Japan Open Poker Tour

What the JOPT is and who can play

The Japan Open Poker Tour, usually shortened to JOPT, is a series of live no-limit hold'em tournaments held at venues in Japan, including stops in Tokyo, Osaka and Sapporo. It is one of the biggest names in Japanese live poker, and it publishes a full set of official tournament rules in both Japanese and English, which are the two official languages of the tour¹.

The tour runs a full schedule of events around a headline Main Event, plus side tournaments such as the NLH Millions, and special formats like Tag Team events. In a Tag Team tournament, the team is treated as a single player, and hand information may be shared within the team, as long as the conversation is kept quiet enough that other players cannot overhear it².

Who can take part is straightforward. In principle, nobody under 18 may participate, and a player may not be accompanied by anyone under 18 either. Entries discovered to belong to someone under 18 are voided¹. Beyond the age rule, JOPT actively welcomes players from outside Japan. The tour runs a special sponsorship program for eligible international players visiting Japan for a short stay, built around the Main Event, which is described in detail below. Note that even if you are not a Japanese national, you may not be eligible depending on your residency or stay status in Japan and other relevant circumstances, so the eligibility check at the venue matters³.

If you are new to poker in Japan generally, it helps to see JOPT in context alongside the wider scene covered on our poker in Japan and poker tournaments in Japan pages.

Entry requirements and the GameID app

JOPT runs its registration and player identity system through a membership app known as GameID. Tournament staff may ask you at any point to present the membership app or a valid photo ID for identity verification, and you are required to comply. If the person who registered the entry and the person actually sitting at the table turn out to be different, the consequences can include disqualification, removal of eligibility, or cancellation of the player contract, so never let anyone play on your entry¹.

Timing matters at registration. You must be seated before the registration deadline, or your entry is canceled. Entries are also canceled if you register but do not sit down within the set time after registration closes. Once play has started in a tournament, you cannot cancel an entry because it turns out not to be the tournament you wanted, so double-check the event before you commit¹.

For international visitors, the Main Event has its own route in. To enter the Main Event, players must either hold an entry entitlement obtained through a satellite at a partner venue, or meet the participation requirements established for the relevant event. Eligible international players complete a special sponsorship procedure at the venue, receive an invitation to the Main Event, and are granted an entry entitlement. You will be required to present your passport at the venue, and JOPT staff confirm your eligibility based on your landing permission information and other relevant details³.

If you have questions about the special sponsorship procedure or eligibility requirements, there is an International Player Support Desk at the event venue. Before the event, questions go through the JOPT contact form on the official website³.

Entry fees, payment methods and how prizes work

JOPT's fee structure works differently from most poker tours you may know, and it is worth understanding before you play. The entry fee you pay is treated as a deposit that goes toward the costs of running the event, such as venue fees and staffing. No prizes are funded from the entry fees. Instead, prizes are paid to players through what JOPT calls player contracts, which are arranged separately¹.

As a worked example of the published fee levels, the NLH Millions side event is listed at 1 JOPT Ticket plus JPY 7,000, which includes JPY 636 consumption tax, or a direct buy-in of JPY 40,000, including JPY 3,636 consumption tax². For the Main Event, the operator's documents list different combinations of JOPT Tickets and cash amounts, so treat the venue's own notice as the authoritative figure for the event you are entering. In general, eligible events, contribution amounts, payment methods and other conditions are determined separately for each event, with details provided at the event venue³.

Payment is made using one of the payment methods provided at the venue, so bring more than one way to pay if you can³.

Prizes have one rule that catches people out: you must be present at the table when your chips run out in order to place. If you are absent at that moment, your result is recorded as absent and no prize is awarded, with no promotion of your finish and no substitute. The only exceptions are if you declared your absence in advance, or your GameID can be verified, in which case your ranking stands as it was when your chips ran out¹.

One more point on money: if a tournament is canceled, JOPT will try to reschedule it, but the tour's liability stops at refunding the entry fee you already paid. Players and affiliated operators cannot claim further damages, so do not build travel plans around a guarantee that a specific event will run².

Re-entries, rebuys and the entry limit

The entry limit is one of JOPT's clearest rules. You may enter each tournament, or each flight of a multi-flight tournament, up to four times in total. That is your original entry plus up to three re-entries, described by the tour as a three re-entry cap system¹.

