Michel Molenaar Brings the partypoker MILLIONS Main Event Trophy Home to the Netherlands!
Partypoker have delivered many appreciated live poker events during 2023. About a month ago, the partypoker MILLIONS Malta were played at Casino Portomaso, and it was most certainly a very successful event. Last week, it was Ireland’s turn to welcome partypoker with open arms, seeing it was time for the partypoker MILLIONS Irish Poker Festival to kick off. Players and poker enthusiasts were treated with a lot of serious poker action between October 31st and November 5th. With no less than seven bigger key events, the cards flew during the six days, and one tournament that stood out was, of course, the €3 000 MILLIONS Irish Poker Festival Main Event, which eventually saw Dutchman Michel Molenaar claiming the title!
Molenaar Wins It All!
Presumably, Molenaar had a good feeling entering the €700 000 GTD tournament. Hailing from the Netherlands, Molenaar already had an amazing 2023 poker season prior to the event, looking back on some great cashes. He also participated in the Mystery Bounty event in partypoker MILLIONS Malta about a month prior to his Dublin visit where he finished as the runner up.
After a couple days of grinding it out in the €3 000 MILLIONS Irish Poker Festival Main Event – which saw 286 players fighting for glory – Molenaar eventually found himself on the final table with fourth most in chips. Legendary Irish poker player Andy Black also featured in the final nine and it was a final table filled with skillful players, all on the hunt for the €210 000 up top. In fact, seven out of the nine players held the Irish flag, presumably much to the home crowd’s delight.
The final table progressed quickly in the beginning, seeing the three shortest stacks – held by Barry Carson, Oadraig O’Neill and Andy Black – busting out in ninth, eighth and seventh place respectively. After that, Molenaar started to be the dominant one among the remaining players.
The busts kept happening and suddenly, Molenaar found himself Heads Up against Tomas MacNamara. MacNamara is no stranger to the live poker scene and has collected many HendonMob flags since his EPT London cash back in 2008; the scene was set for some serious one-on-one poker action!
Even though Molenaar entered Heads Up play with a considerable chip advantage, MacNamara came to fight and increased his stack slow and steady. Eventually, Molenaar were dealt 3 2 prior to the 452 flop which treated him with a straight flush draw. All the chips went in to the middle and Molenaar hit the flush on the river, leaving MacNamara’s flopped two pair useless. Such, Molenaar took the biggest cash of his career with the €210 000 paycheck, and he can look back on a great poker year!
Irish Poker Festival MILLIONS Main Event Final Table Results:
| 1. |  Michel Molenaar | €210 000 |
| 2. |  Tomas McNamara | €120 000 |
| 3. | Glenn Keogh | €75 000 |
| 4. | Liam Chevalier | €56 500 |
| 5. | Andrew Hedley | €44 000 |
| 6. | Andy Black | €28 000 |
| 7. | Barry Carson | €22 840 |
| 8. | Padraig O’Neill | €18 500 |
| 9. |  Panagiotis Mavritskas | €15 000 |
That’s also a wrap for the partypoker live tour in 2023. As previously stated, they’ve hosted multiple events and they have all been very successful. We can’t wait for them to be back 2024, treating poker players with more life-changing live poker experiences!
