The PartyPoker Tour heads to Ireland next month. PartyPoker Tour Cork runs from November 9 to November 15, 2026 at the Macau Sporting Club, the eighth leg of the 2026 tour and the first PartyPoker-branded event in the country since PartyPoker joined forces with the Irish Poker Festival in late 2023. The headline event is a €500 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event with a €100,000 guarantee, supported by a €150 Mini Main Event with €50,000 guaranteed, a €250 Mystery Bounty, a Tennessee Hold'em Irish Championship and a €1,000 High Roller.
For mid-stakes live players in the UK and Ireland, this is the sort of festival that does not make international headlines but regularly produces some of the best value on the circuit. Below is the schedule, the results from the first seven legs of the tour, and some arithmetic on whether the Cork Main Event is likely to beat its guarantee.
The Cork Schedule at a Glance
The week is built around two main structures, both with multiple Day 1 flights so players can choose a start time that suits them.
Mini Main Event (€150, €50,000 GTD). Four Day 1 flights run from November 9 to 11. Flights 1a and 1b are standard, 1c is a turbo and 1d is a hyper-turbo. Day 2 is on November 11 and the final table plays on November 12. Satellites at €30 (three seats on offer each time) run on November 9 and 10.
Cork Main Event (€500, €100,000 GTD). Day 1 flights run November 12 to 14, again with a turbo (1c) and a hyper (1d) option. Day 2 is November 14 and the champion is crowned on Sunday, November 15. Satellites include a €60 option on November 11 and a €85 satellite on November 12 offering eight seats.
Side events. The €250 NLHE Mystery Bounty plays November 14 and 15, with a turbo and a hyper flight. There is a €60 Tennessee Hold'em Irish Championship on November 14, a €1,000 NLHE High Roller 7-Max on November 15 (with a €115 satellite offering two seats), a €150 PLO 7-Max, a €170 NLHE knockout and several €60 to €100 bounty-style side events, including a €100 Last Chance Double Board on the closing evening. PartyPoker is also offering free-to-play sports betting and casino tournaments with €550 Main Event seats as prizes.
The multi-flight structure matters. Each flight is an independent shot at a Day 2 seat, and the turbo and hyper flights suit players who cannot commit to a long Day 1 or who like a fast, high-variance path to the next day. Re-entry rules apply per the tour's published structure, so check the official event page before registering.
What Happened in Legs 1 to 7
The 2026 PartyPoker Tour has already visited seven cities. The Main Event results show how big a typical stop is and how consistently the guarantee has been surpassed:
| Leg | Entrants | Prize Pool | Champion | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 Sheffield | 273 | £121,485 | Siddharth Sudunagunta | £20,090 |
| #2 Sevilla | 383 | €170,435 | Garrido Cruz | €30,500 |
| #3 Madrid | 535 | €238,075 | Alexey Neofitov | €43,250 |
| #4 Manchester | 260 | £115,700 | Michael Breen | £22,000 |
| #5 London | 190 | £100,000 | Daniel Smith | £22,500 |
| #6 Glasgow | 355 | £157,975 | Robbie Bull | £28,500 |
| #7 Castellón | 368 | €163,760 | Jonathan Rees | €30,000 |
According to the tour, six of the seven Main Events have exceeded their guarantees, and the expectation is that Cork will be the seventh of eight to do so. London is the outlier: its prize pool of £100,000 is exactly the round-number guarantee, with only 190 entrants.
Adding the entrant numbers gives 2,364 across seven stops, an average of about 338 per Main Event. The range is wide, from 190 in London to 535 in Madrid, which suggests that venue, date and local player pools matter far more than the brand alone.
Will Cork Beat Its Guarantee? Doing the Maths
The published results let us work out roughly how much of each buy-in goes into the prize pool. Dividing prize pool by entrants gives the same figure for several stops: Sheffield's £121,485 across 273 entrants works out at £445.00 per entrant, and Sevilla's €170,435 across 383 entrants is also 445.00 per entrant. Madrid's €238,075 across 535 entrants is again 445.00. In other words, on a 500 buy-in, about 445 appears to go to the prize pool, with the rest taken as fee. That is simple division on the published numbers, not an official statement of the fee structure, but it holds across several legs.
If Cork's €500 buy-in follows the same split, the €100,000 guarantee requires about 225 entries (100,000 divided by 445 is roughly 224.7). Re-entries are counted as entries, so 225 total buy-ins, not 225 different players, is the target.
Against that bar, only London's 190 would have fallen short, and the other six stops all cleared it by a comfortable margin: Manchester's 260 entrants are already above the mark, and Madrid's 535 is more than double. A field drawing in line with the seven-leg average of about 338 would generate a prize pool of roughly €150,000, around 50 percent above the guarantee. That is a rough projection, not a forecast, but it tells you that on current form the overlay risk for players is low and the guarantee is a modest floor rather than a stretch target.
The same logic applies to the Mini Main Event. If the same net share holds on its €150 buy-in (about €133.50), the €50,000 guarantee would require around 375 entries. That is a larger number of tickets than the Main Event needs, but with four flights and a hyper-turbo option aimed at recreational players, it is plausible. Treat this one as an assumption, since the fee on a €150 ticket may differ.
Why Ireland, and Why Now
The festival fits into a busy Irish calendar. In early 2027, the Irish Poker Open runs in Dublin from March 18 to 29; we covered its €2.5M Main Event schedule. Cork is the opening act, giving PartyPoker a chance to remind Irish players that the tour is on their doorstep before the 2027 season.
The location also matters for the audience. The tour's recent stops have been in Britain and Spain; the Cork leg is the first PartyPoker-branded event in Ireland since the 2023 tie-up. For players based in Ireland or travelling from Britain, a €500 buy-in and a €100,000 guarantee are far more accessible than the big-ticket European festivals. If you are weighing live against online play, our online poker vs live poker comparison sets out the trade-offs, and our UK poker guide covers where British players can play online.
What This Means for Players
Choose your flight deliberately. Standard flights give the most play per level, so they favour skilled players with deep-stack edges. Turbo and hyper flights are shorter and swingier; they can suit recreational players who want a quick result, but they increase variance and reward shove-fold accuracy. Our poker strategy hub and pot odds explainer are useful refreshers before a short-stacked flight.
Satellites are the value play. The €30 and €60 satellites offer multiple seats, and the €85 satellite on November 12 advertises eight seats. Satellite equity can be better than direct buy-in equity, especially if the satellite field is soft.
Plan the bankroll. A tournament week involves several buy-ins, travel and accommodation. Treat the total cost as a single investment and follow the guidance on bankroll management rather than chasing losses across flights.
Mystery Bounty adjustment. The €250 Mystery Bounty will play differently from the Main Event. Check the bounty structure at registration and see our mystery bounty strategy lessons for the common adjustments.
The Bottom Line
PartyPoker Tour Cork looks like a well-priced, well-structured festival. The Main Event guarantee is in line with the tour's historical turnout, the flight structure is flexible, and the side-event menu covers everything from Tennessee Hold'em to a €1,000 High Roller. If the first seven legs are any guide, the €100,000 guarantee should be comfortably exceeded, and the winner in Cork will join a list of champions who each took home roughly 20,000 to 43,000 in local currency this year.
Dates again: Mini Main Event November 9 to 12, Main Event November 12 to 15, Macau Sporting Club, Cork. Always confirm times and structures on the official PartyPoker Tour page before travelling.