The Life of Liffey

The WSOP Europe was a bit of a disappointment for the Irish team. I led the charge by finishing a few spots off the bubble in the £1000 No Limit event. The good news was that I got knocked out in time to catch the last 20 minutes of the United v City match. The bad news was that if I’d known they were going to play 14 minutes injury time, I could have hung around and at least made the money. A couple of days later, Dave Callaghan and John O’Shea finished in a heap on the bubble in the £5000 Omaha which is a real dirty one because not alone did they do their dough, they finished within about 20 spots of a bracelet.

It wasn’t without its moments though. My host and minder (since fired) was Rory Liffey, a man with an alternative view on just about everything. Surprisingly, he’s quite often right. One of his theories is that everybody is trying to fuck with his head. Before the week was out, I was beginning to think he had a point. The night before the Omaha event we decided to have an early night. Rory’s idea of an early night was that we go to his local pub in Kilburn, have a few pints, and be home for Late Night Poker. Every time we bought a drink, we bought a pint for the barmaid who was a friend of Rory’s. She was putting them away quite impressively. When going home time arrived, Rory decided it would be a good idea if we took a pint bottle of cider each with us, just in case the poker was boring (it was). He politely asked the barmaid if he could have a few cubes of ice to take with us. Two minutes later, she slapped a huge black plastic bag on the counter with enough ice in it for a three day party. I have no idea what this was all about and as a guest was too polite to ask but Liffey rose to the occasion by putting a bottle in each pocket and heading up Kilburn high road with the bag of ice over his shoulder. Who needs television?

The following week, Rory played the EPT London and swapped a piece with Marty Smyth. About an hour into day 2 he phoned me (I’d escaped) to tell me that he’d been knocked out on day 1 and had got a text from Marty to say that he was out too. He later got a text from Marty to say he wasn’t out but had 25.000 in chips at the end of the day. This fits in very well with Liffey’s theory. As he was talking to me, he got a text from Marty saying that he had 170.000. He was sure this was another piss take and that Marty had joined the FuckWithLiffey’s Head club. He was wrong. The simple explanation was that Marty had thought he was out after losing a big pot, but after texting Rory, had found he had a couple of big blinds left, from which he nearly won the tournament, Poker Million style. That leaves Marty in the clear. Though it doesn’t explain the barmaid.