My First Poker Victory in Two Years Part I

I’ve finally gotten off the mark for the year, winning my first live tournament at the Castle Card Club in Castlebar. In fact, it’s the first live tournament I’ve won since the Poker Million in 2008.

Unfortunately, with a first prize of €1800, it wasn’t quite in the same league as the Poker Million in terms of prize money, and technically I only split the tournament but I did have the most chips in play when we made the deal, so I’m going to claim it as a victory anyway!



The Castle Card is a new club run by Martin Silke and owned by Jackie, who also owns the 4 Aces in Galway. I was keen to support them on their opening night, as I’d really been hooked when I visited the 4 Aces last year. It was also semi-convenient for me, as I was making my way from a family holiday in Donegal down to Cork, for the Macau festival.

It’s only a small club but they seem to have a good bunch of players and there was a good atmosphere in the place, so hopefully it will take off and be a success.



From there I travelled down to Cork for the €350 pot-limit Omaha and €1,000 no-limit hold’em main event. I was trying to build a big stack in the PLO, as it was a small field with a very slow structure and I didn’t want to be hanging in until 4am to bust in 5th place for no money. I started off well, scooping the €50 that Nicky had promised me if I busted Noel Hayes. Then I came unstuck against Nicky, in a big pot for the chip lead.

I got it all in on the flop, surprised to find that my pair of 3s and a crap draw was actually leading against Nicky’s crap draw. I made a fairly strong hand on the turn to make me a big favourite, but he got lucky on the river and went on to take the Lion’s share of the prize money in a 5 way deal at 5 a.m..