Irish Open smashes last year's attendance record

The 2024 Irish Open is so big that it broke last year's record before the final Day 1 flight had even begun.

The live poker boom continues unabated with yet another record-breaking field in Europe. 

The Irish Open is always one of the most popular events of the year but this week it has excelled itself. The Main Event attracted a staggering 3,233 entries. 

The previous record was last year with 2,491, but that milestone was beaten on Day 1C, with the final Day 1D flight to do a victory lap and go well past the 3,000 player mark. 

No word on the payouts yet but it will likely mean that the first prize is around €450,000 this year. 

Although the live poker scene is booming right now, this increase is no doubt also because of the focus on satellites in the Irish Open. The iPoker network has been running qualifiers for this event all year around and something in the region of 500 tickets were won by PokerStars PowerPath qualifiers, which this writer knows to be a fact because each one of them won a copy of Poker Satellite Strategy. 

749 players survived Day 1, and around half of them will make the money today. You can watch the action when it starts at noon today here. 

Were you watching the stream yesterday? Let us know in the comments: