Yesterday, the Irish poker player Gary McGinty managed to emerge from the pack of remaining player at the Final Day of the €1,100 PokerStars Festival Dublin Main Event and kept his pace to the very end, finishing as a winner.
The 29-year-old player took the lead around 5:00 PM yesterday, and a little after 10:00 PM reached the victory, taking home the tournament’s trophy as well as a prize pool cash portion worth €91,808. A total of 16 players returned for the last day of the event, each of them hoping to become the tournament’s champion and take home the largest prize.
Final Day and Four-Way Deal
The €1,100 PokerStars Main Event kicked off on September 29th at the Regency Hotel, Drumcondra. The Main Event offered a guaranteed prize pool €679,000, and managed to gather a total of 544 entries, including 148 re-entries. This year, it was Gary McGinty who managed to overcome the competition of all entrants in the tournament to become the Main Event champion.
At the time when the final table of the €1,100 PokerStars Festival Dublin Main Event was set, Gary McGinty found himself on top of the pack, with a chip stack of 5 million. He was followed by Sean Prendiville, with 3.325 million in chips and Declan Connolly, with 2.015 million in chips.
The massive monetary prize of €91,808 came to the McGinty’s possession after a four-handed deal. Under the terms of the agreement, the Irish secured himself the largest cash portion of the remaining prize pool, with an additional €13,000 portion left on the side for the competitors to play for. A four-handed deal is not very common at poker tournaments, but this time, the players’ stacks were almost even, so that all of them agreed that a deal is the best they could do at this stage of the tournament.
At the time the four-handed deal was reached, McGinty was first, with 4.6 million in chips, while Prendiville was fourth, with 3.27 million in chips. They decided to leave a €13,000 cash portion to play for and separated the remaining prize in almost equal portions.
Jim O’Callaghan, the last player standing who faced McGinty, praised the latter for his play, and it was the absolute truth that McGinty played brilliantly for about 14 hours, keeping his steady pace over the second day of the event. At the time the two of them faced each other in a heads-up battle, McGinty had a five-to-one chip lead, which made it easy for McGinty to defeat him and emerge as the tournament’s winner.
Final Table Ranking
With Gary McGinty emerging at the first position of the ranking, winning the lion’s share of the prize pool after a four-way deal, Jim O’Çalaghan ranked at the runner-up position, scooping a monetary prize of €74,797. The third place was taken by Antonio Merone from Italy who grabbed the second-largest portion thanks to the deal agreed between the last four players who remained in the game. Sean Prendiville got fourth, being granted with a prize pool portion of €71,161.
Another Italian also made it to the final table ranking, with Ivan Tononi getting fifth. He was followed by Declan Connolly and Mick Graydon, who occupied the sixth and seventh position, respectively. The British poker player Alexander Bretherton got eighth, scooping a monetary prize of €14,530 for his efforts.
- Author
Harry Evans
