The Olympic Summer Games may be coming to a close in a few days, but the Summer Games at PokerStars have yet to begin. PokerStars is kicking off an eight-week-long promotion called the Summer Games that pits Canadians vs. Americans in a fight to snag some of the more than 80,000 cash prizes to be given away and seats in the $100,000 final, and it all starts this Friday, Aug. 22.
Each week features a different poker variation, and players get one free round-one entry for each week’s poker variant. Each country has a separate set of tournaments, and the free entry can be used for any of the round-one Summer Games tournaments running during that week for the player’s home country.
Those who finish well enough in the round-one event move on to that week’s round-two final, and the weekly finals send five players from each country to the $100,000 main event. Then, the next week, players can try their hands at a different poker variation with another free round-one entry.
The round-one and round-two events aren’t just qualifiers, though; plenty of cash prizes are being awarded in each tournament.
Here’s the schedule of events:
| Event | Game | Qualification Period | Final (ET) |
| 1 | Limit hold’em | Aug. 22-28 | Aug. 31, 4 p.m. |
| 2 | Seven-card stud | Aug. 29-Sept. 4 | Sept. 7, 4 p.m. |
| 3 | Five-card draw | Sept. 5-11 | Sept. 14, 4 p.m. |
| 4 | Omaha | Sept. 12-18 | Sept. 21, 4 p.m. |
| 5 | Short-handed no-limit hold’em | Sept. 19-25 | Sept. 28, 4 p.m. |
| 6 | Pot-limit hold’em | Sept. 26-Oct. 2 | Oct. 5, 4 p.m. |
| 7 | Omaha eight-or-better | Oct. 3-10 | Oct. 12, 4 p.m. |
| 8 | No-limit hold’em | Oct. 11-16 | Oct. 19, 4 p.m. |
Those interested in taking part in this free promotion and representing either the USA or Canada can sign up for PokerStars today.
