There is no doubt anymore that the 2024 Irish Open €1,150 Main Event powered by PokerStars and Paddy Power will set a new attendance record at the Royal Dublin Society. After the first two starting days, the €1,000,000 guarantee had been surpassed and the third flight earlier today made sure that the field size was more than doubled. All of this happened even before the final turbo heat 1d has even kicked off and now it is just a matter of how big the new record field will be here in the city center of Dublin.
Two flights have already been completed, attracting a total of 1,212 entries and both surpassed their respective records of the previous year. Day 1a brought with it a field of 379 entries of which 72 players advanced. The only two Irish players in the top ten were Simon Wilson (303,500) and Patrick Larkin (301,500), increasing their starting stack more than ten-fold. Former Main event finalist Pascal Baumgartner finished atop the leaderboard with 329,500 whereas the PokerStars sponsored duo of Fintan Hand (252,000) and Adam McKola (229,500) both advanced with very healthy stacks
The second of four starting days then drew an impressive field of 833 entries, a figure that was surpassed before the first break on Day 1c already. Glenn Keogh took over the overall chip lead after two of the four flights with 393,000, closely followed by James Wickens (384,000) and Firat Baltaci (370,000).
Former PokerStars employee Ankit Ahuja bagged big with 280,000, old school icons of the game such as Ilari Sahamies (209,500) and Luca Pagano (172,500) also advanced as well. Triple Crown winner Niall Farrell, who is running a special leaderboard of poker and craic during the 2024 Irish Open, also made it through as well with 142,500 in chips and will now focus on the non-poker related shenanigans of his competition.
Earlier today, Day 1c kicked off at noon and it was the last flight to feature a level duration of 45 minutes each. The same number of levels is scheduled for the last-chance turbo heat 1c, which is set to kick off in the poker arena in half an hour from now at 8pm local time. The level duration decreases to 20 minutes each and late registration will close around midnight. One re-entry is permitted in each of the flights, in case any of the participants should run out of chips entirely.
With more than 2,600 entries already confirmed even before the start of Day 1d, the global trend of live poker events drawing new attendance records continues here in Ireland as well. Nearly €2.5 million in prize money is in the pot and that figure will increase in the hours to come.
In 2023, PokerStars qualifier David Docherty came out on top of a 2,491-entry field and earned a payday of €365,000. The Scotsman missed out on another Irish Open trophy earlier in the series as he finished as the runner-up in the €350 Heads-Up Championship. However, he jumped into Day 1c and was featured right away on the live-stream table to begin with.
The new record doesn’t come as much of a surprise, considering that more than 800 players won their seats via PokerStars and Paddy Power Poker. You can follow the live stream with cards-up coverage and commentary on the PokerStars YouTube and Twitch channels whereas all the updates for the marquee event can be found on PokerNews.