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WORLD SERIES OF POKER ANNOUNCES ‘RETURN’ OF $10,000 BUY-IN MAIN EVENT

BY BRIAN PEMPUS ON NOV 13, 2020

The World Series of Poker Main Event is back — but it is going to look a lot different.

On Friday, the WSOP announced that it will hold a $10,000 buy-in single entry Main Event with the winner to be crowned in person in Las Vegas on Dec. 30.

In order to pull this off during a global pandemic, the WSOP is running two online brackets, with the winner of each bracket meeting to play heads-up on nearly live TV from the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Sin City. The format is the first of its kind for a poker tournament.

A domestic bracket and an international bracket will be held, with the former on the WSOP platform that is active in New Jersey and Nevada. You’ll have to be physically present in either the Silver State or Garden State to participate, but you don’t have to be a resident. For the international side, eligible players will compete on GGPoker, the WSOP’s international partner.

The WSOP and GGPoker ran online-only bracelet events this summer, but there was no Main Event that incorporated a competition among both U.S. and international players. Thus, it wasn’t a World Series of Poker.

Both brackets are online until a final table of nine is reached. On the domestic side, the final nine will meet at the Rio on Dec. 28 to play to a winner who then moves on to the final heads-up match. On the international side, the final nine will meet at King’s Casino in the Czech Republic on Dec. 15, with the winner there slated to travel to Las Vegas for the showdown just two days before 2021.

In Europe, unlike Nevada, people can legally play online poker at the age of 18. If the winner of the international bracket is younger than 21, the WSOP would have to change its plans, though it’s unclear what the poker tournament organizer would do at that point.

The winner of the domestic tournament (beginning Dec. 13) and the winner of the international tournament (kicking off Nov. 29) will square off for the no-limit hold’em world championship. The two fields might be very different in terms of number of entrants, but that won’t impact the format.

Each bracket will pay out prize money to tournament entrants independently, and the WSOP and GGPoker are throwing in an extra $1 million for the overall winner.

“There must be a world champion in 2020,” said Ty Stewart, the WSOP’s executive director. “Poker’s history is too important. It’s a unique format for the Main Event, but this is a unique year. We want to keep players’ health and safety top of mind and still deliver a great televised showcase for the game we love.”

The WSOP said it will follow all proper COVID-19 safety protocols, and players will be tested for the virus.

The tournament is still subject to approval from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the WSOP said.

While the stakes of the tournament are high, the WSOP is offering U.S. players satellites starting as low as $1.

https://www.njonlinegambling.com/wsop-main-event-returns-2020/

World Series of Poker announces tentative dates for fall

By Jim Barnes Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 1, 2021 - 7:00 am

The World Series of Poker is planning a full in-person schedule for later this year.

The WSOP has set tentative dates for Sept. 30 to Nov. 23 at the Rio, including the Main Event, the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship.

The WSOP Europe is planned for Nov. 19 to Dec. 8 at King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic. The WSOP Online will also return starting July 1 on WSOP.com.

The flagship WSOP in Las Vegas and WSOP Europe were canceled last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The WSOP Online was held in its place over the summer, and a hybrid online/live Main Event was held in December and January.

“In 2021, the theme is, get vaccinated and get back to Vegas,” WSOP executive director Ty Stewart said in a statement.

WSOP officials caution that all dates are tentative and subject to regulatory approval based on the state of coronavirus restrictions in the fall. No decision has been made on the number of players allowed at each table, whether the tables will have plexiglass dividers or other restrictions live poker players have dealt with during the pandemic.

The Main Event is planned for Nov. 4 to 17 with four starting days. Last year’s hybrid Main Event attracted 1,379 combined entrants from the separate U.S. and international fields. International champion Damian Salas of Argentina eventually defeated U.S. champion Joseph Hebert heads-up live at the Rio, earning a total of $2.55 million.

WSOP officials said they were pleased with the number of entrants given the circumstances, but the prize pool was a sharp decline from the live Main Event in 2019, when Germany’s Hossein Ensan beat a field of 8,569 to earn $10 million.

The opening weekend of the WSOP is expected to include a charity event to benefit frontline health care workers, a $25,000 HORSE event (a mix of five poker games) and a No-limit Hold’em event with a guaranteed $5 million prize pool dubbed “The Reunion.”

The full schedule will be released this summer, officials said.

The WSOP Online debuted last summer to fill the void left by the postponement of the flagship WSOP, and 85 gold bracelets were awarded in two separate series, one for U.S. players on WSOP.com and another for international players on GGPoker. The WSOP Online Main Event on GGPoker set a record for the largest online poker tournament with a $27.5 million prize pool.

This year’s U.S. version of the WSOP Online will start July 1 on WSOP.com and end with a $1,000 No-limit Hold’em Championship. The full schedule will be released April 15, and information on the international version will follow later, officials said. Because of U.S. online poker laws, the world cannot play together online.

The WSOP Europe is expected to include 15 bracelet events, including a 10,000-euro buy-in Main Event and a 50,000-euro High Roller event.

“We hope and anticipate travel restrictions will ease by the fall,” Stewart said. “It’s important to us that we have an excellent tournament schedule available to our European players.”

https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/pok...r-fall-2319878/