Riding the fame wave
By Bob Harkins, MSNBC.com
Posted July 3, 6 a.m. ET Whether you’re a millionaire or a pauper, a well-known Las Vegas grinder or an amateur from Iowa, everyone who plays poker has the same goal: win a big tournament and earn yourself more money than you can count. But the real test is what you do for an encore. If you are like Ciaran O’Leary, and you are a player with a heart, you might give it away – or at least share a portion of it. O’Leary did just that when he finally made his big score. A 33-year-old Irishman now living in Seattle, O’Leary won the third event at this year’s World Series of Poker, a $1,500 Texas Hold’em tournament. He outlasted 2,997 other players (a record at the time for a non-main event), winning $727,012. After he won, the man they call “Big C” – a nickname derived from the frequent mispronunciation of his name (it’s KEER-AHN) – kissed the dealer’s hand. He mugged for the television cameras and pretended to throw a thick brick of bills into the crowd. Then he took $250,000 of his winnings and parceled it out amongst a close circle of friends, a group of fellow pros who all know what it’s like to toil away at poker far away from the spotlight. “These are all world-class players that just have been scratching at the door for a long time trying to get through,” O’Leary says of his group. “Fortunately for me I was one of the ones where somebody opened the door and let me in. And now I’m at that next level, at least from a recognition standpoint.” It’s been a long road to this point for O’Leary. A decade ago, he came to the United States with two skills: carpentry and poker. After a brief stop in Boston, he hopped on an Amtrak for a cross-country ride to San Francisco. He immediately put both of his skills to work, finding work at a construction company and finding plenty of poker action at casinos in the Bay Area and in Las Vegas. | |
Ciaran 'Big C' O'Leary (photo courtesy IMPDI) 
“(Travel) is in our genes, the Irish,” O’Leary says. “We love to see the world. I fell in love with the place here, I fell in love with a woman here, and I kinda stayed here.”
Now he’s got a wife and two young boys. He’s moved from the Bay Area to Seattle and runs his own business as a general contractor.
But poker is always in the background.
“I play golf and I try to be as good as I can be,” he says. “I play a lot of pool. There’s lots of things that I kind of dabble in. But for me, poker, I love the fact that you compete against people directly. In golf you play against the course. The emphasis in poker is in out-dueling your opponent.
“There are a lot of smart people, it’s a multi-cultural sport, and that’s the beauty of it. You can play a guy who can’t speak your language but you understand the same game.”
It’s a culture O’Leary enjoys being a part of, and with a comfortable mix of confidence and humility, knows he belongs.
“I believe there are about 20 elite players (in the world),” he says. “Top of the line. Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Ted Forrest, Chris Ferguson. Players of that nature who have proved they can do it for a long, long period of time.
“Then you have about 200 players who are next, and that’s everybody from Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, the Grinder (Michael Mizrachi), Layne Flack. Players like that who have shown that they’re good. They’ve won World Series events, they’ve won World Poker Tour events.
“And after that there’s about another 2,000. I was in that 2,000 along with my friends for years.”
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“It’s about getting the break, getting the big win that is going to put your face out there. All of a sudden people are going to recognize you, and all of a sudden people are going to be intimidated by playing against you. It’s amazing.”
O’Leary recounted his main event experience in 2004, a year he thought would be when his big break came. He was playing so well that summer, he earned three free seats into the World Series main event via satellite tournaments. And he was one of the early chip leaders when he came across a well-known pro from Denmark named Gus Hansen.
“It was amazing to see the intimidation,” O’Leary recalls. “It was almost like they were throwing away pocket aces pre-flop. That might seem extreme, but that’s the intimidation factor that these players have on young players who are new to the game.”
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“If I don’t have that bad beat, I almost surely cash in that event.”
Three years later, O’Leary has finally hit his jackpot. And now, facing his recent success and the accompanying attention, He is prepared to strike while the iron is hot. He has eagerly embraced the media, doing countless interviews for outlets from Seattle to Ireland and everywhere in between. He’s taking offers from potential sponsors, including Web sites that want him to play under their banner.
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He even had a man come up to him shortly after his victory and tell him “Big C” was going to be in a video game. His reaction? “Um, don’t you need my permission for that?”
“Don’t worry,” the man said. “Someone will be in touch.”
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