Nearly three weeks ago, the World Series of Poker made its decision known as to the 2020 WSOP. It was going online.
Since it seemed unlikely that any kind of live tournament series would be feasible in Las Vegas this summer, they postponed the official summer series. The hope, by all accounts, was to push the series to a period of time later in 2020. However, as the casino closures dragged on through May and well into June in most places – some even into July – the outlook became bleaker. And with scientists predicting a likely second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the fall of 2020, few choices remained.
World Series of Poker executives coordinated with the brand’s two closest online partners – WSOP.com in the United States and GGPoker for many other parts of the world. They came up with the WSOP 2020 Online, a series of 85 tournaments playing out from July 1 through September 6.
https://twitter.com/GGPokerOfficial/status/1276531673082060800?s=20
US Online Events Announced First
The tournaments for the US portion of the WSOP 2020 Online were included in the first announcement.
It was fairly simple to coordinate, as they are WSOP sites and they operate only in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware. And it seems that Delaware players will not be able to play WSOP events from their state, relegating US options to NV and NJ only.
That part of the series will begin on July 1 (next week?!) and run through July 31 with one official WSOP gold-bracelet-awarding tournament per day.
The list of US-facing events includes only No Limit Hold’em and Omaha, the only poker games allowed on the WSOP-888 software. That list of tournaments is in this linked article and on the WSOP website.
https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1270086914939342848?s=20
Highlights and Info Regarding GGPoker Events
There will be 54 bracelet-awarding tournaments on GGPoker, and the site announced the details of those events today. Note that there is not necessarily one tournament per day as with the WSOP.com schedule.
GGPoker highlights several events on its list as notable tournaments, which are in bold below.
Here is the full GGPoker part of the 2020 WSOP Online schedule:
July 19: $100 NLHE Opener (2 days, 1 reentry/flight, $2M GTD)July 19: $1,111 NLHE Covid Relief by Caesars Cares (2 days)July 19: $525 NLHE Super Turbo Bounty 6-HandedJuly 21: $5K PLO ChampionshipJuly 22: $1,500 NLHE Fifty StackJuly 23: $1,050 PLO Bounty July 25: $600 NLHE Monster Stack 6-Handed (Asia time zone)July 26: $1,500 NLHE (Asia time zone)July 26: $2,500 PLOJuly 26: $400 NLHE Colossus (2nd day of 3 days, 1 reentry/flight, $3M GTD)July 26: $400 PLOSSUS (2nd day of 3 days, 1 reentry/flight, $1M GTD)July 28: $10K NLHE Short Deck ChampionshipJuly 29: $2,500 NLHE 6-Handed July 30: $840 NLHE BountyAugust 1: $500 NLHE Deepstack (Asia time zone)August 2: $1K NLHE Short Deck (Asia time zone)August 2: $1,500 NLHE Millionaire Maker (2nd of 3 days, 1 reentry/flight, $5M GTD)August 2: $500 NLHE Turbo DeepstackAugust 4: $2,100 NLHE Bounty ChampionshipAugust 5: $400 PLOAugust 6: $1K NLHEAugust 8: $800 PLO Double Stack (Asia time zone)August 9: HK$8K NLHE Asia Championship (2nd of 2 days, 1 reentry/flight, HK$8M GTD)August 9: $150 NLHE GGMasters WSOP Edition (freezeout)August 9: $10K NLHE Heads-Up Championship (2 days, freezeout, no late reg, 128-player cap)August 11: $5K NLHE 6-Handed Championship August 12: $2,500 NLHE Double StackAugust 13: $525 NLHE Bounty 6-HandedAugust 15: $300 NLHE Monster Stack 6-Handed (Asia time zone)August 16: $1,500 PLOAugust 16: $500 NLHE Mini Main Event (2nd of 2 days, 1 reentry/flight, $5M GTD)August 16: $840 NLHE Super Turbo BountyAugust 18: $600 NLHE Deepstack ChampionshipAugust 19: $800 PLOAugust 20: $500 LHEAugust 22: $500 NLHE Deepstack (Asia time zone)August 23: $1,500 NLHE Marathon (Asia time zone)August 23: $25K NLHE Poker Players Championship (2 days, $10M GTD)August 23: $50 NLHE Big 50 (2nd of 2 days, 1 reentry/flight, $1M GTD)August 25: $1,500 LHE ChampionshipAugust 26: $1K NLHE 6-HandedAugust 27: $1,500 PLOAugust 29: $300 NLHE Double Stack (Asia time zone)August 30: $400 NLHE Forty StackAugust 30: $5K NLHE Main Event (2nd of 3 days, freezeout flights, $25M GTD)August 30: $1K NLHE Turbo 6-HandedSeptember 1: People’s Choice – Most popularSeptember 2: People’s Choice – Pros voteSeptember 3: People’s Choice – Spin the wheelSeptember 5: People’s Choice – Most popularSeptember 5: $1,050 NLHE Beat the Pros BountySeptember 6: $10K NLHE WSOP Super Millions (2 days, $5M GTD)September 6: $100 NLHE WSOP Millions (2nd of 2 days, 1 reentry/flight, $2M GTD)September 6: $500 NLHE Closer
https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1276568702201159681?s=20
GGPoker noted that all events offer two reentries unless otherwise specified.
Starting times for the tournaments vary and are listed on the GGPoker website.
Unknowns, Will Seek Answers
There are several things missing from the information provided today.
First, some of the events on the schedule claim to be second days of multi-day tournaments, but GGPoker lists no information about the starting days and flights for those events.
Second, GGPoker provides no information regarding the People’s Choice tournaments with specifics about voting. To be fair, those are listed as “to be announced.”
Third, it is unclear if the August 30 NLHE Main Event is the NLHE World Championship Main Event to replace the $10K Main Event or if this is just the finale of this series. Will the winner be the WSOP Main Event champion? Will he or she win a championship-style bracelet?
Fourth, the streaming schedule is unclear. There is a list of 13 tournaments to be livestreamed on the GGPoker Twitch channel. Poker Central is listed next to GGPoker for the livestreaming schedule, but it is not clear if fans will also be able to see the coverage on PokerGO. In addition, GGPoker put a note on the streaming schedule that the dates listed “may be different from the actual tournament dates.” That seems odd.
https://twitter.com/ChadAHolloway/status/1276575960804978689?s=20
Finally, the information provided about the WSOP 2020 Online leaderboard is vague, in that it doesn’t specify if this is for the GGPoker tournaments only or if it will include points from the WSOP.com events. In addition, it would be interesting to know if the World Series of Poker will provide its own overall leaderboard for the 2020 WSOP Online and if there will be prizes.
At this point, the WSOP 2020 schedule isn’t even updated on the WSOP website to reflect the GGPoker schedule. There is likely some work happening behind the scenes to fill in the blanks and offer more information, but considering the series begins next week, it would be helpful to do that soon.
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