From October 26 to 31, 2026, the European Mixed Poker Championship (EMPC) is held for the fourth time. For the first time, the Olympic Park Casino in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is hosting the festival. Over six days, the schedule features twelve championship events with buy-ins ranging from €200 to €1,500. The action kicked off yesterday with the €200 Welcomer Big Bet Mix, which set the first records.
The European Mixed Poker Championship has its roots in the Norwegian mixed-game scene. The first edition of the EMPC took place in 2023 as part of the Poker North Masters in Bratislava. By 2024, the championship had already established itself as a standalone event and moved to Dublin in 2025. Now, the European Mixed Poker Championship is being held in Tallinn. Four new events were introduced for this year’s edition: the Nordic Blood Mix, the TOE Turbo, Senkel’s Paradise Pick’em, and the Omaha Dealer’s Choice.
The EMPC kicked off with the €200 Welcomer Big Bet Mix. The following six no-limit and pot-limit games rotate: No-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8, No-Limit 5-Card Draw, Pot-Limit Omaha, No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw, No-Limit Hold’em, and Pot-Limit Sviten Special. What makes this event unique is that high stakes are permitted. In tournaments, Omaha Hi-Lo is almost exclusively played as Fixed Limit or No Limit. This creates new dynamics: For example, a player holding the nut low and the nut high on every street—or even with every hand, even before the flop—can go all-in with their entire stack in NL Omaha Hi-Lo.
The buy-in was €200 with unlimited rebuys throughout the entire event. Levels lasted 20/15 minutes, and the starting stack at the six-handed tables was 20,000 chips. Late registration was available for 10 levels. A total of 104 entries were recorded for the €200 Welcomer Big Bet Mix. This more than doubled the number of participants compared to last year. The top 14 finished in the money. The minimum cash prize was €490. In the end, Christophe Stammet took home the victory and a prize of €3,417.
Further information can be found on the OlyBet Poker website.
Here are the payouts for Event #1:
| Place | Player | Prize Money |
| 1 | Christophe Stammet | 3,417 € |
| 2 | Benjamin Robert Sweetman | 3,141 € |
| 3 | Nicolas Bokowski | 2,050 € |
| 4 | Jan Roger Holte | 1,620 € |
| 5 | Tomasz Pawel Gluszko | 1,260 € |
| 6 | Tobias Leknes | 970 € |
| 7 | Anders Auset | 780 € |
| 8 | Frode Fagerli | 650 € |
| 9 | Robin Panholzer | 650 € |
| 10 | Ilkka Elias Heikkilä | 550 € |
| 11 | Per Erland Oversveen | 550 € |
| 12 | Joakim Bakke | 490 € |
| 13 | Alexander Freund | 490 € |
| 14 | Lasse Antero Laukkarinen | 490 € |
Here is the complete tournament schedule for the European Mixed Poker Championship (EMPC): 