With the European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final going on as this is being written, the EPT decided now would be the perfect time to announce the initial makings of the Season 13 schedule. Three tour stops have been announced – all familiar locations – as Season 13 gets going at the end of the summer.
The first stop will be, what else, EPT Barcelona. To be held August 16th through August 28th at the Casino Barcelona, EPT Barcelona is the only stop that has been on the European Poker Tour during every season since the Tour’s inception.
Said EPT President Edgar Stuchly in a press release, “Season 12 has been yet another record-breaker for the EPT with our biggest schedules ever and a record-breaking number of players. EPT Barcelona is always an astonishing festival and so we’re really looking forward to heading back to Spain in August after our traditional summer break.”
As he said, EPT Barcelona was a monster. 71 tournaments, 5,738 unique players (of course, the actual registration number was much higher than that), with almost €40 million in combined prize money. It was the largest stop in EPT history.
EPT Barcelona has had High Roller events – €25,000 and €50,000 buy-ins, to be precise – but this year’s stop will also have a more “affordable” €10,000 High Roller event, as well. A tournament which showed up for the first time at the current EPT Grand Final, it will be the kick-off event of 2016 EPT Barcelona.
From October 18th through October 29th, the European Poker Tour moves to Malta and the Portomaso Casino. Malta is a fairly new stop; this will be just the third year the Mediterranean archipelago will host a Tour stop.
The third tour stop announced today is EPT Prague, taking its traditional spot on the schedule just before Christmas. EPT Prague Season 12 was enormous: 97 events (NINETY-SEVEN!), more than 3,400 unique players and almost 16,000 tournament entries from those players. Good lord. The Hilton Prague will once again be the host venue from December 7th through December 18th.
More Tour stops will be announced in the future, as this was just the start. The European Poker Tour, though, always has a short schedule. Organizers seem to value quality over quantity. The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure usually kicks off the calendar year, so we will wait and see if the PCA finds its place back on the EPT schedule. This year, after the PCA, the only two EPT stops were Dublin and Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final. We know the Grand Final will be there, so at this point, the only real question is what stops will fill in the schedule for the first half of 2017.