WSOP Europe schedule unveiled

(PRESS RELEASE) -- "If you build it, they will come" is a famous movie line uttered in the baseball-themed Field of Dreams in 1989. Actor Kevin Costner was walking through his cornfield in Iowa with a baseball bat in hand, dreaming of turning it into a baseball field, which he eventually did.

Entrepreneur Leon Tsoukernik has always had big dreams and aspirations, too, and what he is doing for poker in Europe is making waves on both sides of the pond. Perhaps the "Felt of Dreams" is a better way to refer to what Mr. Tsoukernik has built in Europe. After acquiring land in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, in 2002, Tsoukernik opened King's Casino Rozvadov in 2003 in the German border town to little fanfare.

But after beginning to emphasize poker a few years ago, and with grand expansion plans a couple months from completion, King's Casino has become the largest poker room in Europe thanks to Tsoukernik's persistence, passion and long-term commitment to the game. King's features 160 poker tables, provides a first-class player experience and soon plans to open a 250-room five-star hotel, which will serve as an incredible backdrop for the World Series of Poker's first battle for bracelets in the Czech Republic this fall.

As such, people are expected to come from far and wide for the first-ever World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) in Rozvadov, Czech Republic. WSOPE features an 11-bracelet event tournament schedule and is set to run from 19 October to 10 November.

The first official gold bracelet event will begin on Thursday, 19 October at 2 p.m., with an €1,100 buy-in Monster Stack No-Limit Hold'em event with three starting flights and a €500,000 prize pool guarantee. It will be the first of 11 official WSOP gold bracelet events awarded during the tournament series that concludes officially on Friday, 10 November with the final table of the €10,300 Main Event featuring a €4,000,000 prize pool guarantee.

Speaking of guarantees, never has a poker festival featured so many, with so much in total value. For the entire WSOP festival, more than €20,000,000 in prize pool guarantees are on the table for players to win. WSOP Europe itself has €17,000,000 in prize pool guarantees, and adding in the WSOP Circuit event that will immediately precede WSOP Europe (from 28 September to 19 October) and the satellite guarantees, and this WSOP festival becomes can't miss for players as the largest, longest, richest and most ambitious poker series ever attempted in Europe.

And there's one man to thank: the man known simply as Leon.

"I'm so proud that that the WSOP Europe is coming to King's," said Tsoukernik. "I started off with a dream, and my dream has come true and I hope poker players have their dreams come true too when they see the sheer size and facilities of King's. With the awarding of WSOP gold bracelets, we have brought a huge piece of Las Vegas to Europe and we aim to deliver Vegas standards with this event too."

The entire WSOP Europe schedule can be viewed at the WSOP website.

A record €2,000,000 guarantee has been placed on the WSOP Europe version of Colossus, a €550 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournament with 10 starting flights over five days taking place 27-31 October. This means an anticipated field size in excess of 4,000 entrants would make this the largest field size at this buy-in level in live poker history in Europe.

"WSOP Europe has struggled to find a permanent home since debuting in 2007 because we could never really find the venue or partner to replicate what we have in Las Vegas," said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. "But I truly believe in Leon's vision, his passion and King's Casino to execute the best WSOP Europe to date. We are bullish in this becoming the European equivalent of the WSOP in Las Vegas, something we have always dreamed of doing when we first began our foray into Europe a decade ago."

King's Casino Rozvadov is located in the Czech Republic, right near the German border, between Prague and Munich. The location is right in Central Europe, giving all Europeans an easy travel destination to play poker. Many of poker's brightest young stars and international celebrities have made King's their home in recent years.

The planned 2017 WSOP Europe bracelet schedule can be found on the WSOP website.

In total, this WSOP-centric Fall Festival will feature 84 different events over 44 consecutive days, beginning on Thursday, 28 September,with the first official WSOP Circuit gold ring event, and continuing through 10 November, when the WSOPE Main Event final table concludes along with two side events.

More details will be released soon regarding the WSOP Circuit schedule preceding WSOP Europe and other news related to this festival.