Irish News

Ladbrokes Poker Festival
The €250,000 guaranteed Ladbrokes Poker Festival comes to Killarney on Oct. 2 with a three-day €500 + €50 no-limit hold'em freezeout as the main event. The tournament, run by Waterford's Big Slick promotional team, will be held in the Gleneagle Hotel, and the main event will have a 15,000 starting stack and a one-hour clock.

Side events include a two-day €300 + €30 no-limit hold'em freezout on Saturday and a €150 + €20 no-limit hold'em freezeout on Sunday.

Expect a large turnout for this event. Additional details can be found at BigSlickEvents.net.

JP Poker Masters Results
The JP Poker Masters main event held in the Red Cow Hotel in early May saw 189 players for the €750 main event, creating a prize pool of €127,575. The final table payouts were:



Irish Open Deaf Poker Championship
The Irish Open Deaf Poker Championship took place in the Dublin Deaf Club in Drumcondra on May 3. The event was a €50 no-limit hold'em freezeout, and the €10 registration fee was met by sponsors PaddyPowerPoker.com. It attracted 46 players and was won by Keenan Byrne, who took home the €920 first prize.

Players from Australia, Lithuania, and the UK competed in the event.

Super Casino for Ireland?
The Sunday Business Post has reported that some of the world's largest casino operators have been lobbying the Irish government to change gambling legislation, saying they could build a €350-million resort casino creating 2,000 jobs if they received the go-ahead.

Harrah's Entertainment, owner of the World Series of Poker brand, was said to have made representations to the Department of Justice during the last few months. The government has had casino legislation under review for several years after a botched move by former minister Michael McDowell to ban casinos that currently exist in a grey area of the law as members clubs.

Former Justice Minister Brian Lenihan is believed to have been considering the establishment of a Gambling Commission to regulate the sector before he fell victim to a cabinet reshuffle.

Some poker players have expressed concern that the move, if it were to happen, could be a bad one for Ireland's vibrant and largely independent live poker promoters, while others have welcomed the move given England's recent backpeddling on a "super resort".

Once again it seems England's difficulty could be Ireland's opportunity.

Finance Firm Holds €10,000 Student Freeroll
The worlds of high finance and high-stakes poker collided recently when the Susquehanna International Group Limited announced details of its €10,000 student freeroll set for Jun. 27 in the Clarion Hotel, IFSC, Dublin at 7:30 p.m.

The tournament is open to individuals who are currently pursuing or have recently obtained a degree in mathematics, actuarial studies, physics, engineering, computer science, or another quantitative discipline.

SIGL is a trading firm, active on the world's major securities and derivatives exchanges. Its European headquarters is based in Dublin, employing more than 130 people in trading, quantitative research, and technology across 10 distinct trading strategies, involving commodities, options, fixed income, equity derivatives, and convertible bonds.

It uses poker as a fundamental part of its education programme.

Fitzwilliam Festival Returns
The annual Fitzwilliam Card Club festival returns Oct. 15 to 21, the centrepiece of which will be the €1,000 Fitzwilliam Open, with 15,000 starting stack and one-hour clock on Oct 17.

The festival will also include a €300 pot-limit Omaha event on Oct. 18, and a €500 no-limit hold'em event on Oct. 20.
Check FitzwilliamCardClub.com as the event approaches for further details.

Nice Touches
Two high-profile Irish players recently notched a couple of decent results. Card Player Poker + Sports columnist and World Series of Poker main event finalist Padraig Parkinson finished 87th in the recent $25,000 buy-in World Poker Tour World Championship at Bellagio in Las Vegas for a $39,500 payday, while Marty Smyth took down the $8,000 buy-in PartyPoker.com World Open for a tidy $250,000 payday.

Well done, lads!

Brendan Murray is the European bureau chief for Card Player.