2011 Irish Poker Open Won By Niall Smyth

admin, April 26, 2011 6:53 am

Irish player Niall Smyth has just triumphed at the 2011 Irish Poker Open, after overcoming a field of 615 players over four days to lift the title, as well as collect the €550,000 ($804,217) first place prize.
The €3,500 buy-in tournament has been running since 1981 and aside from the WSOP is the longest running poker tournament in the world. It has also continued to grow steadily in popularity with this year’s prize-pool reaching an impressive €1,968,000.
Amongst the top names making their way to the Burlington Hotel in Dublin were such pros as Roberto Romanello, Sam Trickett, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliot, Padraig Parkinson, Jake Cody, Andy Black and Alan Smurfit.
However, by the time the final table of nine had been set, the most notable name at the table was UK legend Surinder Sunar with over $3 million in lifetime tournament earnings.
In addition, Niall Smyth had managed to secure the chip lead for himself with a 2.038 million stack, and also had the honour of being just one of three of the 160 paddypowerpoker.com online qualifiers still left in the competition.
Eventually, it was Niall Smyth and Surinder Sunar who went heads-up for the title after eliminating McCann, Karl Rudwall, Seamus Cahill and Martin Petri between them.
As heads-up play began, Niall Smyth was sitting comfortable on 8.8 million chips to Sunar’s 3.4 million. However, despite doubling up and taking the lead at one point Sunar eventually finished the runner-up after going all-in holding A-9 to his opponent’s Q-5, only for the board to fall 10-3-3-2-5.
Surinder Sunar then picked-up €290,000 for his runner-up finish, while Niall Smyth collected the top prize, plus an extra €100,000 for being the last online qualifier still standing.
Commenting later on his remarkable win, Niall Smyth said:
“Unbelievable. I just can”t believe it. It started when I put €10 each way on the winner of the English Grand National, I won €200 euro and now I have €650,000. Surinder is such a great player, my support has been fantastic, and here I am!”