The Irish Open was started in 1980 by Terry Rogers at his Eccentric Club in Dublin. Since then it has switched venues to the Citywest Hotel to accommodate the growing playing field, and the prize pool has reached a guaranteed €3 million.
The 2007 Irish Open saw a 708-player field that included European pros such as Ross Boatman, Barney Boatman, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, David Benyamine, Joe Beevers, Max Pescatori, Andy Black, Roland de Wolfe and Dave Colclough.
Making their way across the Atlantic for the event were Jimmy "gobboboy" Fricke, David Plastik, Mike Sexton, Chad Brown, Jennifer Tilly, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Shane "Shaniac" Schleger and Dan Harrington.
In the end it was Marty Smyth, from Northern Ireland, who pocketed the €650,000 top prize. He defeated a final table that included Sorel Mizzi, Nicky Power, Thomas Finneran, Danny McHugh, Brian O'Keefe and Roland de Wolfe for the win.
The final-table results were:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | Marty Smyth | €650,000 |
| 2nd | Roland de Wolfe | €325,000 |
| 3rd | Sorel Mizzi | €210,000 |
| 4th | Daniel McHugh | €175,000 |
| 5th | Brian O'Keefe | €130,000 |
| 6th | Nicky Power | €100,000 |
| 7th | Thomas Finneran | €75,000 |
A few hundred players are already registered for the 2008 Irish Open main event. Smith and de Wolfe will both be back for another run at the title, playing on Day 1a along with John Duthie, Doyle Brunson, JJ Liu, Padraig Parkinson, and others.
Day 1b will see Sorel Mizzi return, with the likes of Roy Brindley, Barney Boatman, Bruno Fituossi, Ian Frazer, Mel Judah, Steve Zolotow and more also due to sit down.
There will be plenty of online poker players heading to the live event as well. Titan Poker awarded seats to the Irish Open to 18 of its players, while Irish Open sponsor Paddy Power Poker is sending 73 players to the event.
There were 64 players from Paddy Power Poker who qualified via the Grand Final satellites. If any one of them should happen to win the Irish Open, they will have their buy-ins covered for the next half decade as a Paddy Power Poker player.
The qualifier from their site who lasts the longest in the tournament will also win free entry to the 2009 Irish Open, even if they don't win the event.
Six players from Paddy Power Poker also earned their free seats through the poker site's VIP Go Free promotion in which they had to earn 750,000 Paddy Points.
Two more players won their seats through special giveaways on the Paddy Power site.
The Irish Open begins at 2 p.m. Thursday and PokerListings.com will be on the scene to bring you live coverage of the Emerald Isle's best poker action from start to finish. Check it out in the Live Tournament section.
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Terry Rogers: The St. Patrick of poker
If the poker gods are in the business of anointing saints of their own, they might make Terry Rogers their version of St. Patrick. Rogers' name is at the root of almost all facets of modern Irish poker history.
Rogers, a well-known bookmaker, founded the Eccentric Club in Dublin in the 1970s. The club, a foundation which grew into the Irish Poker Open by 1980, hosted charity Five-Card Draw tournaments. Rogers, sometimes known as "Red Menace," saw World Series of Poker - and No-Limit Hold'em - while on a business trip to the United States. Much of the rest of Rogers' life was spent hammering poker into the Dublin ground hard enough to put down some pretty thick roots.
Poker's Saint Patrick is quoted as having once said, "I have been the greatest single factor in the worldwide spread of competitive poker." Listen to a few stories and you'll find it hard to argue with him.
When a woman by the name of Colette Doherty won the inaugural Irish Open, Rogers held back $10,000 from her Irish Open winnings and made her play in the WSOP that year. That made her the first woman ever to compete in the world's most prestigious poker tournament. (Doherty didn't cash at the WSOP, but she did win the Irish Open again in 1991.)
With the 1982 Irish Poker Open, the Emerald Isle's poker godfather constructed an early template for the success of today's overseas events like the European Poker Tour and the Aussie Millions by convincing some of poker's heavyweights to make the trip over the pond.
Stu Ungar, Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Tom McEvoy and Jack Keller set the example for today's jet-setting American players by traveling to Dublin for Rogers' tournament.
Ireland's only WSOP Main Event winner was also heavily influenced by Rogers. According to legend he would simply buy tickets to Las Vegas during the WSOP and force his childhood friend Noel Furlong to come with him.
The time off from minding his $100-million-a-year carpet business ended up putting Furlong in the annals of poker history; he made the Main Event final table during his first visit to the WSOP in 1989, and a decade later he triumphed over what was at the time the largest field the event had ever seen.
Irish Poker Open
The tournament Rogers founded at the Eccentric Club is the longest-running tournament in the world after the WSOP. After falling on hard times in the early 1990s, when Rogers had to care for his ailing mother, the Irish Poker Open has been going strong since being resuscitated in the mid-'90s.
Over the past decade the tournament's popularity has forced it to change locations twice. After Rogers' death in 1999, tournament director Liam "The Gentleman" Flood moved the event from the Eccentric Club to the Merrion Casino in Dublin.
Last year's tourney saw the location change for the second time, to Dublin's Burlington Hotel which can more easily accommodate the throngs of rounders wishing to buy a €4,500 seat.
In 2005 PaddyPowerPoker.com took over sponsorship of the storied event and since then has propelled it to new heights. Last year's Irish Poker Open drew a record field of 708 players and smashed the guarantee when the prize pool topped €2,300,000. The 2008 installment begins this weekend in Dublin, with a €3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool and room for 1,000 players.
Rogers' WSOP Legacy
Terry Rogers' legacy lives on as strongly at the WSOP as it does in Dublin. Here's a look at some of Ireland's best all-time performers at the WSOP:
Donnacha O'Dea
- 23 career WSOP cashes, including first in 1998 $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha
- $470,872 lifetime WSOP earnings
Andy Black
- 9 career WSOP cashes, including fifth at 2005 Main Event
- $2,014,249 lifetime WSOP earnings
Padraig Parkinson
- 6 career WSOP cashes, including third at the 1999 Main Event won by Furlong
- $707,406 total lifetime WSOP earnings
Noel Furlong
- 3 career WSOP cashes, including 2 ME final tables
- $1,070,785 total lifetime WSOP earnings
Alan Smurfit
- 1 career WSOP cash - first in 2007 $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha
- $464,867 lifetime WSOP earnings
Ciaran O'Leary
- 1 career WSOP cash - first in 2007 $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em
- $727,012 lifetime WSOP earnings
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