This Monster is Really, Really Big

Peter Burnett Tops 1,858 Field

Huge numbers travelled in hope to the Monster Festival hosted by the Irish Poker Tour at the Green Isle Hotel Dublin over the Mayday Holiday weekend with the main event generating an astonishing €224,122 prize pool for a €150 entry. After a titanic struggle, Peter Burnett was the last man standing as he collected over €25,000 and the iconic trophy.

The Festival had kicked off the previous Wednesday with the APAT Irish Amateur Poker Championship which attracted a remarkable 448 entries for a mid-week event. Stephan Campbell proved to be the best of the amateurs taking the trophy and €8,300 ahead of Shane O’Neill and Francis Onwuka.

The Monster started on Thursday evening and with a number of Day 1 flights scheduled to suit everyone’s agenda the numbers kept on building until the very ambitious €200,000 guarantee was surpassed on Saturday evening with the last few hopefuls entering the Hyper flight on Sunday morning bringing the final figure up to a record high of 1,858.

Meanwhile, there was a wide variety of side events providing entertainment and opportunity for every type of poker player. The large Holigames group of French travelling players brought great humour and a slightly exotic feel to the Festival and they had an event named in their honour on Thursday night which was won by former Galway Festival Main Event champion Liam McVeigh. The LPPL pub game players from England also travelled en masse and got into the spirit of things, especially at the bar. Their game, the LPPL Open, produced a €10,133 prize pool, remarkable for a tournament with a €5k guarantee. Wagner Torres proved to be top dog beating Vanessa Webley in the heads-up.

However, the most noteworthy performance of the week outside the Monster itself came from regular Northern Ireland visitor Steven Bartley. Stork as he is universally known (when you meet him you’ll know why) took down both the Mystery Bounty and the closing Omaha 4/5 card event.

By Sunday evening The Monster was reaching it’s climax and when Aidan Quinlan fell in fourth place for €11,000 the remaining three got to talking and a deal was struck based on ICM, leaving them to play on with €2,000 for second and €4,000 plus the trophy for first. Local hero Carl Cullen bowed out in third for €26,500, Massimo Pacini trousered €27,365 for second leaving Peter Burnett as the champion and €25,125 richer.

How will this be topped? See you at the next event in the Monster series to find out.