Live poker recently returned to the World Poker Tour with some huge numbers. The company is now kicking off its 19th season in the online poker realm with another partypoker partnership.
The WPT Online Series runs May 14 to June 2 promising players of all bankrolls a chance at becoming a champion. That means numerous qualifying opportunities throughout the series and some major events for players.
“The inaugural WPT Online Series back in 2020 was the first purposely-designed WPT festival to be run fully online at partypoker,” the company’s head of poker room management Chris Donnachie said in a news release, “and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to do this all over again.”
A look at the WPT Online Main Event
Plenty of online poker glory will be on the line again in this year’s WPT partypoker series. The $3,200 Main Event highlights the festival and comes with a $3 million guarantee.
Players will find two starting flights on May 23 and 30. Days 2 and 3 take place on the following two days before the champion is crowned on June 2.
Beyond the cash, the Main Event winner also adds his or her name to the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup. Even more rewards await the winner including a replica of the trophy and a Hublot watch.
In the 2020 WPT Online, Sweden’s Christian Jeppsson took down the Main Event for $923,786.
“There are a few series that are unmissable because of their prestige and the WPT Online Series absolutely falls into that category,” Team partypoker’s Patrick Leonard said.
“Christian winning almost $1 million last year stands out to me. The festival is amazing and you get to play for big, big money but with structures that give you good play.”
Qualifiers and other partypoker WPT action
Players of every level have an opportunity to qualify for the Main Event. “Centrolls” offer opportunities to qualify for just a single penny.
Centrolls run daily, feeding into $3.30 buy-in Phase 1 events. A player advancing past those events is then entered into $33 Phase 2 before the weekly Sunday final.
There isn’t a direct buy-in for the final, which offers 15 Main Event seats. Other satellites feeding into the Main Event also run on a weekly basis.
Beyond the Main Event, there’s also an extensive schedule of other events as well. The $530 Mini Main Event features a $500,000 guarantee and begins on May 15.
Players can also qualify into this event for just $0.01. The centrolls lead into two phases of satellites with buy-ins of $0.55 and then $5.50.
Players making it through then play in the Sunday final, guaranteeing 30 tournament seats. There will be no direct buy-in for the final.
In addition to the satellite trees, mega satellites run for the Mini and Main Event before each starting flight. These guarantee at least 50 seats each for both events.
A $55 Micro Main Event is also on the schedule with a $150,000 guarantee. The WPT Online Series also includes two WPT500 events.
Shifting the schedule
This year’s WPT Online Series was initially planned for May 7-26. However, partypoker officials delayed the start of the series just a bit.
After listening to player feedback, the consensus was that players should be given a longer break after playing in POWERFEST. There are also several other major series in April.
Additionally, partypoker continues in efforts to reduce the effectiveness of third-party tools. As part of that, the company has a planned software update next week before the start of the WPT Online Series.
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