Time is running out to secure your spot at the PLO Masters Nairobi, and if you’ve been on the fence about making the trip to Kenya, now is the moment to commit. Hotels are booking up fast, and once they’re gone, alternatives become significantly less convenient. The series runs September 28 to October 1 at Casino Flamingo in Nairobi’s Westlands district, and it’s positioned to be one of the most unique stops on the international poker calendar this year.
The poker.pro team covered the initial announcement when JJ Hazan and the PLO Masters team first revealed Nairobi back in May. That piece laid out the full context: why East Africa, why now, and what sets this series apart from the endless No Limit Hold’em schedules dominating most festival calendars. If you haven’t read it, start there. What’s changed since then is straightforward: the series is six weeks away, seats are limited, and the hotels that make the experience genuinely comfortable are close to full.
- Read more: JJ Hazan and the PLO Masters
- Read more: PLO Masters Heads to Nairobi for East Africa’s First Dedicated PLO Festival
East Africa’s First Dedicated PLO Festival
The PLO Masters was founded by British poker commentator, players, and tournament organizer JJ Hazan on a simple premise: Omaha players deserve better than one side event buried at the end of a Hold’em schedule. Since launching in Bratislava in 2024, the series has expanded through the UK, Spain, Bulgaria, Malta, and multiple PartyPoker Tour stops across Europe. Nairobi represents its most ambitious move yet.
Casino Flamingo is a serious poker venue. Located in the Westlands district, one of Nairobi’s most active commercial and entertainment areas, it has been running daily cash games and nightly tournaments for years. It’s the best-known poker room in East Africa and has been named Nairobi’s best casino three years running. The 16,000 square foot space houses 15 live game tables and a dedicated poker room with a full range of variants. It knows how to run a poker operation. What it has never hosted before is a series of this scale, with this level of international draw, built entirely around four-card poker.
The centerpiece is the $500 PLO Main Event with a $25,000 guarantee, running three starting flights across Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before the Final Day on Thursday. Three flights gives the field real time to build, which matters for a new market where some players will be experiencing international festival-format poker for the first time. Alongside the Main Event, the $1,000 PLO 4-5 Hi Roller carries a $15,000 guarantee and is the highest buy-in event on the schedule. The supporting programme includes a PLO 5 PKO, a PLO 4/5/6 event, a ROE tournament rotating between No Limit Hold’em and PLO, a Ladies NLHE Championship powered by Globetrotting Poker, and the Final Countdown NLHE to close out Thursday evening. The poker.pro NLHE Mystery Bounty, with a $10,000 guarantee, runs across Monday and Tuesday before its Final Day on Wednesday.
For the Hendon Mob flag collectors: Kenya is a relatively rare flag on most international poker profiles. The PLO Masters Nairobi gives you a legitimate shot at adding it under genuinely competitive conditions rather than as a footnote at a charity event.
Last Chance to Book Your Stay
This is the part that separates the people who get to experience Nairobi properly from those who scramble for alternatives. The five-star Mövenpick Hotel and Residences Nairobi sits directly next door to Casino Flamingo. It’s a 276-room property with a swimming pool, spa, fitness center, restaurants, and bars, and it’s the natural base of operations for the PLO Masters. Players at the Mövenpick walk to the casino. They don’t need taxis, they don’t need to navigate Nairobi’s traffic between sessions, and they wake up five minutes from the felt.
Rooms at the Mövenpick are filling up. The PLO Masters team has 4-star and 5-star hotel deals available as part of the VIP package on offer to players who book now. If you want to stay next door to the casino and have the full experience rather than cobbling together something at the last minute, this is the moment to reach out to JJ directly. Contact JJ Hazan through the dedicated PLO Masters website or message him directly for the hotel and VIP package details.
For players who have attended European poker festivals, think of the Mövenpick’s relationship to Casino Flamingo the way Casino Malta resides next to the Intercontinental Hotel for the Battle of Malta, which the PLO Masters is also involved in. Everything is in one place. That matters on festival week when you’re managing sessions, sleep, and a schedule that runs across four days.
Full VIP Service
The PLO Masters team is handling the full VIP experience for players who want it. That means hotel bookings at negotiated rates, airport transfers, and access to a two-day safari at a discount price following the festival. The safari component runs immediately after the poker concludes on October 1, which means you can go from the PLO Main Event final table directly into the Kenyan wilderness without any logistical headache. The Masai Mara is one of the world’s great wildlife destinations, and the timing of the PLO Masters puts you in Nairobi at exactly the right time of year to see it.
This isn’t something that gets tacked onto most poker festivals. Most series end and you head to the airport. The PLO Masters Nairobi is built around the idea that the poker is the beginning of the trip, not the whole of it.
