Two stops, one runaway Leaderboard and thirty-three days until Killarney 2026.

The children are back at school, the evenings are closing in and the good people of Kerry are quietly moving the furniture out of the Gleneagle Arena again. The Killarney Poker Festival runs from Tuesday October 13th to Sunday October 18th and, for once, the hype is justified by the arithmetic. Last year 3,100 entries walked through the doors and €1,122,010 walked back out in prize money. This year the Festival guarantee stands at €750,000+ and the whole thing has shifted three weeks later into October, which means slightly worse weather, slightly cheaper flights and exactly the same amount of sleep, which is none.

First, Two Detours

Nobody gets to Killarney without passing through the Midlands and the North West.

The Tullamore €30K In A Day is on September 18th and 19th at the Midlands Card Club, a new stop on the Tour and, not by coincidence, the home club of Ray and Robbie Bryant. Playing the Bryants in Tullamore is roughly the equivalent of playing Kerry in Killarney. It can be done. Bring a big stack and a thick skin.

A week later the Donegal Poker Festival takes over the Radisson in Letterkenny from September 25th to 27th, with a €300 Main Event and €90,000+ guaranteed across the weekend. The last chance to pick up Leaderboard points before the Festival, and a fine excuse to see the top of the country before the clocks change.

The Leaderboard, Such As It Is

Robbie Bryant sits on 7,900 points after Limerick and there is a growing suspicion that the only thing capable of catching him is a puncture on the N52. Killian Farrell is second and still fighting, picking up €2,210 and another 500 points for the Saturday NLH in Limerick. Darren Harbinson is third having played a fraction of the events, which is either very efficient or very annoying depending on who you ask. Ray Bryant is fourth on 3,845 and Charlie Porter, newly crowned Limerick champion after finishing second in Sligo, second in Athlone and finally getting the better of Robbie in a heads-up deal worth €12,245, is fifth on 3,830. Fifteen points between them. One Omaha side event would sort it.

Below the top five is where it gets interesting. The top 16 after Portlaoise in December go through to the Playoff Freeroll with €30,000++ on the table, and Killarney is the one week of the year where a player can move from twentieth to tenth without doing anything particularly clever. Eighteen trophies in six days. Points everywhere you look.

What You Are Playing For

All prices below are what you hand over at the desk. No small print.

The Festival Opener kicks off at 4pm on Tuesday, €200 for a €15,000 guarantee that was beaten by eight thousand last year. Wednesday belongs to the Mystery Bounty, €500 with two flights at 2pm and 7pm, €60,000 guaranteed, and a Thursday evening final where the envelopes do the talking. Thursday also brings the Omaha Championship, €1,650 for €40,000 guaranteed, plus the first outing of the TORSE at €300. The HORSE in Dublin this summer went down well enough that mixed games were promised for Killarney, and here they are. Limit poker at four in the afternoon. Bring patience and a calculator.

Friday is the busiest card of the week. The €1K One Dayer at 1pm for €40,000 guaranteed, the Women’s Championship at 2pm for €250 and €10,000 guaranteed, the Omaha Progressive Bounty at 5pm for €250, and the nightly €20K NLH at €200, which also runs Wednesday and Thursday for anyone who wants a trophy shot without committing a weekend to it.

Saturday has the Killarney 300, €300 for €60,000 guaranteed, one of the best-value tournaments on the entire Irish calendar and last year’s home of one of the great underdog stories. PLO Masters at €300 and a €200 Turbo Freezeout fill the evening. Sunday closes with the Killarney Poker Cup at €400 for €40,000 guaranteed, a €200 Monsterstack with 75,000 chips, €200 Omaha 5 Card / Hi-Lo and a €150 Last Chance Turbo at 8pm for anyone who has decided they are not driving home empty-handed.

The Main Event

€700, 40,000 chips, 40-minute levels, two re-entries, €400,000 guaranteed.

Seven flights. Thursday at noon and 6pm, Friday at noon, 4pm and 8pm, Saturday at 10.30am, and a Saturday 2.30pm Hyper with 15-minute levels for the late arrivals, the recently busted and the optimists. Day 2 starts at 5pm on Saturday. The Final plays from 1pm on Sunday in front of the loudest rail in Irish poker.

Last year 899 entries produced a €535,085 prize pool. Ninety were paid, Gerard “Sugar” Ward burst the bubble in 91st with ace-king against a flopped straight and Finland’s Samuel Saariaho beat Tommy O’Rourke heads-up for €100,000. Tommy, as he was reminded afterwards by one of the Tour’s Lithuanian regulars, should have kept the money at home. Killarney has a way of adopting people.

Get Somebody Else to Pay for It

The best way to play Killarney is on a package, in the Gleneagle, for as close to nothing as you can manage.

On land: Doyle’s in Limerick runs a €700 seat satellite every Thursday at 7.30pm on September 10th, 17th and October 1st. The Eglinton in Galway has five packages guaranteed on Wednesday September 16th at 7pm. Once the Festival opens, seat satellites for the Main Event, the Omaha Championship and the €1K One Dayer run daily in the arena, and the usual €20 Last Longers in the big events pay out every cent taken in. The house keeps nothing.

Online: Paddy Power Poker and the iPoker network are running the full ladder to the €1,800 package, which covers the Main Event seat, four nights for two in the Gleneagle and travel expenses on top. €100 Day 1s run every night at 7.30pm, 9.45pm and 11pm into a Sunday final at 8.30pm with two packages guaranteed. €50 seat-only satellites run Tuesday and Friday nights. Step satellites start at €0.50, and on Sundays at 8.30pm there is Doke’s €10 satellite with a €700 seat guaranteed. Full details in the usual place at irishpokertour.com/qualify-online.

For everyone who prefers to pay their own way, Susie has the best hotel rates on the Muckross Road and is on WhatsApp at 087 262 5430. She will not have them in October.

Elsewhere in Irish Poker

Dublin’s Michael Dwyer, a retired businessman who describes himself as an amateur, finished fifth in the €5,300 EPT Barcelona Main Event for €362,500. He called tournament poker “a thing of absolute beauty”, which is easy to say with that number in your pocket but hard to disagree with. Meanwhile the Irish Open is in Sydney for the first time in its long history, with an A$1 million guaranteed Main Event at Club Marconi and Chris Dowling flying the flag after qualifying in Dublin back in April. Long way to go for a game of cards. Killarney is closer.

The Important Bit

Killarney Poker Festival 2026. Tuesday October 13th to Sunday October 18th. The Gleneagle Arena, Killarney, Co. Kerry. €750,000+ guaranteed.

Book the room, win the seat, tell the boss you have a funeral. See you all there.

Live updates, chip counts and the Live Clock on LPU all week.