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However, all the positive news about vaccines has made it bareable. Like a lot of people, I really want to let my hair down in 2021 if things get back to normal, and I am very excited at the prospect of travelling to play live poker. We have had mixed signals in poker recently where this is concerned. World Poker Tour Celebrates a Decade with bestbet Jacksonville Dennis Wong Scores ClubWPT Record of $25,000! WPT Online India: Kumar ‘kumar69’ Sahaj Wins WPTDeepStacks. Casino & Hotel Philadelphia continues to move toward an opening in early 2021. When that happens, there will be live poker. According to a casino representative, the new property will feature a new 29-table poker room. No official opening date has been announced as yet. Philly eyeing mid-January for poker room. The only website that fully covers high stakes poker. Find online results, player bios, poker news and even follow the games live.
It’s actually difficult to write for a poker magazine when pretty much all the cardrooms across the country are shut down due to Covid-19 concerns. This is the longest stretch of time since 1974 that I haven’t been in a brick-and-mortar cardroom, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it will probably be many more months before I am willing to venture back into another casino. I know that many cardrooms in the United States began reopening this past week, but Las Vegas still has its casinos shuttered as I write this column.
I’ve received emails, texts, and phone calls from friends asking me what I think is going to happen regarding the status of poker in the United States through the end of the year. Obviously, I don’t have a crystal ball or any “insider” information, so I can only guess. Here are some of my thoughts on this topic:
I predict that poker rooms in Nevada will not reopen any time soon. (In fact, the Wynn has already stated that the property will reopen without poker.) The Nevada Gaming Commission has approved guidelines recommended by the Nevada Gaming Control Board that limit the number of players at table games to three players for blackjack, six players for craps, four players for roulette, and four players for poker.
It would not be cost effective for any poker room to operate with only four players at a poker table. Many poker rooms were already operating in the red with a ratio of one poker dealer per table of nine or ten players. There’s no way they can afford to have one dealer for four players (it’s actually more than one dealer per table because dealers take breaks).
Also, there’s no way that any significant volume of players would be willing to play four-handed. From my experience, players at a full table often start to panic and get nervous when there are only one or two seats vacant. Cardrooms would not be able to take a full rake with only four players, basically making it impossible for them to justify spreading poker. Add all this up and you will see that reopening Nevada cardrooms won’t work as long as the current restrictions are in place. In other states where poker operators are able to seat six or more players at a table, cardrooms might be able to profitably reopen.
I predict that tournaments will not be offered in Nevada for as long as the Gaming Board restrictions exist. The World Series of Poker announced that it has postponed this year’s series, potentially until the fall. Sadly, my guess is that there won’t be a 2020 WSOP for all the reasons above, unless of course the restrictions for number of players are lifted in the next few months.
I predict that online poker will become much more popular over the next year. The reasons for this are obvious. Hopefully our lawmakers will legalize online poker in many more states as they realize that it is safer for people to be able to play in the safety of their homes, without physical human interaction and without the need to touch the chips and the cards.
I predict that the games will be a lot tougher when they do start again. Many “social” players won’t want to play under the restrictions or at minimum will take a while before venturing back to poker, leaving more serious players to battle it out. Also, people are creatures of habit and if they get used to not playing poker for recreation, they may adopt other pastimes and not be so quick to return to the tables where most of them have been losing players. Furthermore, serious players have had time during the isolation to study and improve their games.
I predict there will be many new home games. Players who love poker but don’t want to play short-handed will figure out that home games are an acceptable option until poker rooms get going again.
Only time will tell how this will play out, but I certainly miss the competition of poker, the social aspects of poker, and the travel associated with poker. I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the future of poker in the short run and the long run.
Please stay safe and healthy!
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Linda Johnson is a WSOP bracelet winner and hosts tournaments, seminars, and charity events. In 2011, she was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. She is a partner in Card Player Cruises, and invites you to cruise with her on any of the upcoming Card Player Cruises trips. Please contact her at cardplayercruise@aol.com with questions or comments.
