EUROPEAN POKER TOUR ANNOUNCES DATES FOR EPT SEASON 11

The European Poker Tour (EPT) has recently announced some dates for the forthcoming Season 11 – kicking off with Europe’s largest-ever poker festival in Barcelona in August to celebrate the 100th EPT.

Five European destinations have been confirmed at this stage and all will run in conjunction with PokerStars’ national and regional tours in Europe. The EPT Barcelona Poker Festival will join the Estrellas Poker Tour for a festival running August 16-27. The EPT London Poker Festival will again include the UKIPT and take place from October 8-18. The EPT Prague Poker Festival – which attracted a record-breaking 1,007-strong field for the Main Event this season – will again team up with the Eureka Poker Tour and run from December 7-17 while in Deauville, the EPT and France Poker Series (FPS) will join forces for a 11-day festival from January 28 to February 7, 2015. The Season 11 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final will incorporate the FPS and take place April 29 – May 8, 2015.  Further stops will be confirmed at a later date.

• EPT Barcelona August 16 - 27, 2014; EPT Main Event August 21-27
• EPT London October 8-18, 2014; EPT Main Event October 12-18
• EPT Prague December 7-17, 2014; EPT Main Event December 11-17
• EPT Deauville January 27 – February 7, 2015, EPT Main Event February 1-7
• EPT Grand Final April 29 - May 8, 2015 EPT Main Event May 2-5

With more than 9,000 entries, last season’s Barcelona Poker Festival was a staggering success, the debut event of a season that has broken numerous records and attracted more players than ever before. Season 10’s festivals around Europe have already pulled in more than 40,000 entries and the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final is set to add at least 4,000 or more. The EPT Barcelona festival in August is expected to set new European prize pool and attendance records when it returns to Casino Barcelona.

Several enhancements to tournament schedules are already in the pipeline for Season 11 designed to give as many players as possible the chance to participate. They include dedicated €200 Seniors Events (for ages 50+) at most stops, a reduction in buy-in (from €300 to €200) for all our Women’s Events plus the opportunity to qualify online for a wide range of events including new “Championship Events” being held at most stops featuring variants such as HORSE, Stud and Omaha events. The tour will also continue offering “fun” events  - which have proved a big hit in Season 10 - such as Deuces Wild and Crazy Pineapple. There will be more satellites than ever before online on the various PokerStars platforms giving as many players as possible the chance to complete.

The only change to Main Event buy-ins will be EPT London (October 12-18) which is being reduced to £4,000 + £250 (approximately €5,100) to bring it in line with Main Event buy-ins at the other EPT tour stops.

Vicky Coren - The 1st ever two-time EPT main event champion!

EPT President Edgar Stuchly said: “Season 10 has been a tremendous success and we’ve had some great feedback from players who welcome the even greater variety of events at the festivals and the wide range of buy-ins. Partnering the local tours means our events are more accessible than ever before and we pride ourselves on providing the most professional playing environment available anywhere in the world. We will be building on this formula in Season 11 and, as always, constantly striving to enhance the player experience.”

About the European Poker Tour

The European Poker Tour (EPT) is Europe’s richest and most popular poker tour. Since 2004, the EPT has paid out over €535 million in tournament prize pools, and hosted successful festivals across Europe. The EPT also operates the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), which takes place every January in the Bahamas and is the largest poker festival outside of Las Vegas.   Further information on the EPT is available online at http://www.europeanpokertour.com/

Story via PokerStars Press

POKERSTARS’ CARNIVAL OF TOURNAMENTS RETURNS

PokerStars is in a carnival atmosphere this month, as the world’s largest online poker site announced it will celebrate the latest milestone of Tournament Number 900 Million with a ‘Carnival of Tournaments’ from April 14-27. The two-week festival will feature more than $2 million in boosted guarantees, special tournaments, and $700,000 in giveaway prizes.

The first Carnival of Tournaments, held last October to celebrate Tournament Number 800 Million, was a week-long affair. This time, though, there will be a fortnight of promotions, featuring a week of increased guarantees in The Big daily tournaments and a Golden Sit & Go’s period. There’s also Tournament Number 900 Million itself, which will have a $109 buy-in, a $1 million guaranteed prize pool, and $100,000 in added prizes given out to random tables during the first 2 hours and 20 minutes of the tournament.

THE SCHEDULE
April 14 – Milestone Golden Sit & Go’s: more than $500,000 to be given away at random across a wide variety of Sit & Go games. See http://psta.rs/PlT0wj for more details. 

April 21-27 – Big, Bigger, Biggest Tournaments: more than $2 million in increased guarantees in the Daily Bigs. Go to http://psta.rs/1mM9OdO for more info.

April 27, 13.00 ET – Tournament Number 900 Million: $1 million guaranteed, $100,000 added prizes, $109 buy-in. Qualifiers are now running for as little as $1. Check out http://psta.rs/1h6pVRp for more.

TOURNAMENT NUMBER 900 MILLION
The milestone tournament takes place on Sunday, April 27 at 13.00 ET, features a $109 buy-in and $1 million guaranteed prize pool. As a special reward to players, $100,000 in additional prizes (including cash, tournament tickets and a live event package) will be handed out to hundreds of players at random tables during the late registration period.

