Niall Smyth — From Ballabriggs to Baller

Niall Smyth’s Irish Open story overflows with the stuff dreams are made of. A young guy puts a few quid on a horse and wins, uses the money to enter an Irish Open satellite and wins, plays in the main event, and… well you probably know what happens next. Smyth walked away with €550,000 for the top prize after beating some of the most well-respected players on the international circuit, and not only that, he went home with the €100,000 Sole Survivor package for being the last PaddyPowerPoker qualifier standing. Young, ambitious, excited, and humble, the poker world is now Smyth’s oyster. When Card Player Europe sat down with the newly-crowned champ, he had some very interesting things to say, so who better to tell his story than the man himself…
Rebecca McAdam: Did you go back to work after your win?
Niall Smyth: I havent been back to work yet, but as I’ve said before, while the money I won is a phenomenal amount, it won’t enable me to retire, so while this coming year is still up in the air work-wise, I’d say I’ll be back next year at the very least. The only way I couldn’t see myself back there is if I had a very good year on the live circuit.
RM: Will this change your life at all?
NS: Oh yeah, I think my life will change in many ways, even at the simplest level; the path in which my life was headed, even though I don’t know what that was, has taken a massive turn and, from what I can see, only for the better. Practically this means I don’t ever need to get a mortgage for a house which is the biggest outgoing people have every month. I’m also a little bit more of a recognised face with all the media coverage this win has received, and while all the well-wishes I’ve got have been excellent I look forward to it dying down. I’ve a great circle though of family and friends, and a really cool girlfriend, and I know whatever happens they’ll keep me grounded but also give me support if things get hard. This will give me confidence in the next year to just go out and grab the opportunity I’ve been given.
RM: Any plans now?
NS: I’ve no immediate plans, other than to make a plan for the next year which is a lot of work in itself [laughs]. I want to get some financial advise as to what’s the best way to look after the money I’ve just won, as I want this to be a kick-start to my life. I’ll be sitting down with the Paddy Power team to decide what tournaments best suit me over the coming year and we’ll make a schedule then, which is really exciting. The team at Paddy Power Poker have been really good to me since this happened with advice and always there to take my calls and questions. I’ll also be buying a car in the very near future and while at times it has been great fun letting my mind run wild with what I might buy, I’ll eventually land at a somewhat more sensible option [smiles].
RM: Are you excited about representing Paddy Power Poker for the year?
NS: I absolutely can’t wait, I mean this is the dream of anyone who plays poker, travelling all over the world playing poker on the live circuit. One of the past winners came up to me after I won it, congratulated me, and with one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen told me it’ll be the best year I’ll ever have, so yeah to say I’m excited would be an understatement. Even aside from poker the chance to see different parts of the world which I may never have done is going to be an amazing experience. The fact I’ll be representing Paddy Power Poker is cool in a different way, even though they are an international site, they were formed in Ireland, so it kind of feels like I’ll be representing Ireland for the year.
RM: Have you been thinking about what events you would like to play?
NS: Ha! Yeah, all of them if possible, but obviously this will be impossible. Well first and foremost I’ll be booking a spot in the Paddy Power Irish Open next year, playing or not I’ve always had savage weekends at it, of course playing is more fun! Next on the list is the World Series main event, the oldest tournament in the world with the biggest prize pool, it’s a big buy-in so this might be my only chance to ever play it and I plan on taking it. While I’m over for the World Series, I definitely want to play some Omaha hi-low events as I’d consider this my best game and probably is my biggest chance of winning a bracelet, even if the chances are still very low. Also there will be a few EPT events to be played next season, though I’m just not sure which ones yet, and back home there will be a couple to play thoughout the year. I have a €50 tournament to play in the Ennis casino next Friday and while I haven’t talked to the Paddy Power Poker team about playing in it I’m sure they won’t mind [laughs].
RM: When did you start playing and why?
NS: I suppose like so many others, I started playing a home game with my mates every Friday night when I was 18. Just little games for €10 or €20 where the main aim was to beat your mates not by playing good poker, but by gambling or just trying to put bad beats on them. Then there was the poker boom so I started playing a bit online but again it was small money and as a pastime so I didnt really care if I won or lost. Four or five years ago our local casino opened in town and myself and a few of my friends started playing there. It was the first time I realised that if you wanted to win at poker you had to take it seriously and concentrate on the game and the other players. So I started to asked questions about the way to play certain hands and watched the players that won mostly and learned a lot. The fact that everyone up there was so friendly and the relaxed atmosphere helped me, the novice, have the confidence to go back and play. So on top of improving my game I’ve made many good friends due to poker, which is really more important to me.
