Happily dealing in the years

SPORTING PASSIONS - PÁDRAIG PARKINSON, poker professional: Gavin Cummiskeytalks to one of Ireland's leading poker professionals, with career earnings of €900,000. The one time Norwich Union employee gave up the day job to gamble full-time with Johnny Suitcase and co

PARIS-BASED Pádraig Parkinson is one of Ireland’s leading poker professionals, having amassed career earning of around €900,000, including some €350,000 for a third place finish at the World Series of Poker in 1999.

I am a Charles Haughey type of guy; I can say I am from wherever I am, but really I’m a Dub. But when Finn Harps got into the League of Ireland I was living in Donegal. It was like mother’s milk, I used to go to every home game in Ballybofey. I really thought it was the big time. They lost their first match 10-2 to Shamrock Rovers.

Brendan Bradley was a big, lanky fella but he was top scorer in the league a few times before being transferred to Lincoln City for about £7,000. There were other guys like Jim McDermott, who ended up dying in a car crash, who was a hero of mine growing up, and Tony O’Doherty, a wonderful player.

Harps were very lucky at the time because when the Troubles started Derry City got closed down and there were some real good players hanging around that hinterland, so they ended up at Harps.

Following the soccer just becomes a way of life after a while.

My poker nickname is Cantona because I used to drift in and out of a game a lot and just turn up in the middle of a big pot.

A great thing about being a poker player is I get to commentate on pro-celeb stuff, so I have got to meet a lot of my heroes.

Living in Paris? There is a lot of old money in the city as opposed to Dublin, where you are fighting for your rent with a friend who is trying to pay his mortgage.

And I met a French girl. I married Veronique in Vegas during the world championships this year.

If it was down to enthusiasm I would be a professional footballer, but I went to Trinity in ’74, and in ’75 I discovered the junior common room. I devoted the rest of my time in Trinity to poker in that room.

How I got out of there with a degree (in economics) I’ll never know. I think they just wanted to bust up the game.

I went to work in the Norwich Union for about seven years, then I discovered the Jackpot club, down a little lane just off Camden Street in Dublin, but even before that I found the Eccentric club on Hanlon’s corner. Terry Rodgers used to run that.

A friend of mine told me about it. I walked in one night and that was it. Hooked. It was like something out of Runyon, the place.

In those days poker was still a backroom sort of thing. Frowned upon nearly. Way before it became sexy.

But some of the characters around the place! (Noel) Furlong used to play there – he went on to win three Irish titles and the world title while an amateur.

Remember Jimmy Langan? He was Ireland’s top table tennis player for years but also a serious poker player. Guys with names like Johnny Suitcase, Daisy O’Grady. It was like walking into a movie. The craic used to be absolutely tremendous. That’s when they got me (laughs and coughs at the same time).

I went professional about 20 years ago. They say when your gambling starts to interfere with your job, the job has to go. The first four or five years were tough enough. I was broke more than I had money, to tell you the truth.

About 15 years ago I got my act together. Went over to Vegas, won fifty thousand at the world championships, which was a lot of dough then, and I have been going all right since.

I didn’t change the way I was playing too much. I changed the way I ran my business.

In those days we didn’t know anything about playing poker professionally. There were guys like Donnacha O’Dea and Tom Gibson who had it worked out. We were like desperados. Playing way too big. You might have every penny you had in the world on the table – a bank roll of €10,000 on any given night. But that was the way we did it.

If you get enough kicks in the b******* you work it out eventually.

We were all making the same mistakes. There were no books of strategy around at the time. Doyle Brunson’s book Super System gave quite a lot away.

The game has changed a lot since the internet explosion. Now there are 17-year-olds sitting around in their underwear doing it online. Now you have to feel out players, as you tend not to know anyone on the table anymore. You have got to be very observant.

Phil Ivy is widely recognised as the best and he probably is. He’s got amazing concentration. He plays really, really aggressively. He can tie you in complete f**king knots. He is the one guy you don’t want sitting down at the table.

A couple of years ago I was in LA – do you know Dan Harrington? Well, Dan is a world champion (in 1995) and a cousin of Pádraig Harrington. I was sitting beside Dan and we were having great craic for six or seven hours one night, both doing pretty well, and the next thing Ivy arrives on the table. He started laying every pot and betting every flop, so I said to Dan we’re going to have to sort this guy or we’re f**ked.

Dan, who is a great player, turns to me and says, “Okay, you first.” You’ve just got to close your eyes with this guy Ivy, and hope for the best. Fight fire with fire. Otherwise he will destroy you.

The IPO in Dublin this weekend is going to be the biggest event ever held in Europe. There will be almost 1,500 players. There are at least 300 French players coming.

It is a pretty unique event. The whole idea is to bring championship-style poker to the grassroots. It will be run like a major tournament, but at the working man’s price, 250 bucks to get in but run like events that cost five or 10 thousand to get in.

The little guy is made to feel really important in the middle of this without having to go home to the wife and say the holiday is off this year. A lot of the time the pros are going through the motions – one tournament after another – but the enthusiasm from the smaller players grips everybody and the pros end up showing them their absolute respect by playing their best.

It should be a fantastic experience.

Parkinson will be joined by the best Irish, British and European professionals at the Regency Hotel, Dublin, this weekend for the Bolyesports International Poker Open.

There is a prize pool of €220,000. The event is available live online with highlights to be broadcast on TG4 next month.

“I went professional about 20 years ago. They say when your gambling starts to interfere with your job, the job has to go. The first four or five years were tough enough. I was broke more than I had money, to tell you the truth