Tom talks to Oscar Fred and The Brothers O'Callaghan on the road to the World Series...

Tom is traveling with Dave O'Callaghan, Niall O'Callaghan and Oscar Fred from San Francisco to Las Vegas. He took this opportunity to interview them about the upcoming WSOP and poker in general. Here's what they had to say...

Antes up: What are your best results to date?

Dave O'Callaghan: I suppose second in the EPT in Barcelona is my biggest win. It didn’t hurt that I got 20% of Alexander (the winner) in the next round as a part of a deal either! Niall and I split two tournaments two nights in a row, the end of the month in the Merrion and the 200 freeze out the next night. 8,000 between the two nights!

AU: Would you guys not play heads up for it? (Laughs).

Dave: Well we did and then we decided to make a deal!
Niall O'Callaghan: Well we split the cash and played heads up for the glory. I went all in with ten-seven; actually I called his all in with ten, seven (laughs). I was getting sick of playing.
Dave: I officially won the first one and Niall officially won the second one.

AU: Niall, what are your best results to date?
Niall: Well I've had a couple of good results offline, winning the Merrion Tuesday game (100-FO) once or twice, their end of month big game also, the Fitz 100-FO, but my best results have come from online, playing on Paddy Power Poker.com

AU: We'll I'm sure our sponsors will be glad to hear that! (Laughter all round).
Niall: Yeah, PaddyPowerPoker.com has been far and away the most profitable for me. I became a customer of theirs on the 24th of April and within a week, in fact on my fourth day of playing online I won the 10K and the 7.5K guaranteed tournaments! On the same night, they were going on at the same time in fact! I was on the final table of the 10K while there were two tables left in the 7.5K! (Laughs) So in total that was nearly 6 grand in one night! I've never done that before and I don’t think I'll ever be able to do that again!! There was 300 runners between both tournaments so that’s what I'm most proud of I guess!

AU: You two are brothers, so how competitive are you against each other?
Dave: It wasn’t too bad until in the Fitz Festival, Niall called my all-in with A9 when I was holding AK and hit a 9...
Oscar Fred: Ho ho, I remember you were steaming! (All laugh)
Dave: So eh, since then I guess it’s got kinda competitive, before that I used to take it easy on him!
Niall: I had to call!
Dave: No you didn't! (All laugh)
Niall: It was an extra 25K into a 75K pot!
Oscar: He was pot committed! (Stirring!)
Niall: I think there would have been investigations if I hadn't called!
Dave: So that kind of upset me!

AU: So all bets are off now? And the gloves too?
Dave: Since then I just want blood!
Niall: Hey, Dave had no qualms about calling my all-in with AK to my A6!
Dave: Hey, I had AK! Its no A9 is it (laughs).
Niall: A set of 6's on the flop did help though!
Oscar: So we've established that Niall is the luckier of the two! Except for Dave’s 7-2 (editor: referring to Dave’s bluff with 7-2 in the EPT where he hit two pair).
Dave: That is my proudest poker moment!

AU: And your dad (John O'Callaghan) plays too, how do you guy’s rate him is he better or worse then you guys? Or do you want to say?
Niall: Dad makes crazy decisions straight away sometimes!
Dave: He goes through phases of doing really well and then phases of not doing well.
Niall: When dad's head is about him, he can play really well. He won the Irish Open back in the 80's and he's played the WSOP a couple of times too, he nearly made the money last year.
Dave: In the Fitz Festival, one of us made the final table every night. Dad made the final table of the two big ones. I would have made the final table except err... Niall knocked me out (*scowls*)
Oscar: I would have won them all ... except I was dealing!
Niall: That was my worst beat in fact, in the 270 Lenny Leonard (from Boards.ie) won a seriously big pot from me with 4 left! Ughhh!

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