Stairway to Millions steps tournament
PokerGO has announced the first quarter schedule for the 2022 season of the PokerGO Tour. Beginning January 5 with the $10,000 No-Limit Venetian High Roller, the initial schedule includes half a dozen stops.
One of those stops is the new Stairway to Millions at the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, running January 13 to January 20. Few details have been announced, but it appears to be a live version of a “steps” tournament that we often see online.
Players can begin with a $1,000 buy-in. If they make the money, they automatically move on to the next “level” of the tournament (no word yet if this is all that is meant by making the money or if they actually win cash, too – my guess is the former). Rinse, repeat for multiple steps.
Based on what PokerGO said in Tuesday’s press release, it looks like players can choose to buy-in at any stage, so if someone doesn’t want to try to play all the way through from the early steps, they can just enter directly into the final, $100,000 stage or any stage below that. The first prize is expected to be over $1 million, as one would hope if there is a $100,000 buy-in level. Buy-in levels are $1,000, $2,000, $4,000, $8,000, $15,000, $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000. More details are to come.
Return of some favorites
The first week of February is the return of the PokerGO Cup, consisting of eight events with buy-ins from $10,000 to $100,000. The festival, also at the ARIA, concludes with the $100,000 Heads-Up Championship, a 32-player, bracket-style tournament.
All of these buy-ins are ultra expensive, but the largest will come at the Super High Roller Bowl in Sochi, Russia on March 11. The $250,000 buy-in event is preceded by Super High Roller Series at Casino Sochi from March 4 through March 13 (there is some overlap).
Concluding the first quarter (there’s another Venetian High Roller shoved in there, as well) is the U.S. Poker Open, beginning March 16 and running through the end of the month. The Open is made up of a dozen events, mostly Hold’em and Omaha, but with a couple other games thrown in here and there. Buy-ins range from $10,000 to $50,000.
With two and a half months to go this year, the current runaway leader in the PokerGO Tour standings is Ali Imsirovic with 3,576 points. He has a dozen wins on the Tour in 2021 – double the number of his closest competitor – and 28 cashes. Imsirovic has accumulated $4.850 million in earnings just on the PokerGO Tour alone. Sean Perry is in second with 2,301 points. He has six wins and 21 cashes. Nobody else has more than three victories on the Tour this year and just a couple have hit 20 cashes.
