Community Reaction To PokerStars’ New Championship and Festival Tours Mostly Positive

Some major changes are coming to the live poker landscape with Pokerstars rebranding and reshaping its flagship European Poker Tour and many regional tours around the world.

Most of the changes will kick off at the beginning of 2017, with all of PokerStars’ live events moving under the umbrella of two different tours, the PokerStars Championship and PokerStars Festival.

EPT Tournament Director Neil Johnson says the PokerStars Championship events will look a lot like the current EPT stops, with hundreds of tournaments over ten to eleven day schedules, featuring high roller events, smaller tournaments spreading a number of different poker variants, cash games and a €/$5,000 Main Event.

“Basically the EPT is going global,” Johnson said. “We’re taking the experience that all the players have helped build at the EPT over 12 full seasons and we want to take that everywhere. We want to take it to Asia, and we want to take it to Latin America, because we believe it’s a tournament experience like no other.”

The first PokerStars Championship event is already set for the The Bahamas, January 6-14, 2017, replacing what was the popular PokerStars Caribbean Adventure stop on the EPT. PokerStars Championship events are also set for Panama, March 10-20, 2017, and Macau, March 30-April 9, 2017, with more on the horizon, including stops in Monaco and Barcelona.

For the most part, reactions from players at the recent EPT stop in Barcelona, Spain was positive.

“It’s going to be a huge opportunity for everyone in the world to play poker together,” said Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. “I can’t wait to be part of it.”

American Pro and EPT regular Dylan Linde agreed.

…

continue reading in source www.pokernews.com