Friday’s tournaments and Craic Den action (karaoke!)

Baoyun Li leads record-breaking Ladies Championship

The record-breaking 2026 Irish Open Ladies Championship has reached its final table after 12 hours of combat. The field was whittled down, from a record-breaking 175 players (last year was 163), to just nine players. They’ll be back today and play to a champion. The winner is set to receive €8,495. In addition to the coveted Irish Open trophy, they wil also receive a trophy from the Women’s Poker Association.

The current leaders are Irishwoman Baoyun Li, who amassed nearly a million in chips, Kristiana Stauere and Julie McCann. Updates will be here and gallery here.

Also still in is Jen Frankenstein who was one half of the poker couple featured during our Kings and Queens coverage – you can read that story here.

We also still have ebullient Irish Open stalwart Deborah Worley-Roberts in the field – and you can probably hear her from most parts of the tournament room. Debs the Destroyer (below, left) has an amazing track record in Ladies Events including a WSOP runner-up finish. Also still in is our very own Friend of the Irish Open Elizabeth Bennett-Martin.

Last year’s Ladies Event featured a total prize pool of €34,168, this year it’s €36,496 with €8,495 for the winner. American entertainment lawyer Michelle Skinner took it down for €6,700 beating Hippodrome Casino Ambassador Lydia Cugudda heads-up.  Both played yesterday but bowed out before the money.

We have tons of pics from Day 1 of the event – check out our gallery here.

Seniors High Roller final on at noon

Seniors have had a feast of poker action at this year’s festival with three dedicated tournaments in all. The Super Seniors event (for players of 60+) has already played out with David Smith taking top honours. For yesterday’s €1,150 Senior’s High Roller Championship, there were 176 entries with 27 making it through to today’s final. Leading the charge is Trevor Reardon with 884,000. Also still in are notables such as Thierry van den Berg, Yucel Eminoglu, Team Jaka captain Michael Dwyer and Fraser Bellamy. The total prize pool was €179,256 with €39,850 for the winner!

The final Seniors tourney is the two-day €250 buy-in Seniors Championship (Event 80) which starts on Sunday.

Shoot-out Championship at (high) noon

The Shoot-out Championship starts at noon with Round 1, followed by Round 2 at 3pm. The Shoot-out final is at 7pm.

€550 PLO 5 card

Another one for PLO fans today (and there are gazillions of them at this year’s Irish Open. The €550 PLO 5 card kicks off at 3pm.

Mini Mini Mini

It’s Day 1i of the €250 buy-in, €1 million guaranteed Mini Irish Open at 6pm. Don’t miss your chance to take part in the largest low buy-in tournament in Europe! Still a lot more starting flights to go! Keep up with all things Mini here.

Spin & Go

Our €50 buy-in Spin & Go tourneys are continuing to create a high-octane corner in the cash game area every night. Each game features four-minute blind levels, a 4,000 starting stack and kicks off with 100/200 blinds and a 500 ante. The fun means the prize pool could be anything up to €1,000! Just turn up with cash (or your cash game chips) and give it a try. The action starts at 9pm.

Live satellites

Last chances to win a Main Event seat here at the RDS take place today with four different satellites.

For full details, see the Irish Open schedule.

Tonight’s Craic Den action: Karaoke

One of the highlights of the Craic Den schedule is on tonight with the much-loved Karaoke contest. We’ve had some stellar performances up on the stage of this in previous years and expect this year’s performances to be even better. That kicks off at 11pm, preceded by the Play Your Cards Right competition.

Thank you PokerStars for hosting Happy Hour tonight from 8.30pm-9.30pm. For full details of all the entertainment planned for the Craic Den this year, click our schedule story.