PokerStars Open

Last Updated on July 9, 2026 by Bala Kumar

The PokerStars Open is PokerStars’ mid-stakes live poker tour, set up in 2024 and consisting of events all over Europe and North America. Created from former UKIPT, Eureka, Estrellas, and FPS events, the tour gives recreational and semi-professional players a realistic shot at a seven-figure prize pool without needing a five-figure buy-in. Every stop is headlined by a €1,100 (or £1,100) Main Event carrying a €1 million guaranteed prize pool, making the PokerStars Open one of the best value-for-guarantee tours on the international circuit. PokerStars Open events are set to take place in some of the world’s most vibrant destinations throughout 2026 and beyond. Here’s everything you need to know: what the tour is, the full 2026 schedule and results so far, and how its breakout debut season played out.

What Is the PokerStars Open?

Unlike the European Poker Tour (EPT), which caters to high-stakes grinders with €5,000+ buy-ins, the PokerStars Open is built around accessibility. The standard Main Event buy-in is €1,100 (rising to €1,650 when the Open runs as a side series at an EPT festival), and PokerStars backs every Main Event with a €1 million guarantee, meaning the prize pool is paid out at that level even if the field falls short, though in practice most stops have smashed their guarantees by a wide margin.

The tour runs both standalone festivals across Europe and North America, and as an embedded PokerStars Open Main Event within larger EPT festivals (EPT Paris and EPT Monte-Carlo have both run PS Open Main Events as part of their 2026 schedules).

PokerStars Open 2026 Schedule and Results

Stop	Dates	Entries	Winner	Runner-Up	Prize
PSO Campione	Jan 23 – Feb 1, 2026	1,582	Elvir Nuhiu (Switzerland)	—	€200,640
EPT Paris PS Open	Feb 18 – Mar 1, 2026	2,992	Patrik Demus	—	€551,090
PSO Philadelphia	Mar 16 – 23, 2026	—	Michael Linster	Michael Klein	$126,705
Irish Poker Open (Dublin)	April 2026	—	Narcis Nedelcu	—	Record-breaking field
EPT Monte-Carlo PS Open	Apr 30 – May 10, 2026	—	Joris Ruijs	—	—
PSO Namur	May 27 – Jun 7, 2026	—	Koen De Visscher (Belgium)	Henrik Veldhoen	€220,800
PSO Malaga	Jun 22 – 28, 2026	—	Upcoming	—	—
PSO Aix-en-Provence	Nov 2 – 8, 2026	—	Upcoming	—	—

More stops in Spain, the UK, and additional North American cities are expected to round out the 2026 calendar, following the pattern set in the tour’s debut season.

PSO Campione 2026: Elvir Nuhiu Opens the Season

The 2026 season kicked off where the tour itself was born — Casino di Campione in Italy — running January 23 to February 1. The €1,100 Main Event drew 1,582 entries, and Switzerland’s Elvir Nuhiu, a self-described cash-game player who only entered the festival because he happened to be driving a friend to Milan nearby, took down the title for €200,640 after a three-way deal at the final table. The win also made him the first-ever leader of the newly introduced 2026 PokerStars Live League standings.

EPT Paris PS Open 2026: A Marathon 2,992-Entry Field

Running alongside the main EPT Paris festival, the €1,650 PokerStars Open Main Event drew a massive 2,992 entries, nearly double the size of the standalone PSO Campione field just weeks earlier. Patrik Demus won the title for €551,090 after a marathon final stretch, underlining how quickly the Open side events have grown when paired with an EPT’s larger overall player base.

PSO Philadelphia 2026: Michael Linster Takes It Down

Running March 16–23 at Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia, the $1,100 Main Event carried a $500,000 guarantee across four starting flights. Michael Linster won the title for $126,705, defeating runner-up Michael Klein, Linster’s ace-eight holding up against Klein’s ten-eight in the final hand.

EPT Monte-Carlo PS Open 2026: Joris Ruijs Triumphs

At EPT Monte-Carlo, the PokerStars Open Main Event was won by Joris Ruijs, adding to a strong run of results for Dutch players across the PokerStars Live ecosystem in 2026.

PSO Namur 2026: Koen De Visscher Delivers a Career-Best Score

Running May 27 through June 7, PSO Namur carries a €1 million guarantee of its own and has become a fixture on the calendar since the debut season. Belgium’s Koen De Visscher won the Main Event for €220,800, the largest score of his career, defeating runner-up Henrik Veldhoen, whose queen-deuce couldn’t outrun De Visscher’s king-six in the decisive hand. Namur has now produced back-to-back breakout local winners, following Jean-Vincent Lehut’s title at the 2025 edition.

