The Asian Poker Tour announces 2019 season schedule
The Asian Poker Tour has released an announcement yesterday detailing the planned and confirmed stops on its tour for the 2019 season. For the second consecutive year, Vietnam will host the opening festival, with Ho Chi Minh City providing the location. In total, there are 11 events scheduled, and although only 8 are confirmed at this point the rest are likely to be confirmed in the coming months.
Announced Events
- APT Kickoff Vietnam Ho Chi Minh: January 9 to January 20
- TBA:February 20 to March 3
- APT Macau:March 22 toApril2
- APT Philippines I: April 24 to May 5
- APT Korea Seoul: May 29 to June 9
- APT Vietnam Ho Chi Minh: July 3 to July 14
- APT Korea Incheon: August 7 to August 18
- APT Philippines II: September 11 to September 22
- TBA:October 2 to October 13
- TBA:November 6 to November 17
- APT Finale Macau:December 4 to December 15
Lloyd Fontillas, Executive Tournament Director and APT General Manager made the following statement about the schedule:
“We are releasing our event dates so players can start planning ahead of time and other tournament organizers can start setting their dates to avoid unnecessary overlaps. Most organisers keep to the informal gentleman’s agreement that in Asia poker events should not clash thereby giving players at all levels the opportunity to play the maximum number of poker tournaments which can only be good for the continued growth of the sport”.
He added: “Players can expect an all-new destination to be added to our stops while events to be announced are with our partners and are just waiting for the concerned parties to give the go ahead”.
Avoiding overlap
As explained by Lloyd Fontillas, one goal of such an early release is to avoid overlap between events hosted in Asia.
The APT Korea Championships that is currently in progress, unfortunately clashed with the APPT Manila festival this year. Many players were unhappy that such an overlap had been allowed to happen, as it benefits neither the players or the festivals themselves.
Remarkably though, the APT event had a very respectable Main Event turnout of 192 runners despite record attendance for the APPT Manila series
At this point, we only have the APT schedule for next year. PokerStars Live currently has no upcoming event scheduled, but an announcement on the subject is expected relatively soon.
Craig Bradshaw
