The history of Irish poker players at the World Series of Poker

Hanlons Corner is a working class area of Dublin, about half a mile from the city centre. There, on a busy, dusty thoroughfare called Old Cabra Road (or, in Irish, Sean Bhothar Na Cabrai), there’s a butcher, a mini-market and, between these two, a betting shop with a freshly-painted blue-and-yellow sign, which reads: ‘Terry Rogers – bookmaker.’

Beside it there is a permanently locked door; no one ever appears to go in to whatever lies behind it. But they did once – almost every name in Irish poker went there. It was a place where legends were made. From behind that door came three men who would all make the final table at the World Series of Poker in the same year. That was 1999 – the year of the Irish.

That door led, in the 1980s and 90s, to a stairway to a poker club located on two floors, with a kitchen where players down on their luck could count on getting a meal. It was the Eccentrics Club, founded by Terry Rogers, a one-man powerhouse who turned Ireland into a major force in world poker. Having seen it in Las Vegas, he introduced Texas Hold’em to Europe and built the Eccentrics Club up into the place where you learned the hard way, because every player was high class.

All the famous names played there, laughing away the hours while simultaneously honing their skills and doing their best to send the others home broke. As Padraig Parkinson says, ‘The treasurer couldn’t count, the secretary couldn’t type, the owner (Rogers) had rows with everyone, but if you could win there, you could win anywhere – everyone was a top class player.’

There was Donnacha O’Dea, of course – a polished aristocrat compared with some of those who had come up from rougher backgrounds. O’Dea was a cool and relatively cautious player by Irish standards, but the first European competitor the Americans came to fear.

There was Jimmy Langan, a small, skilful player who became the first to win the Irish Open twice and performed well in the WSOP. Like Tom McEvoy, he was also a brilliant table tennis player. Langan made a lot of money from his furniture business and was renowned for generosity to anyone experiencing hard times.

There was Liam Flood, cohort of Terry Rogers, a bookmaker, who would become a consistent winner in European events for 20 years and a highly respected tournament director. Liam won the Eccentrics Invitational on the Isle of Man in 1984 by beating the then world champion Jack Keller. (Liam had no money and so had to sell himself to Rogers and others; when he arrived back in Dublin he was handed an empty briefcase by Rogers and told it to wave it at the photographers and smile. ‘I have nothing to smile about,’ he said. He and Rogers also achieved the almost impossible feat of being arrested in Las Vegas on a gambling offence and briefly locked up.)

There was Colette Doherty, who in 1981 became the first woman to win the Irish Open, and who repeated her success 10 years later. She was the first woman ever to play in the World Series of Poker Main Event. There was Frank Callaghan, who went on to become a wealthy businessman and who still puts that wealth to good use – i.e. paying buy-in fees at major tournaments all over the world.

There was a guy called Dave Jackson who played so tight that he only had to reach for a chip and everyone seriously considered folding.

There was Scott Gray, who went on to come fourth in the 2002 World Series, and was for years a partner of Padraig Parkinson, both of them playing off the same bankroll. And holding the whole thing together was the extraordinary personality of Terry Rogers: abrasive, difficult, egocentric, but also capable of great generosity. Frank Callaghan says, ‘When you got to know him he was a likeable man but it was hard to get to know him. He was always roaring and shouting and if you didn’t know him it was easy to take offence.

If you think of the most abrasive man you could possibly meet you think of Terry Rogers.’ He was convinced that others were always looking for an opportunity to rob or cheat him. At the races he took to wearing a jacket with a note pinned to it, which read: ‘This jacket has been stolen from Terry Rogers.’ He put heavy pressure on dealers to cut the deck in a way he believed prevented cheating and would declare a hand null and void if it wasn’t dealt that way. He was very superstitious; for instance, he would never play with a mirror in a room.

He often fell out with players; he and Padraig Parkinson didn’t speak for nearly two years. Scott Gray tells a story that sums up Rogers and the way the Eccentric Club worked: ‘Dave Jackson’s cards were accidentally pulled in by the dealer but they didn’t hit the muck. Jacko lost his head, so Terry was called in to make a ruling. “That hand’s dead. You should know better; put a chip on your cards to protect them.”

‘Dave replied: “I don’t have a chip. I was all-in.”

‘Terry said: “Well, put a lighter or a box of matches on them then.”

‘Dave said: “But I don’t smoke.”

‘Quick as a flash, Terry said: “Then give the man back his cards.”

‘Anywhere else but the Eccentrics Club and there would have been a riot over that contrary ruling, but there everyone just cracked up laughing and got on with it.’

Betting man

Terry Rogers first went to Las Vegas in 1979 and fell in love with the Horseshoe and Texas Hold’em. From then on, year after year, he would take a team over for the World Series. Rogers ran a book on the result of the Main Event, with such attractive odds that many of the top Americans bet with him.

