Poker Face

Date Published: 30-Aug-2007

Not many Galway poker players get the opportunity to compete in the World Series in Las Vegas. Of course, there is always an exception. And his name is Tomás Finneran.

After finishing as the highest ranked PaddyPower.com qualifier in the Irish Open earlier in the year — earning him a plane ticket to the United States — Ballygar native Finneran travelled, with his wife Cait, to the gambling capital of the world to partake in the World Series of Poker in July.

Finneran explained: “I was top PaddyPower player (in the Irish Open) which earned me the free trip to Vegas. PaddyPower would have had about 100 online qualifiers and whoever finished first in the Open out of those received the trip to Vegas.”

Overall, Finneran finished seventh out of the 708 in the 26th Irish Poker Open, a No-Limit Hold’ em tournament, at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin in April. At one stage, it looked as if he might just bag the ultimate prize of €650,000.

However, when…..