PokerSchoolOnline Ticket Giveaway
As usual the very generous staff over at PokerSchoolOnline have put together another great poker promotion to celebrate this historic milestone in online tournaments. Check out All The Details of how you can satellite into these events for FREE!

CLOSE CALL FOR RAFA NADAL IN HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH SELBST

The world’s number one tennis player and PokerStars ambassador, Rafa Nadal has lost out to the world’s best female poker player, Vanessa Selbst in a heads-up poker game. Nadal finished with slightly fewer chips than Selbst in a special charity poker game held at Casino de Monte Carlo.

Nadal was hoping to build on his poker tournament victory in Prague last December, when he beat the likes of Brazilian football legend Ronaldo and the world’s number one poker player Daniel Negreanu. Speaking about his first ever live heads-up poker experience, Nadal said: “It was a great honour to play against a strong competitor and although I lost, I had a lot of fun.”

Selbst added: “Rafa played a great game, but the format and the cards were in my favour. I was able to win by using aggression in good spots and I also made a number of strong hands.  I had an excellent time with Rafa and I’m looking forward to the re-match!”

Alfonso Cardalda, Nadal’s poker coach said: “Playing against Vanessa was a very important part of Rafa’s poker journey. After winning in Prague, this was his next big step and he played very well against one of the best poker players in the world.”

Both Nadal and Selbst are well known for being extremely focused and determined competitors, who possess the strategic and technical abilities to succeed. Their coming together was a great battle of minds.

Nadal faces a different type of opponent next week when he’ll be competing in the first round of the ATP Monte Carlo Masters, in search of a record ninth title. Yale law graduate Selbst will next participate in the PokerStars European Poker Tour event in Sanremo, where she hopes to add to her impressive $9.6 million in poker tournament winnings.

Five thousand Euros will be donated to Care International as part of this charity event.

Record Numbers Set For PokerStars Monaco EPT Event

Courtesy of PokerStars Press

The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final is set to attract record numbers later this month as well as offer players the most varied tournament schedule ever. With three weeks still go before the festival kicks off at the glamorous Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel and Resort, more than 210 PokerStars players are already registered, including more than 140 who have won their seats online.

This Sunday’s €700 EPT Grand Final Mega Qualifier is set to swell the numbers still further, with 20 €14,000 EPT Grand Final packages guaranteed – double the number of the first Mega Qualifier that awarded 22 packages in February. PokerStars is also laying on numerous extra satellites in the lead-up to the prestigious €10,600 Main Event, as well as hosting regular €700 qualifiers on April 13 and 20. In all, more than 200 players are expected to win their seats for the Main Event by the time the festival starts on April 23, compared to 167 last year.

A host of big names are among those who have already qualified, including Team PokerStars Pro Jose ‘Nacho’ Barbero, Team PokerStars Online’s Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Aussie Millions champ Ami Barer, EPT champions Kevin MacPhee and Mike McDonald, plus PCA champs Dimitar Danchev and newly-sponsored Dominik Panka. The first-ever EPT Grand Final “Early Bird Exclusives” were also snapped up super fast, giving 50 players a 50% discount on their hotel package.

The EPT is joining forces with the France Poker Series (FPS) for the first time in Monaco to provide an unparalleled variety of events at a wide range of buy-ins. The debut event is the €1,100 FPS Monaco Main Event, which will enjoy its first ever appearance on EPTLive with a cards-up, ‘as live’ broadcast of the final on April 27.

Another exciting activity taking place during the festival is filming of Heats 3 and 4 of Shark Cage, the new PokerStars TV show where PokerStars qualifiers, celebrities and poker legends from around the world compete for a shot at a $1 million winner-takes-all prize. The last heats – at the PCA in January – featured stars such as Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander and actress Jennifer Tilly, and big names are also lined up for the next round in Monaco.

A significant number of tournaments (21 in total) are priced at €500 and below at this season’s festival, giving a wide spectrum of players a chance to get in on the action. Some of the fun formats making their Grand Final debut include a €200 Deuces Wild tourney and €300 Run It Twice event. High rollers certainly have enough to keep them happy as well: in addition to the €2,000 FPS High Roller and €25,000 EPT High Roller, the €100,000 Super High Roller starts April 24. This will be filmed for television as well as broadcast live, with the final shown cards-up on April 26. Cash game players will yet again benefit from up to 40 tables running 18 hours a day and offering a wide range of games including No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Stud, Draw, Open Face Chinese and Open Face Chinese Pineapple.

To view the full schedule, please visit http://psta.rs/EPT_GF.

About the European Poker Tour

The European Poker Tour is the world’s richest and most popular poker tour. Since 2004, the EPT has paid out over €574million in tournament prize pools, and hosted successful festivals across Europe. The EPT also incorporates the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), which takes place every January in the Bahamas and is the largest poker festival outside of Las Vegas.   

Season 10 of the EPT builds on the success of a decade of world-class live poker events, with major poker festivals in Barcelona, London, Prague, Deauville, Vienna and Sanremo as well as the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final in Monaco. Please see http://www.europeanpokertour.com/

Story Courtesy of PokerStars Press