Irish Open 2016

The Irish Open 2016 has been and gone, alas I did not manage to win the title again this year but the craic and fun times were as jovial as ever this year. Well, from what I can remember of it they were, I have a vague memory of a cracking Irish guitarist, several pints of Guinness and me and Philip “The Tower” Heald busting some moves to a requested solo rendition of Highway To Hell, while the lovely Emma looked on jealous of not having dance moves like me. Good times indeed!

As far as the festival itself goes I have lots of good things to say and unfortunately some negatives too.

Starting with the positives. The structure of a main event does not get much better. 30,000 starting chips, a 1 hour clock and a slow incremental increase of the blinds and antes are good for everyone. It means it is rare a recreational player has their enjoyment snuffed out quickly and there is plenty of room to manoeuvre for the serious player.

The staff behind making sure the tournament runs smoothly were absolutely top class. The tournament directors and dealers at the Irish Open are the world’s best at what they do, professional and fair whilst at the same time jovial at the appropriate times. As always, a big thank you for making the festival run so smoothly for everyone.

There is great debate about what is best for the Irish Open in terms of its buy in. For the past 5 years it has fluctuated from €3,500 to this year which was a €1,150. Some believe the tournament has lost its prestige because of the lower buy in, others think that it is infeasible to host a €3,500 buy in in the current Irish financial climate. Regardless of your own thoughts, the organisers set out a goal of hosting a €500,000 guarantee with a €1,150 buy in, with one of the benefits of such a goal of making the tournament very much an Irish affair, as it should be in my opinion, as in my 4 years playing this game as a professional there is no more fun a tournament than one hosted in Ireland. The event organisers more than met their laudable goal with the tournament getting over 800 runners. The heads up duel was an Irish affair with both remaining competitors hailing from the Emerald Isle. Dan Wilson’s AcKc spiked an ace and held against runner up Michael Conaty’s pocket 9’s, securing him a €150,000 payday. Not too shabby for a €1,150 event! I wonder how many runners the event would have gotten without a €500,000 guarantee being advertised? I’d put money on it being a much smaller number than the 802 runners they got, so a big hat tip for putting on a solid guarantee is in order.

Other nice touches to the event were the hand carved trophies, the availability of cash games and the Liam Flood Memorial tournament which pays a nice homage to one of the festivals most memorable characters. One side event I particularly liked the look of was the format of the heads up tournament. It was such that you played one or two matches a day at 12pm meaning that it did not clash with the Main Event which started at 2pm no matter how deep you went in it.

Onto the negatives I’m afraid and there is a very big one. This €1k tournament is the most expensive one I’ve ever heard of. For starters the buy in is €1025 + €125 which to begin with is just over €25 euros too much rake. The GUKPT, The Unibet Open’s and the plethora of £1k events hosted at Dusk till dawn operate at +10% rule, i.e. £1000 + £100 or similar. Now I wouldn’t mind the slightly larger rake and wouldn’t comment if the rake was indeed €125. The really unacceptable thing was that 2.5% of the prize pool was withheld without telling the players until after they had bought in. I cannot stress just how unacceptable that is, aside from the fact that the additional rake of 2.5% is something I loath to pay (I know players who refuse to play EPT’s and UKIPT’s because of this) but the only mention of this additional rake was in tiny black lettering against a dark green background on the tournament ticket you received after buying in.

The other negative, and the more I think about it the more it narks me, was the €200’s worth of players parties that satellites players had to pay for. The satellite packages (one of which I won on Ipoker) were €200 euros harder to win in order to have the players parties paid for. Now, these players’ parties were not exclusive affairs, meaning it was the satellite players paying for everyone’s entertainment rather than the hosts, as is the case at festivals like the Unibet Open who foot the bill for the players parties themselves. What annoys me more was the timing of the players’ parties. I couldn’t attend the first one because funnily enough I was busy playing the Irish Open. It was on the same day as day 1a and by the time I busted the 3 course meal I had paid for had been served and I was looking to wind down and get some shut eye in preparation for day 1b rather than take a taxi to wherever the players party was, surely hosting this the night before day 1a would have been better? The second players party we were told was to have a free bar from 7pm. Fair enough I thought, I’ve got a flight the next day so I won’t be up all night drinking, but I’ll have one or two while I rail the final table. However, they postponed the free bar (for reasons I have yet to establish) until 11pm, which isn’t much good when I’ve got an early flight to get to.
Another minor gripe I have is that day 2 players did not get fed. We got fed on day 1, and after I busted on day 2 I asked the floor man Nick O’Hara if I could get my dinner ticket and he informed me that day 2 players weren’t getting them this year. I’m paying €150 euros in rake and paying for everyone’s drinks at the player’s parties and I’m not even getting fed when I make it do day 2? Very bad craic.

As far as my own personal poker schedule goes I am spoilt for choice when it comes to €1k events or similar. I do not play every poker festival that is available to me, simply because while poker is one of my greatest loves, it comes nowhere close in terms of importance as time my wife, my parents, my family and my friends. The Irish Open lands on a premium time slot. It’s a bank holiday, all these people I love have time off from their jobs, but given how beautifully sentimental the Irish Open is to me and my wife I always take this weekend as poker time. It is not wife time. Emma always attends, but time with my wife is sparse on a poker trip, she knows it’s my job and attends to be supportive of me and because we have so many happy memories here. The prestige of the tournament was not diminished for me because of the reduced buy in, it was diminished when I felt that I was treated as a mark rather than a valued customer. There are many other choices of poker festival I could potentially make throughout the year whilst keeping the bank holiday weekend free to spend with my wife, my friends and my family.