Hiep Ninh raised to 700,000 under the gun and the action folded to Konstantinos Vatseris in the big blind, who called all-in for his final 575,000 chips.
Konstantinos Vatseris: Q?7?
Hiep Ninh: Q?10?
Both players paired their queen on the 8?K?Q? flop, but Ninh's kicker remained ahead on the 5?6? runout, making Vatseris the final table bubble.
Robert Shanley raised all in from under the gun for a total of 1,250,000 chips. The action folded to Konstantinos Vatseris in the big blind, and he immediately stuck in a call.
Robert Shanley: K?8?
Konstantinos Vatseris: A?K?
Shanley needed an eight or some spades to survive, but neither came on the J?3?5?9?7? runout and Vatseris' ace-high eliminated Shanley in 11th place, leaving the Main Event on the bubble of the final table.
Stephen Groom had flat-called an earlier open in the cutoff before Brian Moore made a huge three-bet to 2,600,000 on the button, around half his stack. The action folded to Groom, who back-raise shoved all in, covering the last overseas player standing.
Moore counted his chips and decided he could not fold as he put in the call for his tournament life.
Brian Moore: A?5?
Stephen Groom: A?A?
"We just need to fade spades," Groom told his rail, and he did just so on the 6?2?10?9?3? runout. The big pot was shipped Grooom's way, who crossed the eight-figure mark while leaving Moore stranded in 12th place.
Konstantinos Vatseris raised from the cutoff with Q?4? to 550,000 and it folded to Hiep Ninh in the big blind who defended with A?2?.
The flop fell 9?9?6? and a quick check by Ninh followed. Vatseris continued with a bet of 450,000 and Ninh called to see the K? on the turn.
Ninh knocked on the table to check again and Vatseris bet 1,050,000. Ninh considered all of his options, counting his stack multiple times, to ultimately call again.
The A? river completed the board and Ninh checked for the third time. Vatseris wasn't ready to slow down and asked how much Ninh was playing behind before firing another bet of 2,250,000.
After about 90 seconds Ninh put the calling chips in the middle with the words "even ace-high I would've called" and his pair of aces was good to take down the big pot to propel himself in the chip lead.
Brian Moore raised to 600,0000 from under the gun and Aidan Quinlan made the call on the button, leaving only 225,000 behind. Stephen Groom came along from the big blind and the three players saw a flop of Q?2?K?.
Groom checked to Moore, who made the minimum bet of 250,000. Quinlan tried to make the pay jump by tanking for a bit, but when the clock was called on him he eventually made the call. Groom got out of the way and the cards were tabled for all to see.
Aidan Quinlan: A?Q?
Brian Moore: 7?7?
"You wouldn't do me like that, would you?" Quinlan quipped. However, the deck would do him like that as the 7? turn gave Moore a set to leave Quinlan's pair drawing dead. The 6? river was inconsequential and Quinlan was the first to leave the final day.
All good things must come to an end, and the 2024 €1,150 Irish Open Main Event, sponsored by PokerStars and Paddy Power Poker will not be able to escape that fate.
The largest-ever Irish Open Main Event field saw 3,233 entries battle it out through the course of four starting flights and two more full days of poker, but only 14 will return to the Royal Dublin Society at noon local time today to decide who will be crowned champion and take home the trophy, alongside the hefty €415,615 first-place prize.
Not only money and fame are on the line, but pride is as well. Being the oldest still running poker festival in Europe, the Irish Open is a prestigious event, and the home crowd would love nothing more than to keep the trophy on the island. Luckily for them, nearly half the remaining players have an Irish flag to their name, with the most notable of them being Padraig Parkinson, who is eighth on Ireland's all-time money list.
Parkinson has been playing poker since before some contestants were even born, with his first recorded live cash stemming from 1994. Parkinson's biggest-ever cash was a third-place finish at the WSOP Main Event in 1999, the year that his fellow countryman Noel Furlong took home the title of World Champion, but has kept booking poker results consistently for three decades.
Parkinson will start the day with 4,800,000 chips, which equates to 19 big blinds at the start of play and puts him in tenth place. The Irishman with the most chips is Ninh Van Hiep, who sits in third place with 9,700,000 chips. Van Hiep appears to play almost exclusively in Dublin and has already secured his biggest-ever live cash with the €20,560 all players are guaranteed from the €3,152,175 prize pool, although he will be eyeing the top prize as much as anyone else.
Ninh Van Hiep
The other Irish names still in the field are Oliver Boyce (6,400,000), and short stacks Robert Shanley (3,300,000), Adrian Thorne (3,050,000), and Aidan Quinlan (1,425,000). Meanwhile, the chip lead is in the hands of Finland's Tero Laurila. He will bring 13,075,000 chips into Day 4, slightly more than online qualifier David Tous, who plays a stack of 12,125,000 chips.
Day 4 Top Ten Chip Counts
Rank
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Tero Laurila
Finland
13,075,000
52
2
David Tous
Spain
12,125,000
49
3
Ninh Van Hiep
Ireland
9,700,000
39
4
Stephen Groom
United Kingdom
9,050,000
36
5
Konstantinos Vatseris
Greece
8,875,000
36
6
Brian Moore
United States
8,000,000
32
7
Mark Johnston
United Kingdom
6,950,000
28
8
Oliver Boyce
Ireland
6,400,000
26
9
Georgios Tsouloftas
Cyprus
6,100,000
24
10
Padraig Parkinson
Ireland
4,600,000
18
The final 14 players will return to blinds of 100,000/250,000 with a 250,000 big blind ante and all levels will continue to be 60 minutes in length, as they have been from the start of Day 2. A break will be had after every two levels, but other than that the tournament will not stop before a winner is crowned.
The PokerNews live reporting will be on a 30-minute delay as to not spoil the cards-up live stream, hosted on PokerStars' Twitch and YouTube channels. Stay tuned to follow the thrilling conclusion of the 2024 Irish Open Main Event and to find out who takes home the trophy.
