With most casinos in the United States and Europe closed, the live poker tournament calendar no longer exists. Every date says some version of “PPD.” Fortunately, many countries have access to online poker (most of USA#1 being the big exception). And with casinos going dark, partypoker has been trying to fill the void, moving some live tournament series online.
Poker Masters Online Series
The Poker Masters is just a few years old, but has already become one of the more popular high roller series of the year. This year’s events are schedule for October at Aria in Las Vegas, so they still very well might happen. But in the meantime, partypoker and Poker Central, the creator of the Poker Masters, have teamed up to launch the Poker Masters Online Series in April.
Running April 12th through April 26th, Poker Masters Online Series and will feature 30 events with buy-ins ranging from $10,300 to $51,000. The Main Event is on the last day of the Series and will have a $51,000 buy-in with a $2 million guaranteed prize pool.
“We know partypoker is the right landing spot for our tournament brand to evolve into a new format,” said Poker Central President Sam Simmons. “We value this partnership as a way to bring the poker community together in these uncertain times.”
Irish Open Online Festival
It was recently announced that the 2020 Irish Open had been postponed. Of course, it seems rather obvious now that it was going to happen, but even a week and a half ago, there was some hope that at least some of the tournaments could still go on as planned.
Since it was technically “postponed,” we won’t say that the Irish Open has been moved to the internet, but it kind of if, since we have no idea when it will be possible to pack poker tables again. The Irish Open Online Series will be held on partypoker from April 6th through April 12th. There will be 22 total events with buy-ins ranging from €162 to €5,200.
The Main Event, like the Poker Masters Online Series, is on the final day. It will cost €1,000 + €100 with a €1 million guaranteed prize pool.
WPT Online Series
The World Poker Tour took a while to postpone or suspend its events, but at this point, the WPT is pretty much wiped out. In May, though, partypoker will serve as host for the first-ever WPT Online Series.
There are $30 million in combined guaranteed prize pools across all tournaments with $5 million in guarantees for the WPT Online Championship alone. That tournament costs $3,200 and runs through the entire series, with several opening flights. Like in a regular WPT Main Event, the winner of the WPT Online Championship will receive a seat in the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
The WPT Online Series also features WPTDeepStacks and WPT500 tournaments.
“It is an honour for us to host the first-ever WPT Online Series,” said partypoker Managing Director Tom Waters. “We are always looking for ways to bring exciting, high profile MTTs to our players and the World Poker Tour is up there amongst the most prestigious brands in poker. The online festival promises to be huge and with a WPT Tournament of Champions seat on offer, it’s a really exciting opportunity for partypoker players.”
