Poker Tournament News: EPT Barcelona; 888Poker Live, Unibet Rio Trip & GUKPT Goliath

Poker Tournament News: EPT Barcelona; 888Poker Live, Unibet Rio Trip & GUKPT Goliath

The end of the World Series of Poker means the rest of the poker organisations are ready to shift from the back seat including the European Poker Tour, Unibet, 888Poker Live and the Grosvenor United Kingdom Poker Tour.

Poker Tournament News: EPT Barcelona; 888Poker Live, Unibet Rio Trip & GUKPT GoliathThere is a reason bankroll management is critical in poker.

The tournaments never stop coming.

With the World Series of Poker (WSOP) finished for another year, the best of the rest are clambering out of the back seat trying to squeeze into the driving seat.

We will begin with PokerStars and the European Poker Tour (EPT).

Season 13 kicks off in Barcelona. Once again they will pair up with the Estrellas Poker Tour, and the whole thing will take place at the Casino Barcelona Aug 16-28. It’s the first of three festivals planned for 2016 with a trip to Malta in October and then Prague for the annual pre-Christmas festival.

Back to the Catalan and the piece de resistance of the 64 event festival will be the €5,300 Main Event. More than 290 players have already qualified via the online satellite route, and there is still time for the number to grow. 453 players have qualified via that same path to compete in the €1,100 Estrellas Main Event.

The one thing about online satellites is they take so bloody long to get through. PokerStars has a solution. Spin & Go satellites are currently in operation giving players the opportunity to win a €9,000 package for €10. I’ll have a piece of that. Spin & Go qualifiers were first tried in the run-up to the Season 12 Grand Final in Monte Carlo and a third of the 300 online qualifiers made it through this rather rapid route. One of those lucky players was Asan Umarov, who finished fourth for €305,660.

The Season 12 Estrellas Main Event attracted 3,292 entrants, setting the record for the largest live freezeout tournament in PokerStars’ history.  Mario Lopez won the €408,000 first prize after winning his seat in a €100 Hyper Turbo satellite online at PokerStars. 1,694 players entered the EPT Main Event, making it the biggest EPT Main Event in history. John Juanda won the €1,022,593 first prize.

Close to 20 members of the PokerStars Team posse will make the trip to Barcelona, including Daniel Negreanu and the WSOP Player of the Year Jason Mercier.

Will we see Neymar Jr?

888Live Heads to Tallinn

If the hustle and bustle of Barcelona are too much for you then how about a trip to Tallinn?

The Estonian capital is the venue for the latest incarnation of 888Poker’s 888Live due to take place Aug 25-28. The Main Event is a €440 buy-in and carries a $30,000 Guarantee. 888Poker Ambassador, Kara Scott, will host the event. The final table will be beamed live throughout the interwebs from the Olympic Casino at the Hilton Hotel.

The event will be single re-entry.

888Poker will also host a $5,000 freeroll for online qualifiers eliminated from the Main Event.

Last year the event attracted 116 entrants and local lad Ranno Sootla took home the €12,000 first prize.

Online qualifiers are currently running on 888Poker.

The Goliath Emerges From the Deep

There is only one event that can come close to the sort of field sizes that the WSOP produce year in year out, and that’s The Grosvenor United Kingdom Poker Tour’s (GUKPT) Goliath.

The £120 buy-in monster takes place over nine days. You begin with 25,000 chips and a 40-minute clock. The event carries a £250,000 Guarantee.

The action kicks off July 30 at the G Casino in Coventry. Last year, the Finnish player, Miikka Toikka defeated a field of 4,219 entrants making it the largest live tournament ever held outside of Las Vegas. The Finn walked away with £70,800.

Online satellites are currently running at Grosvenor.

Unibet Feeling The Samba Beat

Last but not least, Unibet is running a special low stake MTT Series online from 5-21 August. Players will accrue leaderboard points with the Top 100 players winning a host of prizes, and the Top 5 winning ‘a once-in-a-lifetime travel experience.’

The series will consist of 65 events carrying a maximum €10 buy-in. The 25 best results of each player count towards the leaderboard. The winner will earn a trip to Brazil where they will experience five-nights at an eco-friendly lodge where they will go Jaguar tracking in the native Pantaneiro region.

Other prizes include trips to London, Iceland, Amsterdam, and San Sebastian.