33-year-old Ulsterman Marty Smyth scooped $250,000 after winning the PartyPoker.com World Open IV in London! The 72-runner $8,000 buy-in event offered a total prize pool of $576,000 and featured a strong final table line-up that included man of the moment Neil Channing, recent Manchester GUKPT winner Marc “Mr Cool” Goodwin, Andy “The Spider” Ward, Dixie Dean and Ryan Fronda.

“I’m delighted and very proud,” said Smyth, who won the 2007 Irish Open and has made the final table in the Poker Million the last two years. “With the way Neil is running at the moment he was the last person I wanted to take on heads-up. I hope this sparks a run for me as good as his! I’m so happy to win the trophy and the money will come in handy for Vegas.”

Channing has been on fire in recent months, taking Marty’s Irish Open title in January and leading Great Britain to victory in the PartyPoker.com Poker Nations Cup as well as other impressive results. He also looked the most likely winner to everybody. As well as playing some majestic poker, the man they used to call ‘Bad Beat’ was getting cards when he needed them. “I thought it was my day,” said Channing. “I believed during the final table that if I didn’t win this I would be disappointed and I am. That said, it would have been a bit ridiculous if I managed to take down this title aswell!”

Channing’s ‘sick’ run started in October last year and he went into the heads-up with Smyth leading 995,000 to 405,000. Many thought the writing was on the wall but Smyth clawed his way back and in an epic heads-up that lasted as long as the rest of the heat before it, the Ulsterman drew level making it 700,000/700,000. Many started to fancy Smyth but were convinced that perhaps it was too much to overcome the “goldenballs” of the European poker circuit. Marty wore Neil down and eventually all the money went in the middle. Channing flat called in the small blind with 9h 9c, Smyth came over the top with Qc Qs. Channing pushed all-in and Smyth called. The board 10s 5d 2d Kh Kd brought no help and the PartyPoker.com World Open IV had itself a very popular winner.

First out on the final table was short stack Ryan Fronda, a circuit professional from Hampshire in the UK. All the money went in before the flop with Fronda holding Ad Kd and Dean Ac Kc. With a split pot the big favourite, two clubs came on the flop and one on the river to send Fronda to the rail. Despite busting Fronda, Dean was next out and the damage was done after being crippled by Marc Goodwin, who flopped a set of fives with Dean holding two pair, kings and fives. Dean was finished off after his pocket aces were cracked by Channing’s Ks Qs. Two spades on the flop and a spade on the river ended the dreams of the well supported Dixie. At this point it looked like Channing’s midas touch was continuing prompting Ryan Fronda to comment: “why don’t we all just pack up now and go home?” Next to go was Andy ‘TheSpider’ Ward, a fearsome online player who was playing in his first live event in front of television cameras. Ward departed after his Ah 4h came out worse off against Marty Smyth’s Ac 8c. A board of 9h 2h Qs 5d Ks crushed ‘The Spider’ who had loads of outs. What followed was a number of pots between Channing and Goodwin, with Smyth almost appearing to be a spectator.

The drama reached fever pitch with an unbelievable hand showing how Channing is running at the moment. With the blinds at 7/15, Channing in the small blind limped in with 5 10 off suit. Goodwin checked the big blind with K 5 off suit and the flop unbelievably came down 10 10 10 giving Channing the stone cold nuts with quads. Both players checked the flop and remarkably the turn was KS giving Goodwin a full house. Channing bet $35k, Goodwin made it $70k, and, after checking his cards, Channing went all-in. Goodwin called quickly and was astounded to see what the man with the midas touch had and was sent to the rail in third. Mr Cool was put on ice as the Channing roadshow rolled-on only to be derailed by the excellence of Smyth.

A PartyPoker.com spokesman said: “It would be fair to say that Marty was an extremely popular winner. He’s done European poker a favour by derailing the Channing bandwagon but make no mistake he is one of the finest players on the circuit at the moment.”

Eddie Hearn, Director of Matchroom Sport said: “This was without doubt the strongest field we have seen at the PartyPoker.com World Open and the players certainly didn't disappoint. The standard of play was simply stunning throughout and Marty was a deserved winner. The PartyPoker.com World Open is now firmly established as one of poker’s major titles.”

The event featured a top class field led by ‘Ambassador of Poker’ Mike Sexton and included Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliott, Juha Helppi, Theo Jorgensen, Ian Frazer, Roberto Romanello, Jon Kalmar, Thomas Bihl, Surinder Sunar, John Tabatabai, Christoph Haller, Jan Peter Jachtmann and Liam Flood. Coverage of the Matchroom Sport organised event will be broadcast on Channel 5 in the UK later this year and will be fronted by Jesse May. Last year, 45-year-old former Sidcup betting shop owner Anthony Hardy triumphed over a final table that also featured Ian Cox, Ram Vaswani, David Rudling, Ian Frazer and eventual runner-up Ian Woodley. The winner in 2006 was Pippa Flanders, while in 2005 Lee Nelson won the inaugural event.

The winner of each of the 12 heats progressed to the semi-final stage, and, for the first time in the event's history all was not lost for the runners-up on the table as they battled it out for the remaining two semi-final spots in “last chance” turbo heats. The two unlucky players who missed out on the bubble for the final table were Simon Craig and Andy Greekfish.

PARTYPOKER.COM WORLD OPEN IV – LONDON 25th APRIL – 2ND MAY 2008-05-02

1st - $250,000 – MARTY SMYTH
2nd - $100,000 – NEIL CHANNING
3rd - $60,000 – MARC GOODWIN
4th - $30,000 – ANDY WARD
5th - $25,000 – DIXIE DEAN
6th - $20,000 – RYAN FRONDA

PARTYPOKER.COM WORLD OPEN IV FINAL TABLE CHIP STACKS

444,000 MARTY SMYTH
388,000 NEIL CHANNING
192,000 ANDY WARD
180,000 MARC GOODWIN
120,000 DIXIE DEAN
76,000 RYAN FRONDA