Next week the Asian Poker Tour (APT) returns to the Taiwanese capital of Taipei for the first time since its record-breaking APT Championship series in November.
More than 28,000 entries were recorded in that epic curtain-closer to the 2025 season, which culminated in a dramatic main event that awarded over a million US dollars to its winner, Nishant Sharma.
Skip forward five months and, from the moment the first hand of APT Taipei 2026 is dealt on Wednesday, April 22, there will be plenty of similarities to the tour’s last visit to Taiwan, but also a few notable differences.
As we get ready for another trip to the hustle and bustle of 'the City of Azaleas', here are some tips on what to expect.
A tale of two venues
As we noted in November, there’s a lot of appetite for poker in Taipei. The venue of the APT Championship, Red Space, is a vast room packed with 100 tables or more, and during the Championship series it was hard to find an empty one.
The venue is large enough to handle an enormous poker festival. But not quite big enough for APT Taipei.
That’s why APT Taipei 2026 will be held across two venues, with the Asia Poker Arena featuring alongside Red Space as joint hosts.
Like the latter, the Asia Poker Arena has space for many, many tables, and we expect them to be busy.
Featured tourneys such as the Main Event, Super High Roller, Zodiac Classic, APT National Cup and Superstar Challenge will be based in Red Space, while the Asia Poker Arena will play host to a huge array of other tournaments including mixed events and the upcoming Mind Sports Week.
To walk from one venue to the other is as simple as walking a couple of blocks, and shouldn’t take any more than 15 minutes. Both are within strolling distance of numerous hotels.
USD $6.5 million in guarantees
The guarantee across the series is TWD 207M, or around USD $6.5M (exchange rate at time of writing is around TWD 31.5 = USD $1).
A huge $2.2M of that is accounted for by the Main Event, a $1,700 buy-in tournament with four starting flights, two day 2s, then three more days of play.
Starting flights run April 26-28 and will each play 10 levels, but how long that takes will depend on which Day 1 you choose to play.
- Day 1A (April 26): 10 x 60-minute levels
- Day 1B (April 27): 6 x 45-minute levels + 4 x 60-minute levels
- Day 1C (April 28, 11am): 6 x 30-minute levels + 4 x 45-minute levels
- Day 1D (April 28, 6pm): 6 x 30-minute levels + 4 x 45-minute levels
From Day 2 on, all levels will be 60-minutes. Registration will remain open until one level into Day 2B — around 4pm on April 29.
The Main isn’t the only event with an eye-catching guarantee. Among the others worth checking out are:
- $380 APT National Cup (from April 22); $475K GTD
- $630 Mystery Bounty Hunter (from April 25): $630K GTD
- $10.5K Super High Roller (from April 25): $475K GTD
- $2.6K Zodiac Classic (from April 30): $790K GTD
- $950 Mini Main Event (from May 1): $790K GTD
- $650 Ultra Stack (from May 2): $315K GTD
- $3.8K High Roller (from May 2): $630K GTD
- $380 Micro Main Event (from May 3): $63K GTD
Each day of play will feature around 12-21 different events. These include 122 hold’em tournaments, 27 Omaha tourneys, 16 women’s events, 9 draw tournaments and 7 dedicated mixed games.
22 passes to the $10K APT Championship
Sweetening that already tasty pot is the promise of 22 free seats, worth $10K each, to the 2026 APT Championship (APTC) Main Event.
That’s $220K in extra value to be scooped up in Taipei. Most of the giveaway prizes have been reserved for high-placed finishers in the series’ flagship tournaments — see here for which ones — but a couple of them have been set aside for prize draws.
All entrants to the Main Event who survive the bubble will be in with a chance of landing a $10K APTC seat, with the first draw taking place when the money is reached and the second on Day 4 (May 1).
APT Taipei runs April 22 to May 3 at Red Space and the Asia Poker Arena, Taipei, Taiwan.
Note that buy-in and prize amounts above have been converted from New Taiwanese Dollars, are approximate and correct at time of writing.
For more details on the mixed games and high rollers scheduled at APT Taipei, check the articles below. For daily updates, videos and features direct from the series, stick with PokerOrg.
Additional images courtesy of APT/Google Maps.
