The Irish Poker Open – A Deserved Award Winner?
The Irish Poker Open is the oldest running tournament in European poker. Only the World Series of Poker has a longer history. We sent Roy Brindley to Dublin to sample the atmosphere at this annual event, where he considered all the angles and played a little poker.
With a €250 registration fee, Roy found some value in the Irish Open’s PLO High Roller competition. © brianoheideain/IrishPokerOpen
The Irish Poker Open – A Deserved Award Winner?
At the beginning of 2025, 38 gongs were handed out at the Global Poker Awards. Amongst those was a prize for the Best Stand Alone Festival/Series. The Malta Poker Festival, Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open and Wynn Millions Poker Series were among the nominees. However, the prize went to the Irish Poker Open staged at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS).
As a poker player, the award shocked me. I was a detractor of the 2024 Irish Open, reporting how almost €500,000 in registration fees had been deducted from just one of its 35 tournaments.
So, who votes on the destination of these awards? Presumably, it is not poker players who have a grasp of value. Maybe I’m just miserly or stuck in a time warp whereby I constantly recite my early 2000s visits to the Irish Open when the freezeout Main Event registration fee was €70, and it covered complimentary dinners and drinks throughout the event.
As always, the proof is in the pudding. And so, while avoiding the hypocrisy of competing in the Main Event – where the value involved with playing so-called recreational players may or may not make up for the price of playing – I gave the 2025 Irish Open festival a proper once over.
The “If You Build It” of Poker
Twelve days of action in Europe’s second most expensive city, especially over the Easter weekend, cost players attending all 12 days of the Irish Poker Open nothing short of a King’s ransom. I was lucky; living in the Irish countryside meant I could drive to the RDS – using the third most expensive petrol in Europe – and pay €10 daily to park my car at the venue.
The fabled main event did not start until Day 4 of the proceedings, so surely the massive venue would be nearly empty on Day 1? Wrong. In a scene closely resembling the Terracotta Army stood obediently but battle-ready at the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, over 200 poker tables, lined up with laser-mapped precision, welcomed me.
Before the storm: The doors are about to open on the Irish Poker Open 2025 in Dublin’s RDS. It is the country’s richest sporting event. pic.twitter.com/uWHJWuCVSu
— Sports & Betting History by BestBettingSites (@BettingSitesCom) April 12, 2025
It was like a scene from 1989’s smash hit movie Field of Dreams. “If you build it, he will come,” goes its famous tagline from one of the film’s more memorable scenes. Of course, in this instance, the ‘he’ refers to the thousands of visiting poker players, each hoping to outsmart their rivals and win handsomely at this card-playing banquet.
Dead Wood to Even Things Out?
I was on a recce, a fact-finding mission, to see if the registration fees were justified, akin to a ticket to a three-hour Bruce Springsteen concert or a Guns N’ Roses gig whereby Axl Rose could easily walk off stage after performing two songs.
Furthermore, there was the opportunity to get a feel for the event, take a few snaps for social media, file a story, and catch up with old friends. The show had only been on the road for three hours, but over 300 players were already seated and playing in the first of 69 tournaments.
Thankfully, familiar faces could be found at cash desks and bars. Their message was clear: The Irish Open Main Event may represent bad value on paper, but there was certain to be so much “dead wood” amongst the field that things would more than even themselves out.
One Event One Revenue Stream
I was not convinced and could not be persuaded. However, I was won over by the venue and the enormity of the event. Yes, Las Vegas can and does do bigger, but this convention-style building had to be decked out specifically for a once-a-year show.
It did not have the luxury of being attached to a casino that would benefit from a heap of extra business at the gaming tables. Similarly, trained staff were not on tap. They had to be flown in from overseas, given accommodation, and be well paid for their 12 days of hard work.
Incidentally, I was struck by the number of overseas poker dealers. During the week, I was told that just one of the dealers – who numbered in the hundreds – was actually from Ireland. This was unconfirmed, but I never encountered one or spotted a familiar ‘Irish dealer face’ during my time in the RDS.
Another benefit Irish Poker Open organisers do not have compared to Vegas casinos is hotel rooms. Sold to poker festival attendees, they provide another significant revenue stream. This lack of income does make augmented Irish Open registration costs more understandable.
Risking Big to Win Bigger
While I still cannot comprehend how players can absorb the cost of Dublin hotels and Irish Poker Open Main Event registration fees, I have conceded that the event represents a massive and highly professional undertaking.
