We've spotted a handful of big names among the Day 1a starters and all of them have a realistic chance of leaving the isle of Man with the winner's trophy.
Diego Gomez has a European Poker Tour final table under his belt having finished fifth in Prague during Season 9, while Deborah Worley-Roberts and David Lloyd certainly know how to navigate their way around a poker tournament.
Irish duo, Dara O'Kearney and Daragh Davey will fancy their chances of glory, while Adam Owen had a successful WCOOP so should be full of confidence, despite being a mixed game specialist.
The tournament has just commenced and the clock displays a total of 63 players signed up at the moment. Amongst them two high rollers with Senh Ung and Paul Newey, as well as Dutch PokerStars Sport Star Fatima Moreira de Melo. The latter is looking to best her result of two years ago, when she finished runner up in this event.
The UK & Ireland Poker Tour is back to the beautiful Isle of Man for the third consecutive time, and this time you'll be able to follow all the action on PokerNews.com. It's the annual PokerStars home game as the island is home to the head office of worlds biggest online poker room.
Two years ago the tournament debuted with a £1.000 Main Event and 379 players entered. PokerStars Sport Star Fatima Moreira de Melo came close to grabbing the trophy, but lost heads up to Duncan Mclellan. Local hero Christopher Jonat finished fourth that year for £34,870.
Last year the tournament had a buy in of £700 and 402 players registered. Again a local came close to capturing the title, but David Hill eventually finished 3rd for £30,200. The title went to Josh Hart who picked up £57.484.
This year the buy-in has been lowered to £400 and the structure has been slightly altered as well. The tournament is now a re-entry with one re-entry per day permitted, making for a maximum of 4 bullets. The plan is to play 12 levels today, all of them 45-minutes long. The dinner break will be after level 7 (5:45 pm), the day should be done around 11:45 pm.
Sit back and check back in little over an hour for the start of Day 1a of the UKIPT Isle of Man as the action gets underway at 12 noon!