Not everyone who has made it to the EPT Grand Final has had to fork out the full €10,000 for their entry. Some players have managed to get in for absolutely nothing. One such player is Ian Farrell, with whom I shared a taxi from Nice airport to the hotel in Monte Carlo. Farrell won the last UK and Ireland freeroll tournament on PokerStars beating around 700 other players to claim one of the very last seats in the tournament.
The joy, however, is slightly bitter-sweet for Farrell who is a huge fan of the football (or soccer to our non-European viewers) team Manchester City. Farrell attends every single home game but because of his satellite win, he'll be missing a match for the first time in about 20 years. In fact, he was such a die-hard fan that last year, when they had an away game in the Faroe Islands, Farrell was one of a group of about seven fans who attempted to hire a trawler to take them from the Shetland Island across the North Sea to the game.
His poker talent should not be doubted either, last year he freerolled his way into a tournament in England and ended up finishing second for £33,075.
