Paul Dooley today became the IWF Sole Survivor and won a €20,000 package by outlasting the 61 other players who were Paddy Power Poker online qualifiers at the Irish Winter Festival of Poker.  Dooley also picked up a €22,400 prize for finishing in 7th place in the Irish Masters itself, so won a total of €42,400 over the weekend.  The 37-year old Tipperary man is a well-known player, whose most significant result was finishing 8th in the Paddy Power Irish Poker Open in 2007, winning €50,000.

The Irish Winter Festival’s main event, the Irish Masters, is a three-day tournament costing €1,650 to enter; it kicked off on Saturday 24th October in Citywest Hotel with 398 players.

The Irish Winter Festival Sole Survivor promotion was created solely for players who qualified for the Irish Masters via Paddy Power Poker’s online satellites. Each online qualifier was automatically entered into the Sole Survivor promotion; all they needed to do was outlasted all other online qualifiers in the Irish Masters to win a €20,000 package. Whether the Sole Survivor finished 1st or 200th in the Irish Masters tournament did not matter, so long as he became the last Paddy Power Poker online qualifier standing – a competition within a competition exclusively for the Paddy Power Poker players!

Interest in the IWF Sole Survivor promotion peaked on Monday evening when the final table was reached, as two of the final nine players were eligible to win the €20,000 package. However, fellow Paddy Power Poker qualifier John Cassidy just missed out on the IWF Sole Survivor title by being knocked out in 9th place, when his Ace-King was unable to outdraw Igor Kurganov’s pocket aces.