Marty Smyth began playing poker in his teenage years, but it wasn’t until his early twenties that he picked up both Omaha and Texas Hold’em. His early years on the tournament circuit were filled with some smaller-scale cashes in Ireland and England. In 2007 though, Smyth got his big breakout.

Smyth found himself at the final table of the Irish Open with the likes of Roland de Wolfe, Sorel Mizzi, and Peter Eastgate. When it was all said and done, Smyth was the winner and took home the $867,546 first-place prize. He bested over 700 players to win Europe’s biggest and oldest poker tournament. Also that year in December, Marty took second in the Poker Million VI Final for $500,000. Not a bad year with well over $1 million in tournament earnings.

When 2008 rolled around, Smyth was looking for more. First, he took first place in the PartyPoker.com World Open IV. The event was an $8,000 buy-in, No-Limit Hold’em event that netted him $250,000 for winning. He then went out to the WSOP and won his first bracelet and nearly $860,000. The final table had top pros Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Kido Pham, and Billy “The Croc” Argyros.

That wasn’t all Smyth would crush during 2008. In the final month of the year, he took down the Poker Million VII after placing second the year before in the same event. The win pocketed Smyth $1 million and put his career tournament earnings over $3.5 million.