All Ireland Poker Tour - Opinions/Suggestions Appreciated

Laxie

Hi all! I've been approached by a poker site interested in doing a series of comps in Ireland. They have the backing of a National Irish newspaper as well, so it will be well advertised when the time comes. Initially they thought it would be a great idea to hold a comp in each County. Two problems with that. First, it would be one heck of a task to manage one in each County, even if I had help...never mind on my own! Second, they won't be sending dealers or tables over, so the comps have to be held in proper card rooms. What I've been thinking might work better is to hold 2 comps in each of the Provinces, but I'm not even sure we have enough card rooms to pull that off.

The basic idea is this. They're talking about keeping the buy in relatively low. €50 was mentioned, but isn't set in stone. I'll be working on getting added money to each prize pool. Payouts on each night TBA. Winner from each comp will go on to a Grand Final. In total we'll have 8 at the Grand Final. The sponsor would like to send the winner of that to the Irish Open next year and possibly one other European comp. All at the Grand Final will receive some sort of cash prize TBA.

All of the above is just in the 'ideas phase' at the minute. I would like this to work and that's why I've come to you. I know who to contact for the Cork/Kerry area as well as Dublin and I have a fair idea of the 'poker hotspots' throughout Ireland, but not sure where the good card rooms are around the place. I would appreciate info. on any good card rooms in your area as well as any other suggestions you might have. Cheers!

Goodluck2me

Galway in COnnacht and prolly Donegal for ulster.

jimmii

Naas would seem the easiest for Kildare. Seems to be a lot going on there right now. Sounds like a good idea there are so many of these things in other countrys but there really isn't anything on the same scale here yet.

sumoward

Carrigallen in Leitrim for the Connaught game.

NickyOD

€50 buy-ins would make the tour a bit sad to be quite honest and would make your events impossible to finance.

Concentrate on higher buy-ins €150- €250 and less counties. 8-12 events with a grand final would be much better IMO.

5starpool

Assuming you have 2 in each province then my suggestions would be:

Connacht: Sligo and Galway
Munster: Waterford (maybe Limierck) and Cork
Leinster: Dublin and Drogheda
Ulster: Letterkenny and A.N. Other

All of the above has good card rooms, and I am sure there is another town in Ulster that has a card room. The only disadvantage to this is that if there is to be quite a bit of publicity in this, then most card rooms around the country are relatively limited in space, so there would be no point advertising a €50 tourney in the national press when there may be only 80 places availble, or less in some cases. A €250 tourney on the other hand, while putting off the newcomer, would attract decent fields to different parts of the country as well as locals, if there were added money and publicity attached.

I think there are a lot of challenges out there for this to even start to resemble a viable plan.

carfax

We were approached by (I'm assuming) the same people that have come on board with you here about a year ago on this.

It was around the time that we tried to start up the National Casino Clubs Tour.....It will be very hard to make it work mate. Casinos will only cover costs up to a certain point but they need to see results out of it too.

Best of luck with it.

looserock

There are a lot of independent organisers out there, certainly one in each county. It could be done if you used these guys.

NickyOD

If you want the tour to be financially viable you're going to need one of two things or preferably both. One is to be able to run cash games at your events, the other is substantial sponsorship.

adelaidecasino

Ide be interested in talking to you about this, please contact me at 0719150515 Thur-Mon 8pm onwards.

Paul Walsh

Laxie

Thanks for all of the replies! I'll ring you Thursday evening Paul.

Sponsor's hope - To keep the buy in low and attract large numbers at each event.

Luckily, I don't have to worry about financing anything. It's their 'baby' and they have the money to back it up. I've been involved in a UK tour with this crowd and it's nearing the end for this year (2 events left, grand final in December) after a successful first season.

My hope - To find card rooms that can handle 100 runners or more and are enthusiastic about hosting the event.

As I said, I've been involved with them in the UK, but truth be told...I'd like to spend time organising something on this side of the pond for a change.

I think we can reasonably expect even newcomers to fork out around €100 if the venues exist to allow for a larger field. If not, I may have to suggest a larger buy in to the sponsors and see how they'll feel about it. 8 events is the ideal in my mind, but we might be open to adding a couple more if there's enough demand.

In the meantime, any chance you could give me contact details of the card rooms you have in mind? I would like to have a better idea of numbers and card room interest for each area before I discuss it further with the sponsor.

Cheers!

Laxie

After searching the net, these are the card rooms I've found outside of Dublin:

Galway - The River Card Club; The Elington

Sligo - Adelaide Casino

Cork - Macau Club

Kerry - The Cue Club

Limerick - Fitzpatrick Casino

Donegal - Gold Club Casino

Have any of the above shut down and are there any I'm missing? Any help much appreciated.

Cheers!

fabsoul

http://www.antesup.com/clubs.php

Laxie

You're a STAR!!! Thanks for that!

kincsem

The Cue Club in Killarney is good.

Laxie

Only live 20 minutes from The Cue Club, but have never been. I've phoned and left a message with them, so hopefully will be visiting soon. Never seem to get past my local pub league comps. lol

kakak1

Waterford -- Blazing Aces, Mayors Walk 051 873794

Home of :- 2 representatives on Final Table of 2007 PP Irish Open.
Winner 2007 Boards Heads Up Championship.
Joint winners of Boards Heads Up Championship side event......


oh I could go on & on.

Also one of best orgainsers of Poker Events in Ireland, Big Slick Events are based in Waterford.

Laxie

Will look into Blazing Aces as well. Cheers!

We're not looking for organisers. Card rooms that can hold around 100 entries or more and have dealers is the priority. I'm dealing with an established online poker organisation (and all the red tape involved in dealing with suits...lol). They decide the structure, fees and which card rooms they would like in the end. I'm just doing the grunt work and make my suggestions, but in the end, it's their baby. While I've been busy gathering the list of interested venues, they've been busy sorting the TV coverage deal. I hope to have more details soon for all of you and thanks again for your help and input!

Logie-1

Ulster- Fortune Rooms, Bangor Co Down. Bridge Club, Banbridge. Both are very well run and can cater for 100+ players. The Fortune Rooms have dealers for all tourneys.

Wisesmurf

Logie-1 wrote:

Ulster- Fortune Rooms, Bangor Co Down. Bridge Club, Banbridge. Both are very well run and can cater for 100+ players. The Fortune Rooms have dealers for all tourneys.

Would people like to risk an operation of this kind being shut down by the authorities. Forgive me if the situation has been resolved but the last I saw a few events were closed down by the police up north.

Mellor

Wasn't that event in louth??

Laxie

To be honest and no offense meant, but anything in Ulster will (for the security of the Tour) be held on this side of the borders to avoid legal action. The laws aren't clear enough to risk anything else.

Logie-1

Would it be possible to have one of the Ulster heats played In Dundalk? I know its early days and Dundalk is not part of Ulster but it will make it a lot more accessible for players from North and East Down.