Poker In Wonderland

Instead of being in Vegas as planned, I was in another of my favourite places. Galway. Galway is my second home. Or my first one, I suppose. I was delighted, in my role as partypoker’s Irish ambassador, to be bringing the Grand Prix Tour there for the first time. I knew it’d be great craic.

On my first morning there, I went for a walk on the promenade before going to the pub for lunch. All the locals seemed to be favouring the special of the day which, as far as I could figure out, was four pints for twenty euro. Fair enough. I missed the start of a story some guy was telling but caught the punchline, which was « Then the American tourist asked if all of this island was surrounded by water ». I love Galway!
I went to the supermarket where a lady was serving up free samples of a whiskey based sweet drink. She was great. She said it was a perfect drink for ladies as it was nonfattening. Her reasoning was that a bottle of this stuff contained 2100 calories, 2,000 was the allowed daily calorie intake for a lady, so if a lady drank the whole bottle, except for a little drop in the bottom, she would be ok as long as she didn’t eat anything that day. Hard to fault the logic.

Then, we got on with the poker which was as much fun as expected. The highlight was a story an old guy was telling at the table. It involved a politician who was standing for election years ago. He was making a speech outside a church on a Sunday morning. When he finished, a guy shouted from the back of the crowd and asked if he could fix it that his mother be moved from the county hospital to the county nursing home. « No problem » said our man. The guy thanked him and walked away. Someone asked the politician who the guy was. He said he didn’t know. When then asked how he was going to keep his promise he answered : « I suppose I’m going to have to move the lot of them. » After Galway, the next partypoker event in Ireland is the Millions in beautiful, hilarious Killarney. Visiting Killarney is like walking into a fairytale. Beautiful scenery, great golf, top class music, that island from Starwars, a fantastic venue for poker and thousands of friendly people who treat visitors to their town like long lost, much loved relatives. And there’s a tournament with a million guaranteed for a buyin of €1150. It’s got everything but leprechauns though you never know. See you there.

You can satellite into the Killarney event on partypoker.com of course. If you like your satellites live, check out fitzwilliamcardclub.com (dublin) and theeglinton.com (Galway) for details. More later.