Every year in December Prague turns into the poker capital of Europe.
This year there are more reasons than ever to go to the Czech Republic and play.
This year's Prague Poker Festival will spread over three weeks to wrap 2015 and begins with a couple of smaller tournaments this week.
All in all there are 128 events including major tournaments as part of the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour.
Here are the venues and most important events:
World Poker Tour
The World Poker Tour kicks off the festival with a series of tournaments and PartyPoker the main sponsor. All events will take place in the Corinthia Hotel in the South of Prague.
The major tournaments are:
- Main Event, Dec 1-6; buy-in €3,300. Daily live satellites for €120+R; last one on Day 1B is €330
- WPT 8-Max Big PLO event Dec 3-4; buy-in €2,000, Satellites available for €200
- WPT High Roller event Dec 4-6; buy-in €10,000, one satellite pre-Day 1A for €1,000
There are several other events including deep stack and turbo events with buy-ins starting from €220.
RedBet
RedBet Live came to the Corinthia last year and they’re back now with another six events excluding satellites.
The online poker room was one of the major sponsors of the Battle of Malta this year and is becoming more and more active on the live poker scene.
- Mini event Dec 8-9; buy-in €175
- PLO Dec 9; buy-in €100
- 6-Max NLHE Dec 10; buy-in €175
- Main Event Dec 9-13; buy-in €350 satellites daily for €50+R
- Turbo Deepstack Dec 11; buy-in €170
- Cooldown NLHE Dec 12; €220
GrandLive
The GrandLive has become a regular at the Prague Poker Festival. This year their main event will be a 4-day affair. It’ll be accompanied by one or two side events per day.
The GrandLive works with several poker rooms and they also have several live events through the year. You can qualify on RedBet, Bestpoker.com, GoldenPalace, heypoker, paf, Paradise Poker and more.
- Main Event Dec 13-16; buy-in €1,100; satellite pre-Day 1 for €60
- Side events daily, buy-ins €110/€220/€330
- 2-player team event Dec 14, €60
More Notable Events
There are some additional events you should have a look for either to play or to rail.
- WPT King’s Special Dec 4-5; buy-in €1,100
- OFC Progressive Pineapple Dec 6; buy-in €350
- King’s Casino PLO High Roller Dec 9; buy-in €10,600
- NLHE Real Hunter Dec 12; buy-in €200+R
During the whole festival there will be cash games all around the clock. Based on experience the range will be from very low to very high.
European Poker Tour
The EPT is the largest poker tour in Europe and Prague is traditionally one of the largest EPT events, having broken the 1,000-player barrier several times.
Prague has been on the EPT schedule every year since Season 4 in 2007 and it’s one of the most popular stops on the tour.
The reasons are simple: wild cash games ranging from (roughly) €2/€2 to €40/€80 – higher on request – with decent rake, great food and drink for low prices and a location that is a wintery, beautiful place and one of the greatest cities in Europe.
As you would expect PokerStars has come up with an extremely busy schedule. All in all there are 97 tournaments in the Hilton packed into 12 festival days. The PokerStars Eureka and European Poker Tour events are at the Hilton Hotel in the North of Prague.
These are the most important tournaments to watch:
- Eureka Main Event Dec 5-10; buy-in €1,100
- EPT Super High Roller Dec 8-10; buy-in €48,500
- Eureka High Roller Dec 9-10; buy-in €2,200
- Single-Day High Roller Dec 11; buy-in €25,500
- EPT Main Event Dec 10-16; buy-in €5,300
- EPT High Roller Dec 14-16; buy-in €10,300
PokerListings will be on location for the final of the WPT main event and then all the way through to the final of the EPT on December 16.
Trivia
- Regio Aasmaa of Estonia won the Grand Live main event twice in three years. Both times there were more than 500 runners. It took 99 EPT main events before Vicky Coren became the first two-time winner.
- The GrandLive was known as the GSOP (Grand Series of Poker) until 2013.
- The only Czech player to win the EPT Prague was Jan Skampa in 2009. He beat 585 players and cashed €682,000.
- On December 10, 2015, there will be a total of 16 tournaments simultaneously at the EPT alone – among them 14 NLHE events, a €550 Limit Razz and a €5,300 HORSE tournament!
- The last WPT took place in the Card Casino Prague in 2013, because the King’s Casino and event organizers had fallen out. There was no WPT last year.
- Prague hosts about 30 different poker festivals every year
- When Pluto lost its status as a planet the panel that determined it did so in Prague.
- Prague has the status of an “alpha city” for its economic importance for the global system.
- The oldest still-working astronomical clock in the world is on the Southern wall of Prague’s Old Town Hall. There is a replica in Seoul.
- Prague is twinned with 20 capital cities (and plenty of other ones).
- The Prague Castle is the largest in the world.
- Prague has the lowest unemployment rate in the EU.
- Prague has the highest per capita consumption of beer in the world. In some pubs beer is cheaper than water.
- The “Defenestration of Prague” started The Thirty Years War.
- The first brick of the Charles Bridge was laid by Charles IV. in 1357, on July 9, at 5:31 AM, because the king strongly believed in numerology and so the data above reads 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1.
- There is a Graffiti wall in Prague that’s devoted to John Lennon. John Lennon never went to Prague.
