The first ever World Poker Tour event in Dublin, Ireland, has gone to Brit David “Dubai” Shallow, who fought his way past the 337 other entrants to nab the title and $289,031 first place prize. In addition to the cash and recognition, Shallow also leaves Dublin with a seat at the WPT World Championships worth $25,000. This is by far the biggest win of Shallow’s career, and it makes up the vast majority of his $325k career tournament earnings.
Shallow entered the final table with a stunning chip lead– enough so that his eventual victory doesn’t come as an overwhelming surprise. He held over 60% of the chips in play when the final table began, holding 5 times as many as Steve Watts, who started with 1,600,000, and around 8 times as many as Ronan Gilligan, who started with the least chips at 775,000. The other two players at the final table were Patrik Vestlin with 1,100,000 and Charles Chattha in fourth place with 835,000. While poker is certainly anyone’s game, a spread like that is certainly a challenge for any player to overcome, and Shallow entered the final table confident and collected. While the final table should have had six players, Shallow’s elimination of both Steven Moreau and Shaun Conning on the last hand the day before meant a short-handed final table.
Shallow struggled at first during final table play, letting his chip stack dwindle to under 4.5 mil as he doubled up both Gilligan and Vestlin. Gilligan took advantage of his increase in chips and took on Steve Watts. Watts went all in with a pair of tens against Gilligan, who was holding out for an outside straight. The river gave Gilligan Broadway and another 1,130,000 chips and sent Watts to the rail as the first player out of the final table with $51,063. Vestlin would be out next, taking home $68,396, and he was also eliminated by Gilligan, who became the chip leader after eliminating two players during the first hour of final table play.
Gilligan continued the aggressive play that had served him so well early in the match, but when he called Shallow’s all-in on a hand that could easily go either way, he found that his luck had run out. Shallow knocked Gilligan out in third and vaulted to 7,280,000 chips as heads-up play began against Chattha, who held 2,860,000.
Just as Gilligan’s overconfidence bit him when he went up against Shallow, Shallow’s confidence and secure position caused him to make some less than ideal choices during the heads-up play, and at one point, he and Chattha were almost even in chips. Shallow made a few gains, and then the final hand happened: Shallow was sitting on pocket Queens while Chattha had pocket 9s. Shallow raised before the flop, and after raise and a re-raise, Chattha went all-in. Shallow called, and the flop came down K-K-2 with an 8 and 3 on the turn and river. All in all, the final table was over in under three hours, and David Shallow is the newest WPT title holder, and the first winner of a WPT Ireland main event!
The next World Poker Tour event will be in Venice, Italy, in early February.