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The march of major live poker tournaments going online continues, this time, with the World Poker Tour. This one is a bit different, though, as the WPT has created both a new online-only event, not related to anything that was previously planned to be live, and has made it an official part of the Main Tour. The $3,500 WPT Online Poker Open Main Event will be held on the partypoker US Network in New Jersey December 27-29.

In fact, the Bellagio has its own satellite tournament conducted weeks prior to the final event with the winner getting a prepaid entry fee. The final table of the World Poker Tour championship round is televised from the Bellagio and can be seen by a live audience.

• 2019 Fallsview Poker Classic World Poker Tour Winners List. $1,100 Event Winners. $1,500 Turbo Event Winners. $2,500 Event Winners. Fallsview Poker Classic WPT Schedule 2019. The entry fees are listed as buy in for the events that are $1000, $2500, $5000 Canadian dollars. Find the detailed schedule for the Fallsview Poker Classic WPT.
• The Online Bracelet Schedule for the 2020 Summer Online World Series of Poker is officially here. WSOP.com will be hosting an official gold bracelet every day in July.
• GGPoker, the largest poker network in the world has partnered with WSOP to offer a historic lineup of 595 online WSOP circuit (WSOPC) events online between May 3rd and May 31st, 2020, totaling a new world record of $100 million in online tournament guarantees for the online series. Eighteen of these events will be WSOP Read More.

This is the first time a World Poker Tour online event in New Jersey will count as a Main Tour event. This means the winner gets their name on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup, becomes a member of the WPT Champions Club, and will be awarded a $15,000 seat into the WPT Tournament of Champions. The WPT Online Poker Open Main Event also awards Player of the Year points like any regular Tour event would.

“The WPT Online Poker Open brings the most prestigious prize in poker to New Jersey and the partypoker US Network,” said Adam Pliska, CEO of the World Poker Tour, in Wednesday’s press release. “WPT’s continued pivot toward online will continue with another landmark for regulated online poker in the United States.”

Though players do need to be physically located in New Jersey to participate in the tournament, they do not have to play on partypoker’s New Jersey client. BorgataPoker.com and BetMGMPoker.com are also part of the partypoker US Network and open to players in the Garden State, so people who have accounts on one of those sites don’t have to create a new account on partypoker.

The World Poker Tour is encouraging everyone to make sure funds are in their account ahead of time to pay for the $3,500 buy-in, just in case there are any issues. Players may deposit funds from anywhere; they do not have to wait until they are in New Jersey to do so, if they plan on traveling from out of state.

The last live World Poker Tour stop to be run was the WPT Rolling Thunder at the Thunder Valley Casino Resort in California March 7-10. It was essentially that week that shutdowns started to be put in place around the country because of the COVID-19 pandemic. All domestic live events since then, starting with the WPT at Venetian that was scheduled to begin March 13 have been postponed or outright cancelled.

World Poker Tour Satellite Events Calendar

Smaller, regional events have started to get back up and running around the world, but neither the World Poker Tour nor the World Series of Poker have ventured back into casinos. The World Series of Poker did, however, just announce a new hybrid $10,000 Main Event that will start online and conclude with a live competition.

The European Poker Tour is the only major tour that has resumed live tournaments to any degree. The EPT Sochi (Russia) Main Event attracted 637 entries in early October.

The final table is set in the ‘International Tournament’ segment of the 2020 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. The tournament attracted a total of 674 entries over the course of three starting flights, but now just nine players remain with a chance to win this event. The final nine are all guaranteed at least $75,360 paydays, but surely all have their eyes on the top prize of $1,550,969.

This year’s WSOP $10,000 main event features an unprecedented live-and-online hybrid model that will see two separate events play out, each beginning online and continuing until both final tables are set. The two eventual champions determined at those final tables, which will be played live and in person, will then square off in a live heads-up showdown to determine which will win the championship WSOP gold bracelet and an added bonus prize of $1,000,000 to go along with whatever they won at their initial final table.

Day 2 of the ‘International Tournament’ began with 179 players remaining. Over the course of around 10 hours of play, the field was whittled down to just nine players. When the dust settled, Brazil’s Brunno Botteon held the chip lead with 10,317,743. Botteon had a breakout summer at the WSOP Onoline, making three final tables in as many weeks to cash for over $1 million. He finished runner up in a $500 buyt-in limit hold’em event for $41,855, and then four days later placed sixth in the $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em high roller for $388,827. Just a week later he made it down to the final in the $25,000 buy-in heads-up no-limit hold’em event, but lost to Fedor Holz. He added another $622,300 for that runner-up showing.

Portugal’s Manuel Ruivo is second in chips with 6,213,759, while Argentina’s Damian Salas sits in third with 5,653,528. Salas finished seventh in the 2017 WSOP main event in Las Vegas for $1,425,000. He has also had plenty of success playing online this year, with his biggest score being a third-place showing in the $10,300 buy-in World Poker Tour World Online Championships main event for $814,663.

Plenty of big names made deep runs in this event only to fall short of the final table, including 2019 WPT L.A. Poker Classic runner-up Matas Cimbolas (57th – $18,421), two-time WSOP main event final tablist Antoine Saout (53rd – $18,421), bracelet winner Toby Joyce (32nd – $26,507), Balz Zerjav (25th – $30,404), Preben Stokkan (23rd – $30,404), and 2020 WPT Germany main event winner Christopher Puetz (13th – $44,914). Thomas Macdonald was eliminated on the final-table bubble, taking home $50,131 after his A4 couldn’t hold up against the K3 of Ruivo after all of the chips went in preflop. With Macdonald’s exit, the final table of the ‘Internationa; Tournament’ was officially set.

Here is a look at the complete list of players and their chip counts:

World Poker Tour Satellite Events Schedule

Here are the payouts up for grabs at the final table:

The counterpart to the ‘International Tournament’ segment of this hybrid event is the ‘Domestic Tournament’. That will begin on Dec. 13 with a single starting flight. The final table will be set the following day, with the in-person finale taking place on Dec. 28. The winners of the two tournaments will then meet on Dec. 30 for a final battle for the bracelet and the added $1,000,000 in prize money.

World Poker Tour Satellite Events Today

Final table photo credit: Kevin Mathers (@kevmath).

World Poker Tour Satellite Events List