There was no rest for the wicked at the Irish Poker Festival this year. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Mystery Bounty to Main Event

After a full week at the Irish Poker Open when I played every day, there was no rest for the wicked with the Irish Poker Festival starting the following day. First up was the Mystery Bounty. I never really got going in this, busting late in both flights that I played.

the poker equivalent of a slow bicycle race with the next shortest Niall “Firaldo” Farrell

The Main Event was a bit of a slog for me, but I was very happy to bag up an above average stack on the first bullet. I got very little to play with on Day Two and it was mostly a case of just surviving. It’s a testament to the structure that I was able to do so even though I ran pretty bad on Day Two (twice I had Aces cracked by under pairs). I found myself very short on the bubble with less than a starting stack much to the amusement of my neighbour and friend Pargos, who amused me by telling me he dreamt vividly that we got heads up in the Main. At this point, I was the shortest in the tournament but I took comfort in the fact that the next shortest was last year‘s champion Michel Molenaar. Shortly after live poker came back after the pandemic, I found myself in a similar situation on the bubble of a UK & Ireland Poker Tour highroller, in the poker equivalent of a slow bicycle race with the next shortest Niall “Firaldo” Farrell. Firaldo, the subject of a recent BBC documentary , made it perfectly clear he was more than happy to wait me out. On that occasion, the bubble lasted four 1/2 hours. For most of that time, I had three big blinds or less.

For whatever reason, I had a feeling this would be a very different bubble with Michel less willing to hang around and so it proved. His Ace-Jack failed to outdraw the Ace-Queen of Sam Dobbins to burst the bubble. A few hands later, I got the remains of my stack in with Ace-Queen but was out drawn by 9-6.

In the run-up to the event there was a lot of speculation about the guarantee. Many feared or  hoped, depending on their perspective, that there would be an overlay but in the end the numbers were more or less the same as last year.

Mark Buckley

Back at the start of my career, there were lots of poker clubs in Dublin each with their own monthly tournament. One of these was a small club in Malahide called the Westbury. Located as it was on the outskirts of Dublin, it had its own ecosystem. Every time I played it, I saw the same group of players who I rarely if ever saw anywhere else. Most of the players had a very similar loose aggressive style that was easy to exploit just by playing tight. There was however one player who stood out as considerably more difficult to play against than the others. His name was Mark Buckley and he was affectionately known as Bucko. If anything, Bucko was the most aggressive player in the club, but he also seemed to have a sixth sense for when to put the foot on the brakes. Even more importantly, he was completely fearless deep in the tournament, unlike most of his competitors who were only happy to splash around at the start but as soon as the money started to get serious, they turned into scared nits.

Calvin won the arm wrestling match, which most considered a bigger shock than Bucko’s win in the poker

Bucko’s fearlessness was never more evident than at the 2014 Irish Open. Sponsor Paddy power optimistically put 10K buyin higher roller on the schedule. When the time came only one player had registered: online phenomenon Calvin Anderson, almost certainly the best player at the event. That fact dissuaded anyone else who might have been considering entering, but it didn’t stop Bucko. He not only forked over the €10,000 ($10,645) entry fee but went on to defeat Calvin heads up. Things took a surreal turn when Calvin challenged Bucko to an arm wrestling match. Nobody in Ireland would bet against the muscular Bucko in such a match, and locals piled money on him to win. The fact that Calvin associates were willing to take any amount of bets should perhaps have tipped people off to them knowing something we didn’t. In the event Calvin won the arm wrestling match, which most considered a bigger shock than Bucko’s win in the poker.

By now Bucko had branched out into playing PLO. In 2017, he took down the PLO side event at the Irish Open. The following year he took second place in the highroller at the Irish Open, and in 2023 won the PLO event at EPT Barcelona, an event he final tabled again the following year.

It is likely however that his exploits at this year’s Irish Poker Festival are what will live in the memory for a long time. After taking down the Dublin poker cup on Friday night, he entered both all in or fold satellites to the Main Event the following morning and won both. He quickly ran up a stock in the Main Event and made it all the way to the final table as chip leader. Facing stiff competition from Conor O’Rourke (one of Ireland’s brightest young talents), Niall Farrell and recent Eureka Cyprus winner Leo Worthington Leese, It was never going to be easy. But betting against Mark to close out a tournament from such a position is as foolhardy as betting against Calvin Anderson in an arm wrestling match. Mark is one of the most popular figures on the Irish Poker scene, so there were many only too happy to celebrate his victory. Has anyone ever won four tournaments on 48 hours before? I don’t know, but seriously doubt it.

Big Congratulations to Mark Buckley on taking down the Main Event at the Irish Poker Festival out of 285 entries and a whooping prize pool of €753,330. Mark takes home a nice prize of €177,000 and trophy This was his second trophy over the weekend! Unreal! #dublinpoker pic.twitter.com/nzoEwRvXHF

— Irish Poker Festival (@IrishPoker) November 4, 2024

Milestones

In late 2015, I became the first Irish player to reach a century of cashes on the Hendon mob. A couple of years later I cashed in 23 live tournaments in the same calendar year, a new record for an Irish player. My cash in the Main Event at the Irish Poker festival was my 37th of this year. which I also believe is a new record for an Irish player. Of course, it’s a lot easier to notch up cashes in the current environment where most tournaments are multiple rebuy than in the early days of my career when everything was a freeze out. Nevertheless, it’s heartening to still be consistently getting results at this stage of my career, and the year isn’t over yet. Next week, I travel to Nottingham for the UKIPT, and in December will travel to Las Vegas for the World Poker Tour world championship.

Between the Irish Poker festival and Nottingham, my focus shifts to coaching, writing, content creation, online poker, and the launch of my new AI learning tool on the EIDO app. More on that in a forthcoming article. I’ll end by saying that Pargos’ soothsaying abilities need some work: we didn’t get headsup in the Main Event, but did end up collecting our min cashes at the same time!