The2025 Irish Open's kickoff has been a roaring success. The €1,150 Luxon Mystery Bounty, the first main attraction of the festival, attracted 1,222 entries to the halls of the Royal Dublin Society across four starting flights, making it the largest-ever mystery bounty event on Irish soil. The ambitious €1,000,000 guarantee was smashed, creating a total prize pool of €1,191,450, split evenly between regular and mystery bounty prizes. Today, 385 players will return for Day 2, which kicks off at noon local time.
Triple Crown Winner Niall Farrell ended the relatively quiet Day 1a atop the leaderboard, with his stack of 392,000 rewarding him with 98 big blinds and a 17th place overall. Farrell makes regular poker trips to Ireland, but an Irish Open trophy still eludes the accomplished Scotsman.
Meanwhil,e Greek player Nikolaos Angelou captured the overall chip lead on Day 1c, obtaining 900,500 chips. The top three is completed by Archibald Seaton and Jason Barton, both from the Unted Kindom. Meanwhile, former Irish Open Main Event champion Patrick Clarke was the best-performing Irishman, sitting in seventh with 525,000.
Start of Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikolaos Angelou | Greece | 900,500 | 225 |
| 2 | Archibald Seaton | United Kingdom | 782,000 | 196 |
| 3 | Jason Barton | United Kingdom | 605,000 | 151 |
| 4 | Ben Miller | United Kingdom | 560,500 | 140 |
| 5 | Vikrum Mehta | United Kingdom | 559,000 | 140 |
| 6 | Patrick Clarke | Ireland | 525,000 | 131 |
| 7 | Mark Finnane | Ireland | 448,500 | 112 |
| 8 | Michael Khan | Canada | 437,000 | 109 |
| 9 | Lee Rogers | United Kingdom | 421,500 | 105 |
| 10 | Leonel Guerra Garza | Mexico | 416,500 | 104 |
The action will restart in Level 15: 2,000/4,000 with a 4,000 big blind ante. All levels will be 60 minutes in length, and eight of them are scheduled to be played today, seeing the day end around 9 p.m. local time. A break of 20 minutes will be had after every two levels. The exact payout structure has not been announced yet, but it is expected to be announced before play gets underway.
The bubble of the €1,150 Luxon Mystery Bounty is set to burst today, so stay tuned to PokerNews to not miss any of the thrilling action from the Irish capital.
