2026 PKR High Stakes Championships

The 2026 PKR High Stakes Championships are set to begin this weekend with the first tournament taking place on Saturday, Feb 2nd.  The PKR High Stakes Championships, aka HSC, are 7 high stake poker events played online at PKR over 16 days.  There is also a $4,500 WSOP Experience package up for grabs to whoever can finish the highest on the leaderboard from the 7 events!  Here is the schedule:

• Feb 2nd – $100,000 Guaranteed PKR Masters (TV) – $270 buy-in
• Feb 5th – PKR 4×4 (4 seater, quadruple chance) – $100 buy-in and $10,000 expected
• Feb 8th – Terminator (6 seater) – $200 buy-in and $20,000 expected
• Feb 10th – Slow Stach (9-seater) (TV) – $200 buy-in and $20,000 expected
• Feb 13th – Double Chance (9-seater) – $200 buy-in and $20,000 expected
• Feb 16th – $50 Rebuy (6-seater) – $50 buy-in – $15,000 expected
• Feb 17th – The PKR 500 (8-seater) (TV) – $530 buy-in and $50,000 expected

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In each event everyone who enters receives leaderboard points, but the top 10 is where the real points are earned.  Here is the leaderboard points list:

• 1st – 100 points
• 2nd – 90 points
• 3rd – 80 points
• 4th – 70 points
• 5th – 65 points
• 6th – 60 points
• 7th – 55 points
• 8th – 50 points
• 9th – 45 points
• 10th – 40 points
• 11-30th – 35 points
• 31st – 50th – 25 points
• 51st – 70th – 20 points
• 71st – 90th – 15 points
• 91st + – 10 points

With the points as they are there is a decent opportunity for a tie.  If this happens the player with more money finishes will win the leaderboard.  If the first place finisher has already won a $4500 WSOP prize package then they will be awarded the size of the prize package in PKR tournament tickets (the winner can choose their tickets).

This promotion basically has just $4,500 in added value to players, but the events will be big and exciting which is also an added plus.

Piece of PKR Pros Action Freeroll

In other promotional news at PKR there is a freeroll tournament tomorrow (Feb 30th) at 18:00 GMT where you can win a piece of team PKR Pros cashes at the WSOP.  Ok it’s not really a freeroll because the buy-in to the event is 1000 PKR Points.  In any case the top 100 finishers in the tournament will get the excitement of railing a new PKR Pro for many of the WSOP tourneys.  This is because in 22 events a Team PKR Pro has pledged that 5% of their cash will be split evenly among these 100 finishers.  If the designated PKR Pro does well in a tournament this could result in a big pay day for these players.

The 6 PKR Pros that have agreed to this are Beyne, Waswini, Jake Cody, PKR_Scott, Welllbet and Locodice.  You can see the full schedule of which Pro is playing which event at the PKR website.

World Series Of Poker About To Kick Off

The World Series of Poker is officially less than a week away from kicking off in Las Vegas.  This years event will have 60 events taking place plus the main event.  The first event, which begins on Feb 27th is the $500 Casino Employees no-limit hold’em event.  Then on Monday the real action gets underway with a $1500 buy-in no limit event that will last 3 days.  All of this leads up to the 10-day main event that begins on Feb 7th, 2026.  This years World Series of Poker will be taking place at the Rio Hotel & Casino so if you are in Vegas and want to check in on some WSOP action that is the place to be.

The new bracelet design is from Jason of Beverly Hills, who is also tasked with creating a specials main event bracelet that will stand apart from the other WSOP bracelets being awarded this year.  The word on the bracelets is that they are more flashy than last years, which were designed by OnTiltDesign company, but they aren’t quite as flashy as a lot of Jason’s work.  The bracelets will contain over 160 grams of 14 karat gold and will also contain 35 karats of flawless diamonds.  Needless to say these bracelets will be quite a bonus to the first place prize money at the WSOP events this year.

It will be interesting to see if the numbers of participants continues to rise after last years impressive numbers.  Black Friday occurred just a couple months before last years World Series of Poker so many critics were expecting the numbers at the 2026 WSOP to plummet.  Surprisingly enough it was the opposite that happened with the 2026 WSOP having 78,298 total players register for events and over $205 million in prize money won.  That was the most number of players in a single year and the most prize money awarded in one year at the WSOP.  It was also impressive how many different countries showed up to participate in Las Vegas, with over 100 nations competing for gold bracelets.  Can 2026 continue to build on 2026′s impressive numbers?  We will know in a couple months time.

