The schedule for the European Poker Tour (EPT) Season 12 Grand Final has been announced, with the festival, deemed to be the "biggest and best yet," taking place from April 25 to May 6 at Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco.

The EPT has joined forces with the France Poker Series (FPS) to deliver a huge tournament series with 79 action-packed tournaments and ring games running 18 hours a day.

"This season's PokerStars and MonteCarlo® Casino EPT Grand Final promises to the biggest and best yet," said PokerStars Director of Live Events Edgar Stuchly. "As always, our flagship events will attract the best players in the world to Monaco, but we have a wider range of tournaments than ever before this season, giving everyone a chance to compete. We are also hoping to break our record for the number of online qualifiers. We look forward to seeing thousands of players at our Season 12 finale."

The highlight of the poker festival is the EPT Main Event, taking place starting on April 30 with the first of two opening days before eventually playing its way down to a winner on May 5. The buy-in for this event is €5,300, or half of the €10,600 this event has featured in previous years.

This does not mean that players looking for five-digit-or-higher buy-ins are out of luck this year, since the schedule features four events with at least a €10,000 price tag, including the brand new €10,300 High Roller (April 26-28), the €100,000 Super High Roller (April 28-30), the €50,000 Single-Day Super High Roller (May 1), and the €25,750 High Roller (May 4-6).

In additional to these events, many players have their eyes on the FPS Main Event taking place from April 27 to May 1. The tournament features a more affordable €1,100 buy-in and provides plenty of action with two opening days followed by three more days of action for the survivors.

Satellites for both the EPT Main Event and the FPS Main Event are currently running at PokerStars and also will be running live at the venue as well. Players choosing to qualify online can choose between satellites that are for a seat only or for a more robust package which includes luxury hotel accommodations and spending money.

While most of the events will be held in the popular no-limit hold'em poker variant, the schedule features games in other variants including pot-limit Omaha, pot-limit Omaha hi-low, H.O.R.S.E, open-face Chinese, and much more. Additionally, the schedule takes advantage of many different tournament formats including freezeout, reentry, super knockout, Flipout, and shootout, just to name a few.

PokerStars also plans on many activities for players to engage in when they are not on the felt, including a Multi-Sports Video Game Simulator contest. For players interested in physical activity, the EPT Grand Final Hexathlon features many sports, including football, field hockey, golf putting, American football, basketball, and tennis. The Hexathlon isn't all about the exercise either, since daily leaderboard winners and the overall winner will be awarded a seat in the Estrellas Barcelona €1,100Main Event.

As is usually the case, the PokerNews Live Reporting team will be on hand to cover the biggest tournaments on the schedule.

For more information on the complete EPT Grand Final schedule, head on over to EPT.com.

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