Many big names will be in attendance, including Dan “Jungleman” Cates, who is looking forward to meeting different players and fans from across the world.
Why This Series Is Worth Making the Trip
The PLO Masters is the series that Omaha players have been waiting for. JJ Hazan built it specifically because most poker festivals treat PLO as an afterthought: one side event buried in a Hold’em-heavy schedule, usually on a night when half the field has already gone home. The PLO Masters flips that completely. Four days, multiple Omaha variants, satellites, and a schedule that puts four-card poker at the center of everything.
This edition is the first ever PLO series in East Africa. That’s not marketing language, it’s a fact. Nobody has done this here before. That gives the Nairobi stop a specific energy that established European poker circuits can’t replicate. The local poker community at Casino Flamingo, which houses 160 slot machines and 15 live game tables in a 16,000 square foot space and has been running daily cash games and nightly tournaments, will be mixing with international players making their first trip to Kenya. That combination makes for a different kind of festival.
poker.pro will be on-site throughout the series as official media partner, providing live reporting, chip counts, photography, and daily recaps from the Casino Flamingo floor. We’ve worked closely with JJ and the PLO Masters at multiple stops across Europe, and bringing that partnership to Nairobi is something we’re genuinely looking forward to. We’re also running our own event in the schedule: the $350 poker.pro NLHE Mystery Bounty, with a $10,000 guarantee and two starting flights on Monday and Tuesday before the Final Day on Wednesday. Yes, the one Hold’em event on the schedule has our name on it.
“We’re thrilled to be hosting our first event on a new continent with the PLO Masters Nairobi,” poker.pro’s Jason Glatzer enthusiastically shared. “This is a milestone not just for poker.pro, but for the growth of Omaha poker globally. We’ve believed in JJ Hazan’s vision from the start because the PLO Masters does something no other series does: it builds an entire festival around Omaha variants instead of burying them as side events in a Hold’em-heavy schedule. Nairobi proves that the appetite for dedicated PLO action extends far beyond Europe, and we’re excited to help spread the poker community beyond Hold’em into East Africa and beyond.”
2026 PLO Masters Nairobi Full Schedule
Buy-ins are in Kenyan Shillings at the venue. The amounts shown above are USD equivalents. The total series guarantee is KES 6,000,000, approximately $46,000.
Full information including the players handbook is available at the PLO Masters Nairobi landing page. For VIP packages, hotel deals, and safari bookings, contact JJ Hazan directly.
| Date | Time | Event | Buy-in | Starting Stack | Blinds | Late reg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 28 | 12:00 | $100 PLO ME Satellite | $100 | 20,000 | 15 Mins | Level 8 |
| 14:00 | $350 poker.pro NLHE Mystery Bounty Day 1A | $10K GTD | $350 | 50,000 | 30 Mins | Level 8 | |
| 15:00 | $500 PLO ME Day 1A | $25K GTD | $500 | 50,000 | 30 Mins | Level 8 | |
| 18:00 | $250 ROE NLHE/PLO | $250 | 25,000 | 20 Mins | Level 12 | |
| September 29 | 12:00 | $100 PLO ME Satellite | $100 | 20,000 | 15 Mins | Level 8 |
| 14:00 | $350 poker.pro NLHE Mystery Bounty Day 1B | $10K GTD | $350 | 50,000 | 30 Mins | Level 8 | |
| 15:00 | $500 PLO ME Day 1B | $25K GTD | $500 | 50,000 | 30 Mins | Level 8 | |
| 18:00 | $250 PLO 5 PKO | $250 | 25,000 | 20 Mins | Level 12 | |
| September 30 | 12:00 | $100 PLO ME Satellite | $100 | 20,000 | 15 Mins | Level 8 |
| 13:00 | $115 PLO 4-5 Hi Roller Sat | $115 | 20,000 | 15 Mins | Level 8 | |
| 14:00 | $350 poker.pro NLHE Mystery Bounty Final Day | – | – | – | – | |
| 15:00 | $500 PLO ME Day 1C | $25K GTD | $500 | 50,000 | 30 Mins | Level 8 | |
| 16:00 | $1,000 PLO 4-5 Hi Roller | $15K GTD | $1,000 | 50,000 | 30 Mins | Level 8 | |
| October 1 | 14:00 | $500 PLO ME Final Day | – | – | – | – |
| 15:00 | $250 PLO 4/5/6 | $250 | 25,000 | 20 Mins | Level 12 | |
| 17:00 | $100 Ladies NLHE Championship – Powered by Globetrotting Poker | $100 | 25,000 | 20 Mins | Level 12 | |
| 19:00 | $100 Final Countdown NLHE | $100 | 20,000 | 15 Mins | Level 8 |
