Isaac Haxton and Patrick Leonard Make Top Ten After Irish Open Online Day 1a

For the second straight year, the Irish Open will be taking place online at partypoker on March 26 to April 7 instead of its usual home in Dublin.

The highlight of the festival is easily the €1 million guaranteed Irish Open €1,100 Main Event, which kicked off the first of its three opening flights on March 28 with the other two to take place on April 4 and April 5.

The huge seven-figure guarantee is merely a placeholder as yesterday alone attracted 822 entrants which generated €822,000 towards the eventual final prize pool.

Now it is just a matter of whether this year's Main Event beats last year's event which generated a massive prize pool of €2,945,000 with 2,945 entrants getting into the action. Pablo Silva shipped the 2020 Irish Open Main Event for a whopping €462,100 after besting Hungarian online superstar Andras Nemeth (second - €325,423) in heads-up play.

2021 partypoker Irish Open Main Event Day 1a Leaderboard

Prostak Leads After Day 1a; Haxton and Leonard Bag Big

The Irish Open Main Event kicked off with Day 1a at partypoker on Sunday at 8:05 p.m. CEST and ended nearly 9 1/2 hours later when the field was trimmed down to just 123 players, all of which will begin Day 2 in the money.

Artsiom Prostak accumulated the biggest stack on Day 1a after parlaying his 200,000 chip starting stack into a massive chip pile of 5,749,839 in chips.

Just behind Prostak is Justin Ouimette bagging the second biggest stack of 4,560,575. Ouimette is just a month off a huge win at partypoker when he shipped the MILLIONS Online Mini Main Event in February for $184,507 and is looking for an even bigger score in the Irish Open.

Related: Justin Ouimette Wins partypoker MILLIONS Online Mini Main Event ($184,507)

While others bagged big stacks including Morten Landberg Pedersen (third - 4,506,934), Viktor Zsemlye (fourth - 4,410,026), Alexandru Bucur (sixth - 3,694,932), and Jan Streicher (seventh - 3,656,367), the biggest news of the day could be that two partypoker Ambassadors cracked the top ten on the leaderboard on Day 1a.

partypoker Ambassador Isaac Haxton bagged a massive fifth-place stack of 4,203,053, while fellow Ambassador Patrick Leonard finished yesterday with an eighth-place stack of 3,435,635. The duo will be joined on Day 2 by Irish partypoker Ambassador Louise Butler (461,441) and former boxer and partypoker Ambassador Carl Froch (372,891), who both bagged some of the shortest chip stacks of the first opening flight.

Meanwhile, David Brennan performed the best last night among the players waving an Irish flag as he finished the flight with an 18th place stack of 2,231,060. In addition to Butler and Brennan, many others from Ireland advanced to Day 2 including Austin Kiely, Gerard Finlay, Shaun Conroy, Cathal Shine, Francis McDonald, Joseph Wrafter, Gary Stokes, Paul Feldstein, Mark Fanning, and Greg King.

Two More Opening Flights to Go!

There is still plenty of time to get into the action in the Irish Poker Main Event at partypoker with two more opening flights to go.

Don't stress if the €1,100 buy-in is too big for your bankroll or tastes as there are plenty of qualifiers and feeder tournaments running around the clock. You can qualify in for just one cent, something every player can afford!

Related: Win Your Way to the Irish Open for Just One Cent!

Day 1b kicks off on Sunday, April 4 at 8:05 p.m. CEST (2:05 p.m. ET) and will mirror the structure of Day 1a with players starting with 200,000 in chips and playing in 25-minute blind levels. Players are allowed one re-entry during the first nine blind levels and the day will conclude with the approximately 15 percent in the field in the money before the start of Day 2.

Meanwhile, the third and final opening flight begins on Monday, April 5 at 4:05 p.m. CEST (10:05 a.m. ET) and will be faster-paced with 10-minute blind levels. Otherwise, it plays out exactly as the other two opening flights.

Surviving opening flight players will then reconvene for action on Monday, April 5 at 8:05 p.m. CEST (2:05 p.m. ET) with blinds at 15,000/30,000/3,750a and play 10 blind levels of 30-minute each. Day 3 on Tuesday, April 6 will feature 40-minute blind levels and play down to a final table of nine players. The final nine will then battle it out on Wednesday, April 7 until a winner is crowned.

Download partypoker to Get Involved

If you want to play in the Irish Open Online on partypoker then you need an account. Don't worry - sign up through PokerNews and make a deposit of $10 or $20 to receive $10 or $30 worth of SPINS and tournament tickets over the course of a week.

Deposit $10 to receive $10 in tickets over the course of a week:

• Day 1: 2x $1 SPINS tickets + 1x $3.30 MTT ticket
• Day 2: 4x $0.25 SPINS tickets
• Day 4: 1x $3.30 MTT ticket
• Day 6: 4x $0.25 SPINS tickets

Deposit $20 and receive $30 worth of tickets over the course of a week:

• Day 1: 1x $5 SPINS ticket + 1x $3.30 MTT ticket
• Day 2: 2x $1 SPINS ticket + 1x $5.50 MTT ticket
• Day 4: 1x $5.50 MTT ticket
• Day 6: 2x $3 SPINS tickets + 1x$3.30 MTT ticket