As the last few tournaments of 2017 wind up this weekend, poker players are already looking forward to an amazing start to 2018. Some of the biggest tournaments on the planet take place in January including the WPT European Championship, the PCA in the Bahamas, and the Aussie Millions in Melbourne. You’ll barely have time to recover from your New Year’s Eve hangover before the very first event of the year: Cash Game Festival London which kicks off on January 3 at Aspers in Stratford.
WPT European Championship
The WPT is headed for one of Europe’s most exciting cities in January with a massive poker festival at Casino Spielbank in Berlin. We are Official Travel Partner for the WPT European Championship which runs January 5 to 15 with a televised Main Event and €1,600,000 guaranteed in overall prize pools. The event is set is to be one of the highlights of the 2018 poker calendar with 20 tournaments over 15 days of amazing poker in the heart of this vibrant city.
The festival kicks off with the €500,000 guarantee, WPTDeepstacks Main Event on January 5. The four-day tournament, which has a €1,500 buy-in and two start flights. The final, which will be live streamed, is on January 8. The €1,000,000 guarantee WPT European Championship starts January 10; the €3,000 + €300 buy-in event has two start flights and the final will be filmed for television as well as broadcast via a live stream. The WPT Berlin schedule also includes the €100,000 guarantee Pokerfloor Cup and a €10,000 + €5,000 High Roller Progressive Bounty plus a wealth of satellites and other side events. WPTDeepStacks has been going strong right across the European region this year, crowning seven main event champions in total.
GUKPT London
Hot on the heels of the Season 11 GUKPT Grand Final, the popular Grosvenor tour will be back at Poker Room above the iconic Victoria Casino next month. GUKPT London, the first leg of the 2018 season, runs January 28 to February 4 with a £200,000 guarantee Main Event.
MainEvent Travel sponsors the GUKPT all in triangles so do look out for them on the live streams from GUKPT Season 12 starting in January.
The 2017 GUKPT Grand Final ended in dramatic style in November when one of the biggest fields in GUKPT history turned up for the £400,000 guarantee Main Event. Ahmed ‘Lella’ Abdella beat Jamie ‘Boz’ O’Connor heads up for the title of Grand Final champion and a £89,000 first prize.
Super Stack
SuperStack® already plans nearly 30 events next year with events right across Spain as well as in Riga, the vibrant capital of Latvia.
Following a hugely successful 2017, Super Stack® has introduced the new RED and PLATINUM series of events. All Red Series tournaments have a €190 buy-in with players receiving 30,000 starting stacks and an optional 10,000 in pre-registration bonus chips. There will be 13 Red Series events next year including tournaments in Malaga, in San Roque near Gibraltar and a debut event at Seville next October. In 2017, more than €400,000 was awarded in prize money with 2,500 players taking part overall. The average prize pool was €50,000 – pretty good for a relatively low buy-in event!
There will be 15 Platinum Series events in Riga as well as glamorous Marbella on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Buy-ins for the Platinum Series events are £340 + €40 with players getting a super-generous starting stack of 40,000 chips.
The very first Super Stack event of 2018 is a Red Series tournament at Casino Torrequebrada near Malaga on January 11-14 and the Platinum Series gets underway with a multi-flight tournament in Riga on January 17-21. There are tons of ways to qualify for Super Stack® tournaments with exclusive partners GGPoker and Sportium (for Spain only) now hosting online satellites.
Unibet Deepstack Open
UDSO Final Divonne Les Bains is the first Unibet Deepstack Open of 2018. After last year’s success with an amazing 500 player event, Unibet DeepStack Open returns to the beautiful spa town of Divonne Les Bains for a new European event. The 10-day festival includes a €550 Main Event with organisers hoping for a new record.
The PCA – + other PokerStars events in January
The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is back in January! One of the biggest and best tournament brands in the world returns January 2018 for nine days of action-packed poker in the beautiful surroundings of Atlantis Resort, Nassau. The action kicks off on January 6, with over 30 tournaments on the schedule - including the return of the $10,000 Main Event.
Closer to home (for some), PokerStars also has PokerStars Festival London running at The Hippodrome Casino from January 22-28 while MEGASTACK Ulster is taking place January 12-14 at CityNorth Hotel & Conference Centre in Gormanston, Co. Meath. Ulster MEGASTACK costs €170 to enter, take place over two starting flights, have one re-entry per day, and a 50,000 starting stack and a €30,000 guarantee.
MPN
For those who need January sun – but not too far away – MPN has just the thing! Their well-timed event takes place at the stunning Mazagan resort in Morocco. Their first festival of 2018 runs January 11-14 and offers players a 1,500,000 MAD (€135,000 approx.) guaranteed Main Event for a buy-in of 6,000 MAD.
Aussie Millions
The Aussie Millions is one of the premier live events on the 2018 poker calendar and kicks off January 28 in Melbourne. The Aussie Millions is the marquee event on the Asian-Pacific poker calendar. Since its launch in 1998, the tournament has grown into a major stop on the international poker circuit for the world’s greatest poker players.
This year’s event was won by pub poker fan Shurane Vijayaram who snagged AUD$1.6 million after a stunning victory against some of the best players in the world. Vijayaram won his seat in a $130 satellite at Crown Casino just over a week ago after friends from the pub suggested he have a go.
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