PokerStars Players Championship & EPT Barcelona Postponed to 2021

The inevitable update finally hit the newswires last night when PokerStars confirmed that the second chapter of its PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC), along with the EPT Barcelona festival, would not be taking place as planned in August. Instead, the events have been pushed to 2021 though the exact details and schedule are to be announced later.

The presser confirmed that Casino Barcelona would remain the venue for these events as and when they take place next year.

Along with the two events above, the Road to PSPC Cannes, Road to PSPC Madrid Torrelodones, and the Manilla Super Series 14 have also been canceled.

The only silver lining in the update was PokerStars` announcement that it will be awarding 80 additional Platinum Passes, giving away 400 passes in total. Each Platinum pass includes the $25,000 PSPC buy-in, traveling expenses, and a six-night stay for two in Barcelona.

So far, 186 Platinum Passes have been awarded, and one of them was won by India’s Rajat Sharma, who is the first Indian poker player to have won the pass for the second installment of the PSPC.

A statement from the company on PokerStars Blog read, “We are of course disappointed. And we sympathise with the players who will have to put their PSPC poker dreams and aspirations on hold until next year.”

“In the coming months, we’ll bring our players even more ways to win as we make this event a true celebration that brings the PokerStars live events community back together again. It will be worth the wait.

We are working tirelessly and will keep you posted as soon as we have more details to share on this, or the status of other live events currently scheduled.”

With over 5.21 Million confirmed COVID-19 cases already, a significant part of the world is still under lockdown – trying to contain the widespread COVID-19 pandemic.

PSPC 1.0 – A Historic Event

PokerStars pulled out all the stops for the inaugural PSPC, the rake-free $25,000 buy-in event that took place in January last year. The poker giant gave away as many as 320 Platinum Passes, each valued at $30,000 over 13 months.

The tournament exceeded all expectations as a record-shattering 1,039 entries set a new benchmark with a prize pool collection of $26.45 Million. It was a 30-year-old former fitness trainer, Ramon Colillas, who came out on top at the inaugural PSPC to win an enormous paycheck of $5.1 Million!

Eight Indian players, namely Sumit Sapra, Nikhil Segel, Kavin Shah, Raman Gujral, Sharad Rao, Vivek Singh, Saurabh Sindhwani, and Aneesh Nair had won the coveted pass for the first edition. They were joined by India’s poker pioneer Aditya Agarwal at the event that took place in the Bahamas. However, no member of Team India could finish in the money at the event.