The last of ZSOP’s four Horse-year festivals lands in Taipei on September 3, and it carries the heaviest guarantee of the run: NT$12,000,000 — roughly US$390,000 — behind the NT$25,000 Zodiac Horse Main Event, which plays out September 10 to 14 at CTP Asia Poker Arena.
ZSOP The Final Horse 2026 fills 12 days with 12 numbered events plus a separate high roller block, and buy-ins stretch from NT$10,000 to NT$100,000. That is a deliberately wide ladder for Taipei, where the arena’s regular daily tournaments usually top out around NT$4,000.
Where the money actually sits
The Main Event (#Z8) is the headline, but two mystery bounties carry real guarantees of their own: #Z3 at NT$10,000 with NT$1,500,000 guaranteed, and #Z7 at NT$15,000 with NT$3,460,000. If you have not played the format before, our breakdown of how mystery bounty payouts work covers why the variance looks nothing like a standard freezeout.
Above that sits the high roller series — events #H1 through #H5 plus #H9 — priced between NT$40,000 and NT$100,000. The middle of the schedule leans on progressive knockouts named after zodiac animals: Tiger (#Z2), Dog (#Z5) and Snake (#Z6), from NT$10,000 to NT$60,000. Champions collect a golden zodiac trophy, a gimmick ZSOP introduced when it launched in 2024 and has kept at every stop since.
A season that peaked in March
The numbers behind this finale are lopsided. The Horse Awakens in March drew 8,002 entries for a US$2.9 million prize pool. The Rising Horse in June managed 952 entries and US$637,900. Across everything ZSOP has run in 2026 so far — 295 events and flights — the tour sits at 8,954 entries and US$3.5 million, meaning March accounts for the overwhelming majority of the year’s volume.
For context, ZSOP’s full 2025 came in at 16,720 entries and US$5.6 million from 149 events. September, then, is the edition that decides whether year two finishes ahead of year one or well short of it. A NT$12 million guarantee is the organisers betting on the former.
The Taipei details worth knowing before you book
Taiwan classifies poker as a mind sport rather than gambling, and that classification comes with a hard limit: tournaments only. There are no cash games at CTP Asia Poker Arena, so a bust means waiting for the next scheduled start rather than sitting down in a side game. Anyone who has read our Taipei poker rooms guide will recognise the trade-off.
Registration is app-first. Players download the CTP app and set up a membership before playing, with foreign visitors verifying on a passport and locals on a national ID. The venue itself is in Zhongshan district at B1, No. 80, Section 1, Jianguo North Road, a short walk from the Taipei Metro, and runs to 65 tables across 540 square metres — the largest dedicated tournament floor in Asia, and the same room that hosts WPT, APT, Taiwan Millions, the Asia Poker Championship, Players Series and OLA stops through the year.
Practically, the tournament-only rule changes how you budget the trip. Money that would sit in a cash game bankroll elsewhere goes into re-entries and side events here, and at 12 days the schedule is built to be played through rather than dipped into for a weekend.