Summer Polish Poker Cup Starts Today in Bratislava — €250,000 Guaranteed for €150

The Summer Polish Poker Cup gets under way today at Banco Casino Bratislava, running through 24 August with a Main Event that guarantees €250,000 for a €150 buy-in.

It starts almost immediately after the Swedish Poker Championship wrapped up at the same venue — the latest instalment in a summer schedule that has kept Bratislava close to continuously busy, and one of the reasons the room has become a regular stop for travelling players across Europe.

The Summer Polish Poker Cup has grown steadily over recent years on a straightforward formula: low buy-ins, large fields and an international player pool. Organisers again expect several hundred players from across Europe.

The €150-for-€250,000 ratio is the draw, and it is worth being precise about what it means. A guarantee only pays out as a guarantee if the field falls short of it; more often, a buy-in this accessible against a number this large produces a field that comfortably beats it, and the prize pool grows past the advertised figure. That is good news for the eventual payouts and less good news for anyone imagining a soft, short tournament. Expect a large multi-day field and the variance that goes with it.

The festival runs under the Polish Poker Series banner, now in its tenth year, with KKPoker, WPT Global and Pro Gamblers Club attached as partners. Fourteen numbered side events run alongside the Main Event, plus cash games throughout — the full schedule is below.

The Main Event runs 13 Day 1 flights — A through M — spread across the first six days, with a 40,000 starting stack, 30-minute levels, 12 levels of late registration and unlimited re-entry. The four late-night flights are turbos on 15-minute levels.

For a travelling player the structure is unusually forgiving. Arrive Thursday and you still have six flights left, three of them on Friday alone. A weekend trip covering Friday through Sunday gives you six Day 1 shots and Day 2 without taking time off work — which is very likely the point of running three flights a day at the back end.

Banco is also running a Double Qualification Bonus of €500 and a Triple Qualification Bonus of €1,500 for players who make it through more than one flight. With unlimited re-entry across 13 flights, that turns fire-at-will volume into a side prize rather than pure cost.

Fourteen numbered side events run alongside the Main Event, and a few are worth flagging specifically.

The satellites are where the value is, and they are cheap. A €60 + €10 satellite on Thursday morning awards four €1,000 Super High Roller seats. The same format on Friday morning awards fifteen €400 High Roller seats — a 15-in-however-many shot at a seat for €70, which is the best-priced route into a €40,000 guarantee on the schedule.

One event worth a mention on curiosity value alone: Thursday at 14:00, a €50 tournament celebrating ten years of the Polish Poker Series awards three €1,750 packages under the banner "Road to Dubai."

The festival closes with a €50 Farewell Turbo Deepstack on the Monday evening, after the Main Event final day.

The autumn calendar is already filling in, and the two events immediately after this one run almost back to back.

The 45th Banco Casino Masters begins one day after the EPICBET Club Championship finishes, again with a €250,000 guarantee at a €170 buy-in, and again with the venue's €2,600 Chipleader Bonus distributed across the Day 1 flights — €1,500, €750 and €350 to the top three chip counts in each flight, paid immediately when the flight ends rather than added to the prize pool.

Banco has also said it will shortly publish its full tournament calendar through the end of 2026, with further international festivals and large guarantees. Already confirmed for later in the year are the Israeli Federation Cup (6–12 October, €300,000 for €200) and the Polish Poker Championship (4–16 November, €500,000 for €150) — the latter still the largest guarantee-to-buy-in ratio on the schedule.

Two practical notes for anyone outside the region.

Getting there is easier than the map suggests. Banco Casino Bratislava sits on Hodžovo námestie in the historic centre, opposite the Presidential Palace, and the city is roughly an hour from Vienna by train or bus. Plenty of players fly into Vienna rather than Bratislava.

It is not too late. Nine of the thirteen Day 1 flights fall on Thursday 20 August or later, and the final three all run on Saturday. If you can be in Bratislava by Friday, you have six shots at Day 2 plus the Sunday and Monday finish.

For the full picture on the venue, how the Masters structure works and what the fields actually look like, see our guide to Banco Casino Bratislava. RakeRace works with Banco as our live casino partner in Central Europe.

18+. Gamble responsibly. BeGambleAware.org · Schedules and guarantees are set by the venue and subject to change.

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