Poker News and Events

Snooker Star Wins Pacific Poker Open

Welsh Snooker star Matthew Stevens has won $500,000 (£260,000) after winning the final of the 888.com Pacific Poker Open. The final of the event was broadcast (pre-recorded) on UK television.

To win the event Stevens had to overcome a field of 108 hopefuls made up of poker professionals, celebrities and online qualifiers. In the final Stevens beat fellow sportsmen, darts champion Phil Taylor and tennis star Yevgeny Kafelnikov into second and third respectively.

The final placings were:

1st - Matthew Stevens (snooker champion)
2nd - Phil Taylor (darts champion)
3rd - Yevgeny Kafelnikov (tennis champion)
4th - Donnacha O'Dea (poker pro)
5th - Graham Smith (wild card entry)
6th - Sean Hogan (online qualifier)

Matthew Stevens is ranked in the world top ten of professional snooker players. In 2000 he won the Benson and Hedges Masters and in 2003 he beat Stephen Hendry to win the UK championship trophy.

Stevens practises intensively, playing five days a week with an extra three to four hours a day practice on top. Despite all his practise on the snooker table, t he Carmarthen potter only started playing on the poker table some 18 months ago.

"It's a dream to win a poker tournament having only been playing for a short time."

Stevens is not the only snooker player to find success at the poker table. Jimmy 'The Whirlwind' White won the Poker Million Masters Championship in 2003, picking up a cool $150,000. Fellow snooker pro Steve Davis also reached the final of the same event, bowing out in 5 th place. However Steve ns is well ahead, having now won the UK 's richest poker tournament.

"I was quietly confident going into the final but if at the start of the tournament you'd have told me I'd be winning it, I'd have thought you were barmy."

Steve ns has since gone on holiday to New York to spend some of his winnings