EPT Barcelona Currently Underway in Spain

This week, Season 13 of the European Poker Tour kicked-off with the EPT Barcelona in Spain. The hugely popular stop is scheduled to run from August 16th to 28th, and amongst the notable changes made to this year’s format is that 20% of the tournaments’ field will now receive a cash payout.
The move follows the 2016 World Series of Poker raising its own payout threshold from 10% to 15%, and explaining the innovation the EPT’s sponsor, PokerStars, stated that it was in keeping with the company’s goal of producing more winners, and therefore creating an overall better environment for all players. Needless to say, many of the pros are less happy about the development, with Canadian pro Mike McDonald commenting:
“As professionals, it obviously hurts our immediate bottom line. Presumably, the EPT’s goal is to keep money cycling through poker to try to boost numbers in the future and I hope this helps them achieve this goal.”
In the meantime, poker fans will be looking forward to following the action from some of the EPT Barcelona’s most popular events, including the €50k Super High Roller (Aug 20-22), the €2,200 Estrellas High Roller (Aug 21-23), the EPT €10,300 High Roller (26-28), and the €220 PokerStars Open (Aug 26-28). Always drawing one of the largest field will be the €5,300 Main Event which last year attracted 1,694 entrants, and was eventually won by John Juanda for $1,186,208. Other past winners include Germany’s Andre Lettau (2014), and England’s Tom “hitthehole” Middleton (2013).
The organizers will also be hoping that there will be no repeat of some of the criminal incidences which have taken place in previous year, such as some EPT attendees falling victim to organized computer hackers, or others being confronted and robbed by Spanish gangs.
After the EPT Barcelona, next stops on the tour includes Malta from October 18-29, and the Czech Republic from December 8-19.