The Irish Open always boasts a mix of poker disciplines, allowing players to showcase their versatility. And with an action-packed 86 tournaments on this year’s schedule — the biggest ever — there was never a doubt the festival would once again explore some new alleys.
So there it is, let us introduce you to the Cuatro format, which PokerStars has tested at its renowned EPT events for the last two seasons. Now it’s time for its debut at the Royal Dublin Society, with the €3,000 Cuatro PLO High Roller 8-Max Single Re-Entry kicking off at 2 p.m. local time.
The tournament starts as a regular PLO event. But once the field has been narrowed to 25%, a knockout element will enter the formula. At that point, each player still in the contest will be presented with a bounty token. From there on out, the event continues as a standard Bounty tournament, with only one caveat — the bounties for eliminations are bigger than in a classic K.O. event.
The bounty is worth a full buy-in, the €3,000. That means scoring one K.O. after reaching the 25% threshold is enough to break even. But there’s also the regular portion of the prize pool to contest, so the top contenders will for sure go home with a nice bulk of cash.
With the €3,000 prize tag, it will undoubtedly require a great deal of skill to conquer the High Roller field. We can expect renowned PLO grinders to join the tables at some point in the afternoon, be it right off the bat or any time during the 10-level late reg.
It’s also worth mentioning that the registration period allows unlimited re-entries, so we might see some fine poker battles for huge pots already in the opening stretch.
Come back here at 3:30 p.m. for live updates from this tournament. In the meantime, check out the tabs at the top of this page for information about entrants, the blind structure, and more.
