European Poker Tour

Last Updated on September 12, 2026 by Bala Kumar

Overview

The European Poker Tour is PokerStars‘ flagship live poker circuit,  multi-week festivals in some of Europe’s most recognizable casino cities, headline Main Events that regularly draw well over a thousand entries, and broadcast production that rivals the WSOP itself.

The tour was created in 2004 by John Duthie, winner of the original Poker Million tournament, right as Texas Hold’em was exploding in popularity worldwide. PokerStars became the EPT’s exclusive sponsor and owner in 2011, and it’s been PokerStars Live’s centerpiece tour ever since, currently overseen by PokerStars Live Associate Director Cédric Billot.

Why does the EPT matter? Alongside the WSOP and the WPT, it forms poker’s informal “Triple Crown”,   the three tours whose Main Event titles carry the most weight on a player’s résumé. But the EPT has its own identity: fewer stops than the WPT, with each one built as a genuine multi-week destination festival rather than a quick stop-through.

EPT 2026 Schedule

The 2026 EPT season features four confirmed festivals:

Three stops have wrapped as of this update; EPT Prague, running December 2–13, is the final stop of the season and will close things out the way it traditionally has — the tour’s winter finale. This table will be replaced with the 2027 schedule once PokerStars announces it.

EPT 2026 Main Event Results & Winners

Each 2026 stop ran the standard EPT format: a €5,300 buy-in, two starting Day 1 flights, and a build toward a televised final table.

EPT Paris — €5,300 Main Event

• Entries: 1,474
• Prize pool: roughly €7.06 million
• Winner: Jorge Abreu (Portugal) — €1,148,600
• Runner-up: Felix Schneiders (Germany) — €717,350

EPT Monte Carlo — €5,300 Main Event

• Entries: 1,011
• Prize pool: approximately €5.05 million (~$5.74M)
• Winner: Roman Stoica (Russia) — €825,000
• Runner-up: Bernhard Binder (Austria) — €515,000

EPT Barcelona — €5,300 Main Event

• Entries: 1,823 (7th-largest EPT Main Event in the tour’s 22-year history)
• Prize pool: €8,841,550
• Winner: Manuel Ferrari (Italy) — €1,002,488
• Runner-up: Lukas van Eeden — €927,420 (final three-way deal)

EPT Prague — €5,300 Main Event — dates confirmed for December 2026; results will be added here once the event concludes.

A few side-event highlights from the season: Fabiano Kovalski was the only player to win two titles at EPT Barcelona (the €3,250 Mystery Bounty and the €10,300 High Roller), while Tom Fuchs posted the stop’s single largest payout (€1,126,540) in the €100K Super High Roller. At EPT Paris, American player Brandon Wilson won the €10,300 High Roller for €668,700.

EPT Main Event Buy-Ins & Prize Pools

Here’s how the buy-in ladder typically breaks down across an EPT stop:

Prize pools scale directly with entries — Barcelona (the biggest field every year) consistently produces the tour’s largest Main Event prize pool, typically €7–9 million, while smaller stops like Monte Carlo land closer to €5 million. Payout structures follow a standard tournament curve, usually paying somewhere around 12–15% of the field, with a steep jump in value at the final table. Exact buy-ins and payout percentages can shift slightly stop to stop, so treat the figures above as a general guide rather than a fixed rule.

EPT Tournament Locations

Barcelona is the EPT’s original home and its biggest recurring stop, having appeared on the calendar every year since the tour’s 2004 debut. Casino Barcelona’s capacity and the city’s draw as a destination consistently produce the tour’s deepest fields.

Monte Carlo brings a different atmosphere — smaller, sharper fields at Sporting Monte-Carlo, with a reputation for attracting a heavier concentration of established pros.

Paris runs at Le Palais des Congrès, under a distinctive cashless system tied to Club Barrière membership cards rather than direct cash buy-ins at the desk.

Prague has become the tour’s reliable winter fixture, hosted at the Hilton Prague (formerly branded as King’s Casino).

Beyond these four, the EPT has historically rotated through other European cities including London, Sanremo, Malta, and Cyprus, depending on the season’s venue partnerships.

