Just a few weeks ago, the World Poker Tour announced the first part of its Season XIX in North America. It included a list of live main tour stops that kicked off in Florida last week with the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Festival. It will hit up the Venetian in Las Vegas and Choctaw in Oklahoma in July, followed by trips back to Florida and Nevada with some Maryland action thrown in as well.
Of course, the WPT Online action continued as well, though the series that just wrapped on partypoker didn’t end as planned. One of the WPT500 winners went on a public forum to discuss his disqualification as the winner and the confiscation of his funds by partypoker. This is not the norm, however, so the WPT and partypoker plan to offer the WPT World Online Championships in September, as they did last year.
Meanwhile, the WPT announced another online event, one with relatively-new friend Poker King. The Asia-Pacific-centric online poker site boasts of Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan as ambassadors. And the inaugural WPT Spring Festival on the site in February of this year seemed successful. That prompted them to offer up another event, this one set for June 18-22 as a $25K buy-in Heads-Up Championship. Few names were announced at first – Ivey and Dwan among them – but it promised to be a big deal.
The coverage has been somewhat scattered in the lead-up, but it will be focused on the World Poker Tour’s YouTube and Twitch channels going forward.
Details Released Days Before Start
The $25K WPT Heads-Up Poker Championship Presented by Poker King is the official name of the tournament. The field is capped at 32 players, all of whom seemed to be recruited by invitation only and locked in.
Initial names attached to the event included Ivey and Dwan, as well as Brad Owen and Landon Tice. (However, Tice since withdrew from the lineup.) Other big names from poker include Nick Schulman, Olivier Busquet, Nick Petrangelo, Darren Elias, Stephen Chidwick, Tim Adams, Patrik Antonius, and Daniel Dvoress. There are also some names on the bracket that are identified by screen names only.
Some of the names less frequently associated with poker included:
-Steve Aoki – world-renowned DJ-GACKT – Japanese pop star-Alexandra Botez – chess player/streamer (coached by Dan Smith)-Shiphtur – League of Legends pro (coached by Darren Elias)-Hafu – Hearthstone and gamer/streamer (coached by Olivier Busquet)
Those influencers in the field have all displayed a passion for poker, Aoki among the more well-known regular players but Botez having played more lately as well.
Each player will begin with a 100K starting stack and 400/800 blinds. Levels are very short, with blinds increasing every seven hands. All matches will take place at different times, so it will play out over five days. Initial matches will be best-of-three formats with the finals set at best-of-five.
Brackets Up
The drawing for match-ups happened this week on June 14. Participant Doug Polk streamed the drawing on his YouTube channel alongside commentator Joey Ingram.
By using a random drawing method online, Polk and Ingram set up the bracket as follows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTKLctSliVE
Play will begin on Friday, June 18, broadcasting live on the WPT Twitch and YouTube channels. Each day will begin at 1pm PST. Approximately one-half or one hour before each day’s play, a pre-game show will give some previews.
-Friday, June 18: Round 1 = two matches at 1pm, two at 3pm, two at 5pm, and two at 7pm, all PST-Saturday, June 19: Round 1 = same-Sunday, June 20: Round 2 = same-Monday, June 21: Rounds 3 and 4 = same-Tuesday, June 22: Round 5 = final best-of-five match at 1pm PST
Only the top four players will be in the money, and those payouts will be:
-1st place: $400K-2nd place: $200K-3rd & 4th places: $100K each
On a side note, Hafu, Shiphtur, and Alexandra Botez will participate in a last-longer bet wherein the top finisher of the three will win $20K. Their coaches will also be a part of the bet, with the coach of the top finisher receiving $20K as well.
The action will take place on Poker King – PK8-dot-com – not available to players located in the United States. Some of the players will be competing from the Asia-Pacific region, but the vast majority will play from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Commentators Jamie Kerstetter and Nick Schulman will be broadcasting from there as well.
https://twitter.com/JamieKerstetter/status/1404961638541709313?s=20
