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WPT Goes Online in New Jersey with PartyPoker

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down live poker around the world in March, the World Poker Tour turned to its longtime partner, PartyPoker. In truth, the two entities had been talking for approximately two years about offering an online poker option for WPT players. The cancellation of all live poker through the spring and into summer, at least, prompted the two to launch their project.

The WPT Online Series by PartyPoker was the first foray into the real-money online poker space, and it ran through May. In the end, there were 94 tournaments in 29 days that awarded a total of $52,877,550. Christian Jeppson was the WPT Main Event winner for $923K. Overall, the series was a success.

While that series was still underway, PartyPoker announced it will host the WPT World Online Championships. With the World Series of Poker not taking players to Las Vegas for the summer, the WPT put together a new series to run from July 1 through August 9.

Everything to that point had been aimed at international players, as the dot-com PartyPoker site is not available to those in the United States.

The World Poker Tour just fixed that.

Hello, New Jersey

This week, the World Poker Tour announced it partnered with PartyPoker in a new venture. Technically, it’s more of an extension of previous ventures, but that’s beside the point.

The WPT will suit up with PartyPoker and BorgataPoker to host the WPT Online Poker Open powered by PartyPoker US Network.

It will be one tournament available to any players located within the state of New Jersey. Residency is not required, only one’s presence at the time of the tournament.

The $400 buy-in No Limit Hold’em online poker tournament will offer a $300K guarantee and a starting chip stack of one million chips when it runs on Sunday, June 28. It will be a reentry tournament. It will play on the following sites, all connected through the PartyPoker network in New Jersey:

NJ.PartyPoker.com

BorgataPoker.com

BetMGMPoker.com

Of course, players can qualify for less than the $400 buy-in via satellites on the above-listed sites. The satellites will cost as little as $5, with four offerings each day. There will also be a $45 satellite every day through the start of the WPT Online Poker Open on June 28. Technically, it’s more of a Phase 1 of the tournament, since players can take their chips into the Main Event.

If a player wins more than one satellite into the event, they may use the additional one(s) to reenter. However, all unused satellite tickets will simply be forfeited.

More to Come?

The statement about the first New Jersey online poker offering from the WPT indicated that this is only the first online event for the state’s players. “WPT and PartyPoker US Network are coming together to provide the New Jersey network of online players the opportunity to compete in a world-class event and take part in a familiar WPT experience,” said WPT VP of Global Tour Management Angelica Hael. “We look forward to our first event with PartyPoker US Network and a great start to a long-term partnership.”

The goal is to make the online event as much like the WPT tour events as possible. This means there will be live updates for the duration of the tournament and an official championship trophy for the winner.

Further, the winner will be invited to a World Poker Tour VIP experience in Las Vegas. He or she will receive a prize package worth $11K that includes a $10,400 entry to the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio and $600 for travel expenses.

The WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic happens each year in December. Assuming there is no resurgence of the coronavirus going forward in 2020, the WPT hopes to keep this tournament on the calendar in Season XIX.

 

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