Ireland’s James McManus was the big winner of PartyPoker.com’s The Grind promotion, scooping a Mini Cooper S Convertible in the prize draw and a Nintendo Wii when he came sixth at the final table of a Grindroll. If that was not enough, James was already celebrating after winning $52,000 in the famous PartyPoker.com Bad Beat Jackpot just two months before!

Dubliner James, 22, recently finished studying maths at college and intends to work in the finance industry or as a maths teacher - and he’s now got a bumper bankroll to get him going.

“It has been a good couple of months,” said James with great understatement. “I didn’t have many debts but I’ve paid off all that I did have! I intend to use some of the money to build a bankroll for online cash games. I’ve thought about the tournament circuit a bit but I would need a bigger bankroll and I’m happy where I am now.

“I opted to take $40,000 rather than the car. A Mini Cooper S Convertible would be great but I don’t really have the need for it at the moment. I’m looking forward to getting my Wii though. I also won the Bad Beat Jackpot two months ago. I had pocket queens and flopped quads, my opponent had quad nines! They got $104,000 and I got $52,000 and I won the hand! That was brilliant but to win all of this in such a short period of time is fantastic!”

James acknowledged that his maths skills can come in handy in his play but that he had just been on a very, very good run. “It has been going great recently. I normally play 2/4 or 3/6 no limit cash games and the odd tournament. I intend to stick to the same stakes for the time being and build on what I have.”

A PartyPoker.com spokesman said: “To bag a Wii, win a sports car in a draw and pocket $52,000 for flopping quad queens in just two months almost beggars belief, it is unprecedented. James is a great guy but it almost seems that someone is out there looking out for him!

“The Grind promotion featured $100,000-worth of Grindrolls and ran until September 9, 2007. To qualify for Grindrolls, players had to earn at least 25

PartyPoints per day over a three-day period by playing on the site. Once this was achieved they then qualified for the $2,000 Grindroll. The more PartyPoints a player earned in a day, the bigger Grindroll they were entered for. James managed to Grind for five days in each of the two weeks of the promotion and was automatically entered into the prize draw to win the Mini Cooper S Convertible. Other prizes won in Grindrolls included 80 Nintendo Wii’s and 120 80GB video iPods.

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