The Player Who Killed His Mother

You have to be Irish to watch the Irish soccer team in action. It’s pretty grim stuff and that’s putting it mildly. Things could be better if Stephen Ireland would play for us but he won’t.
He used to, but got pissed off because some of his team mates had a bit of a laugh about him being follically challenged, which in football circles is considered very funny indeed.
That explains quite a lot.
The team were on tour one time and Mr. Ireland went home telling everyone his grandmother had died. A journalist checked this story out and found that the grandmother in question was in excellent shape for a dead person. So much so that she might have got a game for Ireland herself as a holding midfielder, especially if she promised not to cross the halfway line.
When confronted by the press Mr. Ireland did confirm that this particular grandmother was in great shape but that it was his other grandmother who’d passed away. Strangely enough it transpired that the lady in question was also in the non-dead category and was herself fit enough to play for her country and would have been in with a great chance of doing so especially as manager Giovanni Trappatoni likes to play two holding midfielders.
This farce ended with the player apologising to his manager, his team mates, and the Irish fans, and committing himself to play his heart out every time he put on the green shirt. Actually he didn’t. He refused to play for Ireland ever again (even if his grannies were playing), which would give us a great edge if a match came down to sudden death.
Ireland in France
There was a guy from eastern Europe or Germany or some place like that who used to play in the Aviation Club de Paris and had probably read more poker books than anyone alive.
The only problem was he didn’t read any of the bits about not tilting too much and this guy was the biggest
tilthead since George Bush senior.This often led to him trying to borrow money from anyone including complete strangers. He was good. One day I was having a quiet beer while asking myself how a half-intelligent human being like me could play like such an ass when our hero approached. Things weren’t good.
Apparently his mother had died and he needed €500 to go home for the funeral. If I’d been his mother I wouldn’t have wanted him at my funeral but blood is thicker than water. Anyway I gave him the €500 and being a suspicious chap popped into the cardroom to see if he was trying to spin up my monkey on the way. To my surprise he wasn’t. A few weeks later he reappeared as did my money so all was fine.
This guy was banging away in the cash game with some success until the wheels fell off one day and he did his bollocks. Strangely enough I was in the bar when my man arrived.
Things were bad again. He needed a few quid to go home as his mother was very ill. I told him that this was indeed bad news but that she was at least heading in the right direction. He told me to fuck off before I was able to ask him if she was eligible to play for Ireland. ♠

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. For more on the history of Late Night Poker check out my.888poker.com.