Tim Blake at the Irish Poker Festival

I was never a scholar at school but seem to recall looking up from the Racing Post during lessons to hear the boring old duffer at the front of class mention some random Roman invading the country and saying the words 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' – 'we came, we saw, we conquered'. Only twice in my life has that phrase come to mind or been of any use. Once, when a horse of the same name crossed the line first at the massive price of 33/1 when yours truly had invested a few of the Queen's lovely pounds!

The second time was the recent Ladbrokes.com Sponsored Irish Poker Festival in Killarney, although forget the 'we conquered' part (all the events were won by locals) and replace it with whatever the Latin is for “we had some craic” and you get the general understanding of what really took place.

Following my successful run in the 2008 Irish Open, I was kindly sponsored by Ladbrokes into this event – the A-list sponsored pros, with the exception of Roy the Boy, were otherwise engaged in London at some minor event called the EPT. The previous week I had played the WSOPE main event in London and lasted until the end of Day 2 facing across the table such poker luminaries as Daniel Negreanu, Phil Laak, Devilfish and Brian Townsend.

After that experience a visit to Killarney should be a formality (lol) one would think? Me and 'er indoors set off for Stansted Airport on Thursday afternoon and soon met up with some of the usual suspects at the check-in queue and more inevitably in the bar. My good friend Adam “Bigadzc” Collins and his lovely lady Emma were first to the bar, closely followed by Phinnies1 and Boomer797. The flight was fairly uneventful apart from the usual wind up from Mick McCool who had asked the flight attendant if he would be good enough to get my autograph! I think Mick was on tilt because the airline had charged him excess baggage for bringing his ego along.

Arriving at the very nice Brehon hotel we checked into our room and then headed out for some food. On the way, we saw good mates and players, richlizard, s7eve, Dazzler, Sudsy8 and the ever present top man in Ireland Ray “Icepack” Masters. After a couple of after dinner pints, I headed for to bed like a good boy at the early time of 4.30 am!

The main event started at 4pm. If anybody had any doubts about whether the event would be popular or not they were soon set aside. The satellite on the Thursday evening with 20 seats guaranteed had over 300 runners and when the main event started the number of entrants exceeded 830 with the prize pool a massive 416,000 euros. Having guaranteed the prize pool at 250,000 , the team at Ladbrokes slept easy knowing their bonuses were safe for another week!

Having agreed a 50 euro last longest with Bigadzc, Sudsy8 his mate, whose name escapes me – sorry – and the wife (yes the WAG was for once playing having qualified the previous Monday in the weekly final – imagine my delight at getting constant text updates on RIVERMAID’S progress whilst playing the WSOPE, lol!) we each headed off with our game plan for a 15k stack and a one hour clock – heaven.

Dogged by the dreaded man flu, a cold deck that has failed to see the pocket rockets once in seven live events, plus a first table of mindless aggression of the sort that makes our Scandinavian cousins look weak passive I played top class poker (haha) and went out at the start of Level 3!

My assassin was a card rack who had amassed a three times average chip stack during the first two hours play. My UTG raise got three other callers plus the card rack on the button. I had A-K and with four other players in the pot, I decided to bet the pot on a K-7-3 rainbow flop, and all except the button folded. He re-raised to such an extent that I was left with one of two options, all in or fold. I chose the former having seen his previous overbets when hitting top pair with 'kickers' in the range of J,10 and 8. His delayed deliberation before calling had me convinced that I was facing K-Q – a little longer wait and I now think K-J – a little longer still and I am now convinced it was in the K-10 - K-9 range. What do I know? Over came the 33 for bottom set and the explanation later in the weekend that he wasn’t slow rolling 'I was scared you had KK!' Marvellous. Our hero was seen in the bar before the end of play for Day one.

I headed for the bar, meeting up with Laddies regulars Michelin, Kunglui and Maccio all made for good fun and great banter and yet further alcoholic abuse.

One thing happened on the Saturday that really had me falling off the chair with laughter. It took place in the bar prior to the start of event two. Surrounded by televisions we were all sat watching either the racing from Newmarket or Arsenal giving up their Premiership hopes at Sunderland (I bet Marios edits that bit out). Adam and I had placed a couple of bets on the nags and he was watching in glee as the O’Brien trained horse romped home in the big race. Sat there like the proverbial cat who had licked the cream whilst having his own proverbials licked by another cat Adam punched the air delight as his charge crossed the line. Now, as anybody who follows racing closely will tell you, when it comes to the big races Aiden O’Brien has a habit of entering more than one horse and this race was no exception. It turned out that the one Adam had backed didn’t finish first that was the other O’Brien horse – Adam’s in fact finished last! The cream sure turned sour by the look on his face.

Day two of the main event kicked off with many runners still in with a live chance of hitting the 100k first prize and the bubble was reached late in the evening. The actual bubble received a welcome surprise courtesy of Ladbrokes, a free buy in to next years event, confirming there will be another, which from the feedback I've received will be most welcome. This left the bubble plus one as the man who “won” nothing – well not quite – Sudsy8, the unfortunate player had the consolation of collecting our little kitty of 250 euro by way of lasting longest. He was delighted, lol.

I played the 300 euro side event on day 2 but again nothing special to report and an early night – 2.30 this time was the order of the day.

Sunday in Ireland is always a good day for sport and drinking and this weekend was no exception being Arc day in Paris. Having decided to miss out on the third and final event in favour of a few pints of the black stuff in a pub next door to the bookies, Mr and Mrs RIVERMAID headed into town and met up with Icepack, Bigadzc and their respective halves. Ray was driving so the order of a diet lemonade every so often in amongst the Guinness brought a wry smile from our host. Thirty minutes to the start of the third event, she who must be obeyed did what she who must be obeyed does best – changed her mind and decided she wanted to play the final event. A quick call to Marios and she was in, and Ray, bless him, dutifully drove her back the venue whilst the rest of us ordered another round.

Twenty minutes after the game started, I got a text from Marios asking 'Where’s Hellmuth?' which could only mean that RIVERMAID had failed to arrive. I rang her to find out that she had bought herself in and was happily donking off her chips unaware that she had two seats.

I rang Marios to tell him that she was already there and if he couldn’t get her the money back I'd make my way to the venue and play in the other seat – after watching the Arc of course. Two minutes later I get a phone call from both – Marios has got a refund – Hazel is out! Oh well at least one female could be relied on that day as Zarkava proved that, Laddies Poker Two aside, she's the best filly in training and absolutely bolted in at Longchamp.

Note to self for next year - get drunk, sit down, play poker – who needs Harrington?!!