IWF History

About the Irish Winter Festival

The Paddy Power Poker Irish Winter Festival of Poker is an annual poker festival that takes place in Dublin, Ireland over the October bank holiday weekend. First organised in 2001, the festival is headlined by the Irish Masters main event, a €1,100 buy in No Limit Texas hold'em tournament.

The Irish Winter Festival was initially run as a stand-alone tournament in Dublin’s Merrion Card Club from 2001 to 2003 and then as the Dublin leg of the European Poker Tour (EPT) from 2004 to 2007.

In 2008 padypowerpoker.com became the event sponsor and moved the poker festival to Citywest Hotel, Dublin with a reduced main event buy-in fee of €1,650 from the previous year's €8,000. The same year the IWF attracted almost double the number of entrants than in 2007 with 423 players participating in the main event.

In 2011 paddypowerpoker.com reduced the main event buy in further to €1100.

Some of the most famous poker players in the world have recorded impressive results at the Irish Winter Festival in previous years, particularly in the Irish Masters main event.