The Billionth Hand nears...we're keeping an eye on it

Most readers of the blog and players on Paddy Power Poker are probably aware of the Billionth Hand promotion we're currently running - with a massive $50,000 cash prize for the winner of the Billionth Hand dealt on our cash tables and other tasty cash prizes for winners and participants in the many other prize hands in the run-up to the big one!

Well, to aid all players in their quest to snag some of the loot on offer, we've added a hand counter to both the Billionth Hand webpage and the poker software client. Now you'll be able to see just when the big Jackpot and Countdown hands are approaching, in addition to be better prepared for the Billionth Hand and the inevitable 24-hour cash table madness that will accompany the last day before it is hit!

Dr. Jack has also been spotted joy-riding around outside Paddy Tower in his gilded horse-drawn carriage recently and has added to the growing body of wisdom on his very on page on paddypowerpoker.com...check him out and learn a little...if not about poker, definitely about life and love!

Whack a Paddy...

I hope that all loyal Blog readers are taking avantage of the chance we're given you to humiliate Paddy Power Poker employees and make them cry into their keyboards? Yes, I mean our weekly Paddy Whacker tournament, in which one of our level 4 drone-bots logs on as player Paddywhacker0 and attempts to achieve poker greatness by outlasting all who try to knock him out! Why is everyone after him? Well, good ol' Paddywhacker0 has a bounty of $100 on his head, that's why! Not only that, but anyone who knocks him out and goes on to win the $10 + $1 NLH freezeout will get an additional bonus of $100 (so that's a $200 total bonus in addition to the standard prize for winning the tournament)!

The Paddy Whacker tournaments take place every Thursday at 9pm - don't miss your chance to get one over on us :) Has anyone had any luck in this tournament yet?

It goes without saying by those who attended or participated in the Irish Open that the six days of Poker enjoyed in Citywest, Dublin was a great success. Not only for Neil Channing, Donal Norton and all others who cashed in the main event or any of the side events, but for those of us who could not play but were on the rails (during our break, of course!) or just there to soak up the unique Irish Open atmosphere. I don't think the Prison Love (our resident bluegrass band) take on Motorhead's classic Ace Of Spades will be forgotten anytime soon!

So what's next on the calendar for Paddy Power Poker? Well, in addition to exclusive online promotions we run on a regular basis for our players, we are proud to announce the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Winter Festival, scheduled for October Bank Holiday weekend (October 25th-27th). Online qualifiers to this exciting event will kick off on April 13th and players can participate in weekly Grand Final satellites. The festival will take place at Citywest, Dublin and is highlighted by a €1,500 + €150 main event that will feature an estimated €1,000,000 prize pool!

Full list of payouts from the 2008 Irish Open main event

Neil Channing topped the tree and took the plaudits, but his was just the best of 72 great performances. Congratulations to all who cashed in the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open main event!

Results of the 2008 Irish Open

1 Neil Channing €801,400.00
2 Donal Norton €420,000.00
3 Thomas Dunwoodie €275,000.00
4 Tim Blake €220,000.00
5 Danilo Paulsen €175,000.00
6 Edwin Tournier €135,000.00
7 Carsten Joh €100,000.00
8 Eric Larcheveque €75,000.00
9 John Keown €50,000.00
10 Mark Spellman €32,500.00
11 Peter Linton €32,500.00
12 Hassan Mohammed €32,500.00
13 Andrew Grimason €24,000.00
14 William Martin €24,000.00
15 Thomas Dempsey €24,000.00
16 Thomas Finneran €24,000.00
17 Surinder Sunar €24,000.00
18 Philip Starrs €24,000.00
19 John Kabbaj €18,000.00
20 William Haughey €18,000.00
21 Frederic Levy €18,000.00
22 Tony Salmon €18,000.00
23 Thomas Fourgeron €18,000.00
24 Conor Tate €18,000.00
25 Anthony Fagan €18,000.00
26 Padraig Parkinson €18,000.00
27 Nick Goodall €18,000.00
28 Bill O'Keefe €13,000.00
29 Mazhar Nawab €13,000.00
30 Charlie Harvey €13,000.00
31 Iam Van Trinh €13,000.00
32 Knut Rysstad €13,000.00
33 Julian Thew €13,000.00
34 Sorel Mizzi €13,000.00
35 Lars Hougaard €13,000.00
36 John Moran €13,000.00
37 Kiko Lacasa €9,000.00
38 Belkacem Laouar €9,000.00
39 Kristoffer Nyberg €9,000.00
40 Tominari Kobayashi €9,000.00
41 Kenneth Greaney €9,000.00
42 Emmett Davis €9,000.00
43 Nariman Faramarzi-Rad €9,000.00
44 Kieran Small €9,000.00
45 James Daly €9,000.00
46 John Conroy €6,500.00
47 David Dean €6,500.00
48 Willie Clynes €6,500.00
49 Jaka Faraz Quddus €6,500.00
50 Brian Antoniotti €6,500.00
51 Sebastien Caleechurn €6,500.00
52 Dominic Heaver €6,500.00
53 Alexander Fitzgerald €6,500.00
54 Magnus Hulden €6,500.00
55 John Paul Fox €5,500.00
56 Simon Hennessey €5,500.00
57 Dave Masters €5,500.00
58 Rumit Somaiya €5,500.00
59 Michael Finn €5,500.00
60 Andrew Cowan €5,500.00
61 Timothy Barany €5,500.00
62 Keith Littlewood €5,500.00
63 Daniel Walley €5,500.00
64 James Honeybone €4,500.00
65 Annette O'Carroll €4,500.00
66 Colin King €4,500.00
67 Abel Meijberg €4,500.00
68 Thomas Nyberg €4,500.00
69 David Albertsson €4,500.00
70 Gavin Moir €4,500.00
71 Michael Nolan €4,500.00
72 Anthony Wetherall €4,500.00

