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Irish Poker Tour’s St Patrick’s Day Festival Smashes Guarantee
- Irish Poker Tour's St Patrick's Day Festival Smashes Guarantee
- 1,771 players contest the €100 for €100,000 main event
- Final prize pool over €136,000
- 4-way deal with Gastao Silva taking the trophy
Photos courtesy of Irish Poker Tour
€100,000 Guarantee Smashed at Irish Poker Tour’s St Patrick’s Day Festival.
It really wouldn’t be much of a St Patrick’s Day for Ireland’s budding poker community without a decent tournament to play. Gladly that was never going to be an issue as the Irish Poker Tour threw a St Patrick’s Day festival once again, but this time they doubled the buy-in and guarantee that they had for last year’s celebration. The festival was held at the Green Isle Hotel in Dublin, from Thursday 14th - Sunday 17th March, 2024 and included ten tournaments on the schedule, including the €100,000 for €100 main event.
1,771 Players in the Main Event
It ended up being an extremely well attended festival and the €100,000 guarantee was smashed over the big green wall, as 1,771 players took their seats, creating a final prize pool of €136,722. By Sunday evening, with just four players left in contention, a deal was done and it was Gastao Silva who emerged as the winner. He collected €16,000 plus a €1,500 Portugal Adventure package provided by event sponsor Paddy Power. Brian Slattery, Dean Dowling and Thomas Gallagher were the other players involved in the four-way chop, collecting €12,000, €10,000 and €9,000 respectively for their efforts in the four-day main event.
Final Table Result
| PLACE | NAME | PRIZE |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gastao Silva | € 16,000 |
| 2 | Brian Slattery | € 12,000 |
| 3 | Dean Dowling | € 10,000 |
| 4 | Thomas Gallagher | € 9,000 |
| 5 | Paddy Kelly | € 3,800 |
| 6 | Stephan Campbell | € 3,000 |
| 7 | Brendan Liddy | € 2,550 |
| 8 | Keith Touhey | € 2,140 |
| 9 | Alex Coughlan | € 1,750 |
Side Events
The side events were also busy tournaments, including a €250 Mystery Bounty, which was won by Tadgh Meegan for €3,350 plus another €3,000 in bounties. As always on the Irish Poker Tour, Omaha is more than just an afterthought and there were three Pot Limit Omaha events on the menu for at this festival, with the biggest costing €400 to play. It was chopped by Kieron Small and Matteo Ferrari, who also cashed in another Omaha event at the festival. The Dublin 300 was the No Limit Hold’em event with the largest buy-in, which also ended up in a deal, with Jonas Olali taking €6,000 to Tomas Murphy’s €5,000.
Patrick v Goliath?
The huge interest in the event surprised even the event organisers, with Irish Poker Tour founder Fintan Gavin telling PokerWired:
“We are blown away. We took a punt with the €100,000 guarantee, genuinely thought we could just about hit it. Players have spoken and we will certainly listen. The St Patrick’s Day Festival in 2025 will be even more ambitious!”
As a comparison, the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour’s Goliath had 1765 runners in its first year (2011) with a £120 buy-in. Could this become the next big field low buy-in event that just grows and grows every year?
What's That Coming Over the Hill, is it a Monster?
The next big event on the Irish Poker Tour 2024 calendar is the Monster, also taking place at the Green Isle Hotel in Dublin from 1st-5th May. It’s a €150 buy-in tournament with an enormous €200,000 guaranteed, but if the St Patrick’s Day festival is any indication, the prize pool could end up in excess of €250,000.
