The opening day of the 2026 Irish Open at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) features numerous events and among them is also the €350 Big O Championship. For No-Limit Hold’em players, it may very well be known as “Big Oh No” because there are five cards instead of two and this split pot variant is summed up as Five-Card Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo.
All levels last 30 minutes each until the final table is reached after which the structure changes to a hand-based amount per level. Until then, it may take quite a few hours though because a healthy field size is expected. With 30,000 in chips and a starting level of 100-200 alongside the 200 big blind ante, that’s 150 big blinds at everyone’s disposal and scooping up more than half the pot to further build the own stack has some challenges attached to it.
One year ago at this very venue, this very same tournament drew a field of 84 unique players and 38 re-entries for a total prize pool of € 36,875 split up among the top 17 finishers with 10 different nationalities represented among those. It wasn’t “the sun is up already” late when the final four players agreed to a deal but Irish Open ambassador Chris Dowling claimed the trophy and largest cash prize of € 6,850 after all.
Sitting inside Ireland’s top 20 on The Hendon Mob, Dowling has been known as Omaha aficionado for several years and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him run deep again to try and defend his title.
The cards are expected to go in the air at 2 p.m. local time in the main tournament area and we are looking for the one player to scoop up all the chips en route to claim the trophy on the opening day. Stay tuned right here for the coverage until a champion has been crowned!
