At last, the World Poker Tour is returning and poker lovers could not be more excited. The World Poker Tour is going to run its online championships once more on PartyPoker even though the full schedule of the events is yet to be shared with participants. What we do know is that it will be held concurrently with the WSOP on GGPoker.
That means that for the first time in a long time, poker fans will be spoiled for choice as 2 of the largest poker brands host their massive online festivals. This is not the first time that WPT and WSOP have butted heads. Last year as a result of the pandemic, both festivals found themselves battling it out for the attention of online poker players.
As you would expect, WSOP edged out its rival with its record-breaking prize guarantees and turnout, even though WPT put up a great challenge in the end. The 2nd edition of the WPT online championship will begin on August 13th and will conclude on September 15th on Partypoker. The highlight of the WPT event will be the $5,300 Main Event, which boasts a massive guarantee of $5 million.
Last year, the WPT online championship featured a much larger buy-in of $10,300, which caused the guarantee to climb to an incredible $10,000,000. Last year’s inaugural event was won by Phillip Mighall who outplayed and outsmarted a field of 1,011 entries to walk away with an impressive $1,550,298.
This year’s Main Event is expected to unfold in a period of 2 weeks, although the online tournaments will not be held daily. The first 3 starting flights are available on August 29th, September 5th, and September 12th, which gives participants plenty of time in between to sort out their finances and strategies.
The final table, which will be live-streamed on September 15th from partypoker and WPT channels will reveal the winner of the entire series. The winner will have their name etched among other champions on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
What we cover
WSOP Online has been underway for a while now
The local version of the 2021 online bracelet events has already been concluded in New Jersey and Nevada. The participants from these 2 states were given the chance to take part in at least 33 successful tournaments. In total, the local leg of the tournament this year awarded poker players in New Jersey and Nevada approximately $18 million in cash prizes.
The Super Circuit started on May 1st and ran through to May 30th on WSOP.com promising poker lovers over $100 million in guarantees. Most of the events during the series attracted more than 1000 participants, therefore easily managing to amass over $550k in guaranteed cash prizes.
Last year when the pandemic broke, WSOP was forced to cancel its regular programming to move the schedule online. This year, Pennsylvania residents will also be part of the action with the schedule for PA expected to kick off any day now. PA poker lovers will compete in several gold bracelet events.
The WSOP PA series will kick off with 2 multi-flight tournaments with the first one having a modest $500 buy-in and three starting flights. This first event will take place between August 6th and will conclude on the 8th of August. The tournament will conclude with a $10000 buy-in Hold’em championship that will start on August 13th and end on August 16th.
All the 2 Hold’em tournaments will utilize the progressive knock-out bounty format. The PA bracelet series has been designed to complement the in-progress WSOP online bracelet series that has already been concluded in Nevada and New Jersey. As a result of the multi-state agreement, WSOP PA, WSOP NJ, WSOP NV will soon share a player pool for their bracelet events.
WSOP NJ and WSOP NV already share a pool but things are yet to be finalized with Pennsylvania. As a result, only poker players that are situated in PA will be allowed to take part in the WSOP PA series.
Apart from the local events, the second half of the WSOP bracelet series online is also running for international participants on GGPoker. The international events are also in progress as they started on August 1st and will conclude on September 12th. The international version of the events on GGPoker is going to hand out another 33 bracelets.
Finally, the WSOP series will conclude in the States where all roads will lead to the Rio Hotel Casino in Vegas. During the last leg of the WSOP 2021 tournament, 88 bracelets will be handed out in the days between September 30th and November 22nd. The Main Event, which has a $10000 buy-in will be the highlight of the entire proceedings.
As such, in total, WSOP plans to hand over 162 bracelets during this year’s festivities. More will be won at WSOP Europe, which is scheduled to take place in the Czech Republic in November and December. As of now, WSOP Europe has already confirmed that participants will have more than 15 bracelet events to choose from.
Final Thoughts
The pandemic may have brought the live poker world to its knees but if there ever were silver linings to all the canceled live poker events and festivals, it was that it forced tournament organizers to get creative with these online hybrid events. Both WSOP and WPT online championships have been a great boost to poker lovers during a very difficult time in history.
The great news is that with so much variety available, poker lovers and professional pros will be spoilt for choice as there are tournaments to keep people engaged all through the year. Both WPT and WSOP have done an excellent job of providing poker participants with a safe environment to take part in their favorite sport, which can only be positive news for everyone involved.
Poker lovers of all budget levels can enter these tournaments comfortably as these festivals have been designed to attract players of all buy-in levels. We truly cannot wait to see who emerges victorious during this year’s online circuits.
