Leonidas Georgopoulos is €350 NLH 6-Max Championship King (€45,700)

Level 33: 300,000/600,000/600,000
Entries: 1/865
Prize Pool: €260,106

After the dust settled on the 2026 Irish Open €350 NLH 6-Max Championship, Leonidas Georgopoulos of Greece emerged as the worthy champion after surviving an unpredictable final table, where any of the final four looked like potential winners at various stages.

Georgopoulos defeated Jonas Heuser of Germany after a ding-dong session of heads-up combat to take the first-place prize of €45,700, while Heuser had to settle for the runner-up prize of €28,670.

The Greek was the last player standing from a record 865-entry field, which created a €260,106 prize pool. Those figures exceeded the 2025 edition, where 801 entrants were logged.

The result smashes his previous recorded career-best live score of €11,695, and marks his first live tournament win, perhaps explaining why he refused a deal at the start of heads-up play despite being behind.

€350 NLH 6-Max Championship Final Table Results

Winner’s Reaction

Georgopoulos accepted the congratulations of Phil ‘Tower’ Heald, and explained regarding the refused deal, “Yes it worked out fine. I was feeling good and I decided to take my chances and play. He clarified he was not going to give me any more than ICM, so I didn’t really see any reason to do the deal when I was feeling good. In the end it worked out fine, it was a long heads-up.”

“Yea, I started with a 4:1 deficit, I found a double in the first hand. Then we were even for a long time, then I was short-stack, I got lucky in a couple of all-ins. We got back even, then last hand was a cooler heads-up, straight over straight. So yeh, I was lucky.”

“It’s my first time at the Irish Open and in Ireland in general, I’ve been wanting to come for several years. The Greek community come a lot here. They say amazing words about the poker, the city, and so far it’s been true. The game and organisation here is amazing. Yes it’s my biggest score, there’s a joke with my friends because I have a lot of seconds, and finally I’ve broken the curse! Tonight we’ll go to bed early and get ready for the Main Event tomorrow. We’ll celebrate at the end!”

You can see the full interview with the champion below:-

Final Day Recap

A total of 46 players returned to the Royal Dublin Society for the final day, with third-place finisher Arian Kashani sitting in pole position.

The knockouts came at a rapid pace and almost half the field was gone by the first break, with Thomas Murphy, Max Lohse and Ivan Kuziv among those to suffer an early exit.

Before long the final three tables were set, before Anton Hermann’s run came to an end against Jesse Kertland. Heuser started to move towards the top of the counts when he busted Theodoros Ampelikiotis, and when Dean Hutchison ran pocket nines into Kashani’s queens, the tournament was reduced to two tables.

Georgopoulos stormed to a big lead at the top of the counts when his weak ace outflopped Kevin Killeen’s pocket queens, before Stanislas Prigent coolered Kertland set over set. Frederic Max, Killeen and Ivan Yatsenko all came to the end of the road quickly after, and Georgopoulos claimed further scalps in Scott Roberts and Killeen.

Prigent knocked out Kertland on the final table bubble, and he was the closet challenger to Georgopoulos at that point, albeit at a 2:1 deficit.

Heuser claimed the first knockout of the final table when he flopped a set of snowmen in a flip against Mark Johnston, and Georgopoulos soon got in on the action when he busted short-stack Tai Hoang.

At this point the tournament was completely up for grabs, and Heuser looked like his name would be on the trophy when he woke up with queens against Kashani. Kashani doubled twice to spin it up, and he and Prigent then exchanged double-ups.

Heuser extended his significant lead when he won the classic race against Prigent with queens in a cooler, and he accelerated to a 5:1 lead over Georgopoulos when he finally finished off the stubborn Kashani with pocket tens.

In the first hand of heads-up play, Georgopoulos doubled with top pair versus a gutshot, and the players immediately stopped for deal discussions. No agreement could be reached, and a tumultuous battle broke out, where both players must have thought the title was in their clutches at various points, only for their opponent to come from behind.

Georgopoulos rivered a straight to survive and go back in front for the final time. It seemed likely a cooler was going to be required to bring the contest to a conclusion, and that is precisely what the poker gods served up. Both players rivered a one-card straight, but Georgopoulos had the better of it, and barely covered Heuser when all the chips hit the middle.

Georgopoulos celebrated with gusto with his rail, while Heuser was left to wonder how the trophy escaped him.