One of the most important poker festivals that is currently underway is definitely the 2020 Irish Poker Open. This year, it takes place in a bit unusual way, due to the whole coronavirus situation.

• Joao Vieira has won the 2019 World Series of Poker $5,000 six-max no-limit hold’em event. The 29-year-old Portuguese poker pro defeated four-time bracelet winner and 2009 WSOP main event champion.
• Wanting more than just the one bracelet, Vieira has spent years playing every poker variant with the intent of getting better at it. That desire came from hearing an interview with a Poker Hall of Famer. “A cool thing that Barry Greenstein said once was ‘If you’re a true poker player, you play all the games’. I was just starting.

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Much like other live poker festivals, the Irish Poker Open was canceled. However, its organizers decided to proceed with the competition by offering all the events online via partypoker.

Total life earnings: $3,810,652. Latest cash: $42,189 on 06-Sep-2020. Click here to see the details of Joao Vieira's 134 cashes.

The latest event of the 2020 Irish Poker Open that wrapped up was Event #8: €2,100 High Roller. It attracted a total of 154 players, but it was a player from the Netherlands named Joao Vieira who ended up the winner of this competition, defeating the UK’s Simon Higgins in the heads-up play.

The Final Table Action

The event did not take long to get to the final table, which consisted of eight players who were all on the money list. Higgins was the chip leader at the start of this part of the event. He had almost twice as many chips compared to the second-placed Simon Mattsson.

Yet, despite being the second in chips at the start, the Swedish player did not perform well and soon lost his entire stack. Therefore, he had to hit the rail as the second-place player, ending up with a total of €9,240 in his pocket.

As a matter of fact, Higgins was the one who sent him to the rails. He opened, and then Mattsson decided to three-bet from the small blind. Higgins was fast to four-bet, and Mattsson did not hesitate to call his decision with pocket jacks.

It was a brave move from Higgins, who had ace-five offsuit, but the flop landed another ace, giving him an overpair. Mattsson failed to improve on the turn and the river and had to leave the game after that hand.

All that time, Vieira was improving his stack and even managed to reach his first million. However, it was Higgins who continued to eliminate players, including Juha Helppi and Guntis Aleskins.

That way, he made sure that he was still the chip leader during the final table. Helppi earned €11,642, and Aleskins ended up with a total of €14,630 in his pocket.

Then, it was time for Joao Vieira to strike again, as he managed to achieve double elimination. He had an ace-king against king-three from Elliot Smith and pocket queens from Wilhelm Isaak.

However, Vieira managed to river a flush, and both players were sent to the rail. Smith earned a total of €18,480, and Isaak ended up with €26,180.

The last player to hit the rail before the heads-up was Aaron Vanblarcum, who earned €36,960 for his achievement.

The hand that decided it all during the heads-up play was the one where Vieira managed to make the nut flush on a river that paired the board. Higgins made a bet, Vieira decided to raise.

At that point, Higgins decided to go all in, and Vieira took some time to respond. Nevertheless, he did it, sending Higgins to the rail. Vieira won €70,809 for the victory, whereas Higgins ended up with €50,820.

This concluded yet another event of the 2020 Irish Poker Open online. The main event is currently underway, and there’s a lot of great action there.

Joao Vieira has won the 2019 World Series of Poker $5,000 six-max no-limit hold’em event. The 29-year-old Portuguese poker pro defeated four-time bracelet winner and 2009 WSOP main event champion Joe Cada heads-up after outlasting a record field of 815 entrants. For the win, he earned his first gold bracelet and the top prize of $758,011. The massive score brought Vieira’s lifetime live tournament earnings to more than $3.3 million.

“In Portugal we say that the finals are meant to be won. As soon as you get heads-up, it doesn’t matter if it’s Joe Cada, John Doe… it doesn’t matter,' said Vieira. 'At that point I’m just trying to compete, trying to do the best I can. I made a big hand right away, and as soon as I took the lead, I tried to close the deal.”

In addition to the money and the bracelet, Vieira was also awarded 1,824 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This was Vieira’s first title and fourth final-table finish of the year. The win was enough to see him climb into 23rd place in the 2019 POY race, which is sponsored by Global Poker.

Vieira came into the final table of this prestigious event as the chip leader, having held the top spot on the leaderboard since late on day 2 of this four-day tournament. It took only two hands for the first elimination to take place. WSOP bracelet winner Barry Hutter got the last of his short stack in with second pair, only to find he had run into the top pair of Jamie O’Connor. Hutter hit two pair on the turn to take the lead, but O’Connor prevailed when the river paired the board to counterfeit Hutter. He earned $110,127 as the sixth-place finisher.

O’Connor scored his second knockout of the day when he picked up K-Q in the big blind and called the all-in of short-stacked small blind Olivier Busquet. The World Poker Tour winner was in rough shape, with his K-4 offsuit dominated. Both players flopped a king, but O’Connor’s superior kicker secured him the pot. Busquet hit the rail in fifth place ($154,112).

France’s Pierre Calamusa got his last 12.5 big blinds into the middle with A-7, only to run into the A-K of Vieira. Calamusa was in rough shape, but surged into the lead when the flop came down 874. The 4 on the turn kept Calamusa ahead, but the K on the river gave Vieira the better pair. With that Calamusa busted in fourth place ($219,468), while Vieira strengthened his hold on the top spot of the leaderboard.

Jamie O’Connor finished in third place. He got his chips in with A4 up against the KQ of Vieira. The board ran out 954Q9 to give Vieira a winning pair of queens. O’Connor took home $317,956 for his impressive run in this tournament.

While Vieira had earned the most recent knockout, it was Joe Cada who took the chip lead into heads-up play. It took only a few hands for Vieira to turn the tables, though. He won a sizable pot with a rivered straight to take more than a 2.5-to-1 lead.

In the final hand Vieira raised to 600,000 from the button with AK. Cada three-bet to 1,950,000 holding AQ. Vieira shoved all-in, and Cada called for around 6.3 million total.

The board came down J9675. Vieira’s ace-king high was sufficient to take down the pot and eliminate Cada in second place. The Michigan-based poker pro fell just short of securing his fifth WSOP bracelet but did earn $468,488 for the fifth-largest score of his career.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

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For more coverage from the summer series, check out the 2019 WSOP landing page, complete with a full schedule, results, news, player interviews, and event recaps.

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