Poker has been represented live and on television with major international events for years. There are now many good poker players around the world who all compete with other players in some way and want to win a decent jackpot in the process. There is a large selection of suitable poker tournaments for them.
Poker has truly blossomed into a high-performance sport in the last ten years! It is clear that this has to do with the fact that everyone can now play poker on online poker sites . In order to take part in important live poker tournaments, players today have to qualify via online poker competitions and the tournament calendar is packed with qualification and main events. By the way, poker tournaments are also interesting for spectators! Here is an overview of the most important poker tournaments:
The most prestigious poker event, the World Series of Poker, or WSOP for short, has been held in Las Vegas, USA, since 1970. The tournament will also be broadcast live for fans and has already produced many well-known poker stars, because anyone can play.
The players can qualify partly for one US dollar or for free through so-called freerolls and thus participate in the 10,000 US dollar buy-in event. A similarly inexpensive entry helped the hitherto unknown poker player Chris Moneymaker to win the WSOP main event in 2003, in which he ultimately won more than 2.5 million US dollars.
The tournament is a series of poker tournaments that culminates in the main event. The WSOP main event is generally considered to be the unofficial world poker championship. The series is divided into the main event of the WSOP Las Vegas, the WSOP US Circuit, the WSOP International Circuit, the WSOP Europe and Asia as well as the WSOP Online Poker. For the 2020 WSOP, which will be held from May 26th to July 15th, 2020 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, an extensive tournament calendar has been published that lists a variety of different poker tournaments. There are no-limit Hold’em events for casino employees, ladies and seniors or other events like the Millionaire Maker, Monster Stack, Double Stack, Tag Team, Colossus, Crazy Eights, Mini Main Event, Little One for One Drop and The Closer. All events are consistently very popular with players, as shown by the huge fields of participants and prize pools. Due to the huge field of participants, the tournament lasts for several weeks. The 2019 WSOP saw a staggering 187,298 participants for a total of $ 293,183,345 in prize money. The absolute dream of every poker player is to win the famous Golden Bracelets event here, which is also highly endowed with around 3,257,592 US dollars.
The WSOP International Circuit offers two qualifiers per venue for the WSOP Global Casino Championship. A winner of the main event and the casino champion each automatically win participation in the end of the season, in addition to the WSOP golden bracelet and the prize money from this event.
The WSOP Europe itself has been running annually since 2007 with a tournament series and a main event and most recently had an impressive prize pool of almost € 25 million, which also makes the series very attractive for all poker players.
The WSOP Asia Pacific only took place twice, in 2013 and 2014 in Melbourne, Australia. A series of tournaments for the African continent should of course not be missing. The WSOP Africa was also only held twice, in 2010 and 2014 at the Emerald Casino in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The second most important poker tournament in the world has been held every year since 2002 – the World Poker Tour, or WPT for short. The WPT is also a series of poker tournaments that are held almost every week in different cities around the world. This tournament series has become known in particular through television broadcasts.
The European Poker Tour, or EPT for short, is also one of the most popular poker tournaments in the world among players. The prices are high and the venues are sometimes very glamorous with Monte Carlo, Barcelona or Prague. This tournament series mainly plays Texas Holdem ‘Poker.
In addition there is the Asia Pacific Poker Tour with many sub-tournaments all over Asia.
In Australia, the Aussie Millions Poker Championship has been held annually at the Crown Casino in Melbourne since 1998. It is the largest tournament on the continent in which players from all over the world can take part.
The WCOOP stands for World Championship of Online Poker, an online poker tournament that has been taking place since 2002. A tournament is played for each variant of poker and here, too, winners can win one of the coveted golden bracelets. In 2019, the WCOOP consisted of 73 online tournaments, making it the largest online poker tournament in the world.
Anyone who has discovered a passion for poker should not be afraid to take part in one of these tournaments themselves. No matter how you do, the learning curve is certainly enormous and the experience is definitely unique. If you don’t believe in that yet, you can watch the big tournaments live on various streaming platforms and marvel at the sometimes really dramatic showdowns at the poker table.