Birthday Boy Michel Karim Leads 1B as the €1,150 Main Event Resumes After a Two Day Break
With the PokerStars and Paddy Power sponsored Irish Open Main Event now in full swing, the halls of the Royal Dublin Society welcomed 688 entrants to Flight 1b of the €1,150 Main Event here in the Irish capital. Of the 688 that entered this Flight, only 181 made it through to Day 2 which will take place on Saturday, April 19 at 12 p.m. local time. This takes the total number of entrants to 1,151 over the first two flights.
Leading the pack is birthday boy Michel Karim, who was given a special birthday wish by the tournament director over the intercom during play this evening. Karim bagged 671,500 and holds the overall chip lead for now. He has multiple EPT cashes, the largest of which came in the €1,100 Eureka Main Event in Prague in 2023. He finished 14th for a score of €24,220 and will be looking to add to his total tournament career earnings of $173,955 with a maiden cash in Ireland.
Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michel Karim | Sweden | 671,500 | 224 |
| 2 | Niall Campbell | Ireland | 605,000 | 202 |
| 3 | Joshua Boulton | United Kingdom | 511,000 | 170 |
| 4 | Marius Gicovanu | Romania | 506,500 | 169 |
| 5 | Robert Fluereci | Romania | 467,500 | 156 |
| 6 | Pat Flanagan | Ireland | 429,500 | 143 |
| 7 | Kuljinder Sidhu | United Kingdom | 418,000 | 139 |
| 8 | [Removed:520] | France | 403,000 | 134 |
| 9 | Jaroslaw Wolczyk | Poland | 390,500 | 130 |
| 10 | Patrick White | United States | 383,500 | 128 |
Niall Campbell occupies second place with 605,000. Campbell found himself in an interesting spot later into today's play as he moved all in in a multiway pot featuring Judy Whitlow and Alexandros Kolonias. Whitlow had exposed her hand before Kolonias's turn to act and both players ended up being eliminated by Campbell's pocket tens..
Earlier in the day, he laid that same pair down after the covering stack of Rodney Gorman moved all in to isolate the stack of Craig Connick. Campbell finished 86th at this event last year for €5,460.
Joshua Boulton rounds off the podium places and has a stack of 511,000. He cashed at the Irish Poker Open last year in the € 350 Irish Open 6-Max, finishing 15th for € 1,510. Boulton has also cashed in the Eureka Main Event this past December at EPT Prague, finishing 324th for € 3,130, as well as a 225th finish in the €2,200 Eureka High Roller at the same event for € 3,290. His total tournament earnings currently stand at $604,661.
Other notables returning for Day 2 include: Niclas Thumm (311,500), PokerStars Ambassadors Parker Talbot (267,000), Benjamin Bruneteaux (110,000) and Benjamin Spragg (47,500)
Others that will need to fire again in the upcoming flights include: Alexandros Kolonias, Emad Zarghami, Christopher Brammer and Chris Da-Silva.
The tournament is stack choice so players can choose to try their hands in one of the upcoming flights in order to acquire a bigger stack for Day 2 play.
The next flight will be taking place on Thursday, April 17 at 12 p.m. local time with the same structure featured today.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for continued coverage of all the Main Event which is shaping up to be the biggest tournament ever held in Ireland.