Poker Tournament News
Forever dark According to a report from CardsChat, three MGM properties on the Strip – the Mirage, Excalibur, and Mandalay Bay – are closing their poker rooms for good. All of the card rooms have been closed since mid-March, when casinos in Nevada were ordered to shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Casinos were… Read more »
The year 2020 has seen all of our favorite live poker tournaments disappear. It is certainly not the most important consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic – far from it – but it still stinks, right? Fortunately, there is such a thing as online poker and many of the poker tours and tournament series have been… Read more »
We’re a little short This past weekend, a new live poker tournament series called the Midway Poker Tour debuted in Chicago. For those jonesing for a regional, relatively low-to-mid stakes tournament series, that’s great. But oh dear, was it a mess, unless you don’t like to travel light. The $1,100 Main Event had two starting… Read more »
Before the 2020 World Series of Poker Online began, Poker Hall of Famer Daniel Negreanu offered up a couple bracelet prop bets, as he often does. One for which he got a couple takers was an even money heads-up bet on who would win a bracelet. Ali Imsirovic and Connor Drinan took him up on… Read more »
Two events out of the gate From the “I’m not so sure this is the best idea” files, the Venetian Poker Room has embarked upon Las Vegas’ first live poker tournament series during the COVID-19 pandemic. The DeepStack Showdown kicked off on Monday, September 7 and will run through Sunday, September 27. It features 32… Read more »
This week, Roberto Romanello got his name on a very short list, becoming just the ninth player in poker history to win poker’s Triple Crown. In winning the 2020 World Series of Poker Online Event #39: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em, Romanello he nabbed his first career WSOP bracelet. That, along with previous World Poker Tour and… Read more »
Tony Dunst won the 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online Event #21: $777 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed on Tuesday night, nabbing $168,342.09 for the victory. Using the screen name “Panoramic,” Dunst outlasted 848 opponents; the 849 total entries and 512 re-buys grew the prize pool to $952,700. This is Dunst’s second career bracelet – he… Read more »
Popularity: a blessing and a curse It was certainly an exciting weekend at GGPoker, as the first World Series of Poker Online bracelet to be awarded outside of the United States was won by Shoma “pp_syon” Ishikawa of Japan, but connectivity issues marred what would otherwise have been a celebratory Sunday. Included in the problems… Read more »
2015 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Joe McKeehen won his third career bracelet on Tuesday, taking down Event #14: $3,200 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller at the 2020 WSOP Online. The tournament had a prize pool of more than $1.5 million after 368 players entered and 128 re-bought. It took him a grueling 14… Read more »
Gotta do what you gotta do This COVID-19 pandemic has turned the poker world (and everything else) upside down. The World Series of Poker is weird right now. The live Series postponed (probably cancelled, if I may use another parenthetical), one leg of the WSOP is being played online right now on WSOP.com with another… Read more »
Although the vast majority of casinos have reopened in the United States, there still is not much in the way of live poker to be had. And that makes sense, as a poker room is not really the best environment to be in if you want to avoid a potentially deadly virus. Outside of the… Read more »
Mike “The Mouth” Matusow had a Mike Matusow day at the 2020 World Series of Poker Online this past weekend. But even after threatening violence upon a player who had the audacity to beat him in a hand, even after a little demonstration of misogyny, and even after just generally being a complete asshole, Caesars… Read more »
Six events down, 25 to go. On Monday night, Nathan “surfbum” Gamble won the first non-Hold’em event on the 2020 World Series of Poker Online slate, a 12-hour marathon of $600 Pot-Limit O8 Six-Max. For his triumph over 832 other entries, Gamble won $89,424.21 and his second career bracelet. Gamble’s first bracelet came in 2017… Read more »
Played a hand terribly… In a throwback to the days when Mike “The Mouth” Matusow frequently found himself on World Series of Poker television broadcasts flapping his maw in embarrassing fashion, Matusow couldn’t handle his own poor play during the 2020 WSOP Online and laid into an opponent during his live stream. A two-hand live… Read more »
Allen “Acnyc718” Chang captured his first World Series of Poker bracelet Sunday night, winning Event #5: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em in the 2020 WSOP Online. It was a lengthy tournament, taking ten and a half hours to whittle down from 854 players to just one. For the victory, Chang banked $161.286.44. I’m not sure if TheHendonMob.com… Read more »
When I saw the e-mail from PokerStars on Monday about a new tournament series called the Stadium Series, I raised an eyebrow (let’s pretend I can), intrigued that the poker room was launching a new live tournament event. After all, it’s called the Stadium Series. Thankfully, since we are in the midst of a pandemic,… Read more »
Breaking the seal Though the coronavirus pandemic has been a boon to online poker (silver lining of the crisis, I suppose), it has devasted live poker. For two months, there was no live poker anywhere in the United States, as some poker rooms have final begun reopening in recent weeks. But the few poker rooms… Read more »
Same bracelets, different venue In an alternate timeline, likely created if George McFly knocked Biff Tannen on ass, since we are clearly now in the timeline in which Biff won, the 2020 World Series of Poker would be in full swing right now. But alas, In Loving Memory George Douglas McFly. The massive convention halls… Read more »
As I have probably written before, while this coronavirus pandemic is awful, it does come with its silver linings. For us in the poker world, one such silver lining has been the increase in online poker traffic and, in turn, the explosion of online tournament series. Much of the talk has surrounded the sheer size… Read more »
The COVID-19 outbreak and resulting shutdown of society has resulted in changes across the board. Poker, on a live basis in a casino or card room, has been closed for the last two months. Now, as rooms and casinos are beginning to open, one segment of the game – tournament poker – is slowly beginning… Read more »
There have been many activities, including major sporting events like the 2020 Olympics, the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500 that have been postponed until later in this year or 2021. There is a bigger list of events that have been canceled outright. Thus, it comes as little surprise that PokerStars announced this morning that… Read more »
Prevented as all live poker tournament series are right now from being held in a physical casino, the Poker Masters – this year called the Poker Masters Online – concluded online this weekend. The high-stakes series, presented by Poker Central on partypoker, had 30 tournaments, all of which had five-figure buy-ins. And the excitement lasted… Read more »
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the announcement of the WSOP Super Circuit Online Series on GGPoker. In the announcement, the WSOP said that it would be made up of “hundreds” of tournaments. To that, I had the hottest of takes, “Hundreds is a lot of tournaments, if you ask me.” And holy jeez,… Read more »
Poker during a pandemic is a bad idea We were all waiting for this shoe to drop. It felt inevitable. Caesars entertainment finally announced that the 2020 World Series of Poker has been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally scheduled to begin just over a month from now on May 26th, the goal is… Read more »
In March, the few U.S. poker players who are able to play online got their shot at the WSOP.com Online Super Circuit Series. Now it’s the rest of the world’s turn. The World Series of Poker has announced the WSOP Super Circuit Online Series will be hosted by global-facing GGPoker in May. We don’t know… Read more »
