That’s a wrap here from Event #15 €350 Irish Open PLO 6-Max – Single Re-Entry – Championship, and we have a Scandinavian winner. Actually, it wasn’t a wrap but a flopped full house in the four-card variant that handed the victory to Toivo Rinne. He was part of a four-way deal with The Hendon Mob Championship finalist Alexandros Dimogiorgis, Robin Panholzer and Alan Dillon, who all agreed to ICM numbers and left the Irish Open trophy and €4,000 up for grabs for the eventual champion.

From there on, the pace picked up a lot and it didn’t take long to crown a winner. Rinne actually triumphed twice that day because he was also the recipient of a free trip to Malaga. During the 2024 Irish Open at the Royal Dublin Society, main sponsor PokerStars is running a promotion every day and gives away tickets to the inaugural UKIPT Malaga, which takes place from June 10 to 16. In the first break of the Main Event, a table was chosen at random and that happened to be the one in the PLO Event.

Rinne was up against four opponents in the crazy pineapple hand with the mighty nine-six off suit, up against three flush draws and one pair with straight draw. He spiked the off-suit seven on the river and was quite happy to have a vacation-poker trip for himself and the girlfriend locked up. From there on, he also ran very well at the tables and cruised to victory.

Toivo Rinne

The tournament drew a total of 283 entries and the entire prize pool of €85,537 was distributed on the final day, as 44 players returned to their seats and the top 41 spots were paid. Gavin Ryan ended up as the bubble boy, which allowed other notables such as book author Barry Carter, Jamie Flynn, and Symeon Alexandridis to lock up a cash prize.

WSOP Europe PLO bracelet winner Helmut Phung bowed out prior to the final three tables and the UK’s Richard “Chufty” Ashby, who also has a WSOP bracelet and Circuit ring to his name, fell soon after in 14th place. Kieran Lynch knocked out start-of-the-day chip leader Jie Zheng to jump into the top spot only to see his aggressive playing style end with an eighth place finish after doubling Rinne.

The unofficial final table of the final seven had four players within two big blinds atop the leaderboard, while Dermot Flanagan was the shortest stack. Flanagan couldn’t climb out of the hole and he was then followed by Matteo Ferrari as well as Eoghan Rogers.

The Final Four In the PLO

Each of the final four wanted to have a shot at the fancy Irish Open trophy despite the deal in place and Rinne soon soared to a big lead. He would only relinquish it for a few moments but then knocked out Panholzer before also defeating Dillon in a single hand of heads-up play.

Official Final Table Result

PlaceWinnerCountryPrize (in EUR)
1Toivo RinneFinland€15,012
2Alan DillonAustria€8,530
3Robin PanholzerAustria€9,200
4Alexandros DimogiorgisGreece€9,020
5Eoghan RogersIreland€4,565
6Matteo FerrariItaly€3,540
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