The exception is satellites. Satellite, or qualifier, tournaments are not subject to the entry limit, so you can fire as many entries as the satellite schedule allows in your quest for a Main Event seat¹.

Rebuys work differently from re-entries. A rebuy while you are still seated at the table is not permitted. Rebuys are only allowed once you have physically left your seat, which in practice means busting out and re-entering through the normal registration process rather than topping up in place².

Tournament formats and special events

The core format details are fixed by the official rules. When a single-player ante is used, JOPT adopts the Big Blind Ante (BBA) format, where the big blind player posts the ante for the whole table. If the big blind player cannot cover both the full ante and the big blind, the big blind is posted first and whatever remains goes toward the ante¹.

When it is time to color up, that is, to exchange low-denomination chips for higher ones, JOPT does not run a chip race. Instead, each player's odd chips are simply rounded up in their favor, which is quicker and slightly friendlier than the traditional race¹.

Special formats include the Tag Team events described earlier, where a team plays as one player and may share hand information quietly among themselves². The headline special event for visitors is the Main Event sponsorship program, which grants eligible international players an entry entitlement after a passport check at the venue³.

The tournament director has broad authority over all of this. The director can overturn decisions made by other floor staff, and the floor may change tournament content without notice at its own discretion, so listen for announcements on the day¹.

Rules of play: what takes precedence at the table

JOPT sets its own official rules as the priority document, and everything not covered there is supplemented by the Poker TDA rules, the widely used international tournament directors' rule set. Where the TDA rules and the house rules conflict, the house rules win¹.

A few JOPT-specific table rules are worth knowing in advance:

• A table does not start until chips for three or more players are placed on it¹.
• A player who is assigned a seat must sit down immediately. New players, and players moved because their table broke, may be seated between the small blind and the button, but they cannot play the hand in progress. This is JOPT's own modification of TDA Rule 8-A¹.
• One all-in button is assigned per table and managed by the dealer. It is placed over the spot where the community cards are laid, and the dealer asks the all-in player to push their chips forward. This modifies the TDA recommended procedure¹.
• A player may surrender their chips by declaring it to the floor. The floor announces the removal, and a player who ends their tournament by surrendering chips is ranked at the position they held when they surrendered¹.
• Dealers are prohibited from handling bring-in requests and will not respond even if asked².

If fraud is discovered, the results of the competition may be voided entirely, and the player or business involved can be barred from all future events and membership¹.

Table conduct: devices, clothing and etiquette

Device rules depend on the table.

Clothing has its own rule: you may not wear anything displaying visible tactical poker information, such as hand range charts or strategy charts. Leave the range chart hoodie at home¹.

Etiquette violations are taken seriously. Smoking or using e-cigarettes anywhere other than a designated smoking area, loud conversation, and other behavior that disturbs people all count as etiquette violations¹. The prohibited conduct list is broader still: collusion, including chip dumping and sharing information through communication devices; cheating, including angle shooting, real-time assistance, and marking cards; revealing the contents of your hand; soft play; receiving advice during play; delaying decisions; and acting out of turn are all strictly prohibited².

If the tournament director or organizer judges that you are intoxicated, they may suspend your play, stop serving you alcohol, remove you from the venue, or disqualify you from the tournament. In that situation there is no refund of your entry fee, and your chips are confiscated¹.

Identity checks, health rules and venue restrictions

Identity checks can happen at any time through the GameID app or a valid photo ID, as described earlier, and a mismatch between the entrant and the player can cost you the entry, the eligibility, and the player contract¹.

Health rules are plain: anyone diagnosed by a doctor with an infectious disease, such as influenza, may not participate. Beyond that, if JOPT judges that a player poses a risk to other participants, the tour may unilaterally order play stopped and have the player removed¹.

Venue restrictions match what you would expect at a Japanese event space. Bringing in outside food and drink is prohibited, with one exception: food and drink purchased using drink tickets sold by the venue. Unauthorized items are collected and disposed of, so do not plan on a packed lunch. Pets of any kind may not enter, regardless of the animal, with an exemption only for assistance dogs, guide dogs, and hearing dogs¹.

One detail for the cameras: at the final table, and at the victory moment in the Main Event and Mini Main Event, photo sessions are held, and masks may not be worn during those photos¹.

For the wider picture of what you can legally play in the country, see our gambling in Japan overview, and if you are visiting, our guide to gambling in Japan as a visitor.