Celtic Card Crusher: Marc Macdonnell Hunting at Hard Rock after Million-Dollar Score

By Sean Chaffin

It’s certainly been a nice month for Marc Macdonnell. The 31-year-old from Dublin, Ireland, is fresh off a third-place finish in the $5,300 Main Event at the partypoker Caribbean Poker Party in Baha Mar for $1 million. He’s also among the remaining players here at the WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open and hoping to keep that heater going.

The Seminole Hard Rock has been good to Macdonnell, and was the location of another nice score for the Irishman. In August, he won a $1,100 No Limit Hold’em tournament for $119,465 as part of the Big 4.

With several other major cashes and final table finishes, Macdonnell now has almost $3 million in live tournament winnings.

This year alone, Macdonnell has almost $1.6 million in winnings after earning more than $657,000 in 2017. A large chunk of those earnings came as the result of a fourth-place result in the Season XVI L.A. Poker Classic (pictured).

Part of his route to poker success came the way that many players got into the game.

“I didn’t like what I was doing in college,” he says. “I was studying marketing and then business management, and I didn’t like it.”

More poker followed and he decided to give it a shot full-time. So far, the plan has worked out well. In 2015, he notched his first six-figure score at the World Series of Poker, finishing runner-up in a $1,000 Hyper Turbo event for $155,876.

The poker road has been a nice fit for Macdonnell, who loves to travel and see new places and people. There has been one issue he’s found visiting the U.S.

“The challenge in America is eating decent,” he says about selecting healthy meals and portions. Staying on a healthy diet hasn’t always been easy. “I like it, but that’s a problem.”

The poker scene back in Dublin is nice, he says, with more big PLO cash games than Texas Hold’em. The Irish Open is also a popular series for tournament players. When not at the tables, Macdonnell can be found on the golf course or just hanging out with friends. That includes meeting up with some buddies on the road.

In Season XVI, Macdonnell posed in the winner’s photo of Scott Margereson when he won the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.

“The great part of traveling around,” he says, “is that you get to go visit people living in different places that you don’t get to see every day.”

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