Zachary Fischer won the Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee in August 2025, out of a field of 1,437 entries. It was the biggest of the WSOP Circuit main events that month, and it set the tone for a busy August. Only a few weeks after the World Series of Poker wrapped up in Las Vegas, players had a choice of serious live tournaments on three continents.
Below are the series that defined the month, in the order they started.
Roughrider Poker Tour in Minnesota
The first event of the month came from a regional tour. The Roughrider Poker Tour, a fixture in North Dakota, crossed into Minnesota for the first time with a stop at Jackpot Junction Casino Hotel in Morton from August 1 to 3. The $640 Main Event ran two starting flights on August 1 and 2 and combined the survivors for a single championship day on August 3.
Joseph Osterbauer won it. He beat Chandra Kontham heads-up for a top prize of about $38,000. A week later the tour was back in its home state with a $150 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Minot VFW Club on August 9. That pairing says a lot about what regional tours are for: one weekend a casino series with a five-figure first prize, the next a local game at a veterans’ hall.
WSOP Circuit Cherokee
Harrah’s Cherokee in the North Carolina mountains is one of the most reliable stops on the WSOP Circuit, and its August series ran from August 7 to 18. The Main Event drew 1,437 entries, the largest of any U.S. Circuit main event in August, and Fischer took the title and the gold ring that goes with it.
Cherokee is a long drive from almost everywhere, but the property sits within reach of players from Atlanta, Charlotte, Knoxville and the wider Southeast, a region with very few legal card rooms. That geography is a big part of why its fields are so large. If you are trying to understand where live poker can be played legally in your own state, the site’s guide on how to find poker near you explains the different kinds of rooms.
WPT Cyprus and WPT Prime Taiwan
The World Poker Tour ran two festivals in the middle of the month. WPT Cyprus took place at Chamada Prestige Hotel & Casino from August 6 to 18, with combined guarantees of $5 million across the schedule. Its headline event, the $3,500 WPT Cyprus Championship, carried a $2 million guarantee and played from August 13 to 18 over three starting flights, with 50,000-chip starting stacks and 60-minute levels.
At the same time, in Asia, the WPT Prime Taiwan Championship Event played August 14 to 19 at Asia Poker Arena with a buy-in of TWD 35,000. Its prize pool reached roughly $1.5 million, and 186 players finished in the money. Taiwan has become one of the busiest live poker markets in the region where tournament Hold’em is organized as a competitive sport, and the event fit a broader pattern of WPT expansion in Asia.
Graton and Atlantic City
Two Circuit stops shared the same dates. Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park, north of San Francisco, ran 18 ring events from August 14 to 25 with $1.2 million in guarantees. The $1,700 Main Event, guaranteed at $500,000, played from August 22 to 25 and drew 616 entries. Michael Persky won it.
On the East Coast, Harrah’s Atlantic City ran its own Circuit series over the same 12 days. Its Main Event drew 635 entries and was won by Bohdan Slyvinskyi. Atlantic City has a deep pool of local regulars and, thanks to New Jersey’s regulated online market, a steady supply of players who qualify online.
EPT Barcelona
The biggest festival of the month was the PokerStars European Poker Tour stop at Casino Barcelona, which ran from August 18 to 31. The schedule carried more than 60 events. The main ones are below.
Swipe the table
| Event | Buy-in | Dates (2025) |
|---|---|---|
| PokerStars Open | €1,650 | Aug 18-24 |
| EPT Super High Roller | €100,000 | Aug 23-25 |
| EPT Main Event | €5,300 | Aug 24-31 |
| EPT Mystery Bounty | €3,250 | Aug 27-29 |
| EPT High Roller | €10,300 | Aug 29-31 |
The €5,300 Main Event drew one of the largest fields in the tour’s history, which has run since 2004. Barcelona has been the EPT’s most dependable summer stop for years, and its timing, after the World Series and before the autumn European season, makes it the natural destination for players who have just come back from Las Vegas. Back-to-back trips of that kind are expensive, and the arithmetic of travel, buy-ins and variance is why so few players make the live circuit pay.
New Orleans and Kahnawake close the month
Two more Circuit series started late in August and finished at the turn of the month. Caesars New Orleans ran from August 21 to September 1, and Yousef Saleh won its Main Event from 510 entries. In Canada, Playground in Kahnawake, near Montreal, hosted an international Circuit stop from August 18 to September 2. Its Main Event drew 1,978 entries, more than any U.S. stop that month, and Jacob Hobday won it.
Playground has become one of the strongest live poker venues in North America, hosting WPT and WSOP-branded series at a rate few rooms can match. Its turnout in August showed why. Live tournament poker in summer 2025 was spread across more venues than ever, and the Circuit’s largest field of the month came from a room outside the United States. The September calendar, with Circuit stops lined up in Council Bluffs and Hammond, followed within days.