2025 Diamond Poker Series PLO Grand Slam in Albania Will Have €5M in Guarantees
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The second Diamond Poker Series PLO Grand Slam at Albania's Arena Casino Tirana is set to take place in 2025 after a successful event in November that produced some of the biggest PLO fields in European history.
PokerNews will be on-site for the €5 million guaranteed festival running Jan. 23-30 and will be providing live updates for the €5,000 Opener and €10,000 PLO Grand Slam Championship.
The PLO Grand Slam festival follows a series last month that included a €10,300 PLO Grand Slam Championship that produced a prize pool of €1.2 million.
There were successful side events as well, including a €5,000 Opener with 210 entries, the biggest field at that buy-in level in European history, and had more than 140 unique players from 36 countries.
Read About the 2024 PLO Grand Slam!
The next festival will have even more action, with highlights including a €2,200 Five-Card Bounty Welcome Event with a €300,000 guarantee, a €5,000 buy-in event with a €1 million guarantee.
There are plenty of other big guarantees, such as a €10,000 buy-in event with €2,000,000 guaranteed, a €10,000 Progressive Bounty event with a €500,000 guarantee and a €25,000 High Roller with a €500,000 guarantee.
Some events offer special features. For example, the two players with the most bullets in the €5,000 Day 1a Opener will each win a €10,000 Championship ticket.
There will also be an Early Bird bonus that will see players who register before the start of play getting a 10% increase to their starting stack, as well as a 5% bonus for players who register during the first level of play.
Like the previous stop, the hotel will be complimentary for all €5,000 and €10,000 players. Players who want to stay on-site at the venue should book quickly because rooms are filling up fast.
There will be a VIP terminal service available for all event participants. A driver will wait for players near the "Arena Casino Tournament" sign at the airport.
WSOP Champ and Soccer Star Max Kruse Becomes Ambassador
The upcoming Diamond Poker Series is set to captivate fans with a lineup featuring renowned names from the poker world and beyond. Notable figures like WSOP Main Event Champion Hossein Ensan, Tom-Aksel Bedell, Polat, Hossein Madani, Hansimperator, and many others are set to join the action.
Furthermore, German soccer player and 2020 Olympian Max Kruse has been appointed as the official ambassador of the Diamond Poker Series. Kruse represented the German National Team on 14 occasions. His first goal for his country came against the United States before he found the back of the net three more times in other matches.
Kruse's place in the German side, however, was cut short due to a poker-related faux-pas. It was reported that he had lost €75,000 worth of poker winnings in the back of a taxi in 2016. That incident saw him dropped from the national team and received a €25,000 fine from his club side.
At his peak, he was once rumored to join Manchester United. However, the transfer never materialized. Nonetheless, Kruse put together a stellar career in the Bundesliga (German First Division), registering 131 goals in 460 league appearances, alongside winning the DFL-Supercup in 2015.
At the 2022 World Series of Poker Europe, he clinched victory in Event #7: €1,650 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed for €134,152 and his first gold bracelet.
Anonymous Winner in November
Who won last month's €10,300 PLO Grand Slam Championship? That's a good question, as the winner only went by the alias "Benjamin N" and asked to remain anonymous. The same was true for runner-up "Phil Ejri" as both players were part of a four-way chop that also included Spain's Lautaro Guerra and Greece's Nikolaos Lampropoulos.
€10,300 PLO Grand Slam Championship Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Benjamin N" | €219,200* | |
| 2 | "Phil Ejri" | €166,500* | |
| 3 | Lautaro Guerra | Spain | €170,700* |
| 4 | Nikolaos Lampropoulos | Greece | €190,800* |
| 5 | Dimitrios Amoiridis | Greece | €89,000 |
| 6 | Harun Ertural | Germany | €70,000 |
| 7 | Alex Livingston | Canada | €54,000 |
| 8 | Vasil Medarov | Bulgaria | €41,000 |
| 9 | Belarmino De Souza | Brazil | €30,000 |
* Denotes four-way deal
Guerra is fresh off a bracelet victory in the $100,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Super High Roller for $2.1 million.
Other players who final tabled the €10,300 event include Belarmino De Souza, Vasil Medarov and two-time bracelet winner Alex Livingston.
The full schedule for the upcoming PLO Grand Slam series is available in the table below.
2025 PLO Grand Slam Schedule
| Date | Time | Event | Buy-In (In Euro) | Guarantee (In Euro) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 23 | 17:00 | 2k PLO 5-card Bounty One Day | 1,000 € + 200 € + 1,000 € | 300,000€ |
| January 24 | 13:00 | Satellite to 5k Day 1a | 500 € + 50 € | 4 Tickets |
| January 24 | 16:00 | 5k PLO Grand Slam Opener Day1a | 5,000 € + 200 € | 1,000,000€ |
| January 25 | 13:00 | Satellite to 5k Day 1b | 500 € + 50 € | 4 Tickets |
| January 25 | 16:00 | 5k PLO Grand Slam Opener Day1b | 5,000 € + 200 € | 1,000,000€ |
| January 26 | 14:00 | 5k PLO Grand Slam Opener Final Day | 5,000 € + 200 € | 1,000,000€ |
| January 26 | 17:00 | 5k One Day Mystery Bounty | 3,000 € + 200 € + 2,000 € | 300,000€ |
| January 26 | 20:00 | Satellite to 10k with 4x ticket | 1,000 € + 100 € | 4 Tickets |
| January 27 | 13:00 | Satellite to 10k with 4x ticket | 1,000 € + 100 € | 4 Tickets |
| January 27 | 16:00 | 10k PLO Grand Slam Championship Day 1 | 10,000 € + 300 € | 2,000,000€ |
| January 28 | 13:00 | Last chance satellite to 10k with 4x ticket | 1,000 € + 100 € | 4 Tickets |
| January 28 | 16:00 | 10k PLO Grand Slam Championship Day 2 | 10,000 € + 300 € | 2,000,000€ |
| January 28 | 18:00 | 3k 5-card Bounty One Day | 2,000 € + 300 € + 1,000 € | 200,000€ |
| January 29 | 14:00 | 10k PLO Grand Slam Championship Final Day | - | 2,000,000€ |
| January 29 | 17:00 | 10k Progressive Bounty | 7,000 € + 300 € + 3,000 € | 500,000€ |
| January 29 | 20:00 | 2k PLO mix 4c/5c/6c | 2,000 € + 200 € | 50,000€ |
| January 30 | 16:00 | 25k PLO Grand Slam High Roller One Day | 25,000 € + 500 € | 500,000€ |
| January 30 | 20:00 | 2k 6-card Turbo | 2,000 € + 200 € | 50,000€ |
*Photos courtesy Diamond Poker Series
