Boyle Poker’s Paul Spillane was a regular on the tournament circuit several years ago. He was one of those guys who knew it was only a game and behaved accordingly. He added colour and fun to the tour, never more so than when winding up Americans, which seemed to be his main hobby. I walked into the poker room in Binion’s one morning several WSOP’s ago, wiping the sleep out of my eyes.
There was a lot of noise coming from the satellite pit so I wandered over to see what was going on. I might have guessed. Spillane, who’d been up all night drinking something a little stronger than coffee, was in the middle of a bunch of Yanks chattering non stop whilst winning a few quid. I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and sat down and watched the show for an hour or so. Performances like this one don’t come along every day.
A year or so later, I was having a few pints with Paul in the Metropole hotel in London. At about four o’clock in the morning he told me that this was his last stop. He was quitting the tour and was going to get a job. I told him that maybe he was being a bit hasty and offered to lend him a few quid to move on to the next stop on the tour. He made poker history by refusing my offer. I blamed the drink.
At this year’s Irish Open, I got a tap on the shoulder and looked around to see Mr. Spillane. He said he needed to talk to me. I feared he remembered our conversation from the Metropole and had an investment proposition for me.
I was thrilled to discover our conversation wasn’t going to cost me a cent and that what he had in mind was actually paying me to help him to put Boylepoker on the map. I agreed to go to Dundalk to meet with him and Conor and check out the setup there. After a few hours in Boyle’s head office I agreed to sign for them. This was a pretty poor piece of negotiating on my part as I said yes before we talked about money. Nobody’s perfect.
I was impressed by their player friendly ideas and their enthusiasm was infectious. But that’s not why I signed. A taxi trip from the airport to the City centre the morning before I met the lads made my mind up for me. The taxi driver started complaining about his bad back. He told me how many painkillers he was taking and just to prove it, popped another one. I put on my safety belt.
It was pretty routine stuff until we got to O’Connell Street and then he really hit top form. I think it was the painkillers. As we approached Eason’s he started complaining about a few professional beggars who were working the street. “How many Irish people do you think are begging on the streets of Bucharest at the moment?” I’ve never been to Bucharest so I didn’t really know but I was under the impression that he thought the number wasn’t very high.
Apparently he thought the question was rhetorical anyway because he now changed his line of attack by asking me how many Irish taxi drivers I thought were driving around Lagos. This guy seemed to have an endless stream of questions that even I didn’t know the answer to.
He then started pointing out all the British stores in O’Connell street and asked me how many Dunnes Stores I thought there were in London. He had me again there. Then he asked what the men who died in the GPO in 1916 would have thought of all of this. I didn’t know that either.
I was near the end of my journey and was trying to decide whether to get him to drive around the block a few times just in case he had something else he needed to get off his chest or to ask him if I could have a few of those painkillers when he pulled in to let me out.
Anywhere else this might have sounded a bit on the racist side but it was only a typical Dublin taxi driver having the craic. I decided then and there I’ve been away from home for too long and if Boyles’ plans involved me playing a lot more in Ireland, fair enough. If they’re good enough for Keano, they are good enough for me.
Padraig is fixture on the international tournament circuit and one of Ireland's most famous poker pros. Boylepoker are giving all our readers $600 free. Use the promotion code MAXIMUMBONUS on the sign-up form to qualify.