Poker Blog - Irish Open 2009 - Day 2

65th - Gert Cooman - €3,500

66th - Lasse Lien - €3,500

67th - Francis McDonald - €3,500

68th - Roar Wang - €3,500

69th - Carsten Joh - €3,500

70th - Packie Quinn - €3,500

71st - Eldon Orr - €3,500

72nd - Sean Donalson - €3,500

The 7 bloggers who are covering this event were all sitting down, beginning to write up their various end of nights posts when suddenly we heard Phil Baker let out an almighty roar as he asked the dealer to “Ship it!” I go investigate and find out that he had raised under the gun with 44 and calls his opponents shove getting 2:1. He had AT and the board ran out 7-2-2 with a 4 on the turn sealing the deal for Phil.

64 players remaining.

Young Scandie Lasse Lien fell at the very final hurdle; he pushed his short-stack in from the small blind with A-J, but was looked up in the big by Mervyn Smyth who had T-4. A flush later, and the Norwegian was gone.

Simultaneously, and on the next table down, we also lost Gert Cooman to leave us with 64.

Well, he didn’t really, he just ran sevens into kings on one of the final hands of the day. Nevertheless, he’s a last level casualty and won’t be returning for day three.

A brief wave of hugs, kisses and mutual backslapping passed over the CityWest Hotel as the bubble burst!Not for long however as almost immediately there were several calls for rulings and a flurry of activity.The dust has settled somewhat with the strong getting stronger and the weak still hanging on hoping to come back fresh tomorrow. William Kassouf has been getting very busy and has built a stack right up there with the chipleaders.We are now on our last hand after which play will stop for the night.

Ronald O’Hara is our Bubble Boy for the 2009 Paddy Power Irish Poker Open. He pushed with AT and was called by the AQ of Andreas Kyprianou. The flop comes Queen high (2hQd7c) and the 5c on the turn seals Ronald’s fate. At least it can be said that Ronald won his seat for free in a freeroll especially for Paddy Power customers. He came with nothing but left with the experience of playing in Europes Premier Poker Tournament.

We have 12 minutes left in the this level.

Whilst eyes were directed towards other tables, an all-in encounter appeared from out of the blue on a central table, Graham Masters (button) finding himself in that bum-clenching spot of bubble-evasion with As-Ah versus the Tc-Td of Andrew Pantling.

If anyone was pantling, however, it was Masters, his mouth slightly ajar as he took rapid, short breaths and remained intensely (rather scarily so) fixated on the felt. Surviving this hand, naturally, meant a lot to him, and it was evident to see in his heart-on-sleeve body language.

But a big “yes!” on the river of a 5h-4d-8s-3s-Qc board signalled victory, and Masters could breathe a huge sigh of relief, whilst the entire room breathed a collective sigh of their own, albeit disgruntlement, and returned to their respective tables.

We’re now hand for hand after Daryll Roome is taken out on the feature table. This is one of those frustrating times where we can’t access anything that’s going on there! Anyway this is the last level of the night and I’m sure the players would all love for the bubble to burst in the 20 minutes that remain in the level!

With 74 players left, it has been announced that we’ll be playing hand-for-hand until the dreaded bubble bursts. The clock is now paused while they double check the amount of players still remaining (I’ve seen that mistake been made before, at the very highest of levels), at which point the clock will restart and it will be a direct race to see if the bubble can soak the face of one unfortunate victim before that time reaches zero. Liam Flood has already asked what we think the chances are, so he may be considering a cheeky side bet. I personally think that the bubble will burst before the end of the level; the Irish are bonkers after all.