will be recorded for six hour-long broadcasts on
RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster, and distributed internationally. Amongst the players who have indicated at this very early stage that they expect to attend are recent World Series of Poker bracelet winner Ciaran O'Leary, Padraig Parkinson, Robert Williamson III, and Bruno Fitoussi. The prize pool will be an estimated €800,000.
Pokerevents.ie, organiser of the three-year-old festival, said, "This great-value festival of poker attracts all levels of player, from professional, to intermediate, to novice. It offers a deep-stack, slow-structure game, as well as an array of attractive side events. It is great to have a big sponsor on board."
A PartyPoker.com spokesman said, "We're very pleased to sponsor this well-established, highly regarded tournament, and Ireland is a great country for poker with an amazing pedigree."
More than 500 qualifying satellites are being held in pubs and clubs across Ireland, with details at www.partypokeripc.com as well as dozens more from the sponsors at www.partypoker.com.
The schedule for the event is:
Paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open Returns
Paddypowerpoker.com has announced Citywest Hotel, Ireland's premier conference, leisure, and golf resort, as the venue for the €3 million-guaranteed
Irish Open. The weeklong festival of poker will take place over Easter weekend, March 19-24, 2008, with the main event having a buy-in of €4,200 plus a €300 registration fee.
Due to the huge success of the 2007 tournament, which attracted a record-breaking 708 players, the 2008
Irish Open will be split into two day ones, allowing for a capacity of 1,000 players to compete in the world-class conference hall at Citywest Hotel.
Citywest has 1,314 rooms, bars, restaurants, a state-of-the-art health and leisure club, and two golf courses designed by Christy O'Connor Jr.
Established by legendary bookmaker Terry Rogers in 1981, the
Irish Open is the longest-running poker tournament in Europe, and has grown from a small two-table affair into one of the must-attend events on the international poker circuit.
Online qualification is already under way with a packed schedule of daily $20 feeders and fortnightly grand-final satellites. In 2007, paddypowerpoker.com qualifiers made up 10 percent of the field, and Ireland's largest poker site is adding a particularly juicy incentive for players to qualify on the site for 2008.
As part of its
Paddy First promotion, if the winner of the 2008
Irish Open qualified through one of paddypowerpoker.com's grand-final satellites, he will receive five years of free entry to the I
rish Open. The highest-finishing paddypowerpoker.com qualifier will receive a buy-in to the 2009
Irish Open, even if he does not win the tournament outright.
Macau Madness
The
Macau Irish Christmas Poker Festival in Cork will take place Nov. 29-Dec. 2. The main event will be a €1,000 no-limit hold'em freezeout on Nov. 30 with a guaranteed prize pool of €100,000. The club also will hold its super league final freeroll on Friday, Nov. 23, which will amount to €50,000.
Betfair Poker has guaranteed 10 tickets to the main event at the festival with $10 nightly feeders and a weekly $100 Sunday final on the site. The company will give the winner and runner-up of the Christmas tournament a main-event entry into next summer's
Irish Poker Classic, with additional prizes going to the remaining seven players.
Ladbrokes to Sponsor World Championship
Ladbrokes.ie has stood in to sponsor the inaugural
Face Up World Championship at Dublin's Fitzwilliam Casino. The company also will be sponsoring the €1,500 main event at the November Festival, which runs Nov. 1-14.
Paul Poorly
"Tall" Paul Lecky celebrated his first and biggest tournament win, the Omaha competition at the recent Barcelona
EPT festival, in the hospital. The Northern Irish player was struck down with a burst appendix within hours of hoisting the trophy, but after a week in the hospital, he has now made a full recovery.
Added Money at the Jackpot
Dublin's Jackpot card club has announced that it is adding €500 to its Friday night tournaments, and also €400 to its Wednesday tournaments. Details of both of these nights are as follows:
The club is now open from 8 p.m. on Saturday right through until 8 a.m. on Monday.
Visit Roy Brindley at www.Roytheboy.net. Brendan Murray contributed to this report.
