It took nearly six and a half hours to determine a champion in Event #23 Mixed 8-Game Championship with 23 players returning to their seats for the final day inside of the Royal Dublin Society. A total of 183 entries for €350 each had generated a prize pool of €55,028 which was distributed entirely on the fourth day of the 2026 Irish Open in Dublin.
The hopefuls were required to showcase their talents in eight different poker variants and in the end, Chris Bean and Cory Desmond earned the biggest slice of it. To give a special twist to the story – Bean was actually part of the Irish Open blogger team one year ago and even reported on this very tournament.
“I saw the field [last year] and told myself I want a piece of that!” the Middlesbrough die-hard joked after all was said and done, obviously delighted about his biggest cash in a live poker tournament. He may have to fork out thirty quid for additional hand carry, though, because the trophy is more heavy than it looks like.
Bean and Desmond basically split the €20,900 for the top two spots while Blaise Bourgeois finished in third place. When all was said and done, Bean was on a video call with his family and Bourgeois walked over to drop a fresh pint of Guinness – it is Dublin after all.
When not reporting or playing poker, he is running the BADPokerPodcast along with Dominic Clementson – member of the 2026 Irish Open live reporting team.
“Maybe we gonna change it to Mediocre Poker Podcast now” he joked. But it actually is just the Bean And Dominic initials and not hinting at their skills at the tables whatsoever. An upgrade to the lodging may also be in the cards, because Bean is staying in a hotel near the airport for the time being.
Final Table Result:
1st Place: Chris Bean – €10,450
2nd Place: Cory Desmond – €10,450
3rd Place: Blaise Bourgeois – €5,750
4th Place: Andre Borrmann – €4,400
5th Place: Jim Connelly – €3,400
6th Place: Daniel Efeturk – €2,600
7th Place: Nicolas Bokowski – €2,130
Bean and Desmond started the final day among the larger stacks and Germany’s Nicolas Bokowski was leading the way, having spent most of Day 1 near the top of the leaderboard. Last year’s champion Bill Mawer was also among the returning players but exited early on for a min-cash of €500.
With Amie Martini and Tara Dunn, two female contenders had also advanced to the final day and Dunn was knocked out by Bourgeois in a No-Limit Hold’em hand when her ace-trey was outdrawn by eight-seven suited. The field then raced towards the final two tables after which the action slowed down. One particular hand during that period saw a miracle escape for Bourgeois via runner-runner when the odds were heavily stacked against him.
Randy “Gucci Man” Hagen, finalist of the Big O Championship on the opening day of the festival, missed out on another final table when he bowed out in ninth place and fellow American Ethan Bennett became the next casualty, bringing the field down to the seven-handed final table.
Start-of-the-day chip leader Bokowski lost an early all-in showdown to become even shorter and his run-bad continued, followed by the departures of Daniel Efeturk and Jim Donnelly. Germany’s Andre Borrmann made it all the way to fourth place in his second-ever live poker tournament and the laddering of Bourgeois ended in third. Heads-up play saw Bean win several big bet hands and he was then dealt a nine-six in 2-7 Triple Draw to seal the victory.
This concludes the coverage for this event but the next mixed game contest is already underway with more than 150 entries in the €350 HEROS Championship.
