One of the most popular low-stakes tournaments of the Irish Poker Open is the €350 Heads-Up Championship Event and it once again sold out the 128-entry bracket to generate a prize pool of €38,490. Four rounds were played on the first day to reach the sweet sixteen and secure a €1,000 min-cash and the 2023 Irish Open Main Event champion David Docherty was the last player to bust thereafter.
Fast forward to April Fools Day, three rounds were scheduled for the final tournament day with eight players returning to their seats. They had all locked up €2,000 for their efforts and Darren Taylor was the first player to advance after winning a flip with pocket tens against the ace-king of Chris Ruprecht. Taylor then returned to his seat on the final table of the Mixed 8-Game Championship High Roller but became the first casualty.
In the semi-final round, Taylor quickly fell to a major chip deficit in the first two levels and pushed for 216,000 at blinds 6,000-12,000 with the . Jedrzej Gruszczynski called with the and came out on top of the board.
The second semi-final between Stanislav Anufriiev and Karri Uusi-Aijo lasted much longer. Anufriiev doubled twice to get back to the starting stack. They were essentially even-steven in the fifth level when his flipped versus and connected with the board.
Level six brought some shenanigans as Uusi-Aijo doubled with queens against ace-jack on a jack-high board before Anufriiev pulled off some magic speech play. On a jack-high turn, he vividly demanded for an ace on the river which came. The bet of the Ukrainian was called and he showed for the turned straight.
Stacks were nearly even in level seven with an average of 20 big blinds and after two hours, they went for a short break. “Very good duel,” Anufriiev said upon return and Uusi-Aijo replied “yes, this is the best so far.”
It eventually had to come to an end, which came when level seven had almost expired. Anufriiev jammed for around 13 big blinds with and Uusi-Aijo called with the superior . The board ran out and Uusi-Aijo booked his seat for the final.
“I need something to eat,” he said and with half an hour to spare, there were some options available with the food trucks outside of the Royal Dublin Society.
After going through all of the heads-up rounds, the final two players have accumulated 1,600,000 in chips and they will recommence at blinds of 10,000-20,000 with a 20-minute level duration. It could be over within one hand or take several hours as every match-up is different.
The final heads-up duel for the €9,810 top prize is scheduled to kick off at 6 p.m. local time and we will be back then to provide updates until a winner has been crowned.
