Galway poker player wins almost €1m

Ireland - A GALWAY card player has written his name in the poker record books after he cashed out for almost €1 million in a prestigious tournament in Spain.

Fintan Gavin (40), from Claregalway, walked away from a challenging field at the €8,000 entry European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Barcelona with a highly commendable second-place finish.

He almost outlasted a field of 620 players in the event, but was eventually eliminated following a brief head-to-head battle with the winner, a German professional Sebastian Ruthenberg.

The two players negotiated a deal which netted Mr Gavin a total payout of just over €900,000, while the victor took home the EPT trophy and €1,361,000 in prize money.

Mr Gavin currently works in the poker business in the northwest, where he runs poker events in the Eglinton Casino in Galway and the surrounding area.

Like many of the big winners in the world of poker in recent years, Mr Gavin qualified for the event by winning a small online satellite tournament, the prize for which was a €12,000 package to cover his entry fee and travel costs.

"I never thought going over there I would get anywhere near as far as I did. There were 620 players taking part, including the top poker players in Europe. It was something else to reach the final table," he said.

Despite his big pay-day, he said he was not considering taking up the game professionally and would continue organising rather than competing in events.

Mr Gavin is one of many Irish poker players to have made a big impact on the poker scene in recent years.

Belfast man Marty Smyth won a $10,000 entry pot-limit Omaha event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in July, for which he received $859,532 (€600,000).

Dublin-based player Andrew Black became a familiar face in international poker circles when he made his way to the final table of the World Series of Poker main event in 2005.

He eventually finished fifth out of 5,619 players, winning $1.75 million (€1.3 million) and has since continued to perform well in big poker events.

Ireland has produced one world champion poker player. In 1999, prior to the boom in the popularity of the game, which was brought about by the advent of online and televised poker, Dublin businessman Noel Furlong conquered a field of 393 in the World Series of Poker main event winning $1 million (€695,000).

© 2008 The Irish Times

News Added: 19 September, 2008

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