Poker Pro Fintan Hand Claims That He Can Be the Conor McGregor of Cards

Irish eyes have been smiling this week in the poker world as all eyes focused on the PokerStars Festival Dublin, with one man – Fintan Hand - vowing to put his country on the poker map by sporting a shamrock suit at the world’s top tournaments, naming MMA star Conor McGregor as the inspiration behind his idea.

“The thing I just love about Conor McGregor,” says Hand, “is how unapologetically Irish he is. He never tries to shy away from it — he’s always walking out with the tricolour,” adding that “If I ever make any big final tables, I’ll be rocking my shamrock suit and everyone will know exactly where I’m from!”

The newly-named PokerStars ambassador is half-excited, half-embarrassed about his ‘Notorious’ comments, tweeting…

…but his new bosses will be pleased to have some positive, or at least interesting, news to share around, his Team Pokerstars bio soon picking up on the Irishman’s McGregor comments: ‘Racking up a huge following on Twitch, reaching the final table of the Irish Open in his home town, and achieving the dream of becoming a Team PokerStars Online player, are just a few of his self-professed career highlights so far. But the man from Dublin has even loftier ambitions and wants to emulate countryman and idol, Conor McGregor, by putting Ireland on the map…in poker at least.’

Although he admits that, “I’m never going to hit Conor McGregor levels or anything like that," reaching final tables isn’t too far a stretch of the imagination for the Dubliner who learned poker at a very early age.

“My mum literally taught me five-card draw when I was about four or five years old,” Fintan told reporters, adding that, “The game that I play professionally I didn’t discover until I was 15 or 16 — just playing in school with friends. We used to play for €2 every lunchtime."

It wasn’t Hand’s intention to become a poker pro, saying:

“Poker was never something I wanted to do. Not that I didn’t want to do it, but I was never like, ‘This is going to be my job’. I just really, really enjoyed playing it. When I turned 18, I started playing in the Fitzwilliam Casino in Dublin and then I worked there for a couple of years.”

The Fitzwilliam Casino is home to a fair few interesting characters on the Irish poker scene, German-Irish poker vlogger Christin Maschmann describing her own poker adventures from the comfort of the Dublin cardroom recently.

 For Hand, the decision was made “When I started making more money playing than I was working, I just decided to give it a bash,” he says, although he’ll have to wait a while longer to don his shamrock suit and challenge McGregor for top Irishman…