There are weeks when Irish poker gives you a result. Then there are weeks when it gives you a story.

Dublin’s Michael Dwyer arrived at the €5,300 PokerStars EPT Barcelona Main Event as an amateur player and an actively retired businessman in his early sixties. He left with fifth place, €362,500 and the biggest live score of his career.

Dwyer topped the 635 players in Day 1A with 363,500 chips, survived as the last Irish player standing and carried 4,550,000 to the final table. From a field reported at 1,823 entries, he made it all the way to the final five.

Yet the numbers are only half of it. This was the man behind Pigsback.com, swapping business for one of Europe’s great poker stages and looking completely at home when the cameras closed in. Dwyer has described tournament poker as “a thing of absolute beauty” and joked afterwards that the young guns had been shown an actively retired businessman can learn new tricks.

The prize takes his recorded live earnings beyond $1.1 million, but the lasting image is of a man discovering there is still another great adventure waiting for him. Irish poker has always been at its best when it proves there is no correct age, background or route into the game. If the cards are in the air, everyone gets a seat.

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The Irish Open packs its bags

While Dwyer was flying the flag in Barcelona, another huge week for Irish poker was taking shape on the other side of the world.

For the first time, the Irish Open is heading international, landing at The Poker Palace at Club Marconi in Sydney from 6 to 15 September. The festival is headlined by a A$2,000 Main Event with A$1 million guaranteed, bringing one of poker’s oldest and most recognisable tournaments to Australia.

And Sydney feels like the perfect place to start. With its enormous Irish community and strong poker scene, there should be no shortage of support when the Irish Open banner goes up. Dublin to Sydney is some leap, but after decades of building its reputation at home, the Irish Open is ready to see just how far the party can travel.

 

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Thirty grand, one day, Limerick

Players without Sydney in the travel budget have a handier option. The Irish Poker Tour returns to the Castletroy Park Hotel, Limerick on Saturday, 5 September for a €200 Main Event with €30,000 guaranteed.

These compact stops have their own character. There is no time to ease into festival mode. Players arrive, take their seats and before long someone is trying to build a stack big enough to carry them through the night. Thirty grand, one day and no shortage of people who believe it has their name on it.

LPU will be watching for the familiar faces and whoever emerges with the trophy. Tullamore follows on 18 and 19 September, when the IPT brings the €30K In A Day to the Midlands Card Club.

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New tech introduced that will reveal FT cards

ACR Poker launched a free browser-based replayer showing every player’s hole cards from completed final tables. For players and writers, it could turn a line on a results sheet into the full story of how a tournament was won.

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Floor! Checkmate!

One of the week’s most interesting stories did not come from a poker room. Chess.com has moved into the game with Gambit, a free educational platform featuring bots, friend games, tournaments and an Elo-style rating system. Nearly 1,500 players reportedly joined its first major streamed event.

The important part is not simply that Chess.com has added cards. Gambit offers beginners a place to learn without immediately asking them to deposit money. A clear ladder and a safe place to make mistakes may be a healthier doorway into poker, and Irish clubs trying to welcome new players could find a few ideas worth borrowing.

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Three Million Dollar Spins, in less than a month

PokerStars produced another of those stories that barely sounds real when UK player “Gwaugh1” turned a $5 Spin & Go into $1 million in just 18 minutes. The three-handed game had landed the enormous 240,000 x multiplier, meaning the trio were actually playing for $1.2 million: $1 million for first, $120,000 for second and $80,000 for third.

Even stranger, Gwaugh1 was the third $5 Spin & Go millionaire in just 27 days. Denmark’s “dillerfar19” won the same jackpot on 17 July, followed by Argentina’s “Anatsuk334” on 26 July.

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Coming up

How the next coming weeks in poker are shaping up –  Limerick on 5 September, the Irish Open Sydney and WCOOP from the 6th, The Festival Series Malta from 14 to 20 September and Tullamore on 18 and 19 September. GGPoker’s online bracelet series continues throughout.

Only a month until The Irish Poker Tour’s showstopper event The Killarney Poker Festival 2026, giving Irish and International players their last chances to hone their skills before making their way to the Glen Eagles on the 13th of October.

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