Thursday’s tournaments – Irish Open action for April 2!

As well as Day 1c of the Main Event, we have a ton of other tournaments taking off today, or coming back for Day 2s and finals.

Malm leads record-breaking €350 America’s Cup

Canadian player Michael Malm is chip leader for the final day of the America’s Cup. The ever-popular tournament attracted a record-breaking 795 entries this year creating a €239,057 prize pool. Malm is crushing the Montreal poker scene right now and, even though a WSOP circuit ring winner, chose to come to the Irish Open because he’d heard how amazing the event is. He won his package for the event in Calgary.

Just 48 players remain in the America’s Cup, including 2013 champion Ian Simpson in eighth place. Many have already picked up winnings – the tournament is paying 119 places with €520 for a min-cash. All those remaining are guaranteed a €790 payday.

You can read all about it here.

Holland’s Bart Timmer was last year’s champion, outlasting a record (at the time) 685-entry field to win €38,340 for first place.

€10k Super High Roller

The final of the €10k Super High Roller kicks off today at 1pm with Finland’s Roope Tarmi in the lead. Not sure if Tarmi brought his trophy to the table but he had literally just won the €5k NLH High Roller 8-Max (for €88,000) before jumping into the Super High Roller. He’s now chip leader with 255,000.

Tarmi is one of Finland’s most successful live tournament players and is having a great 2026 so far. His arrival in Dublin follows a very lucrative sojourn at EPT Paris where he cashed three times, including a runner-up finish in the €2k Deep Stack event. Last night’s victory takes him over the $1.5 million mark in live tournament winnings and he’ll be jumping up a few places on Finland’s all-time money list as well; he’s currently at 19^th.

The Super High Roller attracted ten runners including three who won seats in a live satellite. Almost immediately after sitting down, Tarmi doubled up a short stack, but his fortunes soon turned around when he won a three-way all-in, which saw Britain’s Jonathan Proudfoot eliminated. Tarmi carried the momentum through the remaining levels and currently leads the remaining eight players.

PokerNews will be following his fortunes in the Super High Roller right here on the Irish Open website.

Ladies Championship

The prestigious two-day Irish Open Ladies Championship is kicking off today with a two-day, €250 buy-in, single re-entry tournament. The event started at 1pm and is the first in a trifecta of dedicated events for women players at this year’s festival. Among those playing are 2023 champion and Friend of the Irish Open Elizabeth Bennett-Martin, Natalie Bromley, Sia Browne, PokerStars Ambassador KJ Craigie, Kings and Queen’s runner-up Shella McSweeney and casher Jen Frankenstein, Lisa of Team Roberts, Katie Swift and Irish Open superfan Deborah Worley-Roberts.

The 2025 Ladies Event attracted 163 entries creating a total prize pool of €34,168. American entertainment lawyer Michelle Skinner won the €6,700 first prize after beating Hippodrome Casino Ambassador Lydia Cugudda in a short but entertaining heads-up battle. Michelle – who is dating PokerStars Ambassador and live stream commentator James Hartigan, will be back in action for this year’s event too.

Full background story on the ladies is here and live updates will be here.

Spraggy Mystery Bounty

PokerStars Ambassador and award-winning Twitch streamer Ben “Spraggy” Spragg is hosting his very own tournament today – the €550 Spraggy Mystery Bounty. Congrats to Team Mother Cluckers who won last night’s Spraggy Quid Games and are now in the €550 Mystery Bounty for free.

PokerStars Team Pro Nick Walsh is a Mother Clucker and so too are Oscar Tompsett, Chris Weatherley and Samuel del Castillo – good luck guys! There were 80 entries into last night’s Quid Games and all those who took part are automatically being entered into a Last Longer in today’s Mystery Bounty (should they wish to play it) with a €1,150 Main Event ticket for the winner.

Also taking part today is Dubliner Ross Leonard who won HIS seat thanks to a series of Centroll qualifiers that Spraggy ran on PokerStars. Spraggy Mystery Bounty updates will be here.

Seniors High Roller starts today

Seniors have 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. We are pretty sure that the Super Seniors marked an amazing world record as Irish poker legend George McKeever entered, alongside his son.

George is 90, Mark is 63. Keep an eye out for this amazing duo in today’s High Roller.

The €1,150 Seniors High Roller Championship – a two-day event with a generous structure: 50,000 starting stack and 30-minute levels. Updates will be here. The final Seniors tourney is the two-day €250 buy-in Seniors Championship (Event 80) which starts on Sunday.

Mini Mini Mini

It’s Day 1h 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! The current prize pool is at €462,762. Here’s the stats so far:

Day 1A: 162 entries, 23 ITM, 8 advanced – Colin Doyle leads (1,580,000)
Day 1B: 257 entries, 39 ITM, 12 advanced – Mircea Stanescu (1,505,000)
Day 1C: 362 entries, 55 ITM, 18 advanced- Mariusz Tersanszki (1,780,000)
Day 1D: 359 entries, 55 ITM, 18 advanced – Tobias ten Napel (1,475,000)
Day 1E: 368 entries, 55 ITM, 18 advanced- Jack Germaine (985,000)
Day 1F: 320 entries, 48 ITM, 16 advanced- Corne Scheel (2,000,000)

Still a lot more starting flights to go! Keep up with all things Mini here.

Flip and Going

Day 2 of our second Flip and Go tournaments (Event 59) is on today with the €1k Day 2 kicking off at noon. Each winner from yesterday’s Day 1 has won a seat in today’s final – a conventional €1k freezeout. There were 120 entrants last night, with 12 players through, now down to eight. The finalists include Jamie “JamFly” Flynn, who is currently in pole position on the Irish Open all-time cashes leaderboard. See our story on that here.

Everyone started from scratch today with 30,000. The prize pool stands at €11,640 prize pool tomorrow. Jiang Pu won the first event for €5,700.

PLO 6-Max Championship

The final of the two-day PLO 6-Max Championship is also on today starting at 1pm, Live updates here. The overnight  chip leader was Junior Roberts, one half of last year’s winning Beer Pong team. STOP PRESS: he has now cashed in 18th place for €1,150. Which means … he’ll be in the Craic Den to defend his Beer Pong title night! See below for more details.

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

There are four live satellites today, all for the Main Event. For full details, see the Irish Open schedule.

Beer Pong night in the Craic Den

Last year Canadian player Junior “Machine” Roberts, a keen but totally teetotal Beer Pong fan, was trawling the Craic Den looking for someone to team up with. He happened upon British player Chris Barnard, who was all too happy to buddy up and – critically – agreed to do all the drinking. The pair took it down with both winning €250 tickets for this year’s Mini Irish Open. This year Roberts and Barnard (*not the name of a solicitors’ firm) have issued a strong challenge to any contenders. As per 2026, Chris has (happily?) agreed to take on all the drinking penalties for both of them.

Chris has already had a great 2026 Irish Open so far – he won €1k in Spin & Go on the first day of the festival. Roberts, who cashed in the Luxon Mystery Bounty,  is currently leading the PLO 6-Max Championship – so it’s actually touch and go whether he will even make it to the Craic Den tonight.

Paddy Power are back on hosting duties for Happy Hour tonight from 8.30pm-9.30pm while live music will be provided by Paul & Neil Casey aka the Casey Brothers from 11.30pm.

For full details of all the entertainment planned for the Craic Den this year, click our schedule story.