Alberta Poker Championship gets underway at Yellowhead
Yellowhead Casino Alberta kicks off week-long Poker Championship series.
There’s big news in Canadian poker tournaments this week. While most of the today’s biggest pros made their way to Kahnawake, Quebec to take part in the prestigious 2018 Winter Festival, another big event was kicking off 3,500km to the west in Edmonton, Alberta. I’m talking, of course, about the 2018 Alberta Poker Championship.

The APC is a week-long poker tournament series that takes place each January at Alberta’s Casino Yellowhead. 2018 marks the 15th annual hosting of the poker tournament, where 5 events will wrap up with the APC Main Event next weekend.
Each year, the Alberta Poker Championship gets a little bigger than the last. In 2017, the tournament’s finale drew 176 entries, building a $162k prize pool for the APC Main Event. The eventual winner, Chris Symesko, collected the top prize of $46,480.
What’s So Special about the Yellowhead Casino Alberta Poker Championship 2018?
This is a particularly lucrative poker series for Canadian poker players – especially those with proven skills, who aren’t of pro status. Why, you ask? There’s one very simple reason for it.
Everybody who is anybody in the Canadian poker world will be playing their hardest his week. But the vast majority of them won’t be in Edmonton, Alberta. Most of the high-profile players will be looking to cash big in the Winter Festival Poker tournament at Kahnawake’s Playground Poker Club. That series aso got underway yesterday, and will continue through the end of January.
If you’re looking to come up big, without taking on the toughest competition in the Great White North, Yellowhead is the better place to get your game on. Here, the competition will be less fierce, made up mostly of amateurs and local business types with enough change and spare time on their hands.
That’s not to say every pro will be absent from Yellowheads’ tables, though. Poker players are a smart breed, and there’s no doubt I’m not the only one who came up with this valuable assessment of the 2018 APC series. But a narrow margin of exceptional skill is certainly worth competing against, compared to the level of talent gathering in Quebec this week.
2018 APC Event Schedule
The APC kicked off yesterday afternoon with Event #1, a $550 NLHE Bounty. Just about an hour ago, Event #2, $330 NLHE got underway. Tuesday and Thursday, the Edmonton casino will play host to $440 PLO and $220 NLHE Turbo events at 2pm and 4pm respectively.
Thursday is reserved exclusively for satellites tournaments to the Main Event tables that start up on Friday and Saturday. These NLHE satellites cost $190 to enter; a fraction of the Main Event’s standard $1,100 buy-in.
The Main Event will take place with a pair of starting flights to kick off the weekend. All players begin with 25,000 chips, with blinds increasing at 40 minute intervals. Sunday, all remaining players will converge back on the tables for the final day of action, whittling their way down to the final table and, eventually, a 1st place victor.
See the complete 2018 Alberta Poker Championship Series schedule below for more information.
Date/Time | Description | Buy-In |
Jan 14 @ 2:00pm | Event #1 No Limit Holdem Bounty | $550 |
Jan 15 @ 2:00pm | Event #2 No Limit Holdem | $330 |
Jan 16 @ 2:00pm | Event #3 Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) | $440 |
Jan 17 @ 4:00pm | Event #4 No Limit Holdem Turbo | $220 |
Jan 18 @ 7:30pm | NLHE Satellite Tournament to Main Event | $190 |
Jan 19 @ 12:00pm | Event #5 Day 1A – APC Main Event NLHE | $1,100 |
Jan 20 @ 12:00pm | Event #5 Day 1B – APC Main Event NLHE | $1,100 |
Jan 21 @ 2:00pm | Event #5 Day 2 – APC Main Event Finale |
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