Like most things, the Irish Open Festival operates under the laws of supply and demand. As record numbers underlined, demand appears to be insatiable. In the business world, this entitles intrepid risk-taking organisers to enjoy healthy profits.
I needed to stop looking at things subjectively and observe from both sides of the fence. And that meant, as a spectator, absorbing the atmosphere and watching a few hands of play. I found the ongoing tournaments restricted to deaf players and another for the 60-plus spellbinding.
More than One-In-Four Cashed In Main Event
The appetite to play a competitive tournament for the first time in years was gnawing away at me. But the game has changed; not only are some registration fees extortionate but prizemoney is now habitually spread thinly.
I prefer old school ‘top heavy’ pay ladders, but from a commercial viewpoint – particularly for the UK’s online poker rooms – giving as many players as possible a cash return makes sense.
Ultimately, the 2025 Irish Poker Open Main Event saw 671 players collect a cash prize of €1,600 or more, but as 2,483 people took part, over 27 percent of players went home boasting they ‘cashed’ in the fabled tournament. That is not what poker should be about.
Then, there is the poker buzz phrase, ICM (Independent Chip Model). In parts, it is a model I have understood and employed for many years, specifically when taking my tournament seat late into play.
A chat with Irish Poker Open ambassador Chris Dowling, who bought into the Big O Championship event moments before entries closed and promptly won it, reassured me that I have maintained some card sense.
Playing the Percentages in the PLO
If I were to play, the task for me was to make a profit. Maintaining the prospect of taking the average of more than two entries into the Irish Poker Open’s Main Event (therefore, immediately setting fire to over €350 in registration fees) was folly, I looked elsewhere.
The math made my tournament choice simple. The PLO High Roller was the obvious game to play. The registration fee was €250, but this charge represented 5.2 percent of its €4,750 entry. A better option than 15 percent paid on a €1,000 Main Event entry with the prospect of one or two additional €150 reg fees being plundered.
Eventually, the contest would attract 80 players, and indeed, I entered late. It was not as late as Chris Dowling, who made the 80th and final entry. Only 40 players remained at the time, meaning his 50,000 chip stack was exactly half the average.
However, if you had put player chip stacks in a list, Chris’s name would have been in its top half. That’s ICM for you. Things had been going well for me, and my 167,000 chip stack at this juncture meant I was alive and in with a shot at a healthy prize.
Cash, Dash, and a Dodgy Sandwich
That hope continued into the second day when I started with the second biggest chip stack despite failing to eliminate a player. A scare happened on the cusp of the ‘bubble’ when I was all-in for the first time after being forced into making a marginal call.
My luck held out until the final table when a card drought saw me spin the wheel as the shortest stack and lose a pre-flop all-in to a superior hand. I could not be disappointed. The reward for my 6th placed effort was a €22,600 return and a €17,600 profit.
It was as good as a top-15 payout in the Irish Open Main Event, and I only had to contend with 79 rival entries, not the Main Event’s 4,562! Congratulations to the winner, Kai Lehto, from Finland. His €104,400 prize was as good as a top-5 Main Event finish.
My poker-playing appetite had been satisfied, albeit I returned for some desert in a seniors Hold’em event where an entry and re-entry accounted for €2,300 of my profits. It was a futile exercise. I played badly and promptly pulled stumps on my playing activities before the RDS became packed to capacity during the Irish Open’s final weekend.
In hindsight, the biggest bad beat of the week was the €10 I squandered on a woeful sandwich during play. Catering provided by meal vans parked outside of the RDS venue was undoubtedly one of the lower points of the Irish Poker Open experience.
I’ve spent better €10s! pic.twitter.com/lHbEVueFAG
— Roy B (@RoyTheBoyF1) April 15, 2025
The Players That Hit the Poker Headlines
The history books show this festival was good for British players, who collectively won ten tournaments. Scorers included Rob Sherwood, who won $2.2 million in Las Vegas days before Christmas. This time, he only collected €2,650 for success in a small field invitational competition.
The festival’s star player was Javier Francort from the Netherlands. He won a remarkable three tournaments, all in the Omaha discipline during the Irish Open. He is undoubtedly a name to follow in the specialist four-card game.
However, the headlines rightly belong to the Main Event winner, 22-year-old economics and business student, Simon Wilson. He was flanked by dozens of enthusiastic supporters who erupted when the decisive hand went his way.
Disappointingly, Ireland’s mainstream media ignored the country’s richest-ever sporting event (or competition), and only readers of the Meath Chronicle – from Wilson’s home county – saw the news. This lack of recognition for poker outside of its ecosystem frustrates me but I’m not one to moan!
