Marty Smyth is a professional

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

player from

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

with a track record including wins in the 2007

Irish Poker Open The Irish Poker Open is the longest running No Limit Texas hold 'em poker tournament in Europe and second longest in the world after the World Series of Poker. First organised in 1980 by Terry Rogers, a well known Irish bookmaker, the tourna ...

Championship and the 2008

Poker Million The Poker Million has been a televised European poker tournament since its inception in November 2000. The final debuted to 30 million viewers and has since remained popular. It was created by UK gaming outfit Ladbrokes with the help of sports pro ...

. He won his first

WSOP bracelet The World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet is considered the most coveted non-monetary prize a poker player can win. Since 1976, a bracelet has been awarded to the winner of every event at the annual WSOP. Even if the victory occurred before 197 ...

in the 2008 $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship.

Poker career

Marty Smyth has played poker since his early teens. He first discovered Omaha and

Texas hold'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt fac ...

on a weekend trip to a

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

casino at the age of 22. He continued to play regularly, eventually becoming a successful professional player. In March 2008 Smyth signed a sponsorship deal with Irish-based company, Boylepoker.com. Marty was the highest earning European player in 2007 and has since been nominated for two European Poker Awards, Player of the Year 2008 and Best Tournament Performance 2008.

Irish Poker Open

Smyth has placed in the

, Europe's oldest and largest poker tournament,Cardplayer Europe: How the Irish Changed the Face of Poker
/ref> on four occasions. He placed 7th in 2002 and 6th in 2003. In the 2006 event, Smyth placed 15th. He defeated the largest field ever assembled for a European poker tournament when in 2007, he won the €3,300 buy-in event in

. 708 players began the four-day event playing down to the final table. Smyth eventually defeated

Roland De Wolfe Roland De Wolfe is an English professional poker player and a former writer for the poker magazine ''Inside Edge''. After winning first prize in an event at the 2004 Gutshot Poker Festival, De Wolfe went on to cash in the $1,000 No Limit eve ...

in a heads-up encounter Terry Rogers Memorial Trophy and earning €650,000. The event was televised in Ireland on

RTÉ Two (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while ...

and internationally on Challenge.

Poker Million

Smyth competed in the Ladbrokes sponsored

V event in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 2006. He placed 6th on the final table, winning $100,000 in prize money. The event was broadcast on

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

. He also made the final table the following year, finishing 2nd to

Joe Beevers Joseph Charles Beevers (born 9 December 1967 in Marylebone, London) is an English professional poker player and a member of The Hendon Mob. During his lengthy poker career, Beevers became one of the pioneers of poker on television by appearing ...

for $500,000. In 2008, Smyth reached a record-breaking third consecutive final of the event, winning the $1,000,000 first prize.

World Series of Poker

Smyth won the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship on 2 July 2008 winning $859,532. On the final hand on a board of , Smyth made a pot-size bet of 600,000 holding holding a made king-high straight, his opponent

Peter Jetten } Peter Jetten (born March 26, 1985) is a Canadian poker player. Jetten is known for playing online poker under the screen name "Apathy". He has over $9,300,000 in live poker tournament winnings. Personal life Jetten was born in Toronto, Ontar ...

re-raised pot, Smyth then re-raised all-in and was call by Jetten who was holding for the same king-high straight, however Smyth was freerolling on the re-draw to a flush as well as an open-ended straight flush draw, both the King high and the Royal Flush, the turn was a blank, the , but the river brought the giving Smyth the winning flush and the Championship. Marty considers his bracelet win to be his biggest achievement, but highlights the Irish Open title as his most "life-changing".

World Series of Poker Bracelet

As of 2009, his total live tournament winnings exceed $3,700,000. His two cashes at the WSOP account for $863,382 of those winnings.World Series of Poker Earnings
, worldseriesofpoker.com

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smyth, Marty Poker players from Northern Ireland Irish poker players Living people World Series of Poker bracelet winners Irish Poker Open winners Year of birth missing (living people)