RM: Do you play much, whether it be online or live?
NS: I go through phases of live and online play but on average I’d be playing somewhere in the region of 10 hours a week, which is enough with a full-time job.
RM: You did so well in the Open in 2009 finishing 11th and now you’re the 2011 champ… it doesn’t look like poker is a huge part of your life, so what is it about the Irish Open?!
NS: Well being Irish and being a poker player, it was always my dream to one day win the Irish Open, as I’ve said, playing or not, the craic you have up there every year can’t be topped. Myself and my friends get up there every year, it’s like our poker holiday. So that’s why I try my hardest to play in it if I get a chance. Like many others though I spend most of my poker time playing on the Internet, even though it is just a pastime for me, so that’s why I wouldn’t have travelled to any other events outside of Ireland.
RM: How much money did you put on this lucky horse? And did you always plan on trying to qualify for the Open online regardless?
NS: I had €20 on the horse total, €10 each-way, so when he came in I decided to transfer the money from Paddy Power to their poker site and play in one of the €220 satellites. I chose the one that was on that night due mainly to my impatience to do something straight away once I’ve decided to do it. Also the massive value on offer helped me make my choice too. From what I remember PPP had guaranteed two seats worth €7,000 in total and only got 4,400 in entries, so from a poker standpoint it would have been a sin not to play it. I would have tried to qualify regardless but mainly by playing the smaller satellites. Winning the horse bet really made it a freeroll for me, so there was absolutely no pressure on while playing, which made me play better I think.
RM: It’s like a fairytale story, did it feel like it was just meant to happen? What was going through your mind as you kept heading for gold?
NS: It’s hard to be human and not think even for a second that this was destined to happen but I like to think I’m a pretty rational person and even though it was a pretty exceptional set of circumstances that led to me playing and winning, they are still just circumstances that are going to happen in your life. So while I landed a proverbial 32,500-1 shot, I have to put it down to luck more then destiny. I do like to think I’m open-minded too so I won’t say it’s impossible just improbable.
At the start of every tournament I play I set myself certain goals like make it through the first level, first day etc., and just try to adapt to any changing situations that come. I’m not even sure I thought about winning it until it got down to heads up because that’s when I remember the first time I felt an overwhelming pressure on me — this is it, one more person and your the Irish Open champ. Like at one stage I thought this is too crazy, will I walk away from the table?! [Laughs] But as always once the cards got dealt I immediately relaxed.
RM: Talk me through your Irish Open — the good days, the bad, the hard opponents, and any strategy you put into use…
NS: Well when I first sat down and the game got going I was surprised how comfortable I felt because usually I’d be a bit nervous at the start of any tournament. So realising this I thought I’d try use it to my advantage if possible. MISTAKE! I ended up running two bluffs into made hands on the river and was down to about 10k after one and a half hours, with my table image shot. So I tightened up and also went a little card dead and plugged away until I got moved table. The table I was moved to had a very good agressive Swedish guy on it who seemed to be opening every second pot if not more, so with my ever-shortening stack he was hard to deal with. One hand happened then where I had about 15,000, I raised my button to 1,500 with K-10, and the small blind makes it 3,000. For some reason I really didn’t think he was too strong, although that could have been the tilt talking. So I said I’d call and if I flopped a pair he’d be getting my money. Flop came J-10-2, he bet, I pushed, and he called after a while with A-Q. I faded his outs and was up to around 33,000. The day ends and I’ve around 30,000.
Day 2 was pretty much a rollercoaster, I’m going between 20,000 and 40,000 most of the day usually just pushing over aggro players when short and being outplayed by them when kind of short [laughs]. The hand that makes the day is a dream, I pick up A-A, make it three times the BB, I think it was 6,000 or so. The button folds, the small blind tanks and goes all in, then the big blind looks down and pushes all in. I cooly re-check my cards and in one movement I’ve pushed all my chips in the middle and have my cards face-up. So the small blind had A-8, the big blind had K-K and my aces hold, I treble up. So now I’m at 130k and healthy. Later that night my chips have been rising steadily and we get moved to the TV table. I’m on 300,000, I get involved in a hand with Johannes Meyer Zu Wendischhoff, an extremely talented player from what I’d seen that day and heard. He has around 300,000 too, but a bit less then me. He raises my big blind, the small blind calls, I call with J♥ 8♥ and the flop is 10-9-7 with two diamonds, BOOM! The nuts! [laughs]. So with some raising and reraising on the flop and turn, we end up all in. He has a monster too, K♦ 7♦, the river falls, he misses, and I win. It was around bubble time in the tourney, so between this, my big stack, and a run of good cards, I end the day with 650,000.
