PokerStars PSPC 2020
The PokerStars Players NL Hold'em Championship is set to return in 2020, only this time it's heading to Barcelona

Originally scheduled to take place in August, the 2020 PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC) has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The announcement was made by PokerStars on Friday, May 22, 2020.

Last update: Friday, May 22, 2020

Where and When Is the PSPC 2020?

PSPC 2020 was scheduled to take place at Casino Barcelona from August 20-24, 2020, during the European Poker Tour Barcelona time slot. The event has been postponed until 2021, as has EPT Barcelona. No exact dates have been issued, but the event is still planned to take place in Barcelona, Spain.

How Much Does It Cost To Enter PSPC?

The PSPC buy-in is priced at €22,500, which is approximately $25,000 and very much equivalent to the price tag that came with the first PSPC that was held at the 2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure festival.

As was done for the first PSPC, PokerStars will be hosting many different ways for players to win their way to PSPC for less than €22,500, including bringing back the popular Platinum Pass promotion.

What Is a Platinum Pass?

With the return of the PSPC comes the return of PokerStars’ Platinum Pass promotion that will award packages to the event. Platinum Passes are tickets to PSPC that can be won by players around the world through various promotions. Each pass is valued at €26,000 (approximately $30,000) and includes more than just the buy-in to the event.

For PSPC, a Platinum Pass includes the following:

  • €22,500 buy-in to PSPC (originally scheduled for 2020 but pushed to 2021)
  • Six nights’ hotel accommodation in a five-star hotel
  • Airport transfers
  • PSPC Merchandise
  • €1,250 for expenses
  • Platinum Pass winner experiences during the event

How To Win a Platinum Pass

Platinum Passes will be given out in numerous ways. If you’re not looking to spend the €22,500 (approx. $25,000) to buy one, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get your hands on one for much cheaper or even for free.

Players have chances to win Platinum Passes through PokerStars’ live events, special promotions and contests on social media, Twitch promotions, playing on PokerStars, and more. As we saw with the first PSPC, PokerStars is more than willing to get creative with how it awards Platinum Passes.

How Many Platinum Pass Winners Are There?

At the time of the announcement to postpone, nearly 200 Platinum Passes had been given out, with the goal to award 320 of them. Those that have already secured a Platinum Pass can use it for the 2021 event. Additionally, PokerStars is upping the allotment of Platinum Passes by 80, pushing the total to 400 Platinum Passes to be awarded.

What About New Jersey and Pennsylvania?

PokerStars has activity in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In New Jersey, the site launched in March 2016 and has been going strong ever since. Platinum Passes were given out in the Garden State for the first edition of PSPC through PokerStarsNJ.com, and that will likely be the case for future PSPC festivals.

The same goes for Pennsylvania. Although PokerStars PA was not operational to award Platinum Passes to online poker players in the Keystone State for the first-ever PSPC, PokerStars PA is running now and will likely award Platinum Passes for the next PSPC.

It also wouldn’t be out of the question to see a Moneymaker’s Road To PSPC stop appear in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Moneymaker regularly makes his way to regulated states to play some of the bigger online series that PokerStars hosts, and we all know how successful the first run of the Moneymaker-PSPC promotion was.

What Other Events Are Part of the PSPC Festival?

The €22,500 buy-in PSPC event wasn’t the only tournament planned as part of the highly anticipated Barcelona festival. In fact, it’s PSPC that is part of the greater EPT Barcelona schedule.

  • EPT Barcelona €1,100 National Event
  • EPT Barcelona €100,000 Super High Roller
  • EPT Barcelona €5,300 Main Event

Those are just three of the big events that were scheduled to take place as part of the EPT Barcelona festival. Although EPT Barcelona has also been postponed until 2021, we can expect to see the same sort of schedule in 2021, where there are EPT Barcelona events all around PSPC to create an enormous festival.

To give you an idea of how successful EPT Barcelona has been, let’s take a look at the last editions of those three events that were mentioned.

The EPT Barcelona €1,100 National Event enjoyed record-breaking success in 2019, attracting a field of 4,682 entries and generating a prize pool north of €4.5 million. Markku ‘markovitsus’ Koplimaa, who won the PocketFives July 2019 PLB title, emerged victorious in the event for €585,500.

The popular EPT Barcelona €100,000 Super High Roller always seems to attract poker’s best of the best and it’s enormous six-figure buy-in always lends itself to huge scores. In 2019, it was Sergi Reixach taking this event’s title and first-place prize of €1.816 million. The event drew 64 entries.

The EPT Barcelona €5,300 Main Event is always one that is not to be missed, and in 2019 it attracted a giant field of 1,988 entries to become the largest European Poker Tour main event in history. Sweden’s Simon Brandstrom took top honors and the €1.253 million top prize.

PSPC History

PSPC in Barcelona will be the second-ever PokerStars Players Championship. The first was held as part of the 2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure festival. It had a $25,000 buy-in and became the largest $25,000 buy-in tournament of all time. The tournament attracted 1,039 entries and generated a $26.455 million prize pool.

Included in the field were 320 Platinum Pass winners. One of those Platinum Pass winners was Spain’s Ramon Colillas and he went on to beat WSOP bracelet winner Julien Martini to become the first-ever PSPC champion. For the win, Colillas won an incredible $5.1 million in prize money.

Martini took $2.974 million for second place, with notables Scott Baumstein (4th – $1.657 million), Farid Jattin (7th – $746,000), and Talal Shakerchi (8th – $509,000) also reaching the final table.