The Boylepoker.com International Poker Open 2012 - A Players’ Perspective

By Nicky Power, John O’Shea And Brendan Murray

Boylepoker pros and popular bloggers Nicky Power and John O’Shea played the 1,148 player, €230 buy in International Poker Open in October. Here’s what they had to say in the aftermath of one of Europe’s largest poker tournaments.

Nicky Power

I had never made it past level six in an IPO. My goal entering day one was to make level seven, which I managed by 20 minutes. A success? Debatable, but one thing for sure IPO 2012 was a huge success.

Playing the IPO conflicts me a little. As a Boylepoker representative I feel I have a certain role to play over the weekend. Do some commentary on the live stream, help out where I can, be social, meet and have a beer and generally be nice to people.
This is where the conflict arises; I almost feel it’s my duty to get knocked out. I dogged a chap that had travelled over from Holland in level six blind-on-blind and I was honestly gutted to do so. It’s a funny one.

My tournament ended in a preflop all-in cooler involving my A-K and Jay O’Toole’s 8 7. Jay flopped the world and I left the tournament as un-gutted as a man will ever be upon exit.

This freed me up for live stream commentary duties which I enjoyed a lot. The streaming at the IPO is done in a very informal manner, it differs from the norm but I think in a way that’s a great fit for the tournament. Over the weekend I got to chew the fat with some of my all time poker heroes.

Watching Jesse May and Padraig Parkinson commentating on Late Night Poker got me interested in the game so it’s quiet surreal to actually be chatting with them on the live stream. Neil Channing, John O’Shea and Ciaran Corbett aren’t the worse for an old natter either.

The IPO has a history of innovation and this year Iain Cheyne unveiled his EVCount system. The system lets people at home follow the chip counts and tables of every player in the tournament in real time. I suppose it’s like an online lobby for live tournaments and by all accounts was a huge success. No doubt Iain will make millions from it so well played that man.

The Irish Poker Awards took place on the Sunday night of the IPO. Ciaran Corbett had booked a magician as warm up and he was great craic. I was up for two awards, best blogger and best spammer, aka best social media user. I don’t really get the second category but need not have worried, as I failed miserably to bink. I don’t think anyone could have argued with the winners to be honest and it was nice to be nominated.

It was a pleasure to be there to see Padraig pick up the legend award. Not that we needed any confirmation that the man is a legend.

While the IPO has a relatively small buy in, it’s a huge tournament. Ciaran, Gerry and all the Boylepoker crew, Stephen and an army of staff all put in a huge effort to make sure everything is in place for us players to enjoy ourselves. Huge well done to all those involved for making IPO 2012 such a fantastic celebration of poker.

John O’Shea

Well as ever another great IPO, even if I was a little sickend Ross Johnson didn’t make it to the final eight. I had some percentage of Ross. He’s been very unlucky this year, he’s put himself in position to win a few big tournaments and always lost a monster pot to go out. The guy can’t seem to win flips deep.

There was an interesting piece from poker writer Doni Peters recently about how poker has become less fun. While I didn’t agree with all of it there was some interesting talking points. Something that really grinds my gears and it’s becoming worse is winning poker players’ using Twitter to berate recreational players.

In Vegas this summer a bit of chat surfaced from Ross Johnston Tweeting a picture of some “fat bitch” who sucked out on him in a tourney. I am not going to say I didn’t laugh cause I did. I often laugh at handicapped people but that doesn’t make it OK. It prompted a response from Max Silver, which in turn prompted a 10,000 word twitter reply from Jason Tomkins and it all made for a very interesting discusion. There was basically a zero percent chance of her seeing it so what harm in my opinion.

This weekend it seemed like it was relentless with Tweets/pictures about bad players. It’s the IPO you fucking fools, over 80 percent of the field are playing it for fun. Most of them are there for a fun day out and may well be some of your followers on twitter. It won’t encourage these people to keep turning up and help make you a living if they’re subject to this kind of abuse. Losing players’ are effectively winning players’ customers’. Your job is to take their money and try send them home with a smile on there face. I really think giving hand histories where you’re criticising your opponents play should be banned from Twitter. I saw one Tweet from Jason where he was going on about calling a guy down with king-high and he finished the tweet with #embarasment #poorguy. There’s a chance this guy follows him on Twitter. He was just at the final table of an European Poker Tour main event and won Irish tournament player of the year — I don’t think running down a pub player will rise you further in anyone’s eyes.

I was chatting away to another well-known player about this on Saturday night at the bar at the IPO. Mid-way through some guy come up to make sure a hand that the guy had played with him didn’t go up on Twitter where your man had got it in with no pair no draw. I have been guilty of this kind of foolish behavior myself in the past. I don’t think it’s in anyone interests that it continues. Oh yeah my own IPO was short and sweet.

As many of you know I am fighting Ross Johnson in a white collar boxing match for charity. He set up a page where people can make donations. I am too lazy to do it myself and seeing how we will be fishing the same water for donations can people just donate on his. I post a link on my facebook and can all so be found on his.

IPO Final Table

The €230 buy in Boylepoker.com International Poker Open was won by Tom Brady from Northern Ireland.

The Plymouth, England resident started the day as chip leader and 7/2 favourite among the final eight which reconvened in Dublin in mid-November after the initial 1,148 played at the Regency Hotel in the Irish capital on October 19 and 20.
The event was streamed live at the Boylepoker blog and the 30-minute heads up battle between Brady and one-time short stack Darren Millar ended when Millar ran his A-6 into Brady’s A-9 and couldn’t improve.

The final table payouts were:

First Tom Brady €42,530
Second Darren Millar €30,715
Third Emmett Davis €21,605
Fourth Henry Port €16,215
Fifth Lori Lazzaro €12,730
Sixth Thomas Nathan €10,620
Seventh Colum Horan €8,485
Eighth Thomas Dupuy €6,375