It's adventures like these that cause a blog revival.
As most of you know I've created a new poker tour based in Ireland. It is as exciting as it is intense. The build up to events is like nothing I have ever experienced before. There are so many positives to take but one that keeps coming to mind is the amount of help I've received from family, friends and other poker players just wanting to be apart of this and willing it to be successful. In a way it creates even more responsibility but at the same time I am lucky that it does as without it I wouldn't have a blog to write about.
Falling out of love with online poker and being asked to leave my local casino in Carlow for supposedly winning too much money really fuelled this tour into belief. What was always an idea I took a huge gamble to make it a reality. To be honest nothing else got me excited when trying to think what I could replace online and live cash games with. I'm delighted I took this on. A challenge is what I was after and boy have I got one on my hands. There are so many positives already in my short time doing this. The people you meet and get to work with is by far the best part of a tour. I haven't made money yet so I don't know how that will match up to winning in poker. Trust me I look forward to making that happen.
The most enlightening thing so far for me was joining in my own Main Event at CityNorth. I'll be honest the buzz wasn't there on day1 the Friday. On Saturday I had finished registration and decided to max late reg. It was met by my table mates with great enthusiasm. Suddenly there was an atmosphere. I was giving away some freebies merchandise that WptGlobal was kind enough to provide. This was always a long term plan for me to join my events but after such a positive experience for myself and our players I now know this is what will be unique about this tour. I need to fast track this concept. I can simply offer more than what is currently on the calendar in Ireland. The first order of business is a bounty on my head on all stops that I play in. You beat the boss you get rewarded. Who doesn't want to beat a boss? Be it from a computer game or dare I say from the workplace?!
I will run with this idea and hopefully it takes off. In the meantime the tour isn't going to set itself up long term so there is lots of work to do on that front. My immediate problem that I found is not every poker player does know about the tour. Spreading the word is essential to getting players to our events. This will remain my number 1 goal in 2023. I believe I have a good poker model to offer all players in Ireland & judging by our great turnout in Carlow & the feedback from players it will be a hit. I dedicated most of my time to this when building all aspects of the tour. Perhaps, this was a contributing factor to missing my 1st big guarantee of 50k albeit marginally by 5 players. Marketing and Location are the two main areas I should have invested more time into. Time though, is rarely on your side in a start up. You learn as you go just like any new business trying to establish themselves in Year 1. There is alot of competition out there but I believe in my model and I will simply trust in it.
We offer the best tournament structures and at the lowest registration and rake fees. 11% Reg on our Main Event is unrivalled. Even club poker in Dublin doesn't choose to go that low. Cash games 5% capped at €10 is also unrivalled and we pride ourselves on this. We are simply trying to offer more true value to our players in the hope they come out to support us. After being a professional poker player for well over a decade these are the values that are important to me. It is now my business to incentivise players so here we are. If you share these values plz do come support our events and help us grow. I'll even put a bounty on Dara O Kearney's head for the sheer fun of watching him try to calculate percentages & hands he needs to call off light with when you shove over the top of him.
For now, lets all enjoy the Irish Open this week. I know JP is flat out trying to make this a success under challenging circumstances so lets support him.
See you there.
