They might have rolled out slowly after the COVID pandemic, but the European Poker Tour is looking to reignite the engines for 2023. In an announcement this week, the venerable European circuit’s owners, PokerStars, announced the full schedule for the 2023 calendar year. The series will return to several familiar battlegrounds, but they have added some new stops that should make players quite happy.
2023 EPT Begins in February
The EPT will return to action with a couple of new venues on their schedule. The EPT Paris will take place between February 15-26 at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile. The circuit is teaming up with Le Club Barriere Paris for the event, which will feature the usual €5000 Main Event, a plethora of side game action, and plenty of preliminaries to entice the players. Online satellites are up and running for that festival, offering the chance to get to the event “on the cheap.”
From there, the EPT will head to one of its classic venues. The EPT Monte Carlo will take place between April 26 and May 6 at the Monte Carlo Casino. The circuit will take a break after that (for the usual World Series of Poker hiatus), but the EPT will return in August by once again stepping into a familiar home, the Casino Barcelona in Spain for the EPT Barcelona. That event will take place from August 21 to September 3.
Another new tournament takes center stage in the month of October. The Merit Royal Diamond Hotel, Casino, and Spa will play host to the EPT Cyprus, marking the first time the circuit has entered that arena. The 2023 calendar for the EPT will wrap up in its usual manner, with a December trip to the EPT Prague from December 6-17.
The Head of Global Live Event Operations for PokerStars, Cedric Billot, is ready to fast forward to 2023 to get the EPT schedule in play. “We’re incredibly excited to announce our schedule for The European Poker Tour 2023,” Billot stated during the announcement. “The schedule includes our players’ firm favorites, the first time in the glamorous French capital, and another exciting new addition to the tour. Cyprus is the perfect location to add to our schedule and we look forward to bringing all that an EPT has to offer to this new location.”
“We will continue to improve the player experience both for online qualifications and at our live events,” Billot concluded.
2022 Season Coming to a Close
Looking back at the 2022 EPT Season XVIII, some great action was certainly missed due to the “lost year” of the pandemic in 2021.
The EPT Prague welcomed the players back in March, with Grzegorz Glowny able to walk away with the championship. The “real world” would again infringe on the tournament poker world later in March, however, when the EPT first postponed and canceled their stop in Sochi, Russia. That cancelation was brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, as of today, there is little hope that the visit to Sochi will be reinstated at any point.
The EPT Monte Carlo picked up the baton in May 2022, however, and provided poker fans with a stirring event before the start of the 2022 WSOP. Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu battled his way to the championship at a final table that included the inaugural winner of the PokerStars Players’ Championship, Ramon Colillas. The EPT then went on its usual hiatus to allow for the crème of the European poker world to attend the WSOP.
Europe would roar back to life for the EPT Barcelona in August, with the usual outpouring of players providing large prize pools for its combatants. Giuliano Bendinelli earned a million-dollar-plus payday from the Main Event – $1,535,867, to be exact – after defeating Jimmy Guerrero for the title in the largest-ever EPT Main Event.
In October, the tour returned for the first time in eight years to London, where two British men battled for the title. Ian Hamilton was able to defeat Jack Sinclair for the title, keeping the EPT trophy in the United Kingdom. The final chapter of the 2022 EPT season will be written in just over a week when the EPT Prague opens for business in the Czech Republic.
The history provided by the European Poker Tour has become etched in the annals of poker history itself. It certainly will only add to that legacy as the new 2023 calendar season plays out.