14 players from The Club traveled to play in the Munster Open this weekend in Killarney and 3 made it to the final table of 9, with 1 more, Eugene Corley just missing out when finishing in 10 place. The 3 Eglinton players at the final Table were Conor Ainsworth, Paul O Donnell and Pat O Callaghan, and all 3 had very different experiences getting there.
Conor had been up and down like a fiddlers elbow throughout the 2 days, going as low as 2000 in chips at one stage late in day 2, but he keep plugging away to make it to the final table with just over 150000, which was still below the average of 250000 but he was right in there with a chance.
Paul got to the final table with above average stack and had never allowed himself to get into real trouble at any stage, either picking up a hand or making the right move whenever he needed to. Outwardly a least his navagation to the final table seemed effortless
Pat on the other hand came out of the stalls like a rocket, playing a lot of hands at the early levels he got his starting stack of 15K up to 25k and then flopped a set of 2's and got it all-in against the queens and with 50k now he never looked back, a series of well played hands, some suck outs and a few outright mongings and he was the massive chip leaders at
the end of day 1, with 190K when the average was 30K. When I talked to him after day 1 he told me he was playing the poker of his life, he felt it was nearly up to the standard of Fintans play in Reno 4 years ago.
All 3 Egs, (hardboiled by now) made it down to the final 4, but Conor was still short stacked as he had been throughout and when he pushed his 120K all in Pat felt he had the price to call with pocket 4's which held up against Conors AK.
With the stack being as good as level between Pat, Paul and Martin Noonan from Cork and with 13 hour of play already behind them on Day 2, the 3 reached across the table, shook hands and divided the spoils.