Betfair Poker Player Wins $44,000 at the GSOP

Grand Series of Poker VIII / Matthew Pitt / 19 October 2011 / Leave a Comment

When he is not grinding out $50+ rebuy and freezeout tournaments in cyber space, Macdonnell loves to play live, saying he will play any decent tournament that is hosted in Dublin and he recently took part in the Betfair Poker Live Dublin Main Event

The hugely popular Grand Series of Poker may be resigned to the history books but for one man it is still very fresh in his memories and his heart because he took down Event #15 the $200 No Limit Hold'em Cubed and boosted his bankroll by a wallet-bursting $44,000. We caught up with him and asked him and thought it would be a good idea to give a little insight into this rising star.

Marc Macdonnell of Ireland is better known as sluglife in online poker circles but that name was taken on Betfair Poker so when he signed up, just before the GSOP festival, he chose "chickenIMO" purely because his "mates had been chirping at me for how much I loved chicken," explained Macdonnell. Like many players of his generation, Macdonnell started playing poker during his final year of school, which progressed to playing €1/€2 pot limit Hold'em cash games, despite being massively under-rolled for them. " I didn't have a clue about bankroll management or anything and when I did hear about it I just ignored it as it seemed no where near as fun to go back to playing $5 SNG online. After a while with many ups and downs became friends with a lot of the top young Irish players and things have just gone from there."

One of Macdonnell's friends is Eoghan O'Dea who has reached the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event that takes place in just a couple of weeks time. Macdonnell is flying out to Sin City with a bunch of his other friends in support of O'Dea and admits that this latest win could come in handy because the trip could become very expensive! You may notice I said latest win, that is because Macdonnell took down the PartyPoker $200,000 Guaranteed tournament in July for just short of $50,000, money he is going to use for travelling expenses and to reinvest into his bankroll.

When he is not grinding out $50+ rebuy and freezeout tournaments in cyber space, Macdonnell loves to play live, saying he will play any decent tournament that is hosted in Dublin and he recently took part in the Betfair Poker Live Dublin Main Event. "I played Betfair Live but busted fairly early. There was one other aggressive player on the table and he just got the better of me on the day. I liked the tournament in general though, a lot of the live tournaments are absurdly slow and this one was faster." Macdonnell now plans to play at GSOP Prague in December and you could too with out online qualifiers that start at just $1.05!

We asked Mr Macdonnell what advice he would give to up and coming players and he said the he thinks every player should stick to bankroll management and study the game as much as they can. He also says that if you are a tournament player you should bide your time when you are short-stacked because he often sees players "lose a big pot then just shove in the next available opportunity with any bag of spanners." Sound advice from the Irishman.

So keep an eye out for the moniker "chickenIMO" at the Betfair Poker tables and the name Marc Macdonnell in future live events. Congratulations Marc, everyone at Betfair Poker wishes you continued success at the virtual and real felt!

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