IDP's Deepstack is coming and the seats are getting HOT!

Sorry I won't be there at the Irish Winter Festival on October Bank Holiday weekend - I'll be in the Fitzwilliam for the Irish Deaf Poker's Deepstack Classic! A note of advance warning: I'm going to win!

The Fitzwilliam have been very generous: allowing us the use of the premises, staff, and food 'for peanuts'. Enabling us to keep the reg small and allow more money into the prize fund.

There are several Deaf poker players who have never set foot inside a casino and this novelty along with the news that the expected prize fund will exceed €4,000 has the event selling fast!

IDP set ourselves a limit of 80 seats, expecting to have 70 players, but as of today and with 7 weeks to go: 75 seats have been pre-registered! If you haven't reserved your seat - DO IT NOW!!!!!!

Once we hit 80, there will be a reserve list set up... I'm sure the good people in the Fitz will help us to accommodate the extra numbers... But don't count on it! Reserve your seat now!

Betway.com offered to run a freeroll (password needed) on Monday 8th September or IDP with $100 GTD and 2 tickets to the Deepstack up for grabs. All the registered players and Deaf poker clubs were sent details. When the freeroll started there were 70 players registered, on my table I had one London player and 8 Latvians all from Riga(!) They played into us very aggressively, I was literally in a 'push or fold' mode for the first two levels finally building my stack up to 12k. Then lost it in two sick hands... one Latvian kept going all-in pre-flop every few hands trying to win the blinds, he got called twice showing 10 7 suited and a J4 off and was down to 5.7k when he shoved again UTG+1. I was on the button with AQsuited and called; he showed 88 - flop showed two hearts, but no heart never mind a A or Q to help me and I was down to 6k. Two hands later I had KJsuited and raised, another short-stacked loose Latvian pushed all in on the button with Q2; I called, seeing it as a steal... he won with a pair of 2's and left me with 580(! ) When the blinds got to me (blinds 200/400) I had to push with Q8 suited against AA... and it was GG, UL, G'nite to me!

I continued to rail Cathy 'Forever Late' (in sit-out mode!!!) and Ciaran 'DefSheriff' the last two Irish to make the final table, along with 1 Swedish Deaf player and 6 Latvians who were being coy about how they got the password if they were deaf etc. Cathy in sit-out mode was hilarious! She was all-in no less than 6 times... and won 5 of those showdowns with top pair, two pairs, straight (holding 2 5 on a A34xx board against 88) and a set (holding 9 5 against QQ with 9 on the flop and 9 on river!) She got to final table, then managed to get online just in time to push with her remaining 120 chips and lost! You should have stayed offline Cathy! LOL!

Ciaran made it to 3rd place - not easy with Latvians colluding with each other, it was so obvious, the Latvian chipleader (who had double the average stack on the table) would raise to ensure Ciaran/Swedish player folded, another short-stacked Lativan player would re-raise all-in and chipleader would fold with only a few chips left to play! This ensured that the Latvians remained in the game... When it was down to the final 3 - both Ciaran and one Latvian were sitting on less than 5BBs; my suspicions of collusion were confirmed when chipleader made his usual raise and Ciaran folded only for the short-stacked Latvian to call him with A3... Chipleader showed 10 3 off... WTF! The cheeky chipleader then wrote a comment on IDP website asking if we were paying for his trip to Dublin now that he had won the Freeroll(!)

I wrote a complaint off to Betway afterwards; got the usual reply that they will look into it. I hope they will investigate this thoroughly and reward the tickets to the final two deaf players (Ciaran & Swedish Player Chris Markvelle) although it was a freeroll with small stakes the principal is still important IMO. A few players told me afterwards they had trouble getting online/getting into Betway; which was a shame, I would have loved to see more Deaf players in the game.

Back to the Deepstack: the rumour has it, that our next monthly game on 4th October will be a freeroll with re-buys with one FREE Deepstack ticket up for grabs; with the re-buys funding a few extra tickets... Seeing we'll burst the 80 player mark by then, with most of our regulars are already pre-reg'ed for the main event - the free tickets will just mean some of you lucky ducks will get your seat for less than €70!

Wooo-hoo! Bring it on boyos!

UPDATE: Betway got back to me after an investigation and agreed to awarded the tickets in the freeroll to the two Deaf players: Ciaran & the Swedish Player. Bravo! WP!