Qualify Now for The Festival Rozvadov with Paddy Power Poker!
Rozvadov is coming close, and you can join us now through the online poker client of Paddy Power Poker. JP McCann, co-organiser of The Irish Open, also had the privilege of working together with one of Ireland's finest online poker rooms. What effect have online qualifiers on a live event? You can read it all here!
Operators: The Irish Open | Paddy Power Poker
The Irish Open is the oldest live poker event of Europe, and breaks records year after year with astonishing amount of entries done in the Main Event, numerous side events, and online qualifiers. Their most recent event in Dublin at the Royal Dublin Society hosted a Main Event with 3,233 entries, generating a prize pool over €3M.
Not bad, right? Considering the buy-in of €1,100 and the guaranteed prize pool of €1M. Other notable events such as the newly-featured Mini Irish Open with €500K GTD, as well as the Ladies Event, High Roller, and Mystery Bounty event, all outclassed their guarantees, showing massive pay outs to the top of the ranks.
One of the main reasons for their success is, of course, the excellent atmosphere in Dublin. The Irish Open is one of the most liked live poker festivals of Europe, and a big part of their success comes from Online Qualifiers such as Paddy Power Poker.
Melvin, The Festival: Hi JP! First of all congratulations on an amazing Irish Open 2024 and the incredible turnout!
JP McCann: ''Yeah, the numbers were crazy! Most of the events were 50% up, and some even doubled, it was crazy. Tuesday, at The Hendon Mob event got 599 players, which was their biggest side event ever in Irish Open history. We knew beforehand that it was going to be busy due to the online qualifiers. I thought that the Main Event would reach 2,800 entries, but the live satellites were also an amazing success, and it went through the roof eventually.''
Melvin, The Festival: Martin 'Franke' von Zweigbergk was also present at your event. He even claims to have visited every single edition of The Irish Open. When are you going to return the favour and visit our event?
JP McCann: ''Franke is a class man, a good guy. A personal friend as well as from The Irish Open. He is trying to get me to one of his events to show where The Festival stands for, and I'm glad you spotted out that I already had visited an event of him before (Cash Game Festival). I rarely play mixed games, barely even play Hold'em! The last two years just have been hectic, with the COVID-19 period, and the casino I'm running, trying to find a new venue for The Irish Open. At some point it will happen to come for a another visit to Franke's event, and who knows Rozvadov!''
Melvin, The Festival: There are a lot of similarities between the events, don't you think? The vibe among the players at The Irish Open is insanely good.
JP McCann: ''The ethos between the two events is exactly the same, me and Franke are very similar in our mindset, in what we think is good. I remember there was a time in Malta with a previous event. There are so many poker festivals where people go to, and it's all just about poker. Whereas, we are trying to make the event unique with what we do, with the craic den for example. Franke is doing the same thing with The Festival Series.
At the end of the day, people invest money to come visit the event, so you would want as an organizer to let players also enjoy outside all the poker, and that's what we aim to do. That players give feedback like: That was a great experience, I would like to go back there! The Beerpong game was great, or the band was great, or any other side activity. I think that's what Franke is doing, is really good, having the same approach as we do.''
When I asked JP about his favourite moment during the this year's Irish Open, he straight-up mentioned the battle between England vs Ireland, headlined by Benjamin 'Spraggy' Spragg and Fintan 'EasyWithAces' Hand. However, he mentioned as well another moment and this was when Franke stood up and clinked his glass to give one of his heroic speeches about his own history with The Irish Open and what a live event as such, actually means to the poker community.
Melvin, The Festival: The poker community keeps growing, and live events are popping up wherever you are on the planet. If there would be still a poker player out there who hasn't visited The Irish Open or The Festival Series. What would be your message to them?
JP McCann: ''The Irish Open isn’t just a poker festival it’s an event. Similar to a music festival. There are activities all week long, live music every night, games and competitions. Don’t get me wrong we take the poker side of things very seriously and have hired some of the best people in the industry. So you're getting a top-notch poker event with top-notch entertainment. Everyone leaves with a smile on their face and comes back the following year for more!''
Melvin, The Festival: iPoker recently launched a grand promotion for satellites, giving away 28x full packages and 20x Main Event seats. Many skins of the network are involved, as well as Paddy Power Poker, which is one of the main online partners of The Irish Open. The event in Rozvadov will have a lot of qualifiers, what do you think about the venue?
JP McCann: ''The question in Rozvadov will be: What you are going to do outside the casino? That's the challenge for King's Casino and The Festival Series with the upcoming event, the hospitality events. The casino itself looks amazing from top to bottom. Last time I was there was in 2019, so it might have changed a lot by now.''
Martin 'Franke' von Zweigbergk, owner of The Festival Series, was also interviewed during The Irish Open. If you would like to know what epic stories he shared with them at the time, follow this link.
Melvin, The Festival: I've been following your event a lot. The media on location with live reporting, interviews, everything was great. One thing what stood out for me was the interview with Darren Chow, very inspiring!
JP McCann: ''Yes, Darren Chow! We met in Calgary, and another friend of The Irish Open, like Franke is as well, who has come to us many times, he introduced us to him at the WSOP Circuit. He had so much energy inside him, and it was great to see. I've tried to get his point of view of what poker must be like for deaf players, because we didn't really consider this up to now. It's really something we are considering for the future, to have an event for deaf players only. We enjoyed having him at The Irish Open, he is a really, really good guy.''
The Festival Series - Qualify through Paddy Power Poker!
Paddy Power Poker is strongly connect to The Irish Open. This time, you have the option as well to qualify yourself for The Festival Series Rozvadov through their poker client! With daily Day-1 satellites ramping up to the final Day-2 on Sundays, you can win yourself a package worth €1,600. And to top it all off, a total of ten Seat-Only satellites will be available as of this Friday 12th of April, where two seats are guaranteed with every tournament.
Make sure to keep an eye on our social media channels, so you won't miss out on any of the action!
