The Kings of Tallinn Summer Showdown is back next month with a giant festival featuring more than 50 events from July 21-30.
The highlight of the 10-day annual extravaganza, organised by OlyBet at the Olympic Park Casino, is the €1,100 Main Event which features three starting days including a Day 1c turbo. Also on the schedule is the ever-popular €555 Kings of Tallinn Championship, the €150 Queens of Tallinn Ladies event and, for the first time, a €5,000 one-day High Roller event.
MainEventTravel.com can sort out all your travel needs for the Kings of Tallinn Summer Showdown, including accommodation at or near the venue. Top hotels include the Hilton Tallinn Park hotel (where the tournament is taking place) along with the gorgeous Swissôtel Tallinn and several Radisson properties.
The exciting Summer Showdown schedule includes tournaments you don’t often see at major events such as Deuce to Seven Triple Draw, Finnish Five Card Stud and a Flip&Go Mystery Bounty. This latter tournament, sponsored by GGPoker, involves one hand flips on Day 1 with all those making Day 2 being assured of a payout. (Day 2 is played like regular poker.) GGPoker is adding €10k to the prize pool and the Mystery Bounties include a €5,000 guaranteed prize. There are also two Open Face Chinese tournaments – the first takes place on July 23 and costs €150 to enter while the second is taking place on the penultimate day of the festival and has a €350 buy-in.
Another great reason to attend the Summer Showdown is the non-stop, round-the-clock cash game action. The Olympic Park Casino has the largest poker room in Estonia during the festival with Texas, Omaha, and various other game formats all on offer. Blinds start at €2/€2 going up to €10/€20 and higher.
Tallinn, the beautiful capital of Estonia, is a fabulous place to visit and has the best-preserved medieval city in Northern Europe. With its Gothic spires, winding cobblestone streets, and grandiose merchant houses, the enchanting Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and also has a vibrant nightlife with cosy inns, trendy bars, and a plethora of live music venues.
In the Main Event at last year’s Summer Showdown, British player Glen Gaines ( pictured on Final Table) beat well-known Estonian player Igor Pihela Sr to the trophy, title and €62,400 first prize. Play lasted more than 13 hours on the final day and Gaines needed to come back from a huge heads-up deficit to secure his victory. Gaines said at the time: “I'm chuffed. I wasn't expecting to go deep considering it was only my second 1K event.” The 2022 Summer Showdown was a huge success with 285 entrants coming out in full force to generate a €267,900 prize pool. A total of 34 players made the money. Gaines has been in Vegas this month and cashed in the WSOP Mystery Millions so good luck to the Worcester native in future events! Other Summer Showdown former champions include Scottish #1 Niall Farrell who beat a 114-entry field in 2020 to win €32,125. Farrell is already having a very successful World Series, cashing in the Mystery Millions and finishing seventh in the $2,500 Freezeout for $57,260.
Photo credit: Kings of Tallinn