Fun and Games at the Galway Races Part II

After playing all night on race week Monday, I managed to get two hours sleep before Fintan Gavin phoned me to ask if I fancied joining him for lunch. As I was still half asleep, I lost a coin flip and said yes by accident. No would have certainly been a better idea, especially as before we’d finished eating, we’d been joined by Manus, Big Sean, and Andy Black, all of whom seemed to think that it could be our last day on the planet and were acting accordingly.

Andy launched straight into his WSOP exit hand. He’d been doing very well, and to be honest I didn’t think that the hand was too bad from what I’d seen on the net but to be fair to Andy he put his hands up and accepted full responsibility. Honesty from a poker player is pretty rare these days. Andy had heard about the big game in the Ardilaun and after a couple of pints asked me if I’d give him a ten minute lesson on how to play a few of the games he’d never played before. He seemed to think that this was more than enough time, which probably explains why he keeps insisting on putting $50,000 in the H.O.R.S.E. at the World Series. If ‘God loves a trier’, then he must be absolutely crazy about Andy.

Luckily Veronique was getting into town, so I managed to escape what looked like being a big day out, but Galway being Galway, a quiet night out with the cousins turned into another late one. They were still banging on about this 25/1 shot in Thursday’s big race. A couple of days later, I was in Boylesports betting shop in Eyre Square, watching Vero punting away enthusiastically. I remembered just in time that my duties as a sponsored pro didn’t include backing winning long shots with my sponsor, so I nipped across the road to place my bet with one of their competitors. Even so, I was still one of the most surprised people in Galway when I saw my cousins on the TV leading the horse in after it had won by a mile. I wish I’d known less and bet more.

That night, I paid my first visit of the week to the Eglinton club. The place was full and the action pretty furious. Fintan had organised a one table tournament to be played by nine of the bigger names who happened to be around, so the craic was pretty good. Andy had been getting the worst of a battle with pint bottles of cider, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that he was first out. As soon as he left his seat, some guy who’d obviously had a few himself dived out of the crowd, sat on the seat. Andy had just vacated and pulled out a large wad of money, thinking he’d just got a seat in the biggest cash game in the place. Some times you have to see these things to believe them.

When I told Veronique what had happened, she wasn’t in the least bit surprised as she’d been playing in the nightly tournament and said this had happened nearly every time somebody had been knocked out of that event.

I bumped into Pat Vickers in the middle of all this madness and casually mentioned that the recession just might be over, judging from the amount of money that was being thrown around. “You’re completely wrong there”, said Pat. “It won’t be over for another two weeks.”