Simon Wilson Wins the Irish Poker Open Main Event
Victory in the record-breaking Irish Poker Open Main Event means 22-year-old Irishman Simon Wilson has banked a cool €600,000.
Simon Wilson shows off his Irish Poker Open Main Event trophy and winning hand. ©DannyMaxwell/IrishPokerOpen
Key Facts:
- Simon Wilson wins the 2025 Irish Poker Open Main Event earning €600,000.
- Eight players collected €50,000+ at the Irish Poker Open Main Event final table.
- A whopping 6,411 entries created a €1.3 prize pool in the Mini Main side event.
- Omaha specialist Javier Francort was a three-time Irish Open tournament winner.
Simon Wilson is the 2025 Irish Poker Open champion. The 22-year-old Irishman, an Economics and Business student, outlasted 2,482 rival players (who took an additional 2,079 re-entries) to win the competition’s €600,000 first prize on Easter Monday.
The Main Event created a record-breaking €4,447,950 prize pool, making it the biggest poker tournament ever staged in Ireland. The minimum prize for the nine players at the final table was €45,800. It went to a second Irishman, veteran Joe O’Donaill.
As runner-up, €316,000 went to Italy’s Umberto Ruggeri, and Lithuania’s Ignotas Kirsis completed the podium positions. His reward for finishing third was €225,000. Cyprus, Sweden, Greece, the UK and Romania were other countries with a representative at the final table.
After receiving his trophy, Simon Wilson, who finished 17th in last year’s Main Event, said: “You feel like lightning wouldn’t strike twice, and the lads said it at the start of the week. But, coming into day three, I was like, Jesus, we have a chance, and everything just came together for me. Cards fell, and it’s just incredible.”
Complete scenes in Dublin as local player Simon Wilson won the @Irish_PokerOpen yesterday for €600,000, and what a rail it was! @stapes and @J_Hartigan had never seen anything like it 😀
His friends had +22500 on him to win with a sponsor too!
A great end to a… pic.twitter.com/IyvWxdUbZU
— PokerStarsUSA (@PokerStarsUSA) April 22, 2025
Irish Mini Main Was a Big Hit
Numerically, The Irish Open Mini Main Event was the biggest tournament of the Irish Poker Open festival. Thirteen starting flights, beginning on festival day 1, helped the €250 buy-in competition generate 6,411 entries and create a €1,343,874 prize pool.
When three players remained, Tyler Gordon, Gonzalo Veiga and Alexander Rizvi agreed on an ICM deal. With the most chips, Gordon was declared the winner, banking €116,000. Gonzalo Veiga received the second largest payout of €95,000, and Rizvi earned €92,900 for his efforts.
Francort Is a Dutch Omaha Master
The standout player of the 12-day Irish Poker Open festival was Javier Francort. The Dutchman won a remarkable three tournaments, all in the Omaha discipline. His outstanding run started in the €1,150 7-Max, where he collected €35,799.
Success in the €550 4/5/6 event added €21,287 to his bankroll, and on the final day of Irish Open action, he fared best of 140 players (184 entries) to land the €550 PLO 6-Max and complete a hattrick that paid an additional €20,960.
Lady Luck in the Liam Flood 6 Max Memorial
Robbie McCormac revealed to this scribe how well he ran in the Liam Flood 6 Max Turbo Memorial Championship to claim €20,000 and take second behind Alecsandru Petre Orban. The latter claimed €3,500 more in prize money and took the winner’s trophy home.
With blinds raised every 15 minutes, this tournament, named after the former bookmaker and Irish Open Director, was always going to require a copious slice of luck. Amongst McCormac’s more fortunate spots was his Ace-6 on a flop that came Ace-Ace-6 – against a rival holding pocket 6’s!
Bookmaker Liam Flood playing poker with Irish bookmaking legend Terry Rogers looking on (1984) pic.twitter.com/vFmb2LgtVO
— Sports & Betting History by BestBettingSites (@BettingSitesCom) December 22, 2022
Bringing the curtain down on the Irish Open in 2025 was another competition played at a suicidal pace. Event 69 was a €250 No Limit Hold’em Turbo that packed a 353-entry field. It fell to 2025 Irish Open Main Event 100th place finisher Conor O’Driscoll.
Is a WPT Next for Dublin?
The Irish Poker Open, an undoubted highlight of the European poker calendar, is likely to remain at the RDS in 2026 as joint organiser Paul O’Reilly explained to online-casinos.com, “It is the only venue in the whole of Ireland that’s big enough to house the thing.”
The rumour mill suggests Irish poker players will not have to wait 12 months for the next major international poker event to land on Irish shores. It is widely predicted the World Poker Tour will visit the Emerald Isle in late 2025.
