Fun and Games at the Galway Races Part I

I got an email from my liver in July, politely suggesting that I spend just four or five days rather than the usual week at the annual party (heavily disguised as a horseracing festival) in Galway. Instead, I added a wedding and a party onto the trip and turned it into a 10-day mission. If you start taking shit from body organs, there’s no telling where it could all end up.

I got what turned out to be a bad table draw at the wedding. I was sitting beside a guy called Paddy Sweeney who has a few horses, one of which was a 25/1 shot for the Guinness hurdle. My cousin Connor Sweeney (a finalist in the BoylePoker/Jackpot Poker for the Homeless tournament) who looks after Paddy’s racing interests was very sweet on the horse’s chances and had been encouraging me to lump on it, but Paddy told me he was heading off to Dubai, which didn’t look like a great sign to me.

On the first day of race week, I decided to pay my annual visit to the track and have an early night. I got the first bit right. I dropped into the Ardilaun Hotel, which has taken over from the Jameson as a major race week poker venue, for a couple of quiet pints and bumped into some of the Northern lads who have no idea what a quiet pint is. They were warming up in the bar for the night’s big dealer’s choice game.

The beer was flowing and Pat from Cavan, a pretty shrewd operator, was licking his lips while muttering that he was going to his room for an hour before the game. I mentioned to one of the Northern lads that this seemed like cheating to me but he told me there was nothing to worry about as long as everybody who was buying a round bought Pat a vodka, whether he wanted one or not, as the Cavan man who can leave a free drink behind him hasn’t been born yet. He was right. By the time the game got started, Pat had indeed gone to his room and wasn’t seen again.

The game was old school, tons of cash on the table, no dealer, and non-stop banter. A row would break out every now and again but would be sorted by committee almost as soon as it started. The unwritten rule in these games is that anything less than six or seven hours would be considered hit and run tactics and would be frowned upon severely, though doing your dough and quitting is acceptable. We played until nine in the morning and the game broke up because a few of the punters had the needle as the night porter had gone home and hadn’t been replaced. That would never have happened in the Jameson.

Before the game ended, I witnessed something I’d never seen before. I was dealing Omaha, and after I turned over the river one of the players who had invested quite a few quid in the pot and was facing a bet asked why there were six cards on the board. It was a friendly game, so we all counted them together, and luckily there were only five, but everybody agreed that if you think there’s something wrong, you should speak up for yourself.

We all went for breakfast because there was nothing else to do and had the last laugh of the night when we realised Cavan Pat had not alone missed the game but had slept through the free breakfast.