Donal’s Corner – All Change and No Change in The Leaderboard Race After Clonmel
After a dramatic series of tournaments at the Siege of Clonmel IV held in the Talbot Hotel last weekend there were plenty of developments in the battle to be named Irish Poker Tour Player of the Year and to collect the big money payouts at the IPT Final next January.
The top three players on the Leaderboard remain unchanged but Killian Farrell has overtaken Paul Carr and is now very close behind long time leader, Shane Keary. Ironically, both Shane and Paul have pronounced that they would not mind seeing Killian scoop the top prize as long as that (indicating each other) b*st*rd doesn’t. The fearsome rivalry will keep all three engaged right up to the last counting event in Portlaoise on December 27th.
Saturday in Clonmel saw Killian win the Omaha 7-Max only to look up and see Shane taking the Saturday Night NLH crown. Then on Sunday, all three were again in contention in the Main Event as the Bubble approached. Shane had a big stack but both Paul and Killian were down to fumes and prayers. Much to their relief another Leaderboard star, Tommy O’Rourke, ran his KQ into AA whilst short stacked and failed to survive, bursting the Bubble.
Paul Carr immediately ran 88 into AQ and an ace high board to take 45th, Shane faded away in 24th, but Killian nursed his small stack into a big stack, and then into a monster stack, and then into a first place finish worth €12,600 and a glorious 1,000 Leaderboard points.
Paul bounced back by finishing third in the closing Omaha 4/5 Cards. The heat is on.
Elsewhere, Vasileios Kontogiannis won the Friday Freezeout and cashed in the Main lifting himself to 11th in the standings, Steven Lee (7th place) finished 16th in the Main and closed right up behind Tommy O’Rourke (6th place) and Kieran O’Riordain’s 5th place in the Main was enough to lift him into the Top 16 and to drop Dave Kingston out of the qualifying spots for the January 1st Playoff where over €35,000 will be available to be won.
Expect to see Dave and plenty of others that are close to the cutoff line at an IPT event near you over the next two months.