| Level 36: | 400,000/800,000/800,000 |
| Entries: | 1/411 |
| Prizes: | €51,375 |
Towards the tail end of Day 2 of the PartyPoker Tour Cork €150 Mini Main Event, Andrew Durkan was involved in a barely believable hand where he was seconds away from elimination with 21 players left.
In a three-way pot on a ten-high board, Durkan jammed the turn over a bet from Alex Aubrey. Michal Plichta check-jammed from the small blind, and Aubrey got his chips into the middle with the covering stack.
Durkan flipped over aces, and Plichta must have been certain he was ahead when he turned over a set of fours. Aubrey, however, had top set tens.
Durkan and Plichta were stunned, and Durkan was up out of his chair. With a crowd gathered around the table, the dealer revealed a miracle ace on the river to make it three sets, and Durkan exploded with delight in celebration, scarcely able to comprehend the outcome himself, clapping and shouting “Yes! Come on, come on!” repeatedly.
The hand vaulted Durkan into the chip lead, and although he later relinquished that position, he still finished Day 2 third in chips.
Less than 24 hours later, Durkan was standing with his first live poker trophy, having banked a total of €8,600, after a heads-up deal with Trevor Dineen left only the destination of the trophy and the final €1,500 of the prize pool undecided.
A topsy-turvy heads-up battle ensued, but Durkan eventually prevailed.
PartyPoker Tour Cork €150 Mini Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 |  Andrew Durkan | Ireland | *€8,600 |
| 2 | Trevor Dineen | Ireland | *€7,000 |
| 3 | David Murray | Ireland | €4,125 |
| 4 |  Marcin Rejmak | Poland | €3,175 |
| 5 | Robert Dixey | Ireland | €2,400 |
| 6 |  Henry Owen | United Kingdom | €1,825 |
| 7 | Ross O’Donovan | Ireland | €1,450 |
| 8 | Paul Hazon | Ireland | €1,200 |
| 9 | Zeik Tuit | Ireland | €1,000 |
(*Denotes heads-up deal)
Winner’s Reaction
Durkan was delighted to be standing with his first live poker trophy, and when asked how it felt to be a PartyPoker Tour champion, he responded “It feels great, it’s my first ever proper poker trophy and I can’t wait to go home and show my girlfriend, send a picture to my brother and my mother. That ace on the river in Day 2, holy sh*t! That’s why we play poker, for moments like that, thank you Barry Greenstein!”
Asked about the key moments at the final table, Durkan said “Yeh I knocked out the short-stack first hand, and got lucky to have blind on blind queens versus jacks, to be honest everything went really smooth. I’m not sure I really lost a hand until three-handed.
I won two big pots off Dave three-handed, no really hard decisions, it was a nice sweet run, sort of as well as you can hope it can go!”
On the heads-up battle with Dineen, one of Ireland’s finest, Durkan said “We were trading back and forth, and once it hit 400/800k it was going to have to go. It wasn’t a huge amount of money after the deal, but I didn’t care about that, I really wanted that trophy, so I just told myself ‘do what you have to do to get it’.”
Durkan was jumping straight into the Main Event satellite, and vowed “If I get a ticket in this satellite, I’m bringing my girlfriend out for a 400 euro steak!”
Final Day Recap
The final table saw Robert Dixey start with a significant lead over David Murray and Durkan, with Irish poker stalwarts Zeik Tuit and Dineen among the short stacks.
Action erupted early in a frantic start to play, with three eliminations in the first 15 minutes. In the first hand, Tuit moved all in from the cutoff with a superior ace to caller Durkan, but the champion turned two pair.
In the next hand, Dineen doubled through Dixey, and the runner-up secured the knockout of Paul Hazon immediately after, vaulting him from short stack to chip leader in record time.
In a breathless first ten hands, short-stack Ross O’Donovan proceeded to jam from the cutoff into Dixey’s pocket kings to exit in seventh.
Action slowed down for a brief period, before Marcin Rejmak took a big chunk out of Dixey with a dominating ace, to set the scene for another pair of rapid knockouts. Henry Owen jammed from the small blind with jacks into big blind Durkan’s queens, and Dixey followed him out the door when Dineen set a trap in another blinds confrontation.
Around 20 minutes later, Rejmak’s title dreams went up in smoke in successive hands, including having queens cracked by Murray’s solitary overcard, while Durkan picked up the crumbs.
Three-handed, Dineen was in the lead and Durkan was last, but the victor doubled when behind against Murray blind on blind.
The champion proved to be Murray’s kryptonite, as Durkan put Murray in the blender and forced a river fold, who then paid off Durkan’s river raise shortly after with the nut flush.
