2009

Michael O’Sullivan wins €143,000 first prize at the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Winter Festival 2009

Michael O’Sullivan won the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Masters 2009 poker tournament, winning a first prize of €143,000 and outlasting the 397 other players taking part in the €1,650 buy-in No-Limit Holdem main event. The 24-year old Irish student is a well-known player with a respectable string of live tournament results to his name.

O’Sullivan started the Irish Masters slowly, but on Day 2 of the tournament started to accumulate chips at a rapid pace and was comfortably positioned by the time play ended. On the final day, he made some big calls and some bigger laydowns, finally winning the bulk of the chips in play heads-up when his Ace-King overthrew Michael Murphy’s pair of Jacks when an Ace fell on the river.

Murphy won €88,500 for his 2nd place finish, with Irishman Gary Mealy receiving €55,300 for third place and Slovenian Matej Kokalj winning €44,800 for finishing fourth.

The tournament began on Saturday, 24th October and featured a total prizepool of €597,000. The buy-in for the tournament was €1,650 and 40 players won cash prizes.

The two-day €500 NLH freezeout side event was won by Antony Lorieu, who was awarded a €22,450 first prize. The €300 Round Of Each (No Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha) freezeout side event proved extremely popular and the €10,000 first prize was won by Darius Tamulevicus.

A live webcast and comprehensive updates were available throughout the weekend on the paddypowerpoker.com blog.

Paul Dooley becomes the IWF Sole Survivor

The IWF Sole Survivor crown was taken by Paul Dooley, who won a €20,000 package by outlasting the 61 other players who were paddypowerpoker.com online qualifiers. Dooley also picked up a €22,400 prize for finishing in 7th place in the Irish Masters itself, so won a total of €42,400 over the weekend. The 37-year old Tipperary man is a well-known player, whose most significant result was finishing 8th in the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open in 2007, winning €50,000.

Interest in the IWF Sole Survivor promotion peaked on Monday evening when the final table was reached, as two of the final nine players were eligible to win the €20,000 package. However, fellow paddypowerpoker.com qualifier John Cassidy just missed out on the IWF Sole Survivor title by being knocked out in 9th place, when his Ace-King was unable to outdraw Igor Kurganov’s pocket aces.