Autumn 24, London, Killarney & A Trophy

The last blog brought us up to the end of August. The six weeks since have been pretty hectic and exciting. As you can see below from the Hendon Mob screenshot there's been a bit of everything. An exciting 1st in A KKpoker live event, a 2nd and a 3rd, a few other crossbars and I even managed to stone cold bubble the main event in London.

Hendon Mob

I'll start with Killarney which only comes second for me to the Irish Open for festival's in Ireland. I've been travelling to poker festivals in Killarney since the late noughties and what a wonderful venue the Gleneagles has always been.

The Champion

This years €700 buy-in main event saw one of the toughest late stage line up ever assembled battling it out for the title. The 30 players who returned for day three of the 881 starters was like a checklist of great players in the country; Marc MacDonnell, Conor O'Driscoll, Darren Harbinson, Patrick Clarke, Keith Cummins, Seamus Cahill, Chris Dowling, Rory Liffey, Zeke Tuit and Myself were all fighting it out for the trophy.

Huge congratulations to Marc on a super win. Marc has been one of the best if not the best live tournament player in the country for upwards of 15 years now and was a fitting champion coming out on top of such an esteemed final table.

Hammers

Second in the main event was absolute crusher and good friend Conor "Hammers" O'Driscoll. A fellow Limerick man, Conor has been killing it both live and online this year. Conor who is probably better known for his online endeavors recently added a WCOOP win and 4th place finish to his already massive list of online success's. 2024 has seen Hammers play more live events than previously with great result's. The €77,000 in Killarney score comes on the back of a great year already with final tables in a UKIPT main event for £15k and a win in a BPS event for £32k.

In Action with Darren in Killarney

I can't finish this segment without mentioning how happy I was to see the benefactor of my chips Darren Harbinson make a storming run at the title.

I returned on day three of the event with 15 big blinds and a hope of running well. I lost 6 of these blinds in the first hand of the day when the small blind shove K10 and I called with A8. A few hands later I shoved 1010 into my good mates Darren's JJ. I was out in 30th for €3,700.

While that was the end of the tournament for me Darren went onto put in a tremendous performance registering his best cash yet with the third place finish and 40k payday. I was delighted to see Darren show his stuff in such a quality field. I got a brilliant buzz seeing him final table it and bagging the superb third place finish.

Side Event's Killarney

It was an absolutely brilliant festival this year. Killarney is always good but Fintan and all the team deserve great plaudits for putting on what I think was the best one yet. The amount of side event's available was second to none and the team managed every aspect of the festival to the highest standards, I honestly couldn't fault anything about this festival.

Some of the Winners

A lot of my close friends won tournament down there this year and too many to mention all so if I forgot/missed you, sorry! Shutout to Duane for his great win in the Killarney Poker Cup for a nice €12.950. My buddy PLO king Shane Keary and Killian and Paudie on their respective successes. Other notable winners included Parkey, Jamie Flynn and Sam Dobbins, big congrats to all.

I know I'm forgetting people but there was just so much going on over the week so apologies again if I missed you.

Colette & Jenny

Ladies Success

I think the ladies deserve a special mention. There is a cohort of women who play top class poker and win event's at every IPT tour stop, Killarney was no different with two regular winners taking trophies. Jenny Steele plays all the IPT stops had a memorable festival. Jenny bagged a trophy for first place in the Ladies Championship for €3,000. This was added to with €6,000 for second place in the monsterstack and €1,000 for 12th in the mystery bounty.

Colette Murphy who has been a accomplished poker player for many years added to her already fearsome reputation with two good results in Killarney. A 1st place in the €150 NLH event for €6,290 and a 3rd place for €2,400 in the €150 turbo. Two top players, congratulations to both.

My Own Side Events

Apart from my €3,700 cash in the main event I managed two other results at the festival. An uninteresting €500 for 13th in the €150 NLH and a much more satisfactory €9,610 for 3rd place in the very tough fielded €1k One Dayer.

As you can imagine at this festival a €1,000 buy in was going to attract all the top players and it was a tough field to navigate my way through. I just about had the chip lead entering the final table with the legendary player Sean "The Goat" Prendirville a close second and the impressive Ray "The Landlord" Wheatley on our tails.

I didn't know the other players at the final table well but you can be guaranteed they were all good having reached the final table in that field. When the dust settled it was myself Sean and Ray who battled it out in the final three.

Ray with the chip lead got out of the way When Sean raised the button an I jammed A8s from the small. Sean who had me covered tanked for a long time before deciding his A7 was ahead of my range and made the call. The the 7 on the turn put Sean ahead but gave me unfulfilled hopes of a flushdraw.

Ray

So it was out in third for €9,610. Would have been nice to get the trophy but overall I was delighted with my performance and finishing position, The two lads did a chop after my exit with Ray taking the trophy as he has the biggest stack.

Congratulations to Ray whose been absolutely killing it live all year. This was his third big results in €1k buyin events this year. A brilliant player and a top bloke.

I had intended covering my win at my sponsors KKpoker live event in Dublin and another couple of recent events but I'm going to have to cut this short and call it Part 1. I'm off to Clonmel shortly for Irish Poker Tours "the Siege of Clonmel Festival". I'll finish this blog next Wednesday or Thursday.

Until the next blog, be lucky at the tables.