Paddy's Corner

History Repeats Itself
In the carnival that was the Irish Open, you were liable to meet just about anybody connected to Irish poker. You didn't have to be playing this great event to join the party. I bumped into former Dublin Gaelic football star Joe McNally in the bar and we had a laugh about old times. When Joe wasn't scoring goals for Dublin, he was the security guy at the Jackpot club.

About 15 years ago, the management of this establishment briefly decided on a policy of excluding members who had had a drink or two. This was a bit rich, as the management committee were themselves drinking enough vodka on a weekly basis to bathe a medium-sized elephant. Logic certainly wasn't their strong suit.

Joe took his duties seriously, and on the first night of this policy, he spied Pat Crowe and me leaving Ryan's pub and approaching the premises he was guarding with his life. He played the percentages and assumed that one of us had been drinking, and it wasn't Pat. He was half right. I'd just dropped in to the pub to catch the last 10 minutes of the football.

He said Pat was OK, but I couldn't come in for 24 hours. We appealed to the management committee, who were busy trying to empty out the bar in the nearby hotel, though they were hardly in a condition to make such a judgement. So, I was the victim of a great injustice. Pat went to play poker and I went to Ryan's. If you've got to do the time, you might as well do the crime.

After chatting with Joe, the next guy I met was Des Wilson, author of Ghosts at the Table. Des was having a ball, and told me the following story. He'd been playing a cash game, during which a guy who clearly had a couple of gallons on board sat in the one seat. He was hardly a collector's item, as the bar was hopping, the revellers fired up to the eyeballs by the excellent performance provided by the band Prison Love.

The guy was having a bit of trouble dealing with some of the finer points of the game -- like holding your head up, for example. Far more importantly, he was slowing the game down, so much so that one of the players had a quiet word with the floor guy, who said he'd sort things out. A couple of minutes later, the floorman approached the table and discreetly whispered to the guy in the nine seat that perhaps he wasn't in a fit condition to play. The guy was a little surprised, especially when, on asking for more specific details, he was told it was obvious to one and all that he'd overdone it a bit in the bar. One of the main reasons he was surprised was that he hadn't had a drink for three days.

Now That's What I Call a Gambler
Despite a gutsy effort from the Sporting Emporium's satellite winner, young Donal Norton, Neil Channing won the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open. If you ignore the fact that he's English, it was a great result. Neil is one of the nice guys, a fine player and an inspiration to everyone who keeps knocking on the door and won't take no for an answer. He was pretty relaxed on the morning of the final, and refused to give me 2-to-1 about him winning under the old pal's act, despite having backed himself to win £50,000 with the sponsors. I kinda liked it. The conversation, like many conversations, came around to our mutual friend, Rory Liffey.

Neil and Rory generally swap 5 percent, but hadn't got around to doing it this time, probably because Rory got tied up in a one-sided battle with a whiskey bottle and lost. In the thrill of jousts involving whiskey, minor details tend to get forgotten. It's not unusual for just about everything to get forgotten. Anyway, Channing said Rory had nothing to worry about, that if he won, he'd stick Rory into as many tournaments as he liked for as long as he lived. I hadn't the heart to tell him that at a recent meeting of the Liffey fan club, an overwhelming majority of Liffeyites had voted in favour of changing his nickname to "Level One Liffey." I wish them both ever success.

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.