This year’s Irish Open offered up a feast of PLO events – from the PLO High Roller Mystery Bounty to the PLO 4/5/6, the 2025 festival was awash with Pot Limit Omaha. Which means PLO fans are really going to be ECSTATIC about the 2026 line-up which sees several more PLO tournaments added to the schedule to bring the overall total up to ten.
No one could be happier about the new PLO line-up than triple champ Javier Francort. As we related in an earlier story, the Dutchman triumphed in three different PLO tourneys at this year’s Irish Open winning the €550 PLO 4/5/6, the €550 6-max AND the €1,150 7-max. He said: “It’s amazing to see that the Irish Poker Open is going to host ten PLO tournaments. This makes it the biggest PLO festival in Europe, especially for low to mid-stakes. Unlike most PLO series, a lot of the Irish Open PLO buy-ins are €1k or less which makes it a lot more accessible for people.”
€550 PLO 5 card
PLO 5 card does what it says on the tin – you get five cards instead of four! However, just as with regular PLO, you must use two (and only two) of your hole cards. As you might surmise, that extra hole card increases the number of possible combinations. In fact, it gives you ten combinations that might pair with the board, compared to only six in standard 4-Card and it brings hands closer in strength. You’ll need to be more disciplined with pre-flop hand selection and steer clear of marginal hands that can get you into a world of pain. Smart strategy shifts toward playing hands that make the nuts.
PLO 5 Card makes its debut at the 2026 Irish Open on Friday, April 3, kicking off at 3pm. Players will get a 30,000 starting stack and 30-minute blind levels.
€3k Cuatro PLO High Roller
Cuatro is an exciting new bounty format that’s being added to the 2026 Irish Open schedule with both a No Limit Hold’em version and the two-day €3k PLO High Roller Cuatro. Essentially, Cuatro is bounty with a twist: the event starts off as a non-bounty tournament but once the field reaches the final 25%, all the remaining players are given a bounty token representing the full amount of the buy-in.
If you don’t fancy stumping up €3k from the get-go, there are two €650 satellites taking place for the PLO Cuatro: the first starts at 7pm on Thursday, March 26 and the second satellite at 1pm on Friday, March 27. The event itself gets underway later on Friday at 4pm and features unlimited re-entries.
Francort added: “I am very enthusiastic about the Cuatro PLO. I think a €3k buy-in will be more accessible than the former €5k Mystery Bounty and will attract more players. Also, a bounty starting at 25% of the field will be fun to generate some action pre-bubble as that can normally be a tight phase of the tourney. This will make the tourney more fun to play and less waiting around for players near the bubble.”
€120 PLO Deaf Championship
A “festival within a festival” is lined up for Deaf players at the 2026 Irish Open and one of the big attractions is the €120 PLO Deaf Championship. The event kicks off on the very first day of the festival – March 26 – with players sitting down to a 20,000 starting stack and 20-minute levels. There are unlimited re-entries.
Lots more PLO!
Lots of the favourites from 2025 are back again next year, including the €1,150 PLO 7-Max, €1,150 PLO 8-Max, €1,150 PLO Mystery Bounty, €350 PLO 6-Max Championship, €550 PLO 6-Max, €550 PLO 4/5/6 and the €5k PLO High Roller.
All that really needs to be worked out is how many Javier Francort will take down next year?
