On Monday, PokerStars announced that the PokerStars Baltic Festival will be reprised in June. The event will be held at the Olympic Casino at the Swissôtel in Tallinn, Estonia from June 16th to June 19th.
Last year’s Baltic Festival was a celebration of worldwide diversity, drawing 307 runners from 24 different countries. United Kingdom resident Thomas Partridge won the €1,100 Main Event, cashing in for €76,750 ($114,020). This year, the buy-in has increased to €1,500.
In a PokerStars press release, 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion Peter Eastgate sang the praises of the PokerStars Baltic Festival: “It was a great event last year and I will definitely recommend it to all the players I know.” The Dane placed 23rd in the inaugural tournament in 2009, winning €2,455 ($3,647).
While the Main Event starts on Wednesday, June 16th, the poker action gets going on Tuesday with cash games and Sit-and-Gos, as well as a cocktail hour in the PokerStars lounge area. There will also be four side events, with the first starting in the evening of Day 1B of the Main Event (Thursday): €400 + 40 No Limit Hold’em Terminator, €300 + 30 Pot Limit Omaha, €500 + 50 No Limit Hold’em, and €100 + 10 No Limit Hold’em Turbo.
Tallinn, the oldest capital in Europe, will also be the site of the first stop for Season 7 of the European Poker Tour (EPT). The specific venue has yet to be announced, but the Swissôtel would be a good bet. The EPT Tallinn Main Event will run from August 11th to August 16th and will feature a €4,000 + 250 buy-in. PokerStars is also tying together the Baltic Festival and EPT Tallinn. The world’s largest online poker room will give away an EPT Tallinn prize package to the player who survives the longest in the Baltic Festival Main Event while wearing the PokerStars logo. Anyone wearing PokerStars gear is eligible (the poker room will provide logo items), even if they did not qualify for the tournament via PokerStars.
Speaking of which, PokerStars already has qualifiers for the Baltic Festival up and running online. There are two ways to win a seat to the live tournament. The first is via a €215 Weekly Final, held each Saturday leading up to the event, in which nine prize packages will be guaranteed. The second is via a €33 re-buy tournament, held each Sunday, in which three prize packages are guaranteed. There are also several satellites to the Weekly Final, most of which are only for Nordic and Baltic players.
The prize packages include the €1,500 Baltic Festival Main Event buy-in, five-nights accommodation at the Swissôtel Tallinn, and €350 in spending money.
