Image from PokerGO final table (from the YouTube video embedded below)

The World Series of Poker is the largest poker tournament festival in the world. It attracts the best players and hobby poker players looking to get the chance of winning life-changing amounts of cash.

The WSOP Main Event is the flagship tournament in the poker series. It comes with a hefty $10,000 entry fee – a snip for the big poker pros but a huge outlay for most recreational players. For this reason, many ‘satellite’ tournaments run at live venues and online poker sites. Players enter an affordable satellite for a few bucks, and the winner of that event picks up an entry for the Main Event.

As a result, the fields are huge. This year, the main event just finished at the Rio casino in Las Vegas, with a staggering 6,550 players taking part. The tournament was won by German player Koray Aldemir, who picked up the first prize of $8 million. You read that right – $8 million.

Aldemir was already in the US as the series got underway, but hundreds of other Europeans nearly didn’t even make it to Vegas for the event.

Europeans Squeeze in at the Last Minute

The 6,500 WSOP main event field size compares favourably to the number of entries in previous years – a remarkable achievement, given this WSOP was held in October/November rather than the usual early summer slot in Vegas. Of course, the reason for that was COVID, and it’s the virus that had tournament organisers worried.

They knew the American players would come out in huge numbers as usual, but as the WSOP got underway, the Europeans were not allowed to play – there was a travel ban into the US. Euro players were left twiddling their thumbs – or more likely honing their skills or trying their luck at casino poker, just one of the many table games you can find online.

In the end, it came right down to the wire. The US lifted the flight ban from Europe on November 8, but even that would have been too late for European players to hop on a flight and get to Las Vegas in time to play in the last of the Day 1 fields.

To get around this, WSOP officials decided to add two extra day ones to the tournament structure – Day 1E and Day 1F.

That meant anyone wanting to play in the WSOP Main event could do so.

As mentioned, German player Aldemir was already in the US and had already cashed in 11 WSOP events this year. He was the most experienced player at the main event final table, and his skill shone through, although US player George Holmes gave him a real test when they found themselves heads-up for the WSOP bracelet.

A look at the payouts for the main event show that quite a few Europeans took advantage of the last-minute dash to Las Vegas.

Finishing third was Jack Oliver from the UK, who picked up $3 million for his stellar performance. And eighth was Jareth East, from Redhill in England, who also became a dollar millionaire, picking up $1.1 million.

Other European top finishers included:

  • 14th Ramon Colillas, Spain, $380,000
  • 17th Nicolas Vayssieres, France, $305,000
  • 18th Andreas Kniep, Germany, $305,000
  • 20th Lewis Spencer, UK, $241,800

In the end, the Euros made it to Vegas just in time. Quite what the final Main Event field would have been without them is open to debate.

The WSOP is made up of 88 poker tournaments. The events cover every discipline of poker, including Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Seven Card Stud and various Mixed Games. Some have eye-wating entry fees for the high rollers, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars. But others are $500, making it affordable for most people to take a shot and experience being part of the biggest poker festival in the world.

Off to Paris

The WSOP has been based at the Rio for the past 17 years, but Caesar’s Entertainment, which stages the gala of cards, announced last week that from next summer, the WSOP would move to Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, which is a well-known destination for traditional casino games like blackjack and roulette.

This venue is on the main Las Vegas Strip and probably more convenient for the players. It is also a chance for the organisers to shake things up a little and bring in something different.

The 2022 series is slated to start on May 31 and run through to July 19. Everyone, from staff to poker dealers and the players, will be hoping the COVID situation improves sufficiently by then so that European players can travel to the US in force and take their shots at glory – and millions of dollars.