PokerStars’ Winter Series Reaches Midpoint With Main Events Still Ahead

PokerStars’ New 12 months Collection could have wrapped up within the dot-com market, however in North America, the operator is ushering in 2026 with its flagship Winter Collection.

The competition quietly received underway on January 23 and is operating throughout PokerStars US and PokerStars Ontario, with three separate Winter Collection happening on the identical time.

New Jersey and Michigan on-line poker gamers are competing inside a shared liquidity pool, whereas Pennsylvania and Ontario poker gamers every have their very own ring-fenced participant swimming pools and unbiased schedules.

In comparison with final 12 months’s version, the 2026 Winter Collection is noticeably smaller. Every of the three sequence options 50 tournaments, down from 89 occasions per community final 12 months. Consequently, total ensures are decrease. Whereas PokerStars has not printed complete ensures for the competition, as per our calculations, greater than $1.5 million in prize cash is assured throughout all three sequence mixed.

Ontario hosts the biggest of the three, providing C$752K in ensures, which is roughly equal to $550K USD. The shared Michigan–New Jersey community follows with near $540K in assured prize swimming pools, whereas the Pennsylvania sequence is the smallest, carrying $441K in ensures.

PokerStars Winter Collection 2026 Overview:

$1.5 million in mixed ensures
Purchase-ins vary from $7 to $500
$200 Important Occasion assure ranges from $70K to $100K
Particular throwables for taking part within the sequence
Winner will get PokerStars-themed Card Protector

Schedule Highlights and Codecs

The schedule features a broad vary of buy-ins, with some new worth factors launched this 12 months, together with $7, $8, $77, and $88. Extra acquainted stakes are additionally current, similar to $10, $20, $30, $40, $50, $100, $250, and a top-end buy-in of $500.

The sequence has now reached its midpoint, although a number of headline occasions are nonetheless to come back. Chief amongst them are the Important Occasions, which characteristic a $200 buy-in and carry the biggest ensures of the competition. Ontario’s C$200 Important Occasion presents a C$100,000 assure, whereas the shared MI/NJ community ensures $70,000. Pennsylvania’s Important Occasion comes with a $60,000 assure.

Gamers can qualify for the Important Occasion by satellites beginning at simply $2, utilizing PokerStars’ two-step qualification system.

Every market additionally options Mini Important Occasions with buy-ins of both $30 or $50, providing stable ensures at decrease stakes. As well as, the schedule features a $500 Excessive Curler Important Occasion and a Second Likelihood Important Occasion that runs shortly after the Important Occasion concludes.

One other spotlight is the phased Micro Important Occasion, which prices $10 to enter and ensures $10,000 in every market. As a phased event, gamers can enter beginning flights each day, with Day 2 scheduled for February 2, the ultimate day of the sequence.

Staying true to its seasonal theme, tournaments carry winter-inspired names similar to Snowball Combat, Sweet Cane, Snowman, and Winter Thrill. A freezeout event can be featured on the schedule day-after-day.

The Winter Collection presents a large mixture of codecs and variants, together with PKOs, thriller bounty occasions, and Bubble Rush tournaments. Gamers can select from a number of sport sorts, similar to PLO, PLO Hello-Lo, and 5-Card PLO8, with tables operating six-handed, seven-handed, and eight-handed codecs.

Contributors unlock particular throwables just by enjoying any Winter Collection occasion, and anybody who manages to win a event receives an unique PokerStars-branded card protector.

When it comes to participant curiosity, the $100 Thriller Particular has stood out as the preferred occasion thus far. Throughout all three sequence, it has drawn the biggest fields and generated the largest prize swimming pools exterior of the Important Occasions. A number of thriller bounty tournaments are nonetheless to come back, together with the Saturday Thriller Bounty and the Saturday Mini Thriller, in addition to a pair of Thriller Marathon and Thriller Freezeout occasions on the ultimate day.

PKO tournaments have additionally confirmed common, and there’s no scarcity of knockout occasions nonetheless remaining on the schedule.

The Winter Collection involves a detailed on February 2.