Participating in glamorous poker tournaments and winning multi-million guaranteed prize pools has always been considered as the main objective for all professional poker players. Currently, there are hundreds of live poker tournament that are held across the world every year. There are even poker series and tournaments which have their series of events held throughout the entire year, featuring various gaming options, buy-ins and guaranteed prize pools.
You can check the largest live poker tournaments to be held in 2017 below:
WSOP
The abbreviation WSOP, which stands for the World Series of Poker, is an annual poker tournaments series, founded in 1970 by Benny Binion. In the period from 1970 to 2004 the owner of the tournament’s rights belonged to Binions Horseshoe, and since 2004 until present days it is Caesars Entertainment Corporation that holds the rights for the tournament.
Since the beginning, the series has managed to grow into one of the largest and most attractive live poker tournament series on a global scale. To date, thousand of entrants register for its events, hoping they will be the one to scoop the massive cash prize. Apart from the monetary prize received, the winner of each event of the Series is granted with a special WSOP gold bracelet.
The 48th edition of the WSOP is to officially start on May 30th 2017 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The Series’ schedule includes a great variety of tournaments and events, including satellites, cash games, gold bracelets events and deep stack tournaments, which would run for 49 straight days in the summer. The 48th WSOP Main Event’s final table of nine is scheduled to kick off on July 17th.
The2016 World Series of Poker Main Event was won by the 39-year-old Qui Nguyen who got a prize worth $8,005,310 and a special WSOP bracelet, by topping a list of 6,737 entrants – the highest number in half a decade. Gordon Vayo remained second, followed by Cliff Josephy on the prestigious third position.
WSOP Circuit
The WSOP Circuit officially started in 2005 as a build-up to the regular WSOP. Currently, it is a series of a number of poker tournaments that is held every year at various casino venues.
What is more specific about this Championship format is the fact that all events are held in No-Limit Texas Hold’em, while the preliminary events could vary. WSOP Circuit events winners get a cash portion of the guaranteed prize pool complemented by a special award gold rings. Up to date, a total of 972 rings have been awarded since the official of the WSOP Circuit in 2005.
The 13th edition of the WSOP Circuit is started on August 4th 2016 at Harrah’s Cherokee. After its last stop for 2016 at The Bicycle Casino, the first stop of the Circuit was at Choctaw Casino Resort, with the Championship starting on January 11th. The 2017 WSOP Circuit was expected to be the largest one so far, with 22 confirmed stops in the US and 6 international stops, with a few more expected to be released by the end of the 2016/17 season.
Two new stops of the domestic WSOP Circuit scheduled were also announced – the one in Potawatomi and the one in Hard Rock.
WSOP International Circuit
The WSOP International Circuit came naturally to complement the domestic WSOP Circuit on a global scale. The events hosted by the Championship are gold ring events, which normally feature lower buy-ins in comparison to the gold bracelet events of the Series. This is considered a great advantage, as the events can be accessed by players with different bankrolls
The 2016/2017 season of the WSOP International Circuit started on September 8th 2016 at the Casino Campione in Italy. Over the new year, the International Circuit of the World Series of Poker was held from January 14th to January 22nd at Casino de Marrakech in Morocco, after which is to be brought back to the live poker area in Italy in March.
The WSOP has always tried to add new stops on both its domestic and international events, seeking to reach more poker lovers. In November 2016, it revealed its plans to add six more stops to its International Circuit schedule, with the option of adding one more to round out its schedule over the 2016/2017 edition.
Aussie Millions
The Australian Poker Championship, which is more commonly known under the name Aussie Millions, held on an annual basis at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. It was officially introduced in June 1997, and its first championship held a year ago – in July 1998.
What is interesting about the tournament is its Main Event structure, which is a bit different from the one presented by most of the international poker tournaments. Currently, the majority of the Hold’em tournaments which are held on a global scale feature nine-handed tables. Unlike them, the Main Event of the Aussie Millions Championship starts with eight-handed tables. What is more, the play continues this way until there are 36 players left, taking the game to six-handed tables. Various blind levels, from 90 to 120 minutes long, have been features in some years of the tournament.
The High Roller Events of Aussie Millions are also very popular, with the fact they have featured some of the largest buy-ins in the history of live poker tournaments.
The last edition of the Aussie Millions’ $10,000 Main Event that took place between January 22nd and January 30th, was won by Shurane Vijayaram. The runner-up position was occupied by Ben Heath.
WPT Main Tour
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is another series of international poker tournament. The championship was officially established in May 2002 in the US, and its special event champion’s bracelets were first released in 2008. The WPT Championship granted all event winners in the period from 2002 to 2008 with bracelets retroactively.
