Dublin’s Irish Poker Open to be played on partypoker due to coronavirus pandemic

Europe’s oldest poker festival, the Irish Poker Open, will switch from Dublin’s Citywest Hotel to the virtual tables of partypoker in the run up to and during the Easter weekend next month.

The renamed Irish Open Online Festival will play out from 6-12 April with a revised schedule to that of the live festival, culminating in the Main Event champion being crowned on Easter Sunday.

GVC-owned partypoker will also be running satellites into the no-limit hold’em Main Event, which will have a buy-in of €1,100. A full schedule of the online tournaments is due to be released this week.

First organised in 1980 by legendary Irish bookie and poker aficionado Terry Rogers, the Irish Poker Open is the longest-running no limit Texas hold’em poker tournament in Europe and the world’s second-longest after the World Series of Poker.

Last year’s Main Event attracted more than 1800 players to Dublin and a total prize pool of €1.8m – easily smashing its €1m guarantee – with Ireland’s Weijie Zheng taking down the €300,000 prize for first.

However, its organisers, Irish Poker Festivals Ltd, announced last week that the seven-day event would be postponed in order to ensure the safety of players and staff amid the coronavirus outbreak.

JP McCann from the Irish Poker Open said: “We would like to thank partypoker for taking the initiative to help ensure Europe’s oldest running poker festival goes ahead during these very challenging times.”

Tom Waters, MD of partypoker, added: “The Irish Open is a truly unique event and following the disappointment of its cancellation this year, an online Irish Open festival looks a perfect fit for both event organisers and partypoker.”

Due to the spread of coronavirus, leading operators such as PokerStars, partypoker, 888 and Unibet have been forced to postpone or cancel upcoming live events across Europe.

However, Unibet announced last week that Unibet Open Tallinn, originally planned for May, is to be replaced by an online festival with a buy-in of €1,100 and a guaranteed prize pool of €100,000.

This is set to be the Kindred owned operator’s largest-ever online event in terms of the prizes on offer.

As more and more live poker festivals are cancelled and casinos are shuttered across Europe in the coming months, online poker is expected to enjoy a mini-renaissance and a much-needed boost in revenue for operators now that most sport has been canned.