This Sunday, the Irish poker pro Gary McGinty appeared in PokerStars’ list of winners, taking down PokerStars Festival Dublin Main Event for €91,808. The crusher bested a field of 544 runners, who generated a solid prize pool of €679,000. This poker event is to remain in the history as it saw one of the rarest occurrences in poker, and more precisely four-handed deal, in which McGinty secured the biggest slice of the pie for himself.
Although McGinty has several other big scores, including a High Roller title from earlier this year for €26,625, the player’s current victory has to rank as one of the most significant achievement in his career so far. Walking away as the newest recipient of PokerStars Festival Dublin Main Event title, McGinty shared that he is satisfied with the way he played as he worked hard on to refine his skills in the recent years.
Only 16 players managed to make it through the stacked field and return for the final battle on the last Day 3 of the event. The closing stages at major events are usually slower and the current Festival in Dublin makes no exception to the rule. After Sacha Lebreton exited the game in the first 15 minutes after the game began, no other player left the table in the coming 2 hours. Then the field broke down quickly, eliminating Andrew Grimason, Virgilio Dicicco and Florian Duta in around 10 minutes.
Gary McGinty Eyes Main Event Title
With the official table underway, Gary McGinty took control of the table, holding almost 1/3 of the chips in play with 8 players left. Noel McMahon’s elimination in 9th place gave the start to the official final table. It did not take long until the field was whittled to only 4 players, with Antonio Merone breathing down McGinty’s neck. The other two poker survivors were Jim O’Callaghan and Sean Prendiville.
Here it is important to note that after counting their stack of chips, it appeared that all 4 players are pretty close, with McGinty on top. They discussed and agreed on splitting what had remained of the pot. Under the four-handed deal, every player was about to receive at least €71,000. Sean Prendiville was busted by McGinty in 4th place, banking €71,161. The eventual champion entered the three-handed battle with a resounding chip advantage over his opponents, holding more than half of the chips in play. Antonio Merone, though, started to lose momentum and he was the next to exit the game in 3rd place with a cash prize of €78,554.
Coming into heads-up battle against his fellow countryman Jim O’Calaghan, McGinty had already built a massive tower of chips. The two-handed battle lasted no longer than a few minutes. The moment of triumph came when McGinty tabled [Kc][Jh] against O’Calaghan’s [Qs][6c]. The board ran out [Kh][Ad][4c][Js][7c] to secure the title and the first prize money of €91,808 for McGinty. O’Calaghan, on the other hand, did not leave the competition empty-handed, but he bagged €74,797 for his runner-up performance.