But Rogers was not just in Las Vegas to run a book on the World Series; he was there to mastermind an Irish takeover of the world title, and in 1999 he pulled it off.

Fast forward to 2007. I’m at the Paddy Power Irish Open in Dublin and, as I hoped, I find the three men who were part of the Rogers assault on the world title in 1999. Two of them are 70 years old now, and the first, Noel Furlong, says he’s retired from poker. In fact, he was never a professional; he made millions from his business activities, notably carpets, but every now and then he would make a foray into poker, with devastating results.

A highly aggressive player, even by Irish standards, he won the Irish Open three times and in 1989 made the World Series final table. Padraig Parkinson says Furlong would have succeeded in any career he chose: ‘His brain is always working, he’s always looking for an angle, and he’s a very good judge of people.

He’s proved you don’t have to have thousands of hours under your belt playing Texas Hold’em to be a good player. In a game of twocard chicken, the guy who’s fearless and can read the other guy is able to make up for lack of technical skill. And Noel was fearless with a capital F.’ George McKeever says that Noel either had a mountain of chips in front of him or none. He tells of one event they were both playing in: as he walked past at an early break, while Noel was still completing a hand, George thought, ‘How on earth did he get so many chips so quickly?’ Less than 30 seconds later he was in the gents and Noel arrived. ‘How did you get all those chips?’ George asked him. ‘What chips?’ replied Noel. He’d lost them all in those few intervening seconds.

George McKeever has also made serious money in business – in forestry and timber, and from a hotel and golf resort. Like Furlong, he played at the Eccentrics Club from time to time. An unassuming, self-effacing man, George tended to be underestimated by other players. They did this at their peril.

Padraig Parkinson points out, ‘He was in the money at the World Series four times in five years; if he was an American everyone would know that, but because he was an unassuming guy from County Derry nobody noticed.’ George didn’t play a lot of hands in his top days, but when he did he played them hard. He never entered a pot with a call, it was always a bet or a raise; he won whole tournaments without calling a bet once. But it wasn’t aggression as it’s defined in poker today; it was the employment of a judicious strategy to maximise playable hands.

Padraig Parkinson is about 20 years younger than the other two and probably the most popular Irish poker personality. A player who loves to talk and has done more than his bit for the drinks industry, he has blown a number of potentially big moments as a result. He’s described by poker commentator Jesse May as ‘a hard man… one moment you’re watching him play the game, and the next moment the game’s on you. He’s a one-man wrecking crew of how great the game can be and how weak we all are. And in the midst of it all breathes a poker player, a master of a rare art’.

Like anyone else who’s fortunate enough to find him propping up the bar, I find him friendly and helpful. Of these three men, Padraig Parkinson is still the most highly competitive and as recently as the 2006 World Series came third in a bracelet event.

Missing

There were 393 players in the WSOP Main Event in 1999 but few people know that it was nearly 391. Noel Furlong and Padraig Parkinson nearly missed it. In fact, when the cry of ‘Shuffle up and deal’ set the Main Event in motion, Padraig wasn’t even on the entry list. George McKeever noticed this and asked Liam Flood, who was on the rail, where Padraig was. Liam explained that he was in his room having decided not to play. What none of them knew was that Padraig was suffering withdrawal symptoms from giving up a five-packs-a-day smoking habit. He was a bundle of nerves and didn’t fancy sitting at a poker table for any length of time, let alone with a $10,000 buy-in at stake.

George told Liam that he and a friend were going to put Padraig in the tournament and sent Liam to his room to collect him. But George had forgotten one small matter – he didn’t have $10,000 on him. So he approached Donnacha O’Dea, who was already playing; Donnacha, always the gentleman, temporarily abandoned his cards and went to the cage and paid for Padraig to play. By this time Padraig had arrived downstairs to find the event well under way. ‘But I don’t want to play,’ he told George. ‘Never mind that,’ said George, ‘I’ve put you in. So sit down and play cards.’ (The end result of this, of course, was that when Padraig came third and won nearly half a million dollars, he only got a third of it.)

Noel Furlong nearly wasn’t there either. He had decided not to travel to Las Vegas and only changed his mind when Terry Rogers phoned him at the last moment to tell him there was a first class ticket waiting for him at the airport and that he was coming whether he liked it or not. And he didn’t buy in with his own money either; he won a satellite the day before. In fact, his form was so good that he entered another satellite and won that too. By then his confidence was so high that when Terry Rogers offered to pay him for a share of any winnings – in other words, guarantee him a payout whether he won or lost – he refused. ‘Why should I give you my winnings?’ he asked Rogers.

So now the three of them were in there, with Terry Rogers and the Irish crowd urging them on from the rail.

Padraig Parkinson immediately repaid George McKeever’s generosity and faith in him by attacking George’s blinds without mercy. (This, together with the fact that Furlong was to knock them both out, proves that when the chips are down there’s no complicity in the highest level of poker – especially Irish poker.

