Irishman Ciaran OLeary Wins WSOP No Limit Texas Holdem Poker Event

On June 5, 2007, Ciaran O'Leary, who was born in Ireland but lives in Seattle, won the 3rd biggest live poker tournament in the history of the poker circuit when he won a total of $727,012 at the WSOP.

The $1,500 buy-in cost No Limit Hold'em poker event had a total of 2,998 players and ranks in 3rd place behind the 2005 and 2006 World Series of Poker Main Events in terms of the number of participants.

Ciaran O'Leary, who participated in World Series of Poker events in 6 of the last 10 years, had never taken home money from any WSOP Poker event before.

He joined the final table in 5th position but was able to overcome the big chip lead by eventual 3rd place finisher, Alex Jacob to become the champion of the event.

Paul Evans, who was in 2nd place at the beginning of the final table of the event, was the eventual runner-up, taking home a total of $450,150.

Aside from that, Chris Ferguson, Annie Duke and David Benyamine participated at the final table of Event#5, which is a $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better poker tournament that afternoon.

Chris Ferguson, who was in 5th place with $193,000 chips, is currently in 10th place on the all-time gold bracelet record.

If he wins, he would move up to 7th place together with Jay Heimowitz, Men "The Master" Nguyen and T.J. Cloutier, who finished behind Ferguson in the 2000 WSOP Main Event.

Annie Duke, who is currently in 2nd place with $239,000, won a gold bracelet in an Omaha Hi-Lo tournament in the 2004 WSOP Main Event and also won the WSOP Tournament of Champions the same year.

Benyamine currently sits in 3rd place with $221,000. He has never won any cash prize from any World Series of Poker event, but has a lot of poker tournament experience.

Benyamine won the 2003 Grand Prix de Paris on the WPT and also won the WPT Battle of Champions II in 2005. But pros in the realm of the game of poker have to double their efforts to catch up with Tom Schneider who is making his 3rd appearance at a World Series of Poker final table has a 2-1 chip lead on his closest competitor with $526,000 chips.

July 09, 2007
William Atkins