A Touch of Class
On a recent visit to Dublin, Jesse May and I dropped in to Cool Hand Luke's in Merrion Square to see Luke Ivory, a poker man for whom I have a lot of respect. The building that houses his club has played a big part in the history of Irish poker and Irish poker folklore.
By chance, that same day we had already bumped into Mickey Moran, a longtime friend of Irish poker. Mickey is a larger-than-life character, and many moons ago, attended a big event in Merrion Square. For several days, he tipped the waiters and waitresses 25 pounds every time he ordered a cup of tea. Mickey likes his tea. His form took a bit of a turn for the worse, but he was still being followed around by a gaggle of tea people. One of them finally cracked and asked him if he'd like a cuppa. Mickey instantly replied: "I'd love one, but I can't afford it!"
The Perfect Solution
Englishman Tall Alan qualified for the
European Poker Tour Dublin event on the Betfair site. The package included expenses, provided he wore a Betfair shirt. I was having a quiet pint in Paddy Cullen's pub with Alan and Mr. Moran when Betfair's man showed up keen as mustard with his bag of goodies. He nearly went into shock at the sight of his young qualifier, as Alan had been expanding in other directions since he'd been given his nickname, and quite clearly had no chance of fitting into Betfair's XXXL finest, unless he wore it as a baseball cap.
"This isn't being televised, is it?" asked Alan.
"No," said his sponsor.
"Can't you just get the guy on the radio to say: 'And there's Tall Alan in a Betfair shirt.'" It's hard to fault the logic!
Tournament Directing at its Finest
At the recent 888.com
UK Poker Open, one of the online qualifiers called Tournament Director "Mad" Marty Wilson over to the table and asked him: "How long do I have to think?"
"For the rest of your life," was the instant reply from Marty, who turned around and walked away.
Not surprisingly, nobody bothered him again in that heat.
Marty wasn't finished yet. After the day in the studio, Marty, the lovely Katharine, Jesse, and I went for a bite to eat in Maidstone. As usual, Marty couldn't leave the people at the next table alone, and told them several whoppers, including his claim that he'd won 750,000 pounds in TV quizzes. When they asked what we were doing in town, Marty told them we were making TV shows involving feats of memory. He said he'd been in competition that day with the world champion memory man, and both had had to memorise six decks of playing cards. Marty said that he'd actually gotten lucky, because whereas he had completed his test flawlessly, so had the world champion, but the latter got disqualified because he had a stutter and at one stage said the five of diamonds twice.
Some people just can't help themselves!
Putting Things Into Perspective
In 1999, I met a young man, Rob Gardner, in the bar of the Aviation Club in Paris. He's maybe the funniest and most genuine guy I've ever met. Rob was to be the TV producer of the first three
Late Night Poker series, and over a few glasses of wine, he told me about his vision: Poker players would eventually be allowed to wear logos and would play for added sponsor money on telly! Whereas the idea certainly appealed to me, I thought he was nuts. He wasn't. I was delighted to be invited to the recent
LNP series where, thanks to the generosity of PaddyPowerPoker.com in sponsoring my shirt and PartyPoker adding prize money, Rob's dream was to become a reality for me. Rory Liffey volunteered to travel to Cardiff with me as a minder, but anybody who knows anything, knows that if either of us needs minding, it's Rory. We were both looking forward to the trip. Unfortunately, Rory and I and a lot of our poker friends travelled to Cardiff a month ahead of schedule for the sad occasion of Rob's funeral. The bad beats in real life are a lot more cruel than anything they can do to you at the poker table - and they seem to happen more often to the good guys.
Padraig Parkinson is well-known on the European poker scene, both for his poker prowess and sense of humour. He was one bluff away from winning the 1999 World Series of Poker, but unfortunately got called.
