James O’Brien Wins Macau Irish Poker Tour €60k

Well-known Irish Poker Tour regular and all-around nice guy James O’Brien from Wexford was the big winner at the Cork Poker Festival when he took first prize of €17,500 in the €60,000 guaranteed Main Event. Local star Liam ‘Mash’ Chevalier took home nearly €11k in second with Mark O’Halloran an unlucky but very sporting third winning over €7k.

A total entry of 269 generated a prize pool of nearly €68,000. Initial flights had 30-minute levels but a 45-minute clock on the final day and a slow structure lead to the average stack being over 60 big blinds when the final table started. This meant that the FT took over five hours to ply out with inevitably many twists and turns. Mark O’Halloran had over 50% of the chips with five players remaining but his AK kept losing to under pairs and the chips kept moving around the table.

Paul Carr Back on Top

It was a great weekend for Irish Poker Tour Team Pros with Robbie Bryant 7th in the Main for €2,350, Ray Bryant winning a side event and Paul Carr finishing third in that event and taking down the ‘One Day €5k’.

Paul has retaken top spot in the annual Leaderboard backed by Paddy Power Poker. Over to you Darren Harbinson.