Home / Poker News April 2010 / Irish Open – Day 1 report
Irish Open – Day 1 report
Posted by: Randy Williams - Sat, 2010-04-03 23:44
The first day of the 2010 Irish Poker Open kicked off on Good Friday, with 708 players bellying up to the tournament tables. This edition of one of Europe’s biggest live poker tournaments carried special significance: the Irish Poker Open has just become the oldest running live
poker tournament in Europe.
At the end of the first day of green felt hostilities, it was Keith Hawkins who had the most chips bagged for day two. He accumulated around 100,000 chips, as the field whittled down to 264.
Jen Mason had an excellent day too. She played in a pretty dominant manner, calling two streets on one occasion holding nothing but A,4o on a board of 8,8,J,4,Q to bust a bluff and to take down the pot. She then proceeded to check a quad three times to allow her opponent to hit a straight and to go all-in.
Ross Boatman also made it to Day 2 of the event, and so did Sorel Mizzi and Michael Greco. One thing is certain about this year’s title: it won’t be a repeat one. Both Kara Scott and Christer Johansson, last year’s last two survivors have been ejected on Day 1. Kara Scott almost made it through the day: she had an open –ended straight draw and a rather smallish stack. She decided the time was right to put her tournament life onto the line and so she did, only to be called by an opponent who had a flush draw. The flush draw filled up and Scott was bounced.
PokerStars’ Arnaud Mattern survived, together with Will Fry and Julian Thew. Sadra Naujoks didn’t fare so well through: she was eliminated, together with Jake Cody. Teddy Sheringham and Brian Townsend went down too, in full view of the cameras as theirs was the feature table of Day 1.
Hawkins started out slowly, but by the third level, he had gathered more than enough momentum. He then used his large stack to pressure his opponents into making mistakes. Sitting on about 80,000 chips, he locked horns with Marc Wright, to whom he lost some, folding at the end of a 5-bet by the latter. He did bounce back nicely by the end of the day though, and finished it over the 100k mark.
