The Irish Poker Festival crowned a home winner of its Main Event last night, Mark Buckley scooping the €177,000 top prize ahead of a stacked final table .
Sponsored by CoinPoker, this year’s festival flagship event at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dublin was once again a €3000 buy-in affair, attracting 285 entries and producing a €753,330 prizepool.
Four starting flights across three days saw many fall along the way, notables including local legend Padraig Parkinson, Game of Gold star Olga Iermolcheva and defending champ Michel Molenaar.
For the latter it would prove a very painful exit, the Dutch player falling on the bubble…
Michel Molenaar: A♦ J♦
Richard Ashby: 10♠ 3♠
Sam Dobbins: A♠ Q♠
With Molenaar all-in and at risk from the big blind, Ashby and Dobbins checked it down…
Flop: 5♠ 8♥ 4♦
Turn: 8♦
River: K♥
…and Molenaar’s back-to-back dreams were ended.
By the time the final table of nine was formed, Chip Race host and poker author Dara O’Kearney had fallen (27th for an €8,000 min. cash) and he was joined by well-known US pro Alec Torelli (11th for €15,000) and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Ashby (10th for €17,500).
Some days the job is to chase the gold, and some days it’s to scrape through the bubble
37th Hendon Mob live cash of the year secured in the @IrishPoker festival main event pic.twitter.com/r0Xyg3hnm7
— Dara O'Kearney (@daraokearney) November 3, 2024
Long-time Scottish number one, Niall Farrell found kings to KO CoinPoker-sponsored Austrian Florian Fuchs with jacks to open the final table, followed by the Lithuanian duo of Ignas Navickas and Ignotas Tamasauskas.
Leo Worthington-Leese has been much in the news this past year, bagging the EPT Cyprus opener last month for a healthy $314,030 payday.
He’d have to settle for 6th spot this time, all-in for his final 7 bigs with K♦ 9♣ but unable to catch Sean Hegarty’s pocket deuces. Hegarty continued his deep run by rivering Farrell to the rail after a pre-flop raising war…
Niall Farrell: 10♣ 10♥
Sean Hegarty: A♣ Q♠
Flop: 7♠ J♣ 5♦
Turn: 2♠
River: A♠
That was as good as it got for Hegarty, long-drawn out 4-handed play seeing his chip lead disappear and eventually fall when Joni Rantamaki paired the flop.
Conor O’Rourke finished third in a cooler hand that saw him outkicked, outflopped and simply out…
Conor O’Rourke: A♣ 2♥
Mark Buckley: A♦ 6♣
Flop: A♥ A♠ 6♥
Turn: 7♠
River: 2♦
Heads-up was an active affair, but when Rantamaki missed a gutshot and flush draw for almost all the marbles it was all but game over. Buckley finished things off soon afterwards to add his name to the record books as 2024 Irish Poker Festival Main Event champion.
2024 Irish Poker Festival €3,000 Main Event Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Mark Buckley | Ireland | €177,000 |
| 2 | Joni Rantamaki | Finland | €113,000 |
| 3 | Conor O’Rourke | Ireland | €70,000 |
| 4 | Sean Hegarty | USA | €50,000 |
| 5 | Niall Farrell | Scotland | €38,000 |
| 6 | Leo Worthington-Leese | England | €31,500 |
| 7 | Ignotas Tamasauskas | Lithuania | €27,500 |
| 8 | Ignas Navickas | Lithuania | €24,000 |
| 9 | Florian Fuchs | Austria | €20,500 |
Buckley, who max-late-regged on day two, said afterwards: “It was a very long final table. There were a lot of ups and downs, a lot of swings, but we got there in the end.”
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