Irish Eyes Are Smiling at the 2008 Irish Poker Open

Poker legend Doyle Brunson was all smiles during Day 1A of the 2008 Irish Poker Open. (Bodog Beat Image)

The first flight of the first day of the 2008 Irish Poker Open got underway yesterday with 305 poker players all ponying up their €4,500 buy-in for a shot at the €3 million guaranteed prize pool. The traditional Easter weekend tournament has been going on since 1981 and draws the biggest names in the poker world.

Spotted out in the field for Day 1A were Doyle Brunson, his son, Todd Brunson, JJ Liu, Sorel "imper1um" Mizzi, Roland de Wolfe and Irish poker heroes Andy Black, Alan Smurfit, 2007 WSOP bracelet winner Ciaran O'Leary and Padraig Parkinson. The chip leader at the end of the day was another local boy, Jay Renehan.

Also making it out of the fray yesterday (I may just eat some hay), were four Team Bodog online poker players, Danilo "kingkai" Paulsen, Timothy "timmo1122" Barany, Andreas "sjah75" Hedman and Magnus "EQLIZER" Hulden. They are all sitting quite comfortably in the top half of the standings and get to have a day off to explore Dublin, or at least the Citywest Hotel and Conference Center compound, before coming back for Day 2.

Day 1B is already underway, and according to PokerListings.com, there are 359 players registered for today's action so far. Combine that with the 305 yesterday for a total of 664, less than the 708 from last year. Add the fact that the guaranteed prize pool is €1 million more than last year and someone is staring down the barrel of a hefty overlay. The numbers aren't official, but there would need to be a bunch more people registered than they are showing if they don't want to come out of pocket.

Play will continue for another eight levels today before players call it quits and head out to the local pub for many, many pints of Guinness. Well, that's what we would do if we were there because everything we've read says that Guinness tastes better in Ireland. A hypothesis we are all too ready to test and one that is hard to believe based on how the smooth, thick, delicious rich brew slides easily down our throats.... Wait, what? Where were we? Oh, yeah. Come back for more updates from the 2008 Irish Poker Open and check out Bodog's EPT online poker qualifiers too.