Anderson Ireland Wins $1,500 PLO Bounty for First Bracelet and $141K

Anderson Ireland’s initial journey to the World Series of Poker started out as a catastrophe. The New Orleans citizen appeared for his first-ever WSOP and took a shot at the Main Event. Ireland has been playing cash game in his spare time the past few years. He came out to Las Vegas for the main event, and when he was knocked out of that tournament he decided to take a shot at this event.

The 27-year-old tour manager Ireland defeated 833 entries and won his first bracelet and the top prize of $141,161. In spite of having less than a year of experience of pot-limit Omaha, and not a solitary money on his resume, the music manager beat bracelet winner Matt O’Donnell in a heads-up fight that lasted for 4.5 hours and saw a number of lead changes.

“I’ve been working on it for a little while. I’ve been playing pot-limit Omaha for eight months now,” said Ireland. “I had some excellent teachers teach me the hard way – by taking my money. They’ll know who they are. I felt very confident the whole way through, too. It seemed very natural. It’s just such a better game than Texas hold’em.”

Ireland came into the final day in second chip position with 10 players remaining. He knocked out Jonathan Thomas in seventh place ($16,937) and then he finished off Chu in fifth place ($31,203) after that he eliminated Joon Park in third ($61,013). Ireland started heads-up play against O’Donnell with a 2-to-1 chip lead.  In the end the last chips went in on a 1042 board, with O’Donnell holding the KJ74 up against Ireland’s KQQ9. The turn brought the 10 and the river the 8, securing the pot for Ireland. O’Donnell took home $87,198 as the runner-up.

Official Final Table Results: