2018 Live Poker Tournament Lineup
The end of 2010 is fast approaching, and school children aren’t the only ones getting a bit of a winter vacation; as of last weekend, all the major poker tours are now on hiatus. As a result of the short break in live tournament action, PokerStars’ Sunday Warm-Up, Sunday 500 and Sunday Million tournaments and Full Tilt’s $750K Guarantee and Sunday Brawl have been popular attractions for a number of pros that generally favor live games. If you’re anxious to see the major tournament news resume, or if you’re simply tired of watching poker reruns, then here’s a preview of what’s to come early in 2018.
The first big tour to pick up again in 2018 will be the WSOP Circuit which reconvenes with their Choctaw Casino stop in Durant, OK. This first 2011 circuit tournament runs from January 6 – January 25 and offers up 51 events with buy-ins ranging from $70 for a non-ring event up to $1600 for the Main Event.
Meanwhile, Season 7 of the European Poker Tour will continue with the popular PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas. The PCA will run from January 8 – January 16 and is always heavily frequented by the sun-starved American pros. Last year’s PCA offered 50 events and attracted players from 57 countries. Their $10,000 buy-in Main Event had a field of more than 1500 and paid a top prize of $2.2 million. This year, the EPT will share tournament time with the NAPT which is offering an ESPN2 webcasted bounty shootout that will run through the final day of the PCA. The EPT’s regularly scheduled tour stops will officially begin again with the EPT Deauville tournament in France which will take up January 25 – January 31 on the tournament calendar.
Also in January, and also in the Bahamas, PokerStars’ seventh World Cup of Poker competition will conclude with a live grand final. The event, which has been running qualifiers for almost a year, will feature the last 56 remaining teams as they compete for a nearly $300,000 prize pool.
Season 9 of the World Poker Tour also resumes in January with their Southern Poker Championship scheduled to kick off on January 23 at the Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. The tournament will conclude with a televised championship final table on January 27. This WPT stop encompasses 34 events with buy-ins ranging from $200 up to $9700 for the championship event.
Finally, the WSOP Circuit will round out the month with a second January stop scheduled for Harrah’s Tunica. As with the Choctaw tournament, the Harrah’s Tunica tournament offers fifty-some events with a special focus on amateur-friendly buy-ins. The Tunica leg will run from January 27 – February 15, picking up right when the WPT’s Southern Poker Championship leaves off.
From February forward, the live tournament schedule will be thick once again, and poker fans that have patiently waited for fresh TV coverage will be amply rewarded – not only with a bevy of new final table footage, but also with new episodes from the seventh season of High Stakes Poker.