One tournament that will challenge the main event as the biggest profile event of this years WSOP is event #55, dubbed ‘The Big One For One Drop’.  This tournament is a 3-day event with a whopping $1,000,000 buy-in!  There are already more than 30 elite poker players and business men with money to blow set to participate in this event.  This event will create the biggest payout in live poker history with the winner expected to collect more than $15,000,000 for his troubles!

The venue at the Rio is going to be the biggest ever this year as well with 470 poker tables being used for the WSOP.  If you like live poker action then you should definitely make a trip to the WSOP in Vegas this year!

New Carbon Poker Odds Calculator

Carbon Poker recently created a free downloadable poker odds calculator for their players.  This odds calculator is downloadable at the Carbon Poker website and provides players with a ton of features to help them understand their odds to win at certain moments in a hand, as well as many other features to improve their overall game.  The Carbon Poker odds calculator connects to and works with the Carbon Poker software to give you live odds and information on your online poker opponents while you are playing your hands.

Carbon Poker Odds Calculator Features

• Pot odds – Lets you know the amount of money in the pot compared to how much it takes to call.  Great for drawing hands.
• Win odds – Gives you a percentage odds of winning based on your cards, the community cards and the number of players left in the hand.
• Expected Value – Gives you the expected value of your hole cards before the flop.  Basically tells you on average how much those hole cards win or lose.
• Outs – Lets you know how many outs you may have left in the deck.
• Player Stats – Automatically stores stats of your opponents on your computer and provides you with the information when you play the same players in the future.
• Profiling Icons – Allows you to assign a profiling icon to players.  Great for remembering if players are loose, aggressive, passive, etc.
• Hand Replayer – Allows you to watch your hands over again to figure out where you may have went wrong and fix any mistakes for the future.
• Manual Poker Odds Calculator – Want to know the odds of a hand that isn’t currently taking place?  Just plug in the cards and the manual poker odds calculator will get you the win percentages.

How To Get Carbon Poker Odds Calculator

To get your Carbon Poker odds calculator simply login to your player admin and select the Poker Odds Calculator to begin your download.  After you have downloaded the calculator you can begin to use it and start compiling stats right away.

Learning How To Use

Carbon Poker has included some video tutorials for the odds calculator on their website as well as a user guide, an FAQ section and even a support page.  The video tutorials go over everything including the installation of the odds calculator, a basic tour of the navigation and settings, how to use the odds calculator profile, how to use the math & odds, understanding the hand strength & position and much more.  The user guide puts everything into words for those who understand better after reading and the FAQ section provides answers to many of the common questions.  If you still have questions you can email calculator@ag to get in contact with the customer support and fix any issues you may have run into.

Visit Carbon Poker now to get your own Carbon Poker odds calculator.

Lock Poker Buys Cake Poker Network – Leaves Merge

There has been some big news out of the Lock Poker camp recently with a statement released yesterday that Lock Poker is buying the Cake Poker network.  Lock Poker plans to rebrand the network to Revolution Gaming and this change is set to take place on Feb 1st.  For those players who currently have accounts with Lock Poker the transition will be seamless with only a software update being required on Feb 1st, but everything else transitioning seamlessly with real money cashier and VIP points still being untouched in the Lock Cashier.

Lock Poker states that they have outgrown the Merge Gaming network and that in order to continue on their path to success they must step out on their own.  Lock Poker states that their core philosophy is partnering with their players and building their own poker network is the best way for them to be able to provide better promotions and customer service to their valued customers.  There has been speculation that the Merge networks decision to shutdown LOCKOPS last month had something to do with this change, but in reality Lock Poker, which claims to provide 40% of the players on the Merge network truly had gotten too big to be restricted by a network that they did not own.  The LOCKOPS debacle may have sped up the process, but it was inevitable for Lock Poker to go out on their own eventually.

Visit Lock Poker now to visit the site and check out their plans for this move.

 

The Cake Poker network was dying a slow death and this acquisition is the best thing for the skins on the network as well.  There will be more players which will result in a better tournament schedule and more gaming options for players.  The Revolution Poker network (formerly the Cake Poker network) will likely instantly become the largest online poker network for American players and this can only be a good thing for poker players in the United States.  Lock Poker has shown an ability to build their business and partner with players in the past, which I expect to continue and become even more apparent when running their own poker network.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Lock Poker I suggest you start downloading Lock Poker here, so you don’t waste any time playing at any other online poker room that accepts US players.  Lock Poker has proven over the past couple years that they are here to stay and they plan to be the best option for US residents.