King Of Tallinn Baltic Poker Festival

Kings of Tallinn, the largest Nordic poker festival, returns in Tallinn, Estonia once again on 17-23 February – bigger and better than ever before with 40 different events including a huge Main Event with €500,000 guaranteed prize pool.

King Of Tallinn Baltic Poker Festival 2016

Created with the aim of becoming the Nordic’s greatest poker festival, the first-ever Kings of Tallinn Poker Festival will take place at the Olimpic Casino Olympia in Tallinn, Estonia, from Feb. 16-22.

Built around a 20-event calendar, the festival looks to bring to Tallinn some of the top poker names from Scandinavia and the Baltics, and offer them the opportunity to enjoy some high level poker action and at the same time enjoy Tallinn’s charming Old Town, a true medieval gem listed in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list since 1997.

Highlighted by a €1,100 buy-in Main Event, the festival features a significant number of other interesting side events like a €500 buy-in open-face Chinese poker Event and a €2,000 buy-in two-day high roller event. Worth a mention also the event #20, a Freeroll satellite to the Grand Live in Estoril that will offer everyone the chance to snap a package and fly to Portugal to join the action in one of Europe's biggest brick-and-mortar casinos.

Among the top names already locked in for the Main Event are two of Finland’s all-time live poker tournaments winners, Juha Helppi and Kimmo Kurko.

According to organizers, the event will see also the participation of Estonian pro and entrepreneur Madis Muur, a player who jumped straight to the top of the country’s all-time money list after his $581,040 win at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) in 2014.

'I’m sure that [the] Kings of Tallinn will be one of the region’s most popular poker festivals even in its very first year,' the event’s tournament director Teresa Nousiainen explained.

In the industry for over 20 years and winner of a European Poker Award (2003) and a Finnish Poker Award (2012), Nousiainen believes a festival like this was exactly what the community expected from Tallinn.

'I have had so many players ask me to set up a good, fun poker festival up here in the Nordic area, and specifically in Tallinn. Those who have been here before, always want to come back. So here it is now.'

An excellent off-the-beaten-path destination for poker players, Tallinn has a solid live poker record as it has been already home to some of Europe’s biggest live poker events.

Besides the European Poker Tour (EPT), which chose Estonia’s capital city to kick off its Season 7 and 8 schedule, the city is also regularly on the schedule of other events such as The Grand Live and the Unibet Open. 'I am so happy that Olympic Casino wanted to put together this great poker week,' Nousiainen continued. 'We put a lot of work and thought into this festival, players are going to have a great time here.'

Along with the tournament, organizers promised to keep the players busy with Hold’em and Omaha cash games with blinds ranging from €2/2 up to €10/€20 (and higher) running around-the-clock.

2015 Kings of Tallinn: the official schedule

Date	Time	Event #	Event name	Buy-in
Feb. 16	18:00	1	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Satellite to Main Event, 1 rebuy & 1 double add-on, €50 each	€50 + €10
Feb. 17	17:00	2	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Satellite to Main Event	€200 + €20
19:00	3	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Hyper Turbo Satellite to Accumulator 1a, 1 rebuy & 1 double add-on, €20 each	€20 + €5
21:00	4	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Accumulator 1a (players may enter both 1a and 1b, one entry per day)	€250 + €25
Feb. 18	12:00	5	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Hyper Turbo, Last Chance Satellite to Main Event	€100 + €10
13:00	6	Olybet Kings of Tallinn Main Event – Day 1	€1000 + €100
18:00	7	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Turbo Satellite to Accumulator 1b, 1 rebuy & 1 double add-on, €20 each	€20 + €5
21:00	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Accumulator 1b (players may enter both 1a and 1b, one entry per day)	€250 + €25
Feb. 19	13:00	Olybet Kings of Tallinn Main Event – Day 2	€1000 + €100
18:00	8	Pot Limit Omaha, 6 Handed, Freezeout	€500 + €50
21:00	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Accumulator Final Day
22:00	9	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Turbo Bounty (€75 into prize pool, €25 Bounties on all players)	€100 + €10
Feb. 20	13:00	Olybet Kings of Tallinn Main Event – Day 3	CLOSED
14:00	10	Open Face Chinese, Single Re-Entry	€500 + €50
14:30	11	No Limit Texas Hold’em, One Hand Hyper Satellite To Event 12	€20
15:00	12	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Freezeout Satellite to The 2k Olybet Kings of Tallinn High Roller	€150 + €15
19:00	13	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Freezeout, Ladies Event	€100 + €10
21:00	14	No Limit Texas Hold’em Win The Button, Turbo Freezeout	€50 + €10
Feb. 21	13:00	Olybet Kings of Tallinn Main Event – Day 4	CLOSED
14:00	15	No Limit Texas Hold’em Olybet Kings of Tallinn High Roller, single re-entry, 6-handed, day 1	€2000 + €150
16	Pot Limit Omaha, unlimited rebuys + double add-on	€100 + €10, with €50 rebuys
21:00	17	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Turbo Freezeout	€100 + €10
Feb. 22	12:00	18	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Turbo Version Of Main Event	€100 + €10
13:00	Olybet Kings of Tallinn Main Event – Final Day	CLOSED
13:30	14	No Limit Texas Hold’em Olybet Kings of Tallinn High Roller, Single Re-Entry, 6 Handed, Final Day	CLOSED
14:00	19	No Limit Texas Hold’em, 6-handed Turbo Freezeout	€150 + €15
16:00	20	No Limit Texas Hold’em, Satellite To Grand Live Estoril	Freeroll (€20 rebuys single and add-on)

_{Image courtesy of VisitEstonia.com}

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Created in 2015, the OlyBet Kings of Tallinn poker festival is one of poker's true grassroots success stories attracting players from around Europe, especially from the Nordic and Baltic countries.

