The PokerStars Live League is back for 2026, having kicked off at PokerStars Open Campione a couple of weeks ago. The league will award over €250,000 in prizes and has some major changes coming after a successful first campaign.
Major changes coming
New points system
According to PokerStars Team Pro and live events advisor Kenny Hallaert, via PokerNews, he wanted to make the PokerStars Live League more fair. One of the main concerns was that players were gaining too many points for min-cashes and not getting enough for wins. According to the interview, Hallaert spent the offseason running Excel simulations to create a better system.
“In any sport, like football, the team that always plays to a draw and never loses shouldn’t be on top of the league,” Hallaert told PN. “It should be the team that wins. We wanted to make sure the reward for winning is actually there.”
Leaderboard points will be awarded based on tournament buy-in, field size, and finishing position. Players will earn points just for participating, while ITM finishes will be subject to the new formula, which places greater emphasis on final tables and tournament wins.
Main Event overlap
In last year’s PokerStars Live League, there was a huge uproar from the Low leaderboard chasers that it was more advantageous to play the small buy-in events than the €1,100 PokerStars Open Main Event, as the cap for the Low tier was €999.
Now, that has been changed, as events between €1,000 and €1,200, which are assumed to solely be €1,100 events, will now go towards both Medium and Low leaderboards. This way, everyone can play the Main Event without thinking about a potential disadvantage in the Live League.
2026 PokerStars Live League prizes
There are big changes to the leaderboard prizes, as players are now able to get PokerStars LIVE credit instead of pre-assigned tickets.
The leaderboard prizes for the top three will be flattened out a bit more equally. In addition, there’s no €100,000 sponsorship being awarded, as of yet. PokerStars has taken that money and allocated it to a 30-player €100,000 Live League Invitational freeroll. The top-10 players from each leaderboard will be invited to compete.
High leaderboard
- Eligible events: €4,900 buy-in and above
- First place: €50,000 PokerStars LIVE credit
- Second place: €25,000
- Third place: €12,500
Medium leaderboard
- Eligible events: €1,000 to €5,500 buy-in
- First place: €25,000
- Second place: €12,500
- Third place: €6,250
Low leaderboard
- Eligible events: €1,200 buy-in and below
- First place: €15,000
- Second place: €7,500
- Third place: €3,750
€100,000 PokerStars Live League Invitational
The top-10 players from each league will now qualify for a special €100,000 live freeroll, which will take place at the first EPT in 2027.
2025 PokerStars Live League results
The first edition of the PokerStars Live League was a huge success, with Italy’s Enrico Camosci winning the High leaderboard. As a result, Camosci won €62,400 worth of free tickets, good for four €5,300 EPT Main Event entries and four €10,300 EPT High Roller entries. Austria’s Klemens Roiter finished in second, winning four €5,300 EPT Main Event entries (€21,200), while Latvian super-high roller Aleksejs Ponakovs finished third, winning a pair of EPT Main Event entries (€10,600).
Spain’s Gerard Rubiralta topped the Medium leaderboard, smashing Romania’s Petre Bigdan Ionescu and Belgium’s Kenny Hallaert to claim top honors. Rubiralta was awarded €25,600 worth of entries, including four EPT Main Events and four PokerStars Opens. Winning the medium league was huge, as Ionescu received €6,600 in the form of six PokerStars Opens, while Hallaert received three PokerStars Open tickets.
The PokerStars Low league was the most competitive, with three players able to win it all at the final stop of the PokerStars Open Cannes. Iceland’s Steinn Karlsson final tabled the €550 Second Chance event to clinch the title and €15,000 worth of buy-ins. He will receive 10 PokerStars Open entries and 10 PokerStars Open Cup tickets.
Andreas Froehli used a pair of late cashes to pip Scotland’s David Docherty in second. Froehli receives €4,000 in entries (10 PokerStars Open Cup tickets), while Docherty receives €2,000 (five PokerStars Open tickets).
€100,000 PokerStars Ambassador deal up for grabs
The top-10 from each leaderboard, 30 players in all, are still waiting to learn who will pick up the long-awaited €100,000 Team PokerStars Ambassador contract. CasinoNews.io understands that Docherty has not won the contract and Hallaert is ineligible, leaving 28 players vying for the six-figure prize. The winner will be chosen based on a number of characteristics, all of which would have to add value to the PokerStars brand.
Global poker superstar Jesse Lonis finished fourth on the high leaderboard and would undoubtedly be a fantastic addition. Barny Boatman, a PokerStars Team Pro in 2024, finished ninth on the Medium leaderboard and has made it public that he’d love to rejoin the brand.
David Lappin, who’s a fresh free agent after terminating his WPT Global deal, and Thomas Clack, who was stripped of his Grosvenor Poker sponsorship last week, also finished in the top-10 of the Low leaderboard. Medium leaderboard’s fourth-place finisher Jon Kyte has an existing sponsorship deal with KKPoker.
The winner of the new deal will be announced at EPT Paris, the first European Poker Tour stop of the year, which begins on February 18th.
Announced PokerStars schedule
PokerStars has announced the first half of their schedule through EPT Barcelona. More events are to be added later in the year, with EPT Prague typically taking place in December.
| Dates | Event |
|---|---|
| January 23 – February 1 | PokerStars Open Campione |
| February 18 – 23 | EPT Paris |
| March 18 – 22 | PokerStars Open Philadelphia |
| 26 March – April 6 | Irish Open |
| 4 – 10 May | EPT Monte Carlo |
| 27 May – 7 June | PokerStars Open Namur |
| June 22 – 28 | PokerStars Open Malaga |
| August 16 – 29 | EPT Barcelona |