It really is every man for himself.) George himself got into a difficult hand at one point. He had 90 percent of his chips in a pot when he came to the conclusion that he was going to lose on the river. So he folded. Some of the Irish supporters in the crowd criticised him, saying that with 90 percent in, he had no choice but to go all-in, that he was pot-committed. George replies, ‘Not if you were going to lose.’ And he proceeded to fight his way back. ‘It just shows,’ he says, ‘how important it is to stay in the tournament.’

Play the player

So came the penultimate day and all three were still there. While the final table consisted of 10 players, only six would play on television on the last day and George was in seventh place with a problem. He had never expected to make the final table and had his plane ticket all lined up and reasons to fly back to Ireland on the final day. So he decided that as soon as he got a good hand all his chips were going into the pot; if he won he would be so well placed at the final table that he would be justified in reorganising his life; if he lost, he would catch his plane.

He found himself with A♣-Q♣ and, with the blinds at 10,000/20,000, opened the pot for 70,000. Huck Seed (world champion three years earlier) called, but Noel Furlong with two Kings, raised 1,000,000.

George then called all-in for his remaining 300,000, but the Kings held up and George went out on ‘the bubble’, leaving six players for the final day. (George was later criticised for not folding to Noel’s raise but no one, of course, knew that for non-poker reasons he had decided on a boom-or-bust strategy before the hand was dealt.)

On the final day Furlong and Parkinson were seated to the left of Huck Seed. This enabled them to frustrate Seed by raising and re-raising him so that his usual bluffing game became highly precarious. Inevitably it came to a head with what was to become a much- debated hand for years to come. Seed had doubled up in the first 10 minutes and was on 800,000 when he called a big blind of 20,000. Noel raised it to 100,000, then Seed moved all-in.

Noel immediately called. Huck turned over J♦-8♦ and Noel A♥-3♥. It’s a widely held view that both players had lost their minds – that neither had a hand that justified the bets they were making. Phil Hellmuth is one who reads it differently. He points out that Noel had been on Huck’s left for three days and never given him a chance, that a confrontation was inevitable and Huck had correctly read Noel for a weak hand. On that judgement, Huck had played it well. But not well enough – Furlong stunned everyone by calling and his Ace-high stood up to knock Seed out.

Why did Noel Furlong call 700,000 with a weak hand himself? In Dublin these many years later I ask him. He replies: ‘Because I had a tell on Huck. I didn’t think he was bluffing – I knew he was bluffing.’

What was the tell? He just smiles.

Phil Hellmuth defends Furlong as well as Seed. Hellmuth says, ‘Give Noel a lot of credit. He knew Huck was bluffing… Huck is a great player who won’t give many openings… Why not just be a 3/2 favourite over Huck for all his money and perhaps get rid of him right there and there? Thus, I believe Noel Furlong made a great call.’

Full house

Now there were only the two Irishmen and a New York player, Alan Goehring, left in the event. Padraig had been having a bad run of cards and decided to bet out with QÚ-10Ú. Noel called and two diamonds came on the flop. Padraig, with both a flush draw and two overcards, went all-in for more than 600,000. Noel, for the first time, really hesitated, thinking for over three minutes, before calling with Ace-high. Padraig failed to land his flush, Noel received a second Ace on the river and Padraig was out.

In the crowd Terry Rogers was in a right state. One of his team had demolished the other two. But Noel was still there, a childhood friend from the same small seaside village of Dun Laoghaire, now heads-up with Alan Goehring. What was to prove the last hand began quietly. Furlong, with 5-5, limped into the pot from the button and Goehring, with 6-6, flatcalled.

Both players checked the flop, which was Q-Q-5 and then Goehring checked on the turn. At this point Furlong, with his full house, decided he had to make a move if he was going to get any money out of the hand, so he bet $150,000. Goehring, with a pair and four to a flush, decided he had the chance of a big win and raised 300,000.

Furlong promptly moved all-in and Goehring called. The New Yorker made his flush on the river, but didn’t catch a Six for a bigger full house, so Furlong became the first (and still only) Irishman to win the World Series of Poker Main Event.

On the rail Liam Flood, Padraig Parkinson, Scott Gray and the Irish supporters went wild. At Chicago Airport, George McKeever, in transit on his way home, heard it on the radio and made for the bar and a celebratory drink. Back at the Eccentrics Club in Dublin the cards were abandoned in favour of Guinness. For a brief moment, the Irish had taken over the Horseshoe, and the poker world.

As for Terry Rogers, it was a dream fulfilled. What more was there to live for? He was gone by the time an Irish player, Andrew Black, came fifth out of 5,619 in 2006 and won a staggering $1.75m. He was gone when in 2007 the Irish Open, with 708 competitors, become the biggest ever European tournament.

Still, wherever you go in Irish poker you can feel Terry’s presence. If he isn’t there, his ghost surely is… He is Ireland’s ghost at the table.

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