The festival is back once again and bigger than ever before with 46 action-packed events from Feb. 12 to Feb. 18 at the luxurious Hilton Tallinn Park and the Olympic Park Casino.

The highlight, of course, is the €1,100 Kings of Tallinn Main Event from Feb. 14-18. For the first time, the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to report all of the action along with exclusive interviews throughout the event.

The tournament is a deep-stacked affair with players beginning with 30,000 in chips and blinds increasing every hour throughout the tournament. The event features a single opening day with players provided plenty of chances to build a big stack with unlimited re-entry permitted until the start of Day 2.

Other Event Highlights

In addition to the Main Event, each day during the festival features plenty of side events in a variety of poker variants including no-limit hold'em, pot-limit Omaha, pineapple open-face Chinese, Sviten Special, crazy pineapple and pot-limit Finnish five-card stud.

The tournaments all take advantage of current TDA rules and some of them include some of the more modern introductions to tournament poker. The €3,000 High Roller on Feb. 18-19 utilizes button antes, while the €550 Turbo event on Feb. 15 features both button antes and a 30-second shot clock where players will also have three time extension chips.

In addition, the schedule features many satellites where players can enter their target event for a fraction of the cost and cash games will be running 24 hours a day across a variety of poker variants throughout the entire festival. Head to the Kings of Tallinn website to check out the full schedule of events.

OlyBet King's of Tallinn History

The Kings of Tallinn began when famous tournament director Teresa Nousiainen was approached by Olympic Casino with the idea of creating a poker festival together. Not too much later, Kings of Tallinn was co-founded by Nousianen and Olympic Park Casino Deputy Manager at Olympic Casino Eesti Risto Suurpold.

Nousianen shared with PokerNews a bit of the history of the festival in an exclusive interview with PokerNews.

'I have a long history with Olympic Casino, who hosts the Kings of Tallinn poker week,' shared Nousianen. 'I trained their very first poker staff back in the days and helped them open up their first poker rooms, first in Estonia, then also Latvia and Lithuania. I had also tournament directed the Baltic Poker Festival and EPT Tallinn and worked together with Olympic Casino quite a lot. So when they asked me a few years ago if we should maybe create a poker festival together, I was onboard right away. I gave them my suggestion, they liked it and so Kings of Tallinn was born.'

The first festival took place in February 2015 and it proved to be an immediate success.

'The very first Kings of Tallinn poker festival was played in February 2015 and a young local player, Ranno Sootla, reigning Estonian poker champion, took down the Main Event of the first-ever OlyBet Kings of Tallinn poker festival for €37,730 along with the remarkable King Trophy of the festival,' Nousianen said. 'Vallo Maidla, also from Estonia, took home €26,065 for his runner-up performance. We ran 20 events and sold out on all of the events. Our venue wasn't as big as it is now as the Hilton didn't exist yet, and we really filled up the space to the max in the Radisson SAS Olumpia hotel. We received great feedback from our players and so it was decided that Kings of Tallinn would definitely be back.”

The festival has grown each year to become the biggest poker festival in the Nordics, which is something that Nousianen is rightfully proud of and credits to the great team at Olympic Casino.

'In approximately three years Kings of Tallinn has grown to be the biggest poker festival in the Nordics,' Nousianen explained. 'Kings of Tallinn in 2017 had 35 different events and a thousand unique players from 28 different countries playing them. I couldn't be prouder of an event. I mean, this is something that Risto Suurpold from Olympic Casino and me started and have built up to something so cool. I am very proud of Kings of Tallinn. I think players notice when one is doing something with passion and thought. We have really worked hard to make sure that players enjoy our poker week. We have a great team of people; the Olympic Casino staff is so devoted and so good. Everyone from the fantastic Olympic Casino bar staff to dealers, floor, and managers are genuinely making sure that players enjoy and have a good time. It has been our number one goal from the very beginning to provide players with a great, well-planned and professionally run, poker festival that is also great fun.'

Nousianen has also received amazing feedback from the players.

'I truly think players see the devotion of our efforts,' shared Nousianen. 'We get good feedback on our poker schedule and it is something that I put a lot of thought into. I have notes from previous years, I ask for player's ideas and feedback, check trends and go back and forth with Risto Suurpold and his team. We usually have at least four to five different versions of the tournament schedule before finalizing it. It's not as simple as it may look.'

This year's edition of the King's of Tallinn will be bigger than ever before. Not only does the schedule feature a record 46-events but the Hilton is already sold out. However, there are many nearby properities that poker players can book that are still planning to attend the epic festival.

Don't Miss the Final Online Satellite at OlyBet on Feb. 11

The final online satellite, guaranteeing eight Main Event seats, takes place on Sunday, July 21 at 9:30 p.m. on OlyBet Poker.

Sign-up to OlyBet Poker to grab an amazing welcome package which includes a 100 percent deposit bonus up to €500 and for your final chance online to secure your Main Event seat!

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