Just over two years ago, the Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill. Poker rooms around the globe boarded their doors and windows for months as they awaited word on how to reopen.
The Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida, was one of the first to reopen in June of 2020, and with it came the inclusion of masks, plexiglass dividers on the tables, and hand sanitizer stations all around the property.
“I believe the biggest challenge we faced coming back was making the guests and team members feel safe and comfortable when they returned. The Seminole Tribe and senior leadership rose to that challenge with the creation of the Safe and Sound Program,” Seminole Hard Rock Director of Poker Marketing Tony Burns said. “The Safe and Sound program was developed by a team of hospitality and gaming experts in collaboration with worldwide health and sanitation specialists, such as Ecolab and NSF International. It also included directives of key agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Seminole Hard Rock also made a huge investment into PPE along with plexiglass dividers during that time, showing the commitment to putting guests and team members’ safety as a number one priority.”
No one knew what to expect once rooms opened, but the players began returning in droves. With the players' return, the poker industry eyed a comeback like never before. The first major tournament after the shutdown was the Mid States Poker Tour $1,100 Main Event held at the Grand Falls Casino & Golf Resort in Larchwood, IA, attracting 518 players.
With that small sample on the menu, Seminole Hard Rock and the World Poker Tour forged ahead with their annual Lucky Hearts Open in January of 2021. The $3,500 Main Event attracted 1,573 entries and awarded Ilyas Muradi the $809,515 first-place prize.
Four months later, in April, the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown attracted the largest WPT field in the company's history. Two thousand four hundred eighty-two entrants created a prize pool of $7,942,400, and ICU nurse Brek Schutten walked away with the $1,261,095 first-place prize. A fitting winner, all things considered.
After the record-setting numbers in 2021, the WPT and the Seminole Hard Rock fell just shy of eclipsing that number in this year’s event, fielding 2,010 entrants in early April. The field is now down to six players remaining, with Darren Elias looking to become the only five-time WPT champion when play resumes in late May the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“The Seminole Hard Rock poker brand had a ton of momentum even before the pandemic struck. Being the first one back to the live scene and putting on a major series was a huge driver for their record-setting numbers,” Burns added. “The biggest challenge the rooms have seen from the community is where to put everybody. Players came out in waves once the rooms reopened, and Seminole Hard Rock poker set records that were astonishing. Hollywood currently holds 70 – 90 poker tables and could have used another 70 – 90 tables with the turnouts they had in 2021.”
Around the same time, across the country in Las Vegas, the company PokerGO had an idea of their own: What if they could create a High Stakes Poker Tour that encompassed all tournament buy-ins of $10,000 and above?
“There were a lot of unknowns coming out of the pandemic, as the entire world, not just the poker world, was trying to sort many things out, such as travel restrictions, mask mandates, and increased safety protocols. The safety of our players is paramount, and a lot of effort went into making sure all of the PGT events were as safe as possible.” President of PokerGO Mori Eskandani said. “Of course, we always want to put on the biggest and best events we can for our players as well, which meant working more closely with our community to plan events in the new landscape.”
Starting in January and running to December of 2021, the inaugural PGT (PokerGO Tour) season saw 145 High Stakes tournaments play out worldwide, with players earning points throughout the year based on the amount a player cashed. High-stakes pro Ali Imsirovic would go wire to wire, cashing in 34 events, including 14 tournament titles capturing $6,028,321 in prize money, and being crowned the inaugural champion of the tour.
Now almost halfway through 2022, both the WPT and the PGT are again in full swing, and both tours show how much of a worldwide sport poker has become. In addition to hosting tournaments in the United States, the WPT has continued to broaden its horizons by hosting tournaments in Australia, Russia, Germany, Canada, and Holland.
Their recent WPTDeepStacks stop in Sydney, Australia, in April of 2022 set the record for the WPTDeepStacks brand with 2,023 entrants in the penultimate event of the tournament. Before being rebranded to WPT Prime, WPTDeepStacks has stops in Australia’s Gold Coast and the Thunder Valley Resort Casino & Resort in Lincoln, California, at the end of April.
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WPT Prime kicks off in May with one of three stops in Asia, starting with a stop at the Crown Poker Club in Hanoi, Vietnam. That tournament is followed by events in Cambodia and Taiwan before the year's end.
“The largest WPTDeepStacks event of all time just concluded at The Star Sydney,” said Adam Pliska, CEO of World Poker Tour. “We look forward to bringing this momentum and more to the new WPT Prime events going forward, both in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world.”
The PGT’s Super High Roller Series Europe is also currently underway at the Merit Royal Hotel & Casino in North Cyprus. The 10-event schedule is a mix of No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, and Short Deck tournaments and has attracted the biggest names in poker to the tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea.
“This season, we added a new event with the Stairway To Millions and put on a great joint event partnering up with Triton Poker in North Cyprus,” Eskandani added. “We’re also constantly looking to position the PGT similar to a major sports league, with series leaderboards, yearly leaderboards, performance-based bonus prizes, and more.”
As the summer months approach, all eyes in the poker community will be on the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as the 2022 World Series of Poker is on the horizon beginning in June. With the record-setting tournament turnout from around the world and the lifting of travel restrictions on foreign visitors, the events of this summer have the potential to prove once again that poker is king.