The first day of Event 27 €3,000 Irish Open High Roller Championship Event drew a staggering field of 157 entries and generated a prize pool of €420,956. Both numbers for this latest latest higher-stakes tournament of the 2024 Irish Open at the Royal Dublin Society are subject to change, as the late registration remains open until the start of Day 2 on Sunday, March 31, 2024, at noon local time.
All late entrants will start their journey with 50,000 in chips, good enough for just shy of 17 big blinds in level 11 at blinds of 1,500-3,000 and a big blind ante of 3,000. More than nine times as many chips belong to Alejandro Vazquez Gomez, who topped the leaderboard with 458,000.
He is well ahead of his nearest two followers, Marvis Cooper (310,500) and Orestis Kanakopoulos (304,000), who both advanced with more than 100 blinds for the restart. Among the notables in the overnight top ten are also German businessman and high-stakes player Samuel Ju (249,000) as well as online poker legend Bert “girafganger7” Stevens (227,500).
Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 1
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Counts | Big Blinds |
| 1 | Alejandro Vazquez Gomez | Spain | 458,000 | 153 |
| 2 | Marvis Cooper | United Kingdom | 310,500 | 104 |
| 3 | Orestis Kanakopoulos | Greece | 304,000 | 101 |
| 4 | Niall Murray | United Kingdom | 262,000 | 87 |
| 5 | Samuel Ju | Germany | 249,000 | 83 |
| 6 | Rutger Hennen | Netherlands | 239,500 | 80 |
| 7 | Elias Fisz | Netherlands | 237,000 | 79 |
| 8 | Bert Stevens | Belgium | 227,500 | 76 |
| 9 | Marco Meisser | Switzerland | 221,500 | 74 |
| 10 | Gabriel Rymar | Poland | 207,500 | 69 |
The PokerStars ambassadors Fintan Hand and Benjamin Spragg spent the late stages of Day 1 on the same table with the former advancing with a stack of 172,000. Spragg made it through with 96,500 while his better half Marle Spragg was among the notable casualties.
More than half of the field fell during the ten levels of 40 minutes each with other big names such as Jon Kyte, Padraig O’Neill, Michel Molenaar, Florian Duta, and Benny Glaser all joining the rail. Whether or not any of them will jump back in at the last minute remains to be seen.
The €5,000 High Roller champion Parker Talbot was not seen in the tournament either, but likewise has the chance to sign up prior to noon local time for a spin to the next win.