Murray was left short, and Dineen finished him off. Durkan and Dineen were almost level for the final duel, and after a couple of hands of heads-up play, they looked at the ICM numbers, with Durkan slightly ahead.
A deal was agreed whereby the champion banked €7,100 and Dineen €7,000, with the players left to battle for the trophy and the final €1,500 of the prize pool.
Both players were at risk at various points during the 90-minute contest that followed, but Durkan ultimately sealed victory, and will need to make room on his mantlepiece to mark his first live win.
PartyPoker Tour Cork €150 Mini Main Event Full Results
The full results for the event are detailed below:
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Andrew Durkan | Ireland | *€8,600 |
| 2 | Trevor Dineen | Ireland | *€7,000 |
| 3 | David Murray | Ireland | €4,125 |
| 4 | Marcin Rejmak | Poland | €3,175 |
| 5 | Robert Dixey | Ireland | €2,400 |
| 6 | Henry Owen | United Kingdom | €1,825 |
| 7 | Ross O’Donovan | Ireland | €1,450 |
| 8 | Paul Hazon | Ireland | €1,200 |
| 9 | Zeik Tuit | Ireland | €1,000 |
| 10 | Wai Hang Wong | Ireland | €850 |
| 11 |  Andre Barbosa | Brazil | €850 |
| 12 | Aidan Connolly | Ireland | €700 |
| 13 | Kevin McDonnell | Ireland | €700 |
| 14 | Kieran O’Riordan | Ireland | €575 |
| 15 | Ian Lemass | Ireland | €575 |
| 16 | Anthony Falvey | Ireland | €475 |
| 17 | Niall Farrell  | United Kingdom | €475 |
| 18 |  Jamie Staples | Canada | €475 |
| 19 | Alex Aubrey | Ireland | €475 |
| 20 | Aidan Foley | Ireland | €475 |
| 21 | Michal Plichta | Ireland | €400 |
| 22 | James Morrissey | Ireland | €400 |
| 23 | Paul Hempseed | United Kingdom | €400 |
| 24 | Curtis Harrison | United Kingdom | €400 |
| 25 | Boris Sercken | Ireland | €400 |
| 26 | Lewis Henderson | United Kingdom | €400 |
| 27 | Kevin Brzozowski | United Kingdom | €400 |
| 28 | Farid Fawzi | Ireland | €350 |
| 29 | Alan Stanton | Ireland | €350 |
| 30 | Wayne O Donnell | Ireland | €350 |
| 31 | James Clancy | Ireland | €350 |
| 32 | Stuart Zheng | Ireland | €350 |
| 33 | Alan Reilly | Ireland | €350 |
| 34 | Richie Nugent | Ireland | €350 |
| 35 | Brian Downey | Ireland | €325 |
| 36 | Annette O’Carroll | Ireland | €325 |
| 37 | Jamie O’Riordan | Ireland | €325 |
| 38 | Cameron Soane | United Kingdom | €325 |
| 39 | Ryan Keating | Ireland | €325 |
| 40 | John Power | Ireland | €325 |
| 41 | Mark Allen | Ireland | €325 |
| 42 | Craig Burke | Ireland | €325 |
| 43 |  Hassan Adan | Norway | €325 |
| 44 | John Carr | United Kingdom | €325 |
| 45 | Paul Tinsley | Ireland | €325 |
| 46 | Matt Bell | Ireland | €325 |
| 47 | Shawn Jose | Ireland | €325 |
| 48 | Donal Kenneally | Ireland | €300 |
| 49 | Tadhg Ryan | Ireland | €300 |
| 50 | Kieran Murphy | Ireland | €300 |
| 51 | Conor Flynn | Ireland | €300 |
| 52 | Haki Bejko | Ireland | €300 |
| 53 | David Harris | Ireland | €300 |
| 54 | Colin Horgan | Ireland | €300 |
| 55 | Paul Walsh | Ireland | €300 |
| 56 | Chris Jeffery | Ireland | €300 |
| 57 | David Nolan | Ireland | €300 |
| 58 | Jader Lindemayer | Brazil | €300 |
| 59 | Daniel Ryder | United Kingdom | €300 |
| 60 | Ross Whitelaw | United Kingdom | €300 |
| 61 | Hugh Desmond | Ireland | €300 |
| 62 | Dion Burns | Ireland | €300 |
| (*Denotes heads-up deal) | |||
poker.pro will be back tomorrow from noon with coverage of Day 1b of the Main Event, while we will bring you up to date with all of the action from Day 4 in our daily recap before then, so stay tuned for all your coverage of the PartyPoker Tour Cork!
