World Series of Poker 2020 – decision in Las Vegas

The poker fans among you are in luck this year. Not only the European Poker Tour (EPT) is being organized online this year by the poker giant PokerStars, but also the World Series of Poker 2020 (WSOP). Since it is not allowed to organize these events on a land-based basis due to COVID-19, the organizers are relocating the event to the online world.

The WSOP is slated to appoint a new poker world champion this year, using a mix of online and live poker tournaments.

In addition to the European Poker Tour (EPT), the World Series of Poker is the largest poker event in the world. After the EPT, the eyes of poker fans are now on the WSOP. The online event is definitely a challenge as there are around 44,000 participants in the 31 events. The WSOP was actually planned much earlier this year, namely from May 26th to July 15th, but understandably the event had to be canceled due to measures against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fortunately, a solution was found quickly and some tournaments were already running online in cooperation with GGPoker and these quickly proved to be a complete success. Not only was the number of participants in a good range of around 44,000 guests, but also the prize money of almost 27,000,000 US dollars did not disappoint.

Who will be the next poker world champion?

So the online WSOP has been absolutely no problem so far. The next challenge, however, is to appoint the next world poker champion. At the end of the year, more precisely on December 30th, the US $ 10,000 No Limit Hold’Em World Championship will be held as the main event of the WSOP in the famous Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. One hopes that the doors of the casino hotel will be open again by then. Until then, however, there is still uncertainty and therefore the organizers have opted for a kind of mixed model of live and online events.

There are even two tournaments being held: one at wsop.com for poker players in Nevada and New Jersey and another at international level at GGPoker. The event for the US players will take place on December 13th and 14th, online of course. The final table will then be held live on December 28th at the Rio Casino Hotel.

For poker players from other nations there is the second GGPoker unit from November 29th to December 7th. The final table will be played live on December 15th at King’s Resort Rozvadov in the Czech Republic.

The winners of the final tables will finally meet on December 30th in Las Vegas. This event will then also be broadcast on TV and the poker world champion will be determined here. As every year, the American TV broadcaster ESPN will broadcast the event. This year’s poker world champion can look forward to a bracelet and prize money of 1,000,000 US dollars.

Nothing is safe

The plan to have the World Series of Poker 2020 take place in a hybrid live and online model, so to speak, sounds very promising. Nevertheless, changes must be expected at any time, not least because of possible COVID-19 regulations. Another problem could be the reopening of the Rio in Las Vegas, which is also dependent on the pandemic development.