2010

Nicholas Newport wins €125,000 first prize at the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Winter Festival

Irish poker pro captures Irish Masters 2010 title after three-day poker marathon

Nicholas Newport won the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Masters poker tournament, winning first prize of €125,000 and outlasting 346 other players taking part in the €1,650 No Limit Hold’em poker event. The Irish Masters is the main event of the Irish Winter Festival, which took place in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin from 23 – 25 October 2010.

Newport is well-known on the Dublin poker circuit and has had much success in recent live events. He remained under the radar until the final day of the Irish Masters, but on Day 3 he began to accumulate chips and suddenly became a real contender for the prestigious title. Encouraged by the support of his friends and family, Nicholas took control of the final table and found himself heads-up against fellow Irishman Charlie Harvey. The final hand unfolded when Newport saw a spade on the river to complete his flush, earning him a well deserved €125,000. Charlie Harvey won €77,000 for his 2nd place finish, with Thomas Finneran receiving €56,500 for third place. 

Tomaz Kogovsek from Slovenia was crowned the 2010 Irish Winter Festival Sole Survivor, earning a €20,000 prize package. The Irish Winter Festival Sole Survivor promotion was created solely for players who qualified for the Irish Masters via paddypowerpoker.com’s online satellites. Each online qualifier was automatically entered into the Sole Survivor promotion; all they needed to do was outlast all other online qualifiers in the Irish Masters to win a €20,000 package.

Whilst it has poker at its heart, the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Winter Festival was also a true celebration of all things skilful. Legendary Darts Champion Eric Bristow (The Crafty Cockney) and former World Snooker Champion Dennis Taylor played against punters at their respective sports - but in the spirit of the festival, there was a twist wherein a revolving dartboard and broom handle handicapped the professionals as punters challenged them for prizes.

paddypowerpoker.com also established a Guinness World Record this weekend by constructing the tallest poker chip stack standing at 3 meters high and weighing almost one ton. The stack stood for three days over the festival weekend and on the final day onlookers paid to ‘destruct’ the chip stack for a small charge. Five hundred euro was collected and paddypowerpoker.com were happy to match this amount; all proceeds will be donated to charity.

The first ever Blind Man’s Bluff World Championship was held at the Irish Winter Festival which added a twist to the weekend’s events. 47 hopefuls took part in this unique event where they were not permitted to see their own cards but could see the cards of their opponents. The event was electric in atmosphere and it was clear that everyone involved enjoyed every second of the tournament. After 7 hours of play Pavel Pravdukhin walked away with the World Champion title and a €1985 cash prize.