The World Poker Tour has been on a European expansion kick, adding new events left and right following the brand’s acquisition by online poker giant Party Poker (read a review of party poker). Not content to keep the expansion limited to the continent, the WPT has moved on to the Emerald Isle with the announcement of the inaugural WPT Ireland event this coming January.

Tournament Details

WPT Ireland features a schedule made up of a handful of smaller buy-in events ranging from €100 to €1000. Those events surround a Main Event with a €2500 price tag. As a WPT event, the winner of the Main Event will also get a seat in the WPT World Championships for 2012.

The Main Event of WPT Ireland plays over 4 days, running from the 5th of January 2012 to the 8th. Players start with 30K in tournament chips, with blind levels bumping up ever hour. Satellites for the Main Event are scheduled for the 3rd and the 4th. The WPT Ireland event will also play host to the Irish Poker Championships, a 3–day event with a final table playing alongside the WPT Main Event final table.

The event will take place at the CityWest Hotel in Dublin, and – in addition to being the first WPT event in Ireland – serves as the kickoff event for Season 10 of the World Poker Tour.

How to Qualify

As owner of the World Poker Tour, Party Poker is pulling out all of the stops. From now until December 18th, Party is running a full slate of qualifiers that culminate in a prize package worth $6,000 (buy-in plus spending money, accommodations included). Players can actually win this prize without putting out any of their own money, as Party is running freerolls daily for the super-satellites to the weekly tournament that awards the prize packages.