Leading coaching sites Simplify Poker and Jaka Coaching are getting fully immersed in this year’s Irish Open with a points-based challenge that will pit their students against each other throughout the 12-day festival.
Team Jaka will mostly involve Americans, while Team SimplifyPoker is more notably European and will include about six members of the Turkish version of the site.
At the start of each day, team leaders Dara O’Kearney for Simplify and Michael Dwyer from Jaka will nominate those taking part in any given event and ensure that each team is fielding the same number of players. There will also be a five-event cap on each player across the festival.
The Battle kicks off today with four players from each team entering the first event of the festival – the €1 million guaranteed Luxon Mystery Bounty. Team captain Michael Dwyer is joined by Americans Kelley Slay, Wayne Leonard and Bea Berman for Team Jaka while Dara’s Simplify team comprises Irishmen Pat Eagers and John Campbell plus Mike Hunsucker from the USA.
Other tournaments earmarked for Jaka / Simplify face-offs include the €1 million guaranteed Mini Irish Open and the €2.5 million guaranteed Main Event along with the Heads-up Championship, the Seniors and many more.
Dara has turned up for the first event of the festival with his arm in a sling thanks to a dislocated shoulder incurred as he set off for a run from his home yesterday. He said: “The Jaka team are resorting to dirty tricks already. Unbelievable! They definitely set up trip hazards all round my house.” Jaka deny responsibility however with Michael adding: “We’re touched that they’re making excuses already.”
The Battle of the Coaches scoring system is simple:
- players earn points based on their cashes
- that total is divided by the number of bullets fired
- the team with the highest score at the end wins
Dara said: “We are calling it Battle of the Coaches but David Lappin – my co-host on the Chip Race podcast – is calling it the Doke-Dwyer Deathmatch. Either way, there’s no prize (at the moment) other than bragging rights, but it should be a lot of fun. It’s going to be exciting to see how each team gets on.”
Michael added: “The main objective here is the ‘craic’ – and also to give Dara’s team a good hiding. Although there’s no extra prize pool, there are rumours of some serious wagers going on! But really it’s all about bragging rights and the chance to claim coaching supremacy for the year. There will be a lot of banter, excited rails (!) and more than a few heated debates in the Craic Den as the points start piling up.”
Both sites ran a contest in February giving away a €1,150 Main Event seat and the two winners from that will both be taking up Battle positions later in the week: Andrew Bloxham from Wales won the Jaka raffle and Scottish player Steve Dunnett triumphed in Simplify’s super-tricky strategy quiz.