EPT Tournament Formats & Events

A full EPT stop is far more than just the Main Event. The typical schedule includes:

• The Main Event — the headline €5,300 NLHE tournament every stop is built around
• High Rollers (€10,300) and Super High Rollers (€25,000+) — shorter, sharper fields for the tour’s highest-stakes regulars
• Mystery Bounty events — knockout-style formats where bounty values stay hidden until collected, often producing some of the loudest final tables of the festival
• PokerStars Open side events — lower buy-in tournaments (roughly €200–€1,650) aimed at recreational players
• Mixed-game and specialty events — Pot-Limit Omaha, 8-Game, and other formats for players who don’t want to play Hold’em exclusively

How to Qualify for the EPT

You don’t need €5,300 in your account to play an EPT Main Event. There are three realistic paths in:

1. Online satellites through PokerStars — the most common route for players entering from outside the host country
2. Live satellites — run on-site in the days before a Main Event, letting players already at the venue buy in for a fraction of the full price
3. Direct buy-in — straightforward, but the most expensive way to get a seat; PokerStars also allows direct venue buy-ins with cash, casino chips, or PokerStars account funds

Industry reports suggest PokerStars aims for a meaningful share — commonly cited around a quarter — of each Main Event field to arrive through online qualifiers rather than direct entries, though PokerStars hasn’t published an official figure to confirm the exact target.

EPT Online Satellites

PokerStars runs its EPT satellite system through Power Path, a step-based qualification ladder that lets players start at a low buy-in and climb toward a full Main Event package — buy-in included, and often travel or accommodation credit bundled in.

Note that Power Path’s exact tiers and pricing change periodically — as recently as April 2026, PokerStars restructured the ladder, raising its mid-tier “Bronze Pass” from $109 to $530 and introducing a new $109 “Spade Pass” beneath it. The entry point has historically sat around $0.50–$1, but always check the current Power Path structure inside the PokerStars client before planning a qualification route, since the specific step values are exactly the kind of detail that shifts season to season.

EPT Main Event Rules & Structure

Based on recent EPT stops (Paris and Barcelona 2026), the current Main Event structure runs as follows:

• Starting stack: 30,000 chips (roughly 300 big blinds at the opening level)
• Blind levels: 60 minutes each, using a Big Blind Ante format
• Starting blinds: 100/100 with a 100 big blind ante
• Day 1 format: split into two starting flights (Day 1a and Day 1b), combining into a single field for Day 2
• Late registration: stays open through both Day 1 flights, closing at the start of Day 2
• Re-entry: capped at two total entries (bullets) per player across the whole tournament
• Breaks: short breaks after every two levels, plus an extended dinner break (typically 65 minutes)

Tournament structures are set stop by stop and can change — always check the official structure sheet for the specific EPT festival you’re planning to play before relying on the numbers above.

EPT Champions & Most Successful Players

As of the most recent tour records, no player has won more than two EPT Main Events — a group that includes Victoria Coren Mitchell, Mikalai Pobal, Mike Watson, and Anton “WhatIfGod” Bergstrom. Coren Mitchell’s second win, at the Sanremo stop, made her the first two-time EPT Main Event champion in tour history.

Other notable names who’ve passed through EPT final tables include Adrián Mateos, who won an EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo at just 20 years old after already claiming a WSOP Europe Main Event title as a teenager.

2026 has added three new champions to the list: Jorge Abreu (Paris), Roman Stoica (Monte Carlo), and Manuel Ferrari (Barcelona), with EPT Prague in December set to crown the season’s fourth. This section will be updated as new records are set.

EPT vs WSOP vs WPT

There’s no objectively “best” answer — it depends on what you’re chasing. The WSOP Main Event carries the deepest historical prestige and usually the single biggest prize pool of the year. The WPT covers the most ground, running across the widest range of countries and price points. The EPT sits in the middle: fewer stops, but each one a genuine multi-week destination festival.

EPT Live Stream & Coverage

Recent EPT Main Events and most High Roller events have been broadcast free on PokerStars’ official YouTube and Twitch channels, with coverage typically picking up from Day 2 onward. The tour’s long-running commentary team, James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton, has anchored most broadcasts in recent seasons, often joined by guest commentators. Select events have been broadcast in up to six languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Brazilian Portuguese).

Streaming platforms and language options can change between seasons, so check PokerStars’ official channels closer to each stop for the current broadcast schedule.

EPT Tickets, Travel & Venue Information

Getting to an EPT stop as a player or spectator generally involves:

• Registration: desks typically open an hour before the day’s first tournament and stay open through late registration for the day’s last event. A valid passport or government ID is required.
• Payment systems vary by venue — EPT Paris, for example, has run on a cashless system tied to a Club Barrière membership card rather than accepting cash directly at the tournament desk.
• Accommodation: PokerStars Travel has offered discounted rates at partner hotels for EPT stops in recent seasons.
• Local rules: some venues restrict tournament room access to registered club members only — check venue-specific requirements before booking travel.

Venue logistics can change stop to stop, so confirm current requirements on the official PokerStars Live page for the specific festival before you travel.

Latest EPT News & Updates

This is where we’ll link out to individual stop coverage as it’s published — EPT Barcelona 2026 recaps, EPT Paris 2026 hand breakdowns, EPT Monte Carlo highlights, and the upcoming EPT Prague 2026 schedule once PokerStars publishes it. Check back here for the latest, or follow the individual stop pages directly.

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