Day 3 was nearly the least eventful in some ways for me, the table is very aggro with the bubble burst and people now wanting to get in a position to win the tournament or go home, so I nit up a bit and try to pick my spots. The day was nearly just a tale of two hands which happened in one orbit. I had A-A the first time against Marty Smyth, he raises, I reraise, and after he thinks for a short time he pushes, I make an easy call and knock him out. Marty would later tell me something about the hand in the bar after, and I’d like to thank him because he didn’t need to tell me. In a hand soon after I’ve A-Q and raise preflop and there is an overpush reraise from a guy down the end of the table who was looking tired. I called, he tabled K-7, and my hand held. I ended up bursting the final table bubble by getting lucky against Andy Black all in preflop, small blind versus big blind, A-5 versus A-7. I flopped a 5 and he was out. I had a great laugh with him whenever he was at my table but I was still glad to see him out [laughs].
Day 4 I went into the final table as chip leader, I can remember looking at it on the PaddyPowerPoker blog the night before and thinking is that really me there with 2 million in chips?! One hour in I get J-J and Niall McCann who was very short had shoved K-J, and I held. Although the win was good I didnt take any pleasure in knocking him out as we’d got on really well the day before, but such is poker, there really aren’t any friends on the table, just off it. The only other person I knocked out that day before heads up was Seamus Cahill, it was a pretty standard hand, he had two pair on the turn, I had a pair and a flush draw, and I ended up hitting my flush on the river.
RM: How was the heads-up with Surinder Sunar? Did you have to readjust at any point?
NS: I thought that Surinder was a very tough player heads up and was certainly getting the best of me for the first hour. I’d gone in with a 9-3 million chip lead, the most eventful hand of that first hour was when I had a queen-high flush draw, he had a five-high flush draw but with a pair, we get it all in on the flop and he holds, next thing we are bang even in chips. So he starts chipping away at me and I’m getting a little frustrated, so we get to the first break and he has an 8-4 million chip lead. I walked off like a man possessed raging at myself for how bad I was playing but people got a hold of me and calmed me down. I went back to the table and realised it wasn’t all that bad, won the first hand back after the break, which helped, I also put back on my sunglasses and stopped engaging Surinder with any talk. After two hours or so of heads up the classic race situation occurs I’ve got 9-9, he has A-K, we get it all in preflop. A 9 comes on the flop, the turn pairs the board, and I’m back in the chip lead with the momentum. After this we just took a few small pots off each other but I think I’m up a few more chips. When the blinds went up to 100-200k it turned into push-fold poker with the effective stack sizes in play. I look down at Q-5 and put Surinder all in and he calls, I bink the 5 on the river, and the rest, as they say, is history.
RM: Did the Sole Survivor element come into play a lot for you? Did you think of it much?
NS: In many ways, no, but at one or two points it affected me. I’m not sure how much it came into play. The fact that I had so many chips over the last two days meant that I was really concentrating on winning the tournament. I mean you don’t dream about winning this prestigious tournament, get down to the last nine with a chip lead and start thinking about the 100k on offer on the side, maybe that sounds a bit blasé but it’s how I felt. Now, that being said, when it did get down to two of us, I did tighten up a bit but it is hard not to when you look to your left and you have Aleksi [Savel] and [Seamus] Cahill sitting there, both covering you chip-wise. It was a pretty scary sight! After the last Sole Survivor got knocked out though, I suppose there was a weight lifted and I could concentrate on the task of trying to win the tournament outright.
RM: Well that you definitely did! So we should be seeing a lot more of you in the poker world now…
NS: Well over the next year, I’ll be playing 50k worth of live tournaments thanks to Paddy Power and the Sole Survivor. So I’ll definitely be around, as for how much you see and here from me well I suppose that depends on how I do and whether I can manage to book a few cashes, final tables, or even a win. If this year goes well who knows what might happen. All I know is that I plan on fully embracing the oppurtunity and after that I’ll let the cards lie where they may. ♠