I have enjoyed my 20 years living in Georgia and while recently the state seems to be going backwards, I have no plans on going anywhere. The lawn isn’t going to mow itself, after all. As I have mentioned on this virtual pages before, one of my biggest disappointments with my adopted state is the lack of poker. One of the closest casinos is Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina, and that is a few hours away. For a long time, I had not thought of Harrah’s Cherokee as a “major” poker destination, instead looking at it as the casino that advertises in Atlanta, but it is hard to ignore its rising prominence in the poker world in recent years. Today, the World Series of Poker announced that Harrah’s Cherokee will once again serve as host of the 2019 Global Casino Championship, the fifth straight year the season-ending event of the WSOP Circuit season will be held at the North Carolina casino.
“Harrah’s Cherokee has become one of, if not the premiere destination on the WSOP Circuit with three annual stops, plus the Global Casino Championship,” said Regional Vice President and General Manager Brooks Robinson in a press release Tuesday. “To be the home of the Global Casino Championship is an honor for us and we can’t wait for the new season to start and to welcome all the players back to the Smokey Mountains.”
The Global Casino Championship is scheduled for August 6th through August 8th. The prize pool will be $1 million at the very minimum and one great thing about this tourney is that the winner will be awarded a WSOP gold bracelet.
It’s Not For Everyone
Aside from being the cap on the WSOP Circuit season, the special thing about the Global Casino Championship is that it an invitation-only event and those invitations must be earned throughout the season. There are a number of ways to qualify:
1) Win the Main Event at a 2018-2019 WSOP Circuit seasons stop, either domestic or international.
2) Be the Casino Champion at a 2018-2019 WSOP Circuit stop.
3) Finish in the top 50 of the domestic WSOP Circuit leaderboard for the season.
The Casino Champion is the player who earns the most points across the twelve ring events at a tour stop. All told, there could be as many as 132 qualifying players for the Global Casino Championship. Obviously, not every qualifying player will participate and some players will qualify more than once (a Main Event winner could also be the Casino Champion).
There are four stops remaining on the domestic schedule for this year, so players still have a chance to qualify for the GCC:
Horseshoe Council Bluffs – March 28th through April 8th
Harrah’s Cherokee – April 10th through April 22nd
Horseshoe Tunica – April 25th through May 5th
Harrah’s New Orleans – May 9th through May 20th
And on the international WSOP Circuit:
Dusk Till Dawn – March 31st through April 14th
Casino Barriere le Croisette – April 11th through April 22nd
Casino de Marrakech – June 15th through June 23rd
The Global Casino Championship itself will be held during the another tour stop at Harrah’s Cherokee, though is not technically part of that stop. That Circuit stop, along with others after the dates above, will be part of the 2019-2020 season.
