WPT Ireland 2012 Reaches Day 2

The inaugural WPT Ireland Main Event is currently underway at Dublin’s Citywest Hotel, with 338 players turning out to enter the €2,500 buy-in tournament.
Day 1 of the tournament kicked off at 2pm yesterday, and amongst those celebrities competing for the roughly €200,000 first place prize was the 1997 World Snooker Champion Ken Doherty. Commenting ahead of the tournament, the 42 year-old with £3,269,385 in snooker winnings, said:
“I’ve played in a few big events at the Irish Open and loved every minute of them. I love poker. A lot of the snooker players on the tour play poker. We all have a great time trying to take each other’s money.”
Also looking to scoop a share of the prize pool was the 27-year-old Croatian beauty Tatjana Pasalic, who is sponsored by Bodog to travel the globe competing in tournaments while representing the site.
By the time Day 1 was complete, 195 hopefuls still remained in the competition, and amongst those players finishing near the top of the chip counts was the chip leader Dave Callaghan, Johannes Meyer, Jacob Nielson, Shaun Conning and Andy Black.
The entertaining Irish pro Black was able to chip up, helped by hand in which his pocket sevens made a full house on a J-7-3-3-4 board, with his opponent Sofia Lovgren paying him off all the way.
Others notable names surviving Day 1 included Ross Boatman, Jake Cody, Kara Scott, James Dempsey, Russell Carson, McLean Karr, Leo Margets, Ken Doherty and Tatjana Pasalic.
One notable name who wasn’t so fortunate was UK pro Sam Trickett who hit the rail on Day 1 after his stack was diminished when his pocket kings ran into pocket aces. Trickett then lost his remaining chips after four-bet shoving A-10 into his opponent’s A-Q. As he later tweeted:
“Busted! 4bet jammed 40 bbs with AT vs AQ…way too tilted to make good folds after the KK/AA.”
Joining him on the rail were John Eames, Barny Boatman, James Akenhead, Matt Perrins, Praz Bansi, and Padraig Parkinson.
Day 2 of the tournament resumes at 1400 GMT (0900 EST) on Friday with the top nine chip counts as follows:
1 Dave Callaghan 186,900
2 Johannes Meyer 179,400
3 Jacob Nielson 161,700
4 Shaun Conning 143,300
5 Sam Macdonald 122,000
6 Francis McCormack 118,000
7 Con Collins 115,700
8 Evan Christ 105,700
9 Andy Black 104,000