There have been some big changes recently in terms of the rankings of the Irish players of online poker, as some fantastic play has gone down to bring a few people higher up the list. When you look at the online tournaments which include players from Ireland, points are awarded according to where in the tournament the player managed to finish, and this gives them their Irish poker rank – just the same way that they also work out their worldwide ranking amongst online poker players in general. There are some great Irish representatives at the moment, as the highest point scoring Irish player comes up sixty fifth in the world.
Jude Ainsworth, known as j.thaddeus on the online tables, is still at the top of the leader board – but that lead has been decreased to less than three hundred points thanks to the efforts of Tomas Geleziunas, known as luckymo32, who has banked a couple of big wins over the recent week in order to claim second place in a very strong manner. Although he is Lithuanian by nationality, he is currently based in Ashbourne, Meath, and thus comes under the Irish poker rankings. He recently took the first place prize of $26,158 in the 888Poker $100,000 Guaranteed Sunday Challenge, which gives him eighty third place in the worldwide rankings. There are a couple of other players to keep an eye on at the moment, too – Paul Allen and Dan Wilson, who have been making progress recently. Allen has had some good results recently in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up, the Sunday Million, Supersonic, and the $109 Turbo 2x Chance. That makes him eighth at the moment in Ireland, but Wilson is right behind him now in ninth thanks to some impressive early year results. These included the PokerStars Big $100, the NL Hold-em 6-Max, and the Sunday Warm Up, boosting him up in the points standings.
The other players in the top ten at the moment include Gavin O’Rourke in second place and ninety seventh in the world, known as gavonater when he plays online, and who is currently the last Irish player to be within the top one hundred places worldwide. After that there is a sharp drop to Kevin Killeen, known as SuitedAcesBaby, who despite his grandiose username has only climbed to number 245 in the worldwide rankings so far. Fifth in Ireland is Steve O’Dwyer, known by the confusing alias of MrTimCaum, and he is followed by Michael BIGMIKG Graydon and Dara Doke O’Kearney. Graydon has seen a trio of top three places recently – second in the $55 Turbo Rebuy at PokerStars, second in the $82 NL Hold-em 6-Max Hyper, and third in the same event on the following night. Ros1987 and NukeTheFish! are our already discussed eight and nine, and following them up to finish out the top ten is Cathal Shine, known as shinerrr. He has a score at the moment of 3164.60, making that the target to beat.