The rights for the Championship were acquired from WPTE by PartyGaming in November 2009. The deal is estimated to over $12 million. What is interesting about the World Poker Tour is the fact that the final table of each tournament is broadcast on TV. Currently, the WPT television show is one of the most popular ones in the US, featuring commentary and analysis. Then, a few years later, in June 2015 the WPT was acquired by Ourgame International Holdings. The prize of the deal amounted to $35 million in cash.
The Current, 15th season of the World Poker Tour started at the end of April 2016 and will run until April 2017. The last event in the series – the WPT Tournament of Champions featuring a buy-in of $15,000 is to kick off on April 7th 2017 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino – Hollywood. The winner of the previous edition of the WPT Tournament of Champions is Farid Yachou, who took home a prize of $381,600, followed by Vlad Darie who occupied the runner-up position with a $224,190 guaranteed prize pool portion.
WPTDeepStacks
As already mentioned above, the World Poker Tour is one of the premier names in the live poker tournament on a global scale. Thanks to the fact it is internationally televised, it offer qualitative entertainment to poker lovers on a global scale.
The WPTDeepStacks is a brand oriented towards the mid-major tournaments. At the end of 2016, WPT issued a special press release announcing it is to acquire the WPTDeepStacks and make it an official part of the larger brand, in order to keep it as one of the best-established brands in poker. As a fully-integrated member of the World Poker Tour family, the WPTDeepStacks will be given the chance to expand to new regions and establish new partnerships, getting bigger and improved poker events for the game’s lovers.
This year’s edition of the WPTDeepStacks events kicked off on January 19th, with the WPTDeepStacks Hollywood at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino – Hollywood. The next event – the $1,600 Buy-in WPTDeepStacks Big Stax – follows on February 24th, and the last one for 2017 is to start on December 1st at the Thunder Valley Casino Resort.
GUKPT
The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, or GUKPT as the series is most commonly known, is one of the major series of regional poker tournaments. The series is especially focused on the UK, where its rights are being held by one of the largest casino chains in the country – the Rank Group-owned Grosvenor Casinos.
Established a decade ago, the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour is currently one of the most-loved poker tournaments in Great Britain. It was in season 2012 when the series was initially intended to be hosted abroad for the first time in its history, as it was first scheduled to go to Ireland. Unfortunately, it was later cancelled, just for a new tournament’s edition in Belgium to be scheduled. However, the Blankenberge edition did not manage to attract great interest from local players and was left with only 95 players registered. After this lack of interest, the following seasons have not had any events scheduled outside the territory of the UK.
The 2017 edition of the tournament kicked off with its Leg 1 in London on January 29th, which took place until February 5th at The Poker Room, London. Leg 2 of the tournament – GUKPT Manchester is set to start on February 26th and will run until March 5th at the Grosvenor Casino Bury New Road. Then, eight more Legs are scheduled, including the ones in Edinburgh, Walsall, Reading, London, Leeds, Luton and Blackpool. The last, 10th Leg of the series is the GUKPT Grand Final, which is scheduled to start on November 19th at The Poker Room, London, featuring a Main Event buy-in of £2,125 as well as a Main Event guaranteed prize pool estimated to £400,000.
MSPT
MSPT, or the Mid-States Poker Tour, first came to being in December 2009, as the Minnesota State Poker Tour, which was hosted at the Canterbury Park in the state of Minnesota. However, a year and a half later, the tournament grew to cross the state border and set foot in Iowa, and later expanded further, to be re-branded as the Mid-States Poker Tour.
Currently, the MSPT offers a series of affordable deepstack NLHE tournaments, having grown to more than 30 events per year across the US. Various events are features in the schedule of the series events, in order for more poker players to be reached across the country.
The structure of the 2017 MSPT events includes more than 20 events held in the twelve-month period. Starting with the Tropicana Evansville, Indiana in February, the tournament series will see its events stops in Iowa, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dacota, Michigan and Nevada.
Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP)
The Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) is one of the most prosperous regional poker tournaments. Usually, it is hosted in the PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams, Macau and is set to attract poker lovers who originate not only from the region of Asia, but from other countries as well.
The tournament normally offers various buy-ins to meet the different bankrolls of its entrants. The 2017 edition of the tournament is to kick off on October 13th and will run until October 29th, featuring a Main Event Buy-in of HK$100,000.
In 2016, the Asia Championship of Poker started on October 28th, offering a variety of events for all players who decided to join. Its main event – the HK$100,000 Buy-in No Limit Hold’em Main Event was won by the Russian player Vladimir Geshkenbein for a prize estimated to $727,483. The American Neel Murphy remained as a runner-up, scooping a guaranteed prize pool portion of $663,024.
- Author
Harry Evans
