Mark Johnston raised to 500,000 from the cutoff and Tero Laurila made a three-bet to 1,500,000 on the button. The blinds got out of the way before Johnston jammed all in for 8,000,000 chips.
Laurila decided it was not worth it and sent his cards to the muck, awarding the pot to Johnston who crossed eight figures as a result.
Tero Laurila made a raise to 700,000 from under the gun and Vidmantas Beliauskas called in the small blind. Mark Johnston also tossed in the required chips from the big blind and the three saw a flop of A?2?Q?.
Beliauskas led out for 300,000 chips, which Johnston raised to 750,000. Laurila tanked for a while before folding, after which Beliauskas made the call.
Johnston tossed in another 400,000 chips on the 3? turn and Beliauskas check-called. Both players then checked on the J? river, and Beliauskas tabled A?8? for top pair.
Johnston played the same pair, but with A?10? he had the better kicker and raked in the pot.
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.
Stephen Groom raised to 525,000 from the cutoff and Vidmantas Beliauskas defended the big blind. Groom continued for 700,000 chips on the A?6?3? flop and Beliauskas check-called.
The subsequent 7? turn went check-check before Beliauskas led out for 1,100,000 on the 9? river. Groom thought about it for a moment but quickly mucked his cards and surrendered the pot to the Lithuanian.
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.
