Michael O’Sullivan wins €143,000 first prize at the Irish Winter Festival

Published on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:45:00 AM

Michael O’Sullivan today won the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Masters poker tournament, winning a first prize of €143,000 and outlasting the 397 other players taking part in the €1,650 buy-in No-Limit Holdem main event.  The 24-year old Irish student is a well-known player who focuses on online cash, as well as having a respectable string of live tournament results to his name.

O’Sullivan has no immediate plans for his winnings and commented that the victory “hasn’t sunk in yet.”  He plans to concentrate on completing his studies and to devote more time to athletics.

Murphy won €88,500 for his 2nd place finish, with Irishman Gary Mealy receiving €55,300 for third place and Slovenian Matej Kokalj winning €44,800 for finishing fourth. 

Tenth place finisher Paul Dooley became paddypowerpoker.com’s IWF Sole Survivor by outlasting 61 other paddypowerpoker.com online qualifiers, winning a prize package worth €20,000.  The Irish Winter Festival Sole Survivor promotion was created solely for players who qualified for the Irish Masters via paddypowerpoker.com’s online satellites. Each online qualifier was automatically entered into the Sole Survivor promotion; all they needed to do was outlasted all other online qualifiers in the Irish Masters to win a €20,000 package.

The tournament began on Saturday, 24th October and featured a total prizepool of €597,000.  The buy-in for the tournament was €1,650 and 40 players won cash prizes.  A live webcast and comprehensive updates were available throughout the weekend on the Irish Winter Festival blog.