EPT on it’s way to Italy

The winds of change continue to blow through the European Poker Tour. The tour has been growing and adding stops to the new circuit of play this year. During a press conference originally intended for the first date of the EPT in Barcelona, Spain, an additional stop was announced.

John Duthie, head of the European Poker Tour disclosed the following to reporters:

“We’re having a tournament in San Remo, Italy from April 1 to 5,” said John Duthie. We’ll be getting details up on the website as soon as we get things confirmed, after Barcelona.” This is the first Italian date on the tour, however the director was quick to lay to rest rumours about the possibility that more dates could be added in the future. “It’s unlikely,’ Duthie said. “We’ve added three new dates to the Tour already and unless some opportunity pops up that is too good to pass we won’t be adding any more.”

Previously added for the 2007/2008 tour were Warsaw and Prague and the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure, in the Bahamas in January 2008.

With the tours growing popularity there is also other visible changes. The Pokerstars backed EPT is attracting poker professionals from across the world and the size of the tournaments have had to be regulated. Due to limited space at most of the tournament locations, as well as a significant lack of interest in extended poker tournaments, the buy ins for many of the events have been increased.

Duthie made it clear he was not in favour of increasing buy-ins for the tour; however this step was taken in order to diminish the total size of the event fields. “We just don’t have the room for bigger fields and we don’t really want to add more day ones as seven-day tournaments are unpopular among players, so we really had no other option,” John Duthie said at the press conference.

The European Poker Tour (EPT) is sponsored by Pokerstars and you can take part in the satellites running on Pokerstars to win your seat and one of the EPT events.

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