The Festival Returns to Bratislava with Enormous €500,000 Poker Main Event

The 2022 Festival is returning to Bratislava, where it all started last September, with another event for the history books as the Main Event will have an enormous €500,000 guarantee with a buy-in of only €550!

PokerPro.cc Team is also going to be present at The Festival series doing live reporting, so keep your eyes open for the guys in PokerPro t-shirt. Meet us there in person and chat with us anything poker.

Banco Casino will host the Main Event from October 10 through October 16, 2022 and the series will combine poker, blackjack, roulette, and sportsbook tournaments, while offering cash games 24/7.

Besides the €500k GTD Main Event, about two dozen poker tournaments will take place, including Deepstack Side Events, Highroller Events, PL Omaha, 8-Game, Knockout tournaments, and possibly even Sviten Special (Drawmaha) and Open Face Chinese tournaments.

Qualify Online on Guts Poker or NordicBet

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Even though it’s more than 2 months before The Festival starts, satellites to Bratislava are already running online with a full package guaranteed every Sunday!

€1,600 package can be won on Guts Poker or NordicBet every Sunday at 19:00 CET that includes:

• Buy-in to the poker Main Event (€550)
• Five nights twin hotel room for two (you can bring a friend)
• Buy-in to one Casino Event – Blackjack or Roulette (€250)
• Hospitality Package for two: Entry to daily social side activities

The Festival Full satellite schedule

Date	Time (CET)	Buy-In	Guarantee	Sites
Sunday, July 31	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, August 7	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, August 14	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, August 21	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, August 28	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, September 4	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, September 11	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, September 18	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, September 25	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, October 2	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package
Sunday, October 9	19:00	€50 (1 R/A)	€1,600 Package

The Festival Activities

Besides games in the casino, organizers will provide daily activities in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava for all package holders. The VIP activities will include ventures like player parties, cabaret, wine tasting, underground nightlife tour, wine tasting, Danube tour, and more.

     

Major success in 2021

The inaugural Festival series took place in Bratislava last year from September 20-26. Poker highlight was of course the €550 Main Event that attracted whooping 621 entries, generating a €294,975 prize pool. In this year’s event, the buy-in stays the same at €550, but the guarantee goes up to a mouth-watering €500,000!

The star of the show was Austria’s Martin Mauthner, who started the final table as the short stack, boasting unlit cigarette in his mouth Sammy Farha style, but fought his way to the three-way deal with Adi Rajkovic and David Vedral. After the deal was made that left €13,000 and the trophy for the winner, former EPT dealer Mauthner got to heads-up for the win against Rajkovic, who busted Vedral and had a massive chip lead over Martin.

Once again, he fought back from a big disadvantage and the fan favorite won the Main Event title and €47,600 money prize, which is his biggest live tournament success to date.

Blackjack, Roulette, and Sportsbook Tournaments

During The festival you won’t be able to attend poker tournaments only, you can also participate in Blackjack, Roulette, and Sportsbook tournaments, each with its own set of rules. Let’s have a quick look at each of them.

Blackjack Tournament Rules

When playing Blackjack tournaments, you are playing against other players and not against the casino. All players will start with the same number of chips and the player who has the most chips at the end of the round wins and plays against the other table winners.

Usually, six or seven players play at the table and by playing multiple rounds, many players can join the tournament. It’s important to keep in mind how many chips your opponents have in order to know how to play and how much to bet.

Blackjack tournament is a game of skill and the winner of the final round will receive the biggest share of the prize, while other finalists will receive a smaller fraction.

Sportsbook Tournament Rules

As the name suggests this tournament is all about predicting different sports events and matches. The format may vary a bit but usually, you predict about 15 matches in sports like soccer or ice hockey in both 1×2 market and O/U specified number of goals.

Each correct prediction will give a different set of points, depending on how many of your opponents have correct results or if a huge underdog wins. Your aim is to gather more points than all other participating players.

Roulette Tournament Rules

Roulette players in the tournament are playing against other participants and not against the house. Chips will not have a direct monetary value, but a fictitious, usually quite larger value, due to the prevention of smaller stacks losing immediately.

The goal is to be the last man standing at the table or having the biggest chip stack. Everyone receives 250 chips and if you run out of money during the re-entry period, the player has the option to re-entry. Players must place at least one bet per spin and the table winners after two rounds (30+30 spins) will advance to Day 2. Player with the biggest stack after two new rounds wins the tournament.