COVID-19 forced the World Series of Poker (WSOP) to take a very different format this year. For the first time, a huge portion of the annual tournament was played online. This hybrid online/live format has also led to two separate main table events – a US tournament and an international tournament.
Just over 700 players entered the US portion of the event, while the international portion attracted just over 670 players.
In the US, the first two days of the tournament were played online at WSOP.com. Now the US portion of the $10,000 buy-in No Limit Hold ’em Championship is down to its nine final players. They will come together for a live table final at the Rio in Las Vegas on December 28th.
The international part of the Main Event will be held on Tuesday in the Czech Republic.
On December 30th, the US and international winners will play heads-up at the Rio, which is where the Main Event champion will be crowned.
In terms of prize money, each portion – with its separate prize pool – will award $1.55 million to the winner. The heads-up match at the Rio on the 30th will see another $1 million awarded.
It was because of the world pandemic and very particular US online poker rules that WSOP was forced to divide Main Event into two tourmanents. Current poker laws state that US players cannot play online with those at other sites from around the world. The only requirement from them to take part in the US part of the tournament, was that they needed to be physically located in Nevada or New Jersey at the time).
As such, US players came together on WSOP.com, and international players at GGPoker.
While the international portion of the WSOP Main Event is yet to be determined, the final table for the US portion is as follows:
- Joseph Hebert
- Shawn Stroke
- Ryan Hagerty
- Ye Yuan
- Michael Cannon
- Gershon Distenfeld
- Ron Jenkins
- Upeshka de Silva
- Harrison Dobin
