Donal Norton is a young, up-and-coming poker player from Tipperary, Ireland. Norton burst on to the scene in 2008 with a stunning second place finish in the Irish Open, and has picked up two other tournament cashes since.
The poker world sat up and took notice when Donal Norton, a little known player then, put in an impressive performance and took second place in the Eur4,200 main event at the Irish Open held in Dublin in March 2008. While Neil 'Bad Beat' Channing took the win, Norton was the only finalist to pose a challenge to Channing, and in the process, became the crowd favorite at the Citywest Hotel. In his first major tournament outing, Donal Norton, competing with 666 other competitors for a share of the $4,728,952 prize pool, walked away with a cool $662,053.
Following his impressive performance at the Irish Open, Donal Norton played a couple of small tournaments in Dublin, before heading to Manchester, England for the fourth leg of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour held at the Grosvenor Casino in April. Keen to prove that his Irish Open display wasn’t a flash in the pan, Norton came out on top in the £200 No Limit Hold'em side event, beating out 60 competitors to walk away with $8,290 of the $60,524 prize pool. This win also gave Donal Norton entry into the UK Poker Tour’s Champion of Champions exclusive £75,000 No Limit Hold’em event that will take place in December 2008.
In May 2008, Donal Norton headed to Nottingham, England for the Norwegian Poker Championships. One of the 63 competitors in the £100 No Limit Hold'em event, Norton finished a respectable 4th, his lowest finish yet, and took home winnings of $3,520.
Although its still early days in Donal Norton’s professional poker career, his impressive performances have taken him to #10 in the 2008 European Poker Tour Hold’em player rankings and #13 in the overall rankings. Besides the UK Poker Tour’s Champion of Champions tournament, Donal Norton has shown a keen interest in testing his skills at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and has also expressed his intention to participate in the Asian Poker Tour in the future.