The 51st annual running of the World Series of Poker was officially postponed on April 20, 2020 due to safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. The largest, richest live poker tournament series in the world was set to award a record number of WSOP gold bracelets this year, with 101 events originally planned to run from late May through the middle of July, but was indefinitely put on hold along with the rest the live poker scene during the early months of the pandemic.
When the postponement of the series was first announced, organizers indicated that they were hoping to reschedule it, although likely with an amended schedule, for sometime in the fall.
“We are committed to running the World Series of Poker this year but need additional time to proceed on our traditional scale while prioritizing guest and staff well-being,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart at the time.
More than six months later, there has been no official update on if and when a live 2020 WSOP might take place.
Card Player reached out to Stewart and a WSOP media contact about an update on Oct. 26, but there has been no response. Several key media staff for the WSOP were furloughed during the early months of the pandemic, and many have since been officially laid off.
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The WSOP is a division of Caesars Entertainment, which recently struck a $17.3 billion deal with Eldorado Resorts that resulted in a merger of two of the largest companies in the market. The newly-merged company owns more than 50 properties in 16 states and several internationally. The merger received approval from New Jersey regulators in late July, the final box to be checked before moving forward, and the transition process could very well put additional obstacles in the way of WSOP organizers.
While a live WSOP is seeming less likely to take place in 2020 with each passing day, the WSOP joined a number of other high-profile poker tournaments and series in hosting an online version of their events during the spring and summer months.
The WSOP Online awarded 85 gold bracelets from the start of July through early September, with events spread across two separate online poker platforms. A total of 283,983 entries were made throughout the series, with $174.5 million in prize money awarded along the way. A number of WSOP records were set during the series, including the $50 buy-in ‘Big 50’ event which attracted a staggering 44,576 entries.
Other big series moved online this year included the Super High Roller Bowl, the Poker Masters, several WSOP Circuit series, and a World Poker Tour festival with multiple main event tournaments.
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Live poker began to return around the world in the late spring, with one of the largest rooms in Europe, King’s Casino Rozvadov, officially resuming operations on May 11. More brick-and-mortar poker rooms reopened around the world throughout the summer, but many did so without their typical tournament offerings. The new-look live tournament scene featured limits on the total number of players allowed per event, fewer players allowed per table, a mask requirement, and many other safety precautions.
The Venetian® Resort Las Vegas reopened on June 5. Just over three months after resuming operations, the cardroom hosted Las Vegas’ first live poker tournament series since the shutdown began. The DeepStack Showdown Poker Series ran from Sept. 7-27, and featured more than $400,000 in guaranteed prize money across a 32-event schedule. The demand for live tournaments proved to be strong, with every single event beating its guarantee, and most doing so by a considerable margin.
Bigger buy-in live tournaments began to crop up again during the fall, with the Mid-States Poker Tour hosting the first live ‘mid-major’ main event since the start of the pandemic. The MSPT Grand Falls Casino $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event attracted 518 total entries to blow away the $150,000 guarantee, creating a final prize pool of $500,960. Mark Collins took home $107,706 after coming out on top.
The first of the major live tours to host a festival was the European Poker Tour. The EPT Sochi 175,000 RUB no-limit hold’em main event attracted a total of 637 entries to Casino Sochi. Ruslan Bogdanov earned 15,984,500 RUB ($212,914 USD) as the eventual champion of this event.
The World Poker Tour has not yet announced new dates for their events, but the tour does have three delayed final tables that were set in the early months of the year that appear likely to be played out in 2020. Two-time bracelet winner Chance Kornuth, who is the chip leader with six remaining in the WPT Gardens Poker Championship, tweeted in late October, “… just got the call that the Gardens WPT final table will be held at the PokerGO studio Dec. 3.”
The WPT L.A. Poker Classic final table is expected to play out that same week, with the dates for the third final table, from the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open, yet to be determined. The WPTDeepStacks tour has upcoming stops in Taiwan and Johannesburg planned for later this year.
