A round-up from the Unibet Open in Dublin as Paul Jux Holderness takes down the €1,100 Main Event after beating the Frenchman, Julien Kron, heads-up.
Ah, the feeling of making the final table.
The sense of rising immortality.
The increase in status.
The tension.
The buzz.
All things that Paul Jux Holderness experienced on his way to a Unibet Open title in The Bonnington Hotel, Dublin.
The €1,100 Unibet Open Dublin Main Event attracted 359-entrants, and you don’t need a university degree to establish the organisers surpassed the €250,000 Guarantee by €109,000.
The 34-year-old from Bournemouth, who I can’t find head nor hair of on the Hendon Mob database, managed to avoid landmines for three days of ups, downs and all-ins, to reign victorious.
The final day saw 11-players return to the felt with Patrick Clarke and Mick McCloskey the most established names left in the mix. The 2014 Irish Open Champion failed to make the grade, but McCloskey did, securing a fifth-place finish for €18,300, his second five-figure score in a month after finishing runner-up to Joseph McKeown in the International Poker Open (IPO) Dublin for a €21,740 score.
Holderness began the final table in the middle of the pack with 24 big blinds and became a real force after winning a massive flip with QQ against the AK of Michael Brock. That hand gave Holderness the chip lead with six players remaining, and he kept it until Julien Kron’s pocket jacks managed to beat David Schable’s AQ, and Keith Brennan’s QQ when a third jack appeared on the flop, to take the lead ( 6.5m v 4.2m) going into heads-up.
The Frenchman enjoyed the best of it during the first few hands, extending his lead to 8.3m v 2.5m before Holderness clawed it back, taking a 2:1 chip lead.
The final hand saw them both flop top pair with Kron holding J8 on J75, and Holderness holding he superior KJ, and the best hand held to give Holderness the title and trophy.
Here are the final table results:
Final Table Standings
1. Paul Jux Holderness – €74,900
2. Julien Kron – €46,550
3. Keith Brennan – €32,100
4. David Schable – €23,750
5. Mick McCloskey – €18,300
6. Michael Brock – €14,050
7. Henri Koivisto – €11,250
8. Jakub Groblewski – €9,000
Three stars that went deeper than an ice-cream man digging out the last Cornetto from the freezer were the former World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event final tablist, Andy Black (14th), the three-time WSOP bracelet winner, Benny Glaser (25th) and the Unibet ambassador, David Lappin (27th).
Other winners at the Unibet Open Dublin include Benny Glaser who won €20,680 after winning the €2,200 High Roller, Samuel Baneham who earned €7,490 after winning the DeepStack Open, and Alan ‘hotted89′ Wildmann for taking down a 72-entrant Hyper Turbo for €1,490.
The next stop for the Unibet Open is a new one, as
the team head to Sinaia in Romania for a week of Winter Sports and poker Dec 12 – 18.
