PokerStars has today announced the schedule of the upcoming Season 9 of the European Poker Tour, bringing some major changes to the popular tournament circuit.

Instead of the current 13 stops across Europe, the new season will feature just seven stops, as well as the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January.

The reduced number of stop will however not necessarily mean less poker for players on the tour, as each of the new stops will take place as a two-week festival with a large number of events on the program.

"We looked at every EPT season up until now and asked ourselves how we could make the tour even better for the players," said EPT President Edgar Stuchly, according to the PokerStars Blog.

"In the end, every change comes down to making this a better tour for the people who make this tour what it is: our players," he added.

The Season 9 schedule will begin in Barcelona already in August, and will then move on to stops in San Remo, Prague, the Bahamas, Deauville, London, Berlin, and Monaco.

The normal Main Events will continue to be the highlight of each festival, but will be pooled with a number of events from smaller regional tours like the UK Ireland Poker Tour and the Estrella Poker Tour in Spain.

The tournaments from both the EPT and the partner tours will then be hosted simultaneously to offer players a number of events in a varying sizes.

To cater to the higher buy-in segment, the EPT will also introduce a brand new €10,000 series, which will include a €10,000 Heads-Up event, a €10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha championship, and a €10,000 8-Game championship.

Finally, the EPT will also be premiering a new €50,000 televised tournament, set to be played already in Barcelona for the first leg of Season 9.

For more information, see the official EPT website.