Upcoming: PSO Malaga and PSO Aix-en-Provence

Two more stops round out the confirmed 2026 calendar as of this writing: PSO Malaga runs June 22–28, and the tour adds a brand-new destination in November with PokerStars Open Aix-en-Provence, running November 2–8, 2026,  the first time the Open has visited the southern French city.

The Debut Season: How the PokerStars Open Launched in 2025

The tour’s first season proved the concept beyond expectations. It comprised six standalone stops plus two embedded Open Main Events at EPT Barcelona and EPT Monte Carlo, every one of them carrying a €1 million (or £1 million) guarantee.

The inaugural stop at PSO Campione in March 2025 attracted a record-setting 2,423 entries — more than doubling its guarantee and building a €2,326,080 prize pool, a field so large it reportedly exceeded the population of the lakeside town hosting it. Romania’s Adrian State won that first-ever PokerStars Open title for €363,000, becoming the answer to a piece of poker trivia that will stick for years: the first PokerStars Open Main Event champion in history.

2025 season standalone stops and Main Event winners:

Date	Event	Entrants	Winner	Prize
March 2025	PS Open Campione	2,423	Adrian State	€363,000
April 2025	PS Open Philadelphia	1,154	Edward Leonard	$147,806
May 2025	EPT Monte Carlo PS Open	—	Jon Kyte (Norway)	€340,000
June 2025	PS Open Namur	1,572	Jean-Vincent Lehut	€238,000
June 2025	PS Open Malaga	944	Manuel Ferrari	€206,300
August 2025	EPT Barcelona PS Open	—	Alexis Nicolai	—
October 2025	EPT Malta PS Open	—	Margereson	—
October 2025	PS Open Manchester	927	Tuan Le	£149,200
October 2025	PS Open Maryland	599	Charles Furey	$111,976
November 2025	NAPT Las Vegas PS Open	—	Nikolai Mamut (Russia)	—
December 2025	PS Open Cannes	1,202	Paul Tedeschi	€195,700

The season finale at PSO Cannes closed out 2025 in fitting style: the 1,202-entry field generated a €1,153,920 prize pool, and France’s Paul Tedeschi, a poker veteran with prior final tables at the WSOP Europe Main Event and the old Partouche Poker Tour dating back to 2012, defeated Russia’s Nikolai Mamut heads-up. Mamut had won the NAPT Las Vegas PS Open earlier in the year, meaning Tedeschi’s win denied him a second PokerStars Open title inside a matter of months.

The PokerStars Live League

Alongside the 2025 season, PokerStars introduced the PokerStars Live League, a points-based leaderboard system spanning three tiers — High, Medium, and Low — determined by buy-in level and cumulative points earned across qualifying events throughout the year. The inaugural season concluded at PSO Cannes, with the following champions:

Leaderboard	Champion	Country	Points
High	Enrico Camosci	Italy	4,025
Medium	Gerard Rubiralta Cortes	Spain	3,499

Other 2025 standouts included Clement Delacroix (High Roller Champion), Koen De Visscher (Super High Roller Winner in the 2025 season), the same player who went on to win the PSO Namur Main Event outright in 2026, and Mathieu Mary (Mystery Bounty Cup Winner). PokerStars had not formally confirmed the Live League’s 2026 return at the time of PSO Campione, though Elvir Nuhiu’s win there already placed him atop an active 2026 leaderboard, suggesting the format carried over in some form.

Why the PokerStars Open Matters

The tour fills a specific gap in the PokerStars Live ecosystem: EPT events cater to high rollers and grinders chasing seven-figure paydays at €5,000+ buy-ins, while the PokerStars Open gives recreational players and lower-stakes regulars a realistic path to a life-changing score for around €1,100. The results back up the concept, multiple stops have more than doubled their guarantees, first-place prizes have regularly cleared €200,000–€500,000, and the EPT Paris 2026 PS Open field of 2,992 entries shows the format can scale to rival,  and in field-size terms, even exceed, some EPT Main Events themselves.

With standalone stops continuing to expand into North America (Philadelphia, Maryland, Las Vegas) alongside its European core, a brand-new destination debuting in Aix-en-Provence, and embedded Main Events now a fixture at major EPT festivals, the PokerStars Open looks set to keep growing as one of the most accessible high-value tours in live poker.

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