Mark Finnane is Irish Omaha Champion

Mark Finnane was a ubiquitous face at all the major poker festivals up to a year or so ago but a series of unlucky beats encouraged him to go away and rethink his poker strategy. Now he’s back, stronger than ever.

Mark defeated a very strong field containing most of the best Omaha tournament players around to take down the Irish Omaha Championship at the Irish Poker Festival and collected €26,000 for his troubles after agreeing a Heads Up ICM chop with Liam Chevalier (€23,400) who is about the hottest player in Ireland right this minute. Liam won a big tournament at the IPO last week and followed it up by taking down the Mystery Bounty here in the Intercontinental on Wednesday night.

Brazil’s Belarmino De Souza took €13,000 for finishing third while Ravi Sheth collected €9,525 in fourth.

29 Through to Day 2 so far in €700,000 Main Event

There are 29 players through to Day 2 of the IPF Main Event so far with German Niels Buch top ranked with 290,000. Superstar Alec Torelli is next best on 268,000 with several other big names lurking including Keith Cummins, Killarney top 2 Marc McDonnell and Conor O’Driscoll, Seamus Cahill, Chris Dowling and defending champion Michel Molenaar.

Melissa Moore Wins Pokerload Freezeout

Melissa Moore from the US has come a long way to play and she means business. She opened her account in last night’s Pokerload sponsored Freezeout collecting over €3,000 for beating Michael Merrigan (€2,040) into second.