The seventh season of the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) was announced on Wednesday. The roving tournament series will kick off on August 11th in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Qualifiers for the opening stop of Season 7 will begin in mid-June on the world’s largest online poker site.
Twelve stops currently make up the seventh season of the EPT. On the slate of events, EPT founder and PokerStars sponsored pro John Duthie commented in Wednesday’s press release, “The EPT just gets bigger and better every season and it shows the passion and enthusiasm players feel for our events. Season 6 had a thousand more players than in Season 5 and we expect the numbers to keep on growing. The prize pool last season was well over €56 million, a €4 million increase on the previous year.” Duthie added that he expects attendance in the EPT’s side events to increase in the coming season.
Despite being a stop on the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) and Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure will once again grace the EPT schedule. The 2011 running of the Bahamian tournament begins on January 8th and ends six days later. The $10,300 buy-in Main Event is capped at 1,600 players. American Harrison Gimbel took down this year’s running for $2.2 million after outlasting a field of 974 at the Atlantis Resort and Casino on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
Also returning to the Season 7 schedule is EPT Snowfest, which debuted during Season 6. EPT Snowfest will once again take place in March, this time running from the 20th to 25th. A field of 274 showed up for its inaugural running this year, with Allan Baekke coming out on top for €445,000 over Russell “rdcrsn” Carson. The tournament emanates from the quaint ski resort of Saalbach-Hinterglemm in Austria, nestled in the Alps.
Break our your calendars. Here are the dates for Season 7 of the EPT:
EPT Tallinn (Estonia): August 11th to 16th
Swissotel
€4,000 + 250 buy-in
EPT Vilamoura (Portugal): August 28th to September 2nd
Solverde
€5,000 + 300 buy-in
EPT London (United Kingdom): September 29th to October 4th
Metropole
£5,000 + 250 buy-in
EPT Barcelona (Spain): November 22nd to 27th
The Arts
€5,000 + 300 buy-in
EPT Prague (Czech Republic): December 13th to 18th
Hilton
€5,000 + 300 buy-in
PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (Bahamas): January 8th to 14th
Atlantis
$10,000 + 300 buy-in
EPT Deauville (France): January 26th to 31st
Casino Barriere
€5,000 + 300 buy-in
EPT Copenhagen (Denmark): February 17th to 22nd
Casino Copenhagen
DKK 35,000 + 2,250 buy-in
EPT Snowfest (Austria): March 20th to 25th
Alpine Palace
€3,500 + 250 buy-in
EPT Berlin (Germany): April 5th to 10th
Grand Hyatt
€5,000 + 300 buy-in
EPT San Remo (Italy): Dates and Location TBD
€5,000 + 300 buy-in
EPT Grand Final: Dates and Location TBD
€10,000 + 600 buy-in
The EPT Grand Final is traditionally held in the storied Monte Carlo casino in Monaco. Whether the finale will be held in the same location during Season 7 remains to be seen. The press release distributed by PokerStars simply notes, “EPT Grand Final details will be released shortly.” Earlier this month, Lebanese poker player Nicolas Chouity took down the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final to the tune of €1.7 million.
Season 7 also marks the return of the EPT to the Grand Hyatt in Berlin, site of the now-infamous armed robbery in March. The tournament moves to April in Season 7, but we’d expect to see increased security measures after this year’s incident. It took all of a few weeks for the suspects to be rounded up.