Dara O’Kearney has made a good start to the year by beating a high quality field in the European Deep Stack Champinship held in Droegheda over the weekend.

Dara O’Kearney, European Deep Stack Poker Champion 2007 

A deal was done when five players were left and Dara, with a dominating chip stack, took the lion’s share of the prize money and the trophy. Congratulations Dara!

1st Dara O’Kearney €47,200
2nd Gary Clarke €34,100
3rd Fran Egan €28,600
4th Lloyd O’Farrell €26,700
5th Barry Hand €23,400

The year could get even better for Dara yet, as he has qualified for the Irish Open through paddypowerpoker.com and will be feeling very confident after this latest win.  Having qualified on paddypowerpoker.com he is eligible for the Paddy First promotion which could see him playing in the next five Irish Opens for free!

Read Dara’s in depth and entertaining Q&A (he is the Irish 24 hour running champion would you believe!) on the Irish Open Online Qualifiers Page by clicking here - click + beside his name to expand the page.

Unfortunately paddypowerpoker.com online qualifier Brain Maybin didn’t cash in the Deep Stack tourney, despite going deep and the Paddy Power boys, Marc Bolton and Ciaran Burke, fell just short of the money.  But Burke put that out of his mind pretty quickly - he won the €500 side event he entered straight after being knocked out!  Well done Burkey!!

Marc Bolton and Ciaran Burke, who both work for Paddy Power, stormed out of the blocks in Drogheda finishing Day 1A in good postions to launch an assault on the European Deep Stack Poker Championship title.

Ciaran Burke finished 3rd in chips with 180k while Marc Bolton is in the top half of the field with 90k.

Go on the Paddy Power boys!

Paddy Power’s own Marc Bolton tearing up the felt in Drogheda

(You can read Marc’s account of his trip to the recent EPT event in Dortmund in the posts below - filed under MarC)

paddypowerpoker.com qualifier Brian Maybin has made it though the first day of the Euopean Deep Stack Poker Championship currently running in Drogheda.

Each player started with 50,000 chips starting at 25/50 and all levels are played giving plenty of deepstack play to the competitors.. yet somehow a player was out after 17 minutes!!!

Maybin ended Day 1A on 30k with chip leader Daragh O’Kearney on 230k.

We will keep you updated on Brian’s Day 2 play when he returns to action tomorrow.

Brian Maybin in Drogheda