The eagerly anticipated 2023 Kings of Tallinn festival is on the horizon, with the luxurious Olympic Park Casino and Hilton Tallinn Park set to host a schedule of 53 poker tournaments between February 23 and March 5.
Renowned tournament director and Kings of Tallinn founder Teresa Nousiainen has created a fantastic 2023 Kings of Tallinn schedule that features more than half a dozen poker variants, including No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Open Face Chinese Pineapple, 8-Game Mix, and one of the craziest poker games of them all Sviten Special.
Buy-ins for the 53 scheduled events start at an affordable €60 and increase to a €3,000 High Roller, with plenty of levels between those two extremes. Of course, there are satellites taking place throughout the festival, and some of those Kings of Tallinn satellites are free to enter, which is not something you see every day! The Olympic Casino Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia also have a large selection of live satellites, meaning players from these countries can secure a seat before they head to the Kings of Tallinn festival.
Estonian, Finnish, and Latvian players can play online satellites at OlyBet Poker, while some other Nordic players, Maltese, and Polish grinders can find satellites online at GGPoker.
€500,000 Guaranteed Kings of Tallinn Main Event
The crown jewel on the 2023 Kings of Tallinn schedule is the €1,100 buy-in €500,000 guaranteed Main Event. Running from March 1-5, the Kings of Tallinn Main Event features a trio of starting flights, each seeing entrants sit down with 30,000 chips and play to 60-minute levels on Day 1a and Day 1b, with Day 1c featuring a 30-minute clock. Unlimited re-entries are available until the start of the second level on Day 2, giving you plenty of opportunity to take another bite at the €500,000 cherry.
The last time the Kings of Tallinn Main Event featured a €500,000 prize pool was in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic. Some 674 players created a guarantee-busting prize pool of €640,300, with Sweden’s Johan Karlsson collecting €126,900 of that juicy pot.
Past Kings of Tallinn Main Event Champions
| Year | Entrants | Prize Pool | Champion | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 140 | €137,200 | Ranno Sootla | Estonia | €37,330 |
| 2016 | 198 | €240,100 | Johan Creutz | Sweden | €52,200 |
| 2017 | 247 | €234,650 | Matias Knaapinen | Finland | €45,007 |
| 2018 | 268 | €254,600 | Juha Helppi | Finland | €62,000 |
| 2019 | 375 | €356,250 | Vitalijis Zavorotnijs | Latvia | €85,300 |
| 2020 | 674 | €640,300 | Johan Karlsson | Sweden | €126,900 |
| 2021 | 298 | €280,120 | Claudio Di Giacomo | Italy | €58,440 |
| 2022 | 328 | €308,320 | Adam Kharman | Australia | €64,280 |
Adam Kharman is the reigning Kings of Tallinn Main Event champion, having outlasted 327 opponents in 2022. Kharman, who hails from Australia, received €64,280 for his impressive victory. Kharman was also part of the winning team in the Team Challenge alongside Zachary Duce, Rasmus Sepping, and Michael Behnert.
The Team Challenge returns for the 2023 Kings of Tallinn festival and could see your team walk away with approximately €20,000. Enter the Team Challenge via the Kings of Tallinn website before the first break of the Main Event Day 1b, which will be 2:15 p.m. local time on March 2, and you stand a chance of winning some additional prize money.
Your team of four earns points for just playing in any of the non-satellite and non-ladies Kings of Tallinn events and even more points for cashing in those events. Some 75% of the Team Challenge prize pool goes to the winning team, with the runner-up scooping the remaining 25%. That prize pool is funded by 2% of all Kings of Tallinn tournament prize pools going towards it.
2023 Kings of Tallinn Schedule
Check out the bustling Kings of Tallinn schedule and plan which events you plan on taking down in Estonia.