Poker can be a great way to earn money if your skills hold up and you have a little bit of luck but it is possible to use poker to raise money for great causes too. This will be the hope of the Poker For The Homeless event which is being held in Dublin on the 5th and 6th of April. Paddy Power is sponsoring this poker festival which will be taking place at the Jackpot Club in Ireland’s capital city of Dublin. The majority of funds raised at the event will go to the benefit of the Capuchin Day Centre.
There will be some big name Irish poker players taking part in the event and there will be celebrities involved. You can usually find a celebrity or two willing to turn up for any event but if their patronage of the event helps to raise more awareness and generates more interest and income for the group, it can hardly be seen as a bad thing.
Big names can always draw a crowd to a poker event
International poker stars from Ireland like Noel Furlong, a WSOP world champion and Donnacha O’Dea who holds a WSOP bracelet will be joined by the likes of Reggie Corrigan, an international rugby player and Ken Doherty, a champion world snooker player.
The poker action begins at 9pm on Friday evening where there will be a 100 +10 Euro buy in no limit freeze out game and 20% of the prize pool will be handed over to the Poker For The Homeless fund. The NLH game features a 400+40 Euro buy-in and there will be four teams competing in this event. Every team will donate 80 Euros to the fund.
With respect to payouts, the first place will see 2,800 Euros for the first prize, 1,600 Euros for second prize and third place will receive 800 Euros. This equates to 60% of the prize pool and the remaining 40% will be making its way to the individuals who find themselves at the final table.
There has been a lot of great work for charities carried out by the Poker For The Homeless Group in recent times. In fact, over the last seven years, the group has been able to raise close to 250,000 euros for various charity groups across Ireland. When you consider the economic downturn in this time, particularly in Ireland, this has been a fantastic amount of money to pull together. A lot of people will look down on poker and think that it is not an activity for them but the fact that it can do so much good in local communities should never be overlooked either.
Glasgow is a city that loves its vices and good times. The city has a reputation for being a place that loves a drink and when it comes to football, it is host to two massive clubs. Celtic and Partick Thistle provide the entertainment and excitement for the vast majority of Glaswegian men and women at the weekend but if that’s not enough, there is always gaming excitement to look forward to. The bookies and bingo halls are an integral part of Glasgow life but the city has a great number of casinos in and around the city centre too.
Following their exits in the Champions League, Arsenal certainly won’t be making it to Wembley in May and if Manchester United are going to be visited the hallowed turf before the height of summer, they are going to have to overcome Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup quarter final replay. Even if they do that, their Wembley trip is only guaranteed for the semi-final and local neighbours Manchester City are lying in wait to prevent United from making it back to Wembley in the month of May.
The snow and cold weather is still battering the UK and you would be forgiven for thinking that we were living January all over again as opposed to heading to the supposedly warmer embrace of April. It is enough to bring you down but then again, it could well be the inspiration for getting out of town and exploring what else the world has to offer.
It would be fair to say that there is a massive celebrity culture these days and there is a massive desire to know everything that is going in the lives of the rich and the famous. While there has been a level of adulation given over to big stars, the level of insight that people can get these days is scary. The media thrives on this and with Twitter; it even seems that some celebrities are keen to tell all about their life. As poker fans and players, we may be a bit more refined than that but many of us still love to hear the gossip about a big celebrity poker player.
The Aspers Casino Westfield has already witnessed some great poker moments in its time but another one arrived on Tuesday afternoon. This was because Reece Lewis held his nerve and triumphed in the WPT National London Main Event.
Even though there may not be an answer within the next 18 months, the battle to be given the rights to run the super casino in Southampton looks to be warming up. Whoever gets the licence to operate the super casino will find that they have a great opportunity to bring some needed poker excitement to the area too. The licence makes reference to the fact that there be up to 30 poker tables included in the casino, which will definitely be something that will get the poker players of Southampton out in force. In addition to the poker possibilities, the casino would be able to host 150 slots and provide jackpots of up to £4,000.
You can have a great night out in Newcastle but for the next few days, the poker players in the city will be fully focusing on the action that takes place on the poker table. There may be plenty of other delights to grab your attention in the city but with the Genting Poker Series, or the 2013 GPS, having its second leg on Tyneside, this is going to be the main attraction. Anyone looking to get involved with the action or even just capture some of the excitement that takes place when top class poker players get together, the Genting Casino that is located on Forth Street is the place to be.
Talal Shakerchi is at 439,000. He’s up 142,000 with 73 big blinds. He’s been all fired up during this event, but finished heat one in seventh place. This time around, Mr. Shakerchi has decided to play on the conservative side during the two opening levels of heat 2. Despite the caution, the chips have still started to build up and now he’s found that he has a good chance of going deep.
The final few days of the EPT event in London had so much exciting poker action taking place it would have been easy to miss out on so many of the big moments and exciting finishes to some of the individual events. It was only right that Ruben Visser got his due for winning the EPT London event and taking home £595,500 but plenty of other poker players enjoyed success in London. The British weather may have felt more like the middle of January as opposed to the middle of March but with St Patricks Day celebrations gearing up across the capital of England, it was not just the Irish that were celebrating.
Another big winner during the event was the Team PokerStars Pro Matthias De Meulder from Belgium. He managed to triumph in the No Limits Texas Hold Em event that was event number 15 at EPT9. De Meulder just fell short of clinching a trophy at the EPT Deauville in February so the trophy in London represents good progress and of course, another fine payday! De Meulder earned £22,580 for his win while second placed Rameev Sergey from Russian earned £20,000. There was then a big drop off in money with third placed Eddie Tasbas picking up £9,710 while fourth placed finisher Georges Tohme from the UK received £7,100.