Cross Country Summer Swing Begins in Dundalk

Donal’s Corner

The Irish Poker Tour is once again flapping its wings and taking off across Ireland this summer bringing its unique brand of big time poker, high class tournaments and utter madness to a town near you. Starting in Dundalk on June 26th-28th, we move to The Adelaide in Sligo (July 11^th), The Green Isle (July 23rd-26th), The Eglinton in Galway (Aug 13th-16th), Athlone Springs (Aug 22^nd), before Limerick’s Castletroy Park (Sept 5^th) points us towards Autumn.

The Northern Poker Festival in Dundalk’s Fairways hotel is a familiar venue for Tour regulars and the list of trophy winners truly ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. In no particular order; James Walsh, Paul Carr, Mary Galvin, Shane Keary, Daryl McAleenan, Nick Slade (2 on successive nights), Hugh Smyth, Darren Harbinson and Darren Millar have all topped the podium in Dundalk in recent years. You can rate them yourself on the “How did HE win a trophy?”, to “Well, obviously SHE won” spectrum.

Bartlomioej Grabwski pocketed €20,500 for winning last year’s Main Event out of a €90,000+ pool. €75,000 is the ME guarantee again for a very affordable €300 entry and the action begins with €10k Opener at 14:00 on Friday 26th at a very comfortable venue which provides great facilities, fine food and beverages, and extensive free car parking.

The atmosphere is sure to be crackling as the cream of Ulster poker take on the best from the rest of Ireland and beyond. Neither side is ever quite able to appreciate the talents of the other men and this often leads to some questionable exchanges but everybody remains friends, eventually.