Stake Showdown: $200,000 Guaranteed on Sunday 25 October
Stake Poker has scheduled the next edition of its flagship online tournament, and the guarantee has gone up. The Stake Showdown returns on Sunday 25 October 2026 with $200,000 guaranteed, which is $75,000 more than the September edition carried. The buy-in has not moved: a seat is still $1,000.
The event is already sitting in the Stake Poker lobby marked as scheduled, so you can look at it yourself before you commit to anything.
The numbers
| Detail | Stake Showdown, 25 October |
|---|---|
| Guaranteed prize pool | $200,000 |
| Buy-in | $1,000 |
| Date | Sunday 25 October 2026 |
| Starting stack | 20,000 |
| Blind levels | 10 minutes |
| Late registration | Open for 2 hours |
| Maximum field | 10,000 players |
On the start time. The Stake lobby shows the start in your own local time, and that is the number you should trust rather than any clock we print here. Open the tournament in the lobby and it will tell you exactly when it begins where you are.
What the structure is telling you
Three of those numbers matter more than the rest, and they point the same way.
A 20,000 starting stack with 10 minute levels is a fast structure for a four figure buy-in. You are not getting the long, patient early game that a $1,000 event sometimes gives you. Stacks measured in big blinds will shrink quickly, and the stretch where post-flop skill decides pots is shorter than the price tag suggests.
Late registration closes after two hours. That is a tight window by online standards, and it has a practical consequence: the field size is known early, the bubble arrives sooner than in a six hour reg event, and there is no option to sleep in and buy a short stack late. If you intend to play, plan to be at the table near the start.
Put those together and the Showdown rewards players who are comfortable making decisions at 20 to 30 big blinds. If your game is built on deep stacked play, this is a structure you have to adjust to rather than one that flatters you.
Will the guarantee be covered?
Worth doing the arithmetic rather than guessing. At a $1,000 buy-in, 200 entries covers $200,000 before rake is taken into account. September’s edition carried $125,000, so Stake has raised the bar by 60 percent on the same entry price.
If the field lands short of that line, the difference is Stake’s to cover and the overlay is yours to profit from. That is the one scenario where a guaranteed prize pool quietly becomes the best value on the site. Whether it happens here is not something anyone can promise in advance, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
How to get in
There are two routes, and the lobby is the authority on both.
Buy in directly for $1,000, or win a seat with a ticket. Ticket entry is enabled for this event, and Stake runs qualifiers into its flagship tournaments in the days beforehand. Prices and formats for those qualifiers are set by Stake and change between editions, so check the Poker lobby for what is actually running rather than relying on what the ladder looked like last month.
Your Stake account needs to be opened through Royal Gambit Poker for us to see you in our reporting and credit you properly. If you do not have one yet, it takes about a minute.
One thing worth being clear about
This is Stake’s own tournament. Their prize pool, their guarantee, their event. We are passing it along because our players should know it is on the calendar, and because a $1,000 buy-in with a real guarantee behind it is a legitimate shot at a serious score.
It is a different thing from the freerolls we run. Our $500 monthly freeroll is funded by Royal Gambit Poker, costs nothing to enter, and is open to anyone on our list. Both are worth your time. They are simply paid for by different people, and we would rather say so than let you assume.
Register for our free $500 monthly freeroll → and your welcome email arrives within minutes with the password and your Stake link.
Before you register
Stake does not accept players in a number of countries and territories. If you are not certain about yours, check the Prohibited Jurisdictions section of Stake.com’s Terms of Service, which is the authoritative source and can change. Tournament details including the start time, structure and qualifier schedule are set by Stake and may be amended. Confirm everything in the Stake Poker lobby before you commit money to it.
18+ only, and T&Cs apply. Royal Gambit Poker is an affiliate partner of Stake. Please play responsibly.
