The Wind was Blowing but the Stars were Showing

Happy New Year to you all and I hope everyone has recovered from Christmas.

Well my friends, our goal is to make this year a successful one! And some of the things we'll be looking at in the next couple of months will be managing your bankroll, discussing how many hours at a time one should play, and when to pull the plug on a losing session. (I'm serious!) We will also look at a bunch of other stuff that will insure that we bring our best game, to the poker table.

We need to get rid of the bad habits. So you've been warned but before we get to that here's a short up date on the last coupe of weeks.

I just got back from Ireland where I spent 10 days hanging out and discussing strategies with some of the biggest and brightest names that the poker world has to offer, some of which included the1999 World Champ Noel Furlong, 1998 World Series of Poker bracelet winner Donnacha O'Dea, Padraig (the legend) Parkinson, Mike Sexton, Marcel Luske, Scott Gray, "Mad" Marty Wilson, Rory Liffey, Robert Williams III, Roy "The Boy" Brindley and many other stars from all over the world. What was everybody doing there you ask?

Well, the Radisson Hotel in Galway was the home for the prestigious PartyPoker.com Irish Poker Championships and was the hub for many of the world's great.

I arrived in Galway on New Years Eve and got straight in to the swing of things. I met up with the legend himself Padraig Parkinson, "the voice of poker" Jessie May and Jon Kalmar who, fresh off his brilliant performance in the main event at the WSOP last year with a 5th place finish netting him over $1,000,000. Good man yourself Jon! The mighty Rory Liffey and "Mad" Marty Wilson were also in attendance and were in flying form.

So as you imagine, I was in good company. After a gallon or two of Guinness and a couple of crates of Bulmer's Cider we soon found ourselves over at Mr. Fintan Gavin's wonderful card room called the Eglinton. It has a great homey feel to it with top notch staff. It has roulette, blackjack, and any type of poker game that you may be looking for. Well done Fintan and keep up the good work. Just pop the check in the mail.

The tournament attracted 300-odd hopefuls who were all licking there chops at the thought of capturing this first major tourney of 2008 and the heaps of euros that would accompany the title. It had a great structure with 10,000 in starting chips with the blinds set at 25-50 with one hour levels! You gotta love that!

I started the first day at the featured table with a line-up that, had they auditioned for the movie Rounders, all would have locked up a spot! They were as follows, Mike Sexton, Dutch pro Steve Wong, WSOP bracelet winner Bruno Fittousi and uncle Ciarán. The remainder was made up by Dutch model/actress/poker player Maud Mulder and some other very solid players. The cameras were rolling and game was on.

I'll leave you with this, a final note, I'll let you know in the next blog how the tourney went and whether I was happy with my finish.

Ciarán "Big C" O'Leary