Niall Smyth finally makes his dreams come true when he won the final heads-on against English poker pro Surinder Sunar to secure the main event title trophy of Europe’s longest running No-Limit Hold’em tournament. Irish poker open started way back in 1982, and it is now just behind WSOP in terms of longest running poker tournament in the word. The ever increasing popularity of Irish Poker is more understandable by the fact that this time buy-in amount was considerable €3,500, if we clubbed this amount with the total players battling each other for the title win, total prize pool became massive €1,968,000. This mammoth prize pool ensures guaranteed significant prize money to each entrant of the final table.

Total prize money he en-cashed out of the Irish poker tournament is €550,000 plus another €100,000 for being the sole survivor player out of total online qualifiers through Paddypowerpoker.com. He outplayed all 615 players entering in the Irish Poker Open that lasted in four days. This triumph is also important for him for another reason, as he was also one of the favorites in the same event two years back but could not make to the final table and finishes to 11th spot. However, this time he didn’t make any mistake and entered in the final table as a chip leader to claim the Terry Rogers memorial trophy in the classic final table game play that lasted more than fourteen hours this Monday.

The final table that has notable names like – British legend Surinder Sunar – who has more than $3 million as his lifetime tournament earnings. That’s not all. Niall Smyth is the only player left in the final table out of the massive list of 160 players qualified via an online poker room. He transformed his €200 horse race wins into a main event seat at Irish Open tournament via Paddy Power Poker.

Final Heads-on

As expected, final heads began between Niall Smyth, and British lord of poker Surinder Sunar. At this time, Niall Smyth enjoys almost double chips count than Niall. Nevertheless, as the final heads on progresses, Surinder showed his aggressive game play and showed why he is called the favorite of the Irish Open. At one point of time, he enjoyed the chip lead to Niall Smyth. But eventually could only manage to show his A-9 to Niall’s Q-5 with the board fall of 10-3-3-2-5. Runner up place made British pro richer by €290,000, which is not a bad return for a four-day job! Here is the final tally of top eight winners of Irish Poker Open 2011.

1st Place: Niall Smyth – €550,000
2nd Place: Surinder Sunar – €290,000
3rd Place: Martin Petri – €180,000
4th Place: Seamus Cahill – €145,000
5th Place: Aleksi Savela – €115,000
6th Place: Karl Rudwall – €85,000
7th Place: Rob Taylor – €63,000
8th Place: John Eames – €45,000
9th: Place: Niall McCann – €30,000

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