National Student Poker Championship 2007 Report

Stephen Mc Lean, 29/01/07 | Print this article

This was a fantastic event with 292 players and a prize-pool of €19,000 for a buy-in of €65 (+€7 reg) I certainly hope that all players were happy with the tournament.....Here's a quick report.....

The Vegas Nights crew, Liam Flood, Joe O’Neill, Dave Masters, Seán Kilroy and Rob Taylor and most of the McLean family were just a few of the players to turn out to help to run this tournament and it could not have run as smoothly without them.

It was almost two hours into the event before we lost a player but the action was think and fast. With a 10,000 starting stack players found it hard to lose all their chips but once the first player was out the chips started flying. With the $1,000 added college team event and the $1,000 last longer bonus as well as lots of other promotional goods on offer players can’t argue that Pacific Poker and Poker Ireland gave great value and there was plenty to talk about.

30 players of the 292 that started made the money. The most interesting time of the tournament was probably around the bubble (35 or so players left) when James Cosgrave showed his experience by hoovering up chips from players that were worried about busting out. Play continued until 2am on Saturday night and ten players remained to come back on Sunday afternoon for the final table which was hosted in the Jackpot Casino, Montague Street, Dublin.

The final table line up consisted of some of the best young poker players in the country, this really was great to watch. Oscar Fred, James Cosgrave and Caroline Murphy were three of the most experienced players involved but the standard was unbelievable.

The players were knocked out in this order and their prize-money was as follows:
10th Sarah Lynskey €285
9th Jason Miller €380
8th Kieran Miller €570
7th Alan Fitzpatrick €760
6th Patrick Hennessy €950
5th Patrick O’Hanlon €1140
4th Oscar Fred €1425
3rd Thomas Gleeson €3670
2nd Caroline Murphy €3300
1st James Cosgrave €3670

Sarah Lynskey was the first player to go. James Cosgrave was getting stuck in early and had raised 4 of the first 8 pots. When he raised in early position Sarah pushed for all of her chips. James decided to take a chance and called with A-9. Sarah turned over K-K and found an unlucky, but quick, exit when an ace flopped.

Jason Miller and Kieran Walsh busted out in quick succession before Alan Fitzpatrick took a terrible bad beat. Having played some brilliant controlled poker for two days Alan was a big favourite (1/10) to double up in a pot but unfortunately on this occasion things went against him. This young player is one to watch, just 18 and doing his leaving cert. His play was impressive throughout, especially at the final table showing why Island Poker sponsored him into the event.

Patrick Hennessy and Patrick O’Hanlon were knocked out some time later before Oscar Fred pushed from under the gun for 400,000 (blinds had just gone up to 30,000-60,000). James Cosgrave called from the small blind with 7-7 and this hand stood up against Oscar’s A-2 offsuit.

A deal was then agreed between the final three players. James Cosgrave and Thomas Gleeson had both played very aggressive poker throughout the entire tournament but I was surprised to see that Caroline Murphy walked away with the slightly smaller part of the deal (she was marginally behind in chips at the time). Caroline had played quite simply a brilliant final table. Having come in short stacked she waited patiently to find a double up before making a number of key moves while picking up lots of small/medium pots. I’m sure that all three players were happy with the result though as they were all involved in the last longer $1,000 bonus which they split evenly three ways.

James Cosgrave won the trophy and the title of National Student Champion 2007 and I know that he fully deserves the title. He was as focussed as I have ever seen him throughout and showed his skill and determination to claim the title. 

Oh yeah and by the way IT Tallaght walked away with the team event. They completely destroyed the college team field......
Each team paid $120 to enter and we added $1,000 so 6 players shared a prize of US$2,440;

Congrats to:
Patrick Mitchell US$406.66
Gordon Hanlon US$406.66
Mark Mc Donnell US$406.66
Oscar Fred US$406.66
Ciaran Taggart US$406.66
Richard Begley US$406.66

Trinity and NUIG were in close pursuit and were the only other colleges to come out of the event with their self-respect left.

Stephen Mc Lean can be contacted at stephen@pokerireland.ie

Related Tournament/Satellites

<< Previous Article | Next Article >>