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Irish Open Online Main Event won by Pablo Silva for €462,100

The 2020 Irish Open Poker Festival which began earlier this week was moved online.

IRISH OPEN management teamed up with Partypoker in order to ensure the Irish Open, Europe’s longest running poker was able to go ahead as planned. The poker site confirmed they would host the poker festival online and will run as many of the scheduled events as possible. The festival began on April 6th and finished earlier as Brazilian poker pro Pablo Silva scooped the title.

Thousands of players from all around the world were expected to take part in the event which was originally scheduled to be held in Dublin at the Citywest Hotel. The Coronavirus pandemic looked like it would cancel the event completely but fortunately, Partypoker were able to step in and rescue the organisers and ensure that poker players did not miss out on playing the prestigious festival.

The newly named Irish Open Online ran in much the same way as originally scheduled only players are now playing at online tables. Whilst the majority of the events still took place, there were a handful of omissions. Seven card stud games as well as obscure card games such as Crazy Pineapple were not played due to Partypoker not having the required technology to host the games.

Participants of the Irish Open were not too disappointed with the switch to the online format. Online poker remains massively popular with both professional and amateur poker players. Some of the biggest poker tournaments in the world with the largest prize pools are hosted on online poker sites whilst the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is an annual event hosted by PokerStars which attracts hundreds of thousands of players each year.

The cancellation of the Irish Open has meant that a large number of staff including Floor Staff and Dealers will no longer be needed. However, Irish Open Management have announced that €20 out of each registration fee in the €1 million guaranteed Irish Open Online Main Event will be pooled together amongst all the stuff who were due to work before the festival was moved online.

Irish Open Online 2020 - Staff Update

With the recent announcement of the cancellation of Irish Open 2020 in Dublin, we were very aware that a large amount of Floor Staff and Dealers would be affected. We take pride in the fantastic staffing team that comes together for the Irish Open and we want to try to support them during this unprecedented situation.

We have agreed with partypoker that €20 out of each registration fee for the €1,000,000 GTD Irish Open Online Main Event will be pooled and distributed among all staff who were due to work the Irish Open 2020 in Dublin. We would also like to thank Frode who has agreed to the same €20 from the Norwegian Online Event.

When collected, these funds will be held in escrow for the staff and we will advise all staff at a later date on how these will be distributed. We wish everyone the very best over the coming months and hope to see you all soon!

Stay safe.

Jp McCann & Paul O'Reilly.

Past winners of the Irish Open Main Event include Canadian professional Griffin Benger. Benger is also famous for winning season one of PokerStars’ Shark Cage Event for $1 million. Previous Irish winners of the main event include Patrick Clarke (2014), Ian Simpson (2013), as well as Niall Smyth (2011). The Irish Open was first played in 1980 when the title was taken by Irish poker pro Colette Doherty. Doherty was also the first European and first female poker player to play in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

2020 Irish Open Online Main Event Final Table Results:

Place - Player - Country - Payout (EUR) - Payout (USD)