Irish Poker Open 2010

Kara Scott to return to Ireland for the Irish Open 2010, sponsored by Paddy Power Poker, in a bid to better last year's second place finish

Kara Scott has announced she will be heading back to Ireland to participate in the 2010 Irish Poker Open when the tournament returns to the Burlington Hotel in the heart of Dublin, the scene of the 2007 event. Canadian player Scott came second at the event in 2009 after an entertaining Heads Up struggle with event winner and professional player Christer Johansson of Sweden. This second place finish netted her €312,600 in prize money.

A native Canadian, Kara Scott lived for some time in the UK before moving to her current home in California. She has numerous presenting and reporting roles to her credit, including the first televised series, High Stakes Backgammon, a regular column in industry magazine 'Flush' and was one of the main hosts of the award winning show "Poker Night Live". Scott is well known as having been one of the faces of Sky Poker on Sky Television, a dedicated poker channel which launched in February 2007, as well as being the TV host for the 2007/2008 European Poker Tour.

Her success in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2008 and 2009 Main Events has led to Scott focusing her attention on becoming a professional poker player and announced her departure from Sky Poker in August 2008. She is the only woman to have ever cashed in back-to-back Main Events after finishing 104th out of a field of 6,844 in 2008 and 238th out of 6,494 in 2009.

Sponsored by paddypowerpoker.com the Irish Open is the longest running No-limit Texas Hold'em tournament in Europe and the second longest in the world after WSOP. It was first organised by Terry Rogers in 1980 and has grown to be Europe's largest tournament. It is said that it was Rogers' annual trips to Las Vegas that led him to set up the Irish Open after witnessing the then new and exciting Texas Hold'em variant of the game. Since paddypowerpoker.com's sponsorship of the tournament its success has grown rapidly with attendance figures doubling from 339 players in 2006 to 700 players in 2009. This larger than expected 2009 field included the famous faces of Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Neil Channing and Dan Harrington.

Traditionally held over Easter weekend, this year the action is set to start on 2nd April 2010 until 5th April, with a Super Satellite scheduled for 1st April. The buy in is set at €3,200 + €300.