Ryan Mandara wins the 2018 Irish Open Main Event

Ryan Mandara joined the long list of Irish Open Main Event champions this weekend when he topped a star-studded field of 1,348 entrants to get his hands on €210,000 and, of course, the coveted winner’s trophy.

2018 Irish Open Main Event Final Table Results

2018 Irish Open final table

Place | Player | Prize
1 | Ryan Mandara | €210,000*
1 | Ferdia O’Connell | €180,000*
3 | Pascal Baumgartner | €100,000
4 | Daniel Samson | €75,000
5 | Joseph Cahill | €55,000
6 | Sameer Singh | €42,500
7 | Daniel Fargher | €32,000
8 | Dean Clay | €23,000

*reflects a heads-up deal

Mandara went into the eight-handed final table second in chips, trailing only Pascal Baumgartner. The shortest of the eight stacks belonged to Dean Clay and he was the first casualty of the final table.

The action folded to Clay on the button and he moved all-in with . Joseph Cahill looked down at in the big blind and tossed in the extra chips to make the call. A nine on the flop of the board was enough to eliminate Clay.

Clay’s seat hadn’t even gone cold when Daniel Fargher joined him on the rail. Fargher lost a race with pocket tens against the offsuit ace-jack of Dan Samson to see his tournament come to an abrupt end.

Sixth-place went to Sameer Singh who bust from this very tournament in sixth-place a year ago. History repeated itself when the action folded to Mandara in the small blind and he raised enough to set Singh all-in. Singh called and showed while Mandara turned over . A final board reading meant Mandara’s queen-kicker came into play and the final table lost another player.

Cahill was the next player to lose his chips, again in a coinflip scenario that is so common in tournament poker. Cahill moved all-in from the button with what turned out to be and Ferdia O’Connell called from the small blind with and promptly caught a king as the door card. The board read by the river and the player count reduced by one.

Samson sees his snowmen melted

2018 Irish Open 4th place finisher: Daniel Samson

Samson was the shortest stack when play was four-handed, although he was doing everything in his power to rectify that situation. Samson, after shoving three hands in a row, was called by Mandara on his fourth all-in bet. Mandara flipped onto their backs and he was way ahead of the of Samson. Mandara had the hand locked up on the turn of the board to leave only three players in the hunt for the title.

Those three became two with the exit of Baumgartner in third-place. Baumgartner had lost a huge pot to O’Connell that left him with 14 big blinds and it didn’t take long for him to commit them in a hand.

Baumgartner’s final hand saw his unable to stay ahead of the of O’Connell after the five community cards fell .

Mandara and O’Connell struck a deal that secured a €197,000 payout for Mandara, a €180,000 payday for O’Connell with an additional €13,000 waiting for the eventual champion.

That champion was decided when Mandara chipped away at O’Connell’s stack to the point that O’Connell only had a shade over nine big blinds in his stack. O’Connell jammed all-in with and Mandara called with . O’Connell stayed ahead on the flop, but fell behind on the turn. The river was the , which bust O’Connell and left Mandara to be crowned the 2018 Irish Open Main Event champion.

It was a superb result for runner-up O’Connell because he had qualified for the Irish Open Main Event online at partypoker for a single cent. That penny is now worth a cool €180,000 after his superb display.

Qualify for the €10 million guaranteed MILLIONS Grand Final Main Event

Next up for the partypoker LIVE tour is the eagerly anticipated MILLIONS Grand Final in Barcelona, which includes a monster-sized €10 million guaranteed Main Event where at least three players will become millionaires. Satellites for the MILLIONS Grand Final Main Event are available at partypoker from $0.50 and these eventually feed into the finals, which run three times per week, where 10 x $16,000 packages are guaranteed to be won each time.

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