APPT Macau Spring Festival of Poker Announced

There’s no doubt that Season 4 of the PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) is shaping up to be bigger and better than ever with the world’s largest poker site announcing a massive schedule for Macau today.

It is expected that the number of participants in the Pokerstars.net APPT Macau Spring Festival of Poker will be well up from last year, after the huge success of the APPT Manila: PAGCOR Chairman’s Cup, which saw 430 players battle it out for the lion’s share of the USD $1,042,750 prize pool – surpassing the USD $1,000,000 guarantee and making it the largest poker tournament in the country’s history.

That’s not to take away from the significance of APPT Macau – last year’s Main Event alone brought in 429 players from 46 countries, generating a prize pool of HKD $16,130,400 (USD $2,078,135). Add in the establishment of the PokerStars Macau Poker Room at the prestigious Casino Grand Lisboa in the heart of the “Las Vegas of Asia” and you already have all of the ingredients for a world-class event.

The icing on the cake? 

The APPT Macau Spring Festival of Poker schedule, which contains 25 events to suit all budgets, stretched across 20 days, culminating in the HKD $40,000 (USD $5160) Main Event from May 3 to 23. 

Tasty.

“The success of APPT Manila means huge numbers are expected for APPT Macau,” said APPT President Jeffrey Haas. “We have great momentum right now, and all our players and staff are excited about the prospect of having at least three events in our fourth season with prize pools greater than USD $1,000,000! More than just larger prize pools, the larger fields tell the real story. It seems that these years of nurturing poker’s growth in Asia are really starting to have a positive effect of the game’s growth across the region.”

Some of the highlights of the APPT Macau Spring Festival of Poker include a HKD $1000 (USD $130) deep-stack event, two HKD $1500 (USD $190) No Limit Hold’em Express tournaments (where players have 20 seconds to act on their hand) and two KO Bounty Events, where players receive a cash prize for every player they eliminate. A special Charity Event is also being held, with PokerStars contributing HKD $50,000 of added value to the prize pool. The HKD $88,800 APPT Macau High Rollers Event is back, along with the popular Ladies and Teams Events. A Heads-Up tournament has been included, and for “six-max” fanatics, there are two events for you – the first is a Limit Hold’em event being dedicated to popular Asian poker personality Terrence Chan, while the other is a No Limit Hold’em event with rebuys. But perhaps the most interesting event on the schedule is the Free to Enter Mega Satellite for the Main Event with HKD $500 (USD $65) rebuys. Accompanied by daily step satellites, the APPT Macau Main Event has the potential to generate the largest field in the tour’s history.

Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem agrees: “I played the very first APPT Macau in 2007 and I’ve been amazed at how quickly poker has taken off in this region. The APPT is now by far Asia’s largest and richest poker tour and has seen incredible growth … I expect APPT Macau numbers to go through the roof.”

Check out the full schedule and all the information for the APPT Macau Spring Festival of poker at www.appt.com.