PokerStars announced a slew of new PokerStars Festival stops on Tuesday, indicating a rapid expansion of the new live poker tour into Latin American and Asia. The first of these stops, Chile, will come after the previously scheduled upcoming stops in Rozvadov.
“We are excited to take our PokerStars Championship and PokerStars Festival across the globe bringing our vision for live poker to a whole new level, ensuring a year filled with far more winning moments than ever before,” said PokerStars’ Director of Live Events, Edgar Stuchly, in Tuesday’s press release. “The wide range of poker events on offer in new and exciting destinations shows the expansion of poker and underscores our commitment to growing the game while providing the best live poker experience to players all over the world.”
As our readers may well know by now, PokerStars killed off the European Poker Tour (EPT) at the end of 2016, replacing it with two new tours: PokerStars Championship and PokerStars Festival. It seems that the PokerStars Championship will approximate what the EPT was in spirit, with 10-11 day events at major casinos around the world and €/$5,000 Main Events.
The PokerStars Festival is the little brother to the Championship, not unlike the World Series of Poker Circuit. The Festival will typically be at lesser-known venues, the stops will be a bit shorter, and the events will mostly come in at lower price points.
Before the PokerStars Championship began – before the EPT was even dead – the PokerStars Festival kicked off at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City. The tour was also in London at the end of January.
In today’s press release, five more PokerStars Festival stops were announced:
PokerStars Festival Chile – May 20th to May 27th – Vina del Mar Hotel & Casino
PokerStars Festival Marbella – June 19th to June 25th – Casino Marbella, Spain
PokerStars Festival Korea – July 14th to July 24th – Paradise City, Incheon, South Korea
PokerStars Festival Manila – July 28th to August 7th – PokerStars LIVE at City of Dreams Manila
PokerStars Festival Uruguay – September 16th – September 23rd – Conrad Punta del Este Resort & Casino
When PokerStars announced in August 2016 that it was retiring the European Poker Tour brand name and launching the PokerStars Championship and PokerStars Festival, the company gave a quick reason for ending one of the most prestigious live poker tours on the planet:
“With the European Poker Tour (EPT) outgrowing its European borders, PokerStars is making its biggest live events even bigger, by encompassing key PokerStars sponsored events from around the world and bringing players worldwide the much-loved EPT experience”
As we can see, PokerStars is certainly expanding this transformed EPT outside of Europe. Only of the five PokerStars Festival stops listed above is in Europe. Two of the three previously scheduled Festival stops (London and Rozvadov) are in Europe.
Though the press release seemed to imply that PokerStars Championship stops had been added, none have been. The upcoming schedule for the PokerStars Championship still includes just the stops that had already been known: Panama, Macau, Monte Carlo, and Barcelona.
