PokerStars Announces Championship Event in Sochi, Russia

On Monday PokerStars announced a new event in their Championship Event Series: Sochi. The festival runs from May 20-31 at the Sochi Casino & Resort, the city that hosted the Winter Olympics back in 2014. This PokerStars Championship comes with a $5,590 (318,000 RUB) Main Event that has a $2.6 million guarantee. 

Including the recent Bahamas Championship, PokerStars now has six major Championships in 2017 with space on the calendar to announce more events later this year. The biggest events at the Sochi stop are as following, courtesy of the PokerStars Blog.

• No Limit Hold’em: May 20-22 – RUB 618,000 (approx. $10,860)
• PokerStars National Championship: May 20-25 – RUB 66,000 (approx. $1,160)
• PokerStars Championship Super High Roller: May 23-25 – RUB 3,000,000 (approx. $50,700)
• PokerStars National High Roller: May 24-25 – RUB 132,000 (approx. $2,320)
  PokerStars Championship Main Event: May 25-31 – RUB 318,000 (approx. $5,590) – RUB 150,000,000 Guarantee
• No Limit Hold’em Single Day: May 26 – RUB 1,530,000 (approx. $26,880)
• PokerStars Championship PLO High Roller: May 27-28 – RUB 618,000 (approx. $10,860)
• PokerStars Championship High Roller: May 29-31 – RUB 618,000 (approx. $10,860) 

Recently PokerStars signed German-raised, Russian-born Igor Kurganov to their Team PokerStars roster, and he told the PokerStars Blog the following.

“I’m excited to see PokerStars first ever sponsored live event in Russia and will be competing in the events, of course. I am interested to see the area after the massive investments it has received for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Sochi itself is a summer/ beach destination, but I hope to make it out to the gorgeous and very close mountain region of Krasnaya Polyana, too!”

Poker Central recently interviewed Kurganov for the Heads Up with Remko podcast, and you can listen to what he had to say right here.

Qualifiers for this event are now running on PokerStars.