Neil Channing, 2008 Irish Open Champion

Congratulations to Neil Channing on a fantastic performance against a field of 667 players including many of the best players in the world. He will be a more than worthy champion!

Things are heating up for the Irish Open

Names are coming in thick and fast to the Irish Open registration desk here in Paddy Tower following the live and online qualifiers held over the past few days. Eight players qualified online via the Paddy Power Poker Super Satellite tournament on Sunday, a further eight bagged their place at Europe’s richest poker tournament at a live qualifier in the Sporting Emporium on Tuesday and last night another two lucky players won tickets online in Wednesday’s Super Satellite tournament.

Irish Open 2007 Main Event

Don’t miss out on all the buzz of this year’s Irish Open, there is still time to qualify online via Paddy Power Poker or live via card rooms throughout Ireland and Britain. We’ll see you there!

Saturday night in the SE, who cares what picture cards you see?

After rocking out to a new band in Whelans last Saturday night, I wandered into the wonderful Sporting Emporium in central Dublin with a fistful of cash and the dream of crushing the live cash tables. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person with this dream, as there were a number of cash tables going and more punters arriving every few minutes. After a brief period of enforced blackjack (waiting for a seat to free up in the poker room), I was called by John to sit down at one of the €1 / €2 Pot Limit tables.

The regular crowd had shuffled in - students in hoodies, professional types wearing suits, a sprinkling of women dressed to impress and the usual poker fiends! Many seemed to have a bit of drink taken too, as you might expect, top-drawer poker was not being played by anyone. I had to stop myself from limping with 85 suited and the like UTG a few times, that’s the kind of game that is played in the wee hours on any given Saturday night!

In any case, after about an hour of play, the following hand occurred at my table: I was on the Small Blind with Kh 4h, three players limped, I completed and the Big Blind checked. The flop was 5d 6d 7d, which gave me an up-and-down straight draw but otherwise was not very good for me and something I could get away from easily (with a hand like K4 suited, you either want to flop a monster or nothing at all, otherwise these kinds of hands can cost you a lot in the long run!). I checked, the Big Blind (Up From Kildare Man) bet €10, two of the limpers (let’s call them Angry Young Lad and Drunken Lawyer Guy to better keep track of the play) flat called, myself and the other limper folded. The turn was a Qd and now the action got exciting!

Up From Kildare Man bet €40, Angry Young Lad raised to €120 and Drunken Lawyer Guy pushed the rest of his stack in for about €350! Without much ado the other two players’ stacks were thrown in, building a huge pot of over a grand. The Jc was dealt on the river, it wouldn’t help anyone I thought, obviously one of them had the ace-high diamond flush, but which one?

Confidently, Angry Young Lad turns over the Ad 8d for the flush. Drunken Lawyer Guy mucks his hand, muttering something about two pair. Now the surprise: Up From Kildare man shows 3d 4d for the straight flush! Angry Young Lad looks as though he’s been told the McDonald’s Euro Saver Menu has been cancelled - shell-shocked and sick to his core! Up From Kildare Man pulls in the chips with a florish and takes his time sorting his stack out, while the rest of the table looks on enviously. Maybe I’ll win the next big pot, we all think.

If you still haven’t secured your ticket for the biggest poker tournament to be ran in Ireland, the Sporting Emporium is running an Irish Open Satellite next Tuesday March 11th at 9pm.