Just one week after Senseis Channing and Persaud selected their latest Blue Belts, one of Black Belt Poker’s finest students, James Mitchell, last night became the 2010 Irish Open Champion, taking home the coveted title and big, comedy cheque worth €600,000.
Heading into the final table, James lay third in chips with 1,115,000 and enjoyed a relatively good seat position with the two bigger stacks sitting to his right. But despite this, James managed to get his stack in early doors against Declan Connolly, A-9 in all sorts of bother against pocket jacks. A bullet-less board and James’ stack had been dissected in half.
Luckily, this was just a minor blip for the 20-year old Londoner, as moments later he doubled up himself, A-5 outdrawing the pocket eights of Connolly for a fortunate, but welcome revenge. Then, soon after, James’s fortune continued as he eliminated Peter Murphy in eighth, K-T suited outdrawing Big Slick when a 10 hit the flop.
After such a turbulent start, James took somewhat of a back seat, watching graciously as Connolly, Edmund Sweeney, Ben Roberts and Paddy Power Sole Survivor Rob Sherwood finished seventh to fourth respectively. This left James, Paul Carr and Santeri Valikoski three-handed, all on similar stacks.
At this point, it really was anyone’s game, but Valikoski began to slide downhill quicker than a lard-coated eel, and with just several hundred thousand pushed all in from the button with Ts-5s, only to be picked off by James’s Kc-3h. An eventful Jc-7h-5c-7c-Ks board and the Finn was gone.
If onlookers thought the action had been entertaining up until now, they hadn’t see nothing yet as heads-up produced an epic seesaw encounter for the ages. With 3.7 to James’s 3.1 million, Carr had the slight edge and seemed to have the better of his opponent as he overbet pots and continually put James to a decision for his whole stack. Drummed down to 2.3 million, James made his move, getting it all in with Ac-9c versus As-6d. The Kd-Qc-3d-Tc-6c board was deceptive, but favoured James who once again regained the lead.
After Carr doubled up with A-A versus K-5o, it really looked like the local hero would be taking gold, and when he picked up queens against James’s A-6 suited, engravers were beginning to inscribe Carr’s name on the trophy. However, poker’s a “funny ol’ game”, and despite the most harmless of flops (3d-9d-Kc), the 7h turn was followed by a dramatic ace from space (Ad) which had the homegrown fans climbing the walls, and the travelling supporters erupting like Mount Vesuvius. Nobody in the room could quite believe what they’d seen.
But once the commotion had settled down, it was James who once again had his man by the short and curlies, and despite a dogged performance and never-say-die attitude that would make Rocky look like a wimp, Carr finally succumbed with Qs-5d versus Ah-8h, all in on a Jc-Jd-8c flop, the 4s turn and 8s river giving James a full house for victory.
As James soaked up the spotlight, he looked more startled than anyone, but it wasn’t a dream, Black Belt Poker’s James Mitchell was indeed the 2010 Irish Open Champion and had echoed the achievements of Neil Channing from two years prior. A man of few words, James said a few thank yous whilst commended runner-up Carr, who he confessed had the better of him heads-up.
Everyone at Black Belt Poker would like to offer James our congratulations. 20-years of age and from London, England, James was a former Grader who just missed out on becoming a member of the Vegas 8, but re-emerged later in the year to become only the second ever player to work his way up to Brown Belt status after earning winning points from his second place finish in the 2009 World Heads-Up Championships. This, however, is by far his biggest win, and we couldn’t be happier for him. Well done, sir, we tip our proverbial hat to you.
1st James Mitchell -- €600,000
2nd Paul Carr -- €312,600
3rd Santeri Valikoski -- €205,200
4th Rob Sherwood -- €163,300
5th Ben Roberts -- €130,600
6th Edmund Sweeney -- €100,800
7th Declan Connolly -- €75,000
8th Peter Murphy -- €56,300
9th Yann Dion -- €37,700
image of courtesy of Anne Laymond
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