The Festival Series Bratislava €500K GTD Main Event Begins at Noon

Welcome to the coverage of The Festival Series Bratislava by PokerListings. The Festival Series is more than just an ordinary poker festival. In fact, The Festival Series founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk has dubbed his tour as a casino festival with not only a no-limit hold’em poker Main Event but also Main Events for blackjack, roulette, slots, and sports wagering tournaments.

Our coverage will focus mainly on the poker Main Event but we promise to sprinkle in some general coverage from some of the side events including the casino side event throughout the week.

The Festival Series boasts a whopping 50 events from Oct. 10-16 in the heart of the Slovakian capital at Banco Casino Bratislava and has something for everyone. If tournaments aren’t your thing, then rest assured there is juicy cash game action running around the clock including live-streamed games.

Main Event Guarantees €500K

The poker highlight of The Festival Series Bratislava is, of course, The Festival Series Bratislava €550 Main Event from Oct. 11-16. The Main Event guarantees a whopping €500,000 but we will be surprised if that isn’t met based on the big crowd already here for the opening events yesterday and the plans of many more to come including a plethora of satellite qualifiers from the more than a dozen partners held by The Festival Series.

Players will have plenty of opportunities to build a big stack with five opening flights from Oct. 11-14 including Day 1a today starting at noon CEST. Not only can players re-enter if they lose all their chips twice per opening flight but also can re-enter (or register for the first time) during the first two blind levels of Saturday’s Day 2.

The first four opening flights will feature 40-minute blind levels with the final opening flight on Friday moving along twice as fast with 20-minute blind levels. Players will bag chips today on Day 1a after 12 blind levels are completed.

Side Events Galore

Tuesday boasts eight side events on top of the start of the Main Event. Two of those events are already closed for registration as they have progressed to their second and final day in the €250 Sviten Special event and The Hendon Mob €250 Championship.

New events kicking off today are the first three opening flights of the €250 Roulette Championship, the €250 PLO Masters, the €1,000 invite-only Acroud Charity Invitational, and the €125 Win the Button. In addition, there is a Main Event satellite costing just €60 at 7 p.m. and a €150 PLO High Roller satellite at 9 p.m.

Our coverage will begin at the start of the Main Event at noon. Stay tuned at PokerListings to get updates on the biggest hands, bad beats, and more!