Amazing, I am truly lost for words. Partly because I am in awe of the mans great achievement and partly because I am so sick from drink that my head doesn’t have the will to produce the words. So lets keep this one short and sweet.

Marty Smyth, $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Champion – wow, now that’s got a nice ring to it. Add this to his recent success in the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open, credible results in back to back Poker Million and lest not forget his most recent success in the World Open. The man is a legend, plain and simple.

Final table play started at 3pm and I was sat in the company of great poker players with our very own Ciaran O’Leary to my right and last years WSOP main event 5th place finisher Jon ‘Skalie’ Kalmar to my left. As the day progressed the crowd grew larger and larger. I tell you what folks, when this one makes the TV its is going to be some viewing. Before long we had gallery of fans that included Donnacha O’Dea, Padraig Parkinson, and Jesse May.

Almost every Irishman in Vegas was in the corner of the Amazon room last night rooting and cheering for Marty. We helped ourselves along the way by downing cans of beer on sale from the nearest bar. The round was a simple one, and upon my first request to the barmaid she had to ask me 3 times for the purpose of her own clarity. “20 cans of beers sir, you want 20 cans of beer?”… that’s right, theres a party going down over here and its thirsty work so keep them coming.

When the dealer peeled off the club on the river in the final hand the roar from the crowd was deafening, hoops and hollas from everywhere, rapturous applause and cheers of congratulations. I tell you, I was proud to be Irish and I was proud to be in the best of company amongst a sporting crowd of genuine well wishers. We were truly in a very unique spot.

Now not to forget some other important business I must also stop to congratulate Irelands other final table player – Tom Hanlon who finished a credible 7th for $130k. Well done indeed, an amazing performance in its own right and one which is hopefully not to be lost in the mist.

Below are some photographs from last night. Well done Marty Smyth, a genuinely good guy of Irish poker, and now a world champion. Congratulations
Be good,

Noel.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm and is filed underNoel, Live Poker, WSOP 2008 You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.