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Wednesday 15th March, 2023

Irish Open 2023 highlights: The €350 buy-in Heads-Up tournament

By Mad Harper

The Irish Open schedule is chock-full of exciting tournaments including 11 prestigious, trophy-awarding Championship events. One of those that invariably sells out is the Heads-Up tournament which is capped at 64 players.

 

This year’s Irish Open is taking place from April 3 to 10 at the Royal Dublin Society. MainEventTravel.com is the Official Travel Partner for the Irish Open with a whole bunch of special deals for this year’s event offering accommodation and buy-in combined.

 

Round 1 of this year’s Heads-Up tourney gets underway on Tuesday, April 4 at 2pm. Each round features a 20-minute clock and a total starting stack of 15,000 chips. Your stack can be taken in three 5k increments though – the equivalent of three bullets.

 

In heads-up play, you’re in action every single hand so playing well requires a quite different strategy to playing a normal tournament. Luckily the Irish Open’s headline sponsor PokerStars has lots of strategy tips on how best to tackle heads-up play so do check out their guidance.

 

At last year’s Irish Open Heads-Up event, French player Anthony Blaineau took it down for €5,640 after beating the 64-strong field. It was Blaineau’s first ever cash in a live Heads-Up tournament and it only took him 25 minutes to vanquish British player William McMurray in the final heads-up round. Blaineau was delighted to win the event which came exactly ten years after he competed at his very first live tournament at the Irish Open in 2012. McMurray snagged €5k for his runner-up finish with the final eight all making the money.

 

Other champions include Canadian Nicola Basile who took the event down in 2018 and Sweden’s Lars Viggander who won the smaller 32-player event in 2017.

 

You can register for the 2023 Heads-Up tournament direct from your Luxon Pay wallet or contact the Irish Open organisers via their website contact form. Don’t forget that MainEventTravel.com is the Irish Open’s Official Travel Partner and can offer you fantastic deals on accommodation + buy-in packages for this year’s event.

 

 

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