Stephen Maguire made it safely through to the Bahrain Championship second round with a 5-3 win over Mark Davis.
Scotland's pre-tournament favourite kept his cool to pull away after being tied at 3-3 with the Sussex outsider.
Michael Judge handed England's Ali Carter, ranked 23 places above the Irish qualifier, a 5-3 defeat.
Northern Ireland's Mark Allen hammered Judd Trump 5-1, Stephen Lee beat Mark King 5-3 while in the second round, Matthew Stevens beat Ryan Day 5-4.
World number two Maguire said: "If I am going to win this I will have to up my game 99%.
"I just obviously potted the right balls at the right time. It was a bit of a slog really. Right from the word go it was a bit of a chore, which is wrong."
Carter, the world number seven, admitted he "wasn't really bothered" by his early exit.
This year's losing World Championship finalist said: "The UK Championship and the Masters are the two that I am focusing on.
"Obviously, I still wanted to win coming here, but my focus is on the other two events."
Stevens was 3-1 and 4-2 up and eventually came through to set up a quarter-final with another Welshman, Dominic Dale, on Thursday.
"It was a strange game," he said. "Neither of us played that well. Both of us made errors which made it an exciting game to watch.
"Ryan was not at his best but it's only a matter of time before he wins a tournament."
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