Saturday sees the start of the European Poker Tour at Prague which is being heralded as “the biggest of all time.”. The EPT events will be hosted at the Hilton Prague from December 5-16 and is run in partnership with the Eureka Poker Tour.
With thousands of players expected over the 12-day festival, the EPT has not scrimped when it comes to the play or entertainment schedule, creating what will be the biggest festival stop to date.
The EPT will run a staggering 97 tournaments over the course of the event. There have already been nearly 260 players that have qualified for the €5,300 EPT Main Event in addition to the more than 390 players that have already won their way into the €1,100 Eureka Prague Main Event.
185 poker tables will be set up in the hotel along with a dedicated area that has been created to hold an additional 35 tables for the special EPT-run 24-hour cash games. With all this, over 250 floor staff and dealers will be present, which pokerfuse understands is a record number of staff needed to run the event.
Never has the pokerfuse art department wanted to create an info-graphic more.
New Tournament Formats
There will also be a host of new formats and variants to keep the festival feeling fresh. They include the first combined chess and poker tournament, a one-day €25,000 High Roller, a “High Hand Instant Win Turbo” tournament (each level the player with the highest hand wins back their €500 buy-in), a €100 Deuces Wild “Quack Quack Half a Rack” tournament (which awards €50 for any player dealt pocket deuces) and the first ever €200 Prague Open.
If you plan to follow the live coverage of the event on EPTLive, keep an eye out for Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand 'ElkY’ Grospellier, Chris Moneymaker, Jason Mercier, Liv Boeree and Vanessa Selbst as well as Shark Cage star Faraz Jaka and recently crowned EPT Malta champion Niall Farrell who are all expected to attend.
Playing for a good cause
This year also sees the EPT partner with Right to Play as their official Season 12 Charity Partners. The €150 charity tournament will be hosted on December 10.
Right To Play uses the educational power of various sports, games and play to help children and young people to overcome the effects of poverty, disease and war. Look out for a team of PokerStars Pros who are expected to compete in the rebuy event.
Last season, the EPT 11 Prague Poker Festival attracted more than 12,000 tournament entries with over €20 million awarded in prizes—statistics that the EPT are this year hoping to beat.
