Geoff McClay Captures Seniors Trophy; Comes Out on Top of Deal

The last day of the 2025 Irish Poker Open featured a lot of fun on the schedule, and the €250 Seniors Championship was one of the gems on this rainy Monday in Dublin.

During the earlier stages of this year’s event, we saw the €1,150 Seniors High Roller Championship attracting 150 entries. Many of the faces that we saw during that tournament were also apparent during today’s cheaper edition. 434 entries were made in total, which created a €90,975 prize pool.

Gotta go Fast

Being scheduled on the last day of the festival, the tournament had a somewhat faster, more turbo-like structure than what we’ve been used to earlier during the week. This was, of course, to ensure that the tournament could be played from start to finish. This resulted in many players being shallow at a later stage, and we would come to witness a lot of preflop play during the day.

When late registration closed after Level 8, it could be revealed that 63 players would be “ITM”. They would all be fighting for the first-place payout of €17,575 and the coveted trophy.

One of the players to be eliminated at Level 7 – i.e., with only one level of late registration left – was Mitchell Jones. “Let’s buy in again and try to play less stupid,” he said. This may just be the story of the tournament; he did buy in again, and at the dinner break, he was the chipleader with 600,000 in chips.

After a while the bubble burst (it lasted only one hand), and from there on, players were busting left and right due to the somewhat faster structure. Don’t get it twisted; it was still very playable, but aggression was key, and many competitors tried to apply maximum pressure preflop in order to accumulate as many chips as possible.

Final Table Time

Before too long, only nine players remained, and it was time for the final table. The chip leader going into the last stage? Well, that was Mr. Jones, of course. He had managed to keep his momentum going, and he had earned himself great presumptions for a deep run.

The first to go was the sole lady on the final table, Mary Laquet. Ioannis Tatakis would follow shortly thereafter. The third to go was Andrew Tracey, and during that hand, Eugene Okane managed to win a 6,000,000 pot from Jones, taking over the chip lead. Losing 90 % of his stack from what felt like nowhere, Jones would soon become the fourth casualty of the final table.

Play continued, and there was very little, if any, post-flop play at the final table at this stage. Michael Farrelly and Mert Tozlu would soon fall in fifth and fourth place, and when only three remained, things would prove to get really exciting.

Not after many smaller, not too significant hands, Eugene Okane and Geoff McClay clashed preflop. They had an ace each, but McClay had the superior kicker and took down a gigantic pot. At this stage, McClay held maybe 7,500,000 of the roughly 10,000,000 chips in play.

Being the overwhelming chip leader at this point, McClay suggested a deal to his two competitors. William White seemed familiar with ICM as he immediately opened up his calculator app and presented a suggestion to Okane and McClay. The deal was deemed fair, and soon, McClay could be crowned the champion. He received the trophy and €15,000.

See all the payouts below: