Triple Crowns usually involve tournaments on Full Tilt Poker and/or PokerStars.com. It’s very rare to see a person nab one without a victory on one of the two largest online poker sites in the world, but that’s exactly what Dara DokeO’Kearney (pictured) did last month after wins on PokerStars.fr, Poker770, and PartyPoker. The result was 353 PLB Points and his third Triple Crown, the first one he’s gotten since late 2011.

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“It felt great,” O’Kearney told PocketFives in an exclusive interview about his latest award. “I was actually thinking before that I had won two in 2011, but none since, so it would be great to win another one. I’ve been playing a lot live this year, so felt I had lost a little focus with online, so it’s nice to focus on something other than just money as a motivator.”

He recounted the story of how his Triple Crown without the use of PokerStars’ dot-com site or Full Tilt came to pass: “I basically won the first two tournaments in the same night, so I immediately thought I had a good chance. I just needed a third win and had a whole week to do it. I don’t really play on Full Tilt and mainly just play satellites on Stars, so it was always likely that the third win would come somewhere else.”

PokerStars is the market leader in the online poker industry and is the busiest by a mile, while Full Tilt is the second busiest room in the land. Why doesn’t he placate either site? “I never really got back into the habit of playing on Full Tilt after Black Friday and historically I felt there was more value on other sites than on Stars, although I do like the satellites there and do well in them.”

He won the Bodog $100,000 Guaranteed in mid-2011 for $25,000, his largest tracked cash to date. He has over $800,000 in tracked scores total and is one of two ranked players from the Irish suburb of Clonsilla. The last year has seen O’Kearney concentrate his efforts on satellites: “I was going for UKIPT Online Qualifier of the Year on PokerStars, which I ended up winning, so I was playing fewer tournaments that would be tracked on PocketFives. I also got pretty heavily involved in staking, which ate into my own grind. I have decided recently to scale that back a bit and concentrate more on my own thing.”

As O’Kearney relayed, satellites have become increasingly important for him, so we asked why he has focused on those over other games he has at his disposal: “I have always done very well in them. I think it’s partly more value provided by live players in them trying to qualify for tournaments and not really being accustomed to online poker. Also, with my background in STTs,I understand ICM much better than most MTT players and that’s huge in satellites.”

O’Kearney has been playing poker for the last half-decade and explained, “I’m very consistent in cashing. Despite only playing for five years, I think there are only five or six Irish guys with more lifetime cashes live, but the really big one has eluded me so far.” In 2008, he won the €1,400 European Deep Stack Poker Championship for $70,000.

Like a slew of other people, O’Kearney is currently camped out in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. He traveled to Nevada with two friends – Daragh Davey and Jason Tompkins – and will take part in No Limit Hold’em tournaments as well as the Main Event. “I guess I’ll also play satellites,” he added. “They have one-table satellites that I always do well in.”

He closed by telling us that he was on an Irish poker team that Padraig Parkinson captained. The group won the European Nations Cup in Cyprus in March. He gleaned, “It was a great honor to be selected for the team. Winning was the other highlight of my year so far.”

See who else is making waves in our Ireland poker community.

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