The World Poker Tour is hitting its stride. It had a stride – different strides at different paces throughout its 20 seasons – but its 2022 WPT World Championship has set it on a new path.
The WPT World Championship started offered a slate of tournaments, including a WPT Prime Championship and WPT World Championship Main Event. The tournament numbers blew guarantees out of the water and created prize pools far beyond the hopeful guarantees. Players traveled from around the world – some at the last minute because they didn’t want to miss out on what was turning into a historic event – to participate.
The side events have been successful, but nothing tells the story like the two headline events:
-$1,100 buy-in WPT Prime Championship = 5,430 entries / $5,267,100 prize pool ($2M GTD)-$10,400 buy-in WPT Main Event = 2,960 entries / $29,008,000 prize pool ($15M GTD)
With those numbers, combined with rave reviews of all aspects of the series, the World Poker Tour took this opportunity to reveal the first part of its next season.
Season XXI Announcement
The press release echoed the celebratory sentiment from the Wynn series in progress. WPT CEO Adam Pliska said:
“Coming off an incredible 20th-anniversary season for WPT, we are looking forward to its progression into 2023. Players have much to anticipate during Season XXI, as we have established some new partnerships and continued our relationships with longstanding staples of the tour.”
The action will kick off with several WPT Prime stops outside of the United States before the WPT Main Tour gets going in April at Thunder Valley in California. The Main Tour will continue on in the United States – Florida, Oklahoma, Southern California – as Prime moves around the world.
https://twitter.com/WPT/status/1603505518093352960?s=20&t=ZSDVhZ7MX2PlnLcrDEicOQ
Per the press release, the current schedule only comprises the first half of 2023. While there are a few extra stops listed on the Hendon Mob Database, those are not official as of yet.
WPT Prime 2023 Schedule
The WPT Prime series is the lower buy-in set of festivals, ones that invite more mid-stakes players to the tables. That schedule starts in late January and incorporates several new casino partners into the mix.
Note that the dates provided are for the Main Event tournaments only. The full festival dates are forthcoming.
-WPT Prime Paris at Club Circus Paris (France): Jan 31-Feb 5-WPT Prime Gold Coast at Star Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia): Mar 2-6-WPT Prime Cambodia at Naga World Integrated Resort (Phnom Penh, Cambodia): Mar 16-20-WPT Prime Amsterdam at Holland Casino (Netherlands): Mar 29-Apr 1
-WPT Prime India at Deltin Royale Casino (Goa, India): Apr 13-17-WPT Prime Slovakia at Card Casino Bratislava (Slovakia): May 11-15-WPT Prime Vietnam at Crown Poker Club (Hanoi, Vietnam): May 25-29-WPT Prime Sanremo at Casino di Sanremo (Italy): Jun 7-11
The one entry not on the WPT press release but on the Hendon Mob tournament listing is the following:
-WPT Prime Aix en Provence at Pasino Aix en Provence (France): Oct 9-15
WPT Main Tour 2023 Schedule
As for the main tour that is the World Poker Tour, it will start later in the year. In fact, the first event doesn’t begin April, though the festival for that event is likely to begin in mid to late March.
-WPT Rolling Thunder at Thunder Valley Casino (Lincoln, California): Apr 1-4-WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown at Seminole Hard Rock (Hollywood, Florida): Apr 28-May 2-WPT Choctaw at Choctaw Casino (Durant, Oklahoma): May 5-8-WPT Gardens Poker Championship at Gardens Casino (Los Angeles, California): May 21-25
The first two stops will offer $3,500 buy-in Main Event tournaments, with Choctaw coming in at $3,800 and the Gardens Main Event set at $5,250.
Of the four, only WPT Rolling Thunder is not set up to be filmed as a televised final table.
Missing from the schedule is a WPT Online, which was held last year in May on partypoker. Also missing is the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Tampa in June. Also, the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open in Florida is no longer in the lineup, nor are past early-year Main Tour stops like the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open, WPT Fallsview Poker Classic at Niagara Falls, WPT L.A. Poker Classic, or WPT Venetian in Las Vegas. There are ways to fit them in if the WPT allows, but for now, none of those stops are included.
https://twitter.com/PokerGO/status/1602813641040203776?s=20&t=ZSDVhZ7MX2PlnLcrDEicOQ
