Dara “Doke” O’Kearney

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Former Irish international ultra-runner turned poker pro, Dara O’Kearney aka Doke is known for being a lot of things. A Satellite Beast. A Short Stack Jedi. David Bowie’s mate. The Oldest Internet Poker Kid. 2nd.

While Dara does have a lot of 2nds on his résumé, he actually has far more wins, evidenced by his 8 Pocket Fives Triple Crowns. In fact, he notched up his first victory in his very first live poker tournament when he won €47,000 at the 2008 European Deepstack.

Back in 2007, on his very first night playing online, Dara won $151 in a freeroll and ran it up without ever depositing a cent. Today, he is Ireland’s biggest online winner (with over $2.5 million lifetime profit) and most cashed live player (199 cashes, 70 final tables and 8 wins in 17 different countries). Dara won Super Tuesday in 2013 for $84,000 and final tabled a SCOOP event in 2017 for $39,000 but his biggest result came in 2015 when he narrowly missed out on a bracelet, finishing 2nd at the WSOP (after a headsup chop) for $300,000.

As well as being a player, Dara is a coach, author of two #1 best selling poker strategy books “Poker Satellite Strategy” and “PKO Poker Strategy”, and a very popular blogger. He co-hosts the GPI Award winning Chip Race Poker podcast, the Lock-In on Youtube and he writes a free monthly newsletter on poker strategy. He has also commentated on The Irish Poker Open, The Unibet Open and at the WSOP. Dara became a Unibet Ambassador in March 2017. in 2021 he published “Endgame Poker Strategy: The ICM Book”