PokerStars’ New Year Series may have wrapped up in the dot-com market, but in North America, the operator is ushering in 2026 with its flagship Winter Series.

The festival quietly got underway on January 23 and is running across PokerStars US and PokerStars Ontario, with three separate Winter Series taking place at the same time.

New Jersey and Michigan online poker players are competing within a shared liquidity pool, while Pennsylvania and Ontario poker players each have their own ring-fenced player pools and independent schedules.

Compared to last year’s edition, the 2026 Winter Series is noticeably smaller. Each of the three series features 50 tournaments, down from 89 events per network last year. As a result, overall guarantees are lower. While PokerStars has not published total guarantees for the festival, as per our calculations, more than $1.5 million in prize money is guaranteed across all three series combined.

Ontario hosts the largest of the three, offering C$752K in guarantees, which is roughly equivalent to $550K USD. The shared Michigan–New Jersey network follows with close to $540K in guaranteed prize pools, while the Pennsylvania series is the smallest, carrying $441K in guarantees.

PokerStars Winter Series 2026 Overview:

  • $1.5 million in combined guarantees
  • Buy-ins range from $7 to $500
  • $200 Main Event guarantee ranges from $70K to $100K
  • Special throwables for participating in the series
  • Winner gets PokerStars-themed Card Protector

Schedule Highlights and Formats

The schedule includes a broad range of buy-ins, with some new price points introduced this year, including $7, $8, $77, and $88. More familiar stakes are also present, such as $10, $20, $30, $40, $50, $100, $250, and a top-end buy-in of $500.

The series has now reached its midpoint, though several headline events are still to come. Chief among them are the Main Events, which feature a $200 buy-in and carry the largest guarantees of the festival. Ontario’s C$200 Main Event offers a C$100,000 guarantee, while the shared MI/NJ network guarantees $70,000. Pennsylvania’s Main Event comes with a $60,000 guarantee.

Players can qualify for the Main Event through satellites starting at just $2, using PokerStars’ two-step qualification system.

Each market also features Mini Main Events with buy-ins of either $30 or $50, offering solid guarantees at lower stakes. In addition, the schedule includes a $500 High Roller Main Event and a Second Chance Main Event that runs shortly after the Main Event concludes.

Another highlight is the phased Micro Main Event, which costs $10 to enter and guarantees $10,000 in each market. As a phased tournament, players can enter starting flights daily, with Day 2 scheduled for February 2, the final day of the series.

Staying true to its seasonal theme, tournaments carry winter-inspired names such as Snowball Fight, Candy Cane, Snowman, and Winter Thrill. A freezeout tournament is also featured on the schedule every day.

The Winter Series offers a wide mix of formats and variants, including PKOs, mystery bounty events, and Bubble Rush tournaments. Players can choose from several game types, such as PLO, PLO Hi-Lo, and 5-Card PLO8, with tables running six-handed, seven-handed, and eight-handed formats.

Participants unlock special throwables simply by playing any Winter Series event, and anyone who manages to win a tournament receives an exclusive PokerStars-branded card protector.

In terms of player interest, the $100 Mystery Special has stood out as the most popular event so far. Across all three series, it has drawn the largest fields and generated the biggest prize pools outside of the Main Events. Several mystery bounty tournaments are still to come, including the Saturday Mystery Bounty and the Saturday Mini Mystery, as well as a pair of Mystery Marathon and Mystery Freezeout events on the final day.

PKO tournaments have also proven popular, and there is no shortage of knockout events still remaining on the schedule.

The Winter Series comes to a close on February 2.