The European Poker Tour's thirteenth season is today gearing up in Barcelona with the outlet events of the Estrellas Poker Tour. It gave the look of an improbable opportunity to present some insight into what's arising. I WILL BE ABLE TO lift the bonnet on a couple of areas, including a shift in our payouts structure which will see 20% of fields paid (up from 15%), and the rollout of PLO High Roller events - but do pencil in next Wednesday to test the inside track here on PokerStars Blog.

Lots! Now we have a variety of really exciting things coming along, which you will know about soon. But for the instant listed here are a couple of things which might be going to transport the needle in 2016 in EPT13.

When building the schedule for the Bahamas in 2017 we needed to present our big PLO players an advantage and once we found an effective spot within the schedule we thought it might be fun to throw a $25K buy-in PLO High Roller into the mix.

Once we started exploring the impact at the overall schedule we realized it wasn't only a good idea for the Bahamas but a really perfect idea for the entire EPT and immediately dropped it into Prague, Malta and Barcelona for €10K. It's going to follow the similar buy-in rules because the regular EPT High Roller with $/€25K within the Bahamas and Monaco and €10K in Malta, Barcelona and Prague.

We've had some fun at PokerStars events over the past year playing Chess at the UKIPT and EPT while the IPT was playing Pinball and Backgammon. We're seeking to leave the felt even slightly more during upcoming events.

The popular EPT Chess can be creating a debut in Malta and a return to Prague (potentially even a stop within the Bahamas if I WILL BE ABLE TO get it approved). We're also exploring some EPT Backgammon and sliding our way into the casinos of our partners to maybe play some Blackjack, Roulette and even Video Poker or Slots! While we cannot have any pinball in 2016 at the EPT, I'LL BE accepting challenges at the flippers around the pond around Halloween if you happen to follow my meaning.

If anyone has something fun they want to play, please reach out and tell us. Just about all poker players at heart are card players and that i would like to peer EPT Cribbage, EPT Gin, EPT Hearts, even EPT Crazy Eights!

The biggest change for EPT13 is the growth of our payouts. We've focused so much on making the live poker experience as positive and enjoyable as possible and that is the reason included the payout structure. For the last three seasons, the EPT has paid 15% of the sphere at our Live Events with a minimum cash of roughly 1.7x your buy-in.

For EPT13, we're expanding our payouts out to twenty% of the sector (non-EPT events will finish out their seasons with the prevailing structures). It's not going to have the top-end impact that some people might imagine as now we have decided that the min cash for the entire players that we're adding between 15% and 20% may be between 1x-1.2x your buy-in. It has been something that we've been engaged on all the way down to the wire to ensure that the impact is overall a good one for all players and likewise fits our goal of getting more winners.

For example, 220 players bought right into a €1,000 Hyper at Barcelona last year. The winner collected €45,134 and 31 players were paid out with 31st getting €1,878. This year, the winner would collect €38,028 but 47 players can be paid out with 47th getting €1,238. That very same 31st player would get €1,921.

Another example is the €500 HORSE which had 79 runners. In preference to 11 players getting paid out between €958 and €10,537 we'd pay 17 players out between €575 and €8,843.

It's the way to give much more players a second shot, while exerting just a negligible effect on prize pool distribution. It is a tough line to tread: giving more players a greater experience while to ensure that champs are well rewarded. Given the recognition of events that we're running we believe that this gives a greater balance. We always take heed to feedback and take a look at to consider as many opinions as possible.

The news we now have arising is truly exciting and that i can't wait to speak with everyone about all of it.

I guess my answer for now could be that last year we spent Halloween in Malta and it was a ton of fun putting in such things as the Friday FrankenStack and the Not Your Mummy's Main Event Turbo. This year for Halloween I WILL BE at a special event and now we have already created the Revolting Razz Turbo and the Terrifying Turbo with the intention to give double stacks to players in costume (floor decision on what's and isn't a dressing up is final).

I probably already said too much, so I'll end by saying will probably be fun to return home to work again. It has been too long...

Please email me at live@pokerstars.com with any feedback that you've concerning the issues above or anything PSLive related.

Neil Johnson is Department Head, Live Poker Operations for PokerStars. Follow him on Twitter: @NeilJPoker.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: European Poker Tour]