The World Poker Tour Online Championships is back for the second time following last year’s pandemic-induced inaugural series.
The full schedule is yet to be announced, but we know there will be a $5 million guaranteed main event. And, perhaps more significantly, the festival will clash with GGPoker’s WSOP Online Series.
This isn’t the first time the two biggest names in tournament poker have clashed. The WPT and WSOP duked it out twice in 2020, with the latter just edging it. However, with the WPT promising to deliver more value this time around, the contest could be a lot closer.
WPT World Online Championships vs. WSOP Online
It’s hard to say which series will be the biggest success, as we don’t know exactly what the WPT World Online Championships will consist of. However, we can make some early predictions by assessing what we know for certain.
WPT World Online Championships 2021
- The WPT World Online Championships will run from Aug. 13 to Sept. 15 on Partypoker
- The standout offering will be the $5,300 main event, which has a $5 million guarantee
- Satellites for the WPT World Online Championships Main Event start at $0.01 and last year’s champion, Phil Mighall, beat a field of 1,011 players to win $1,550,298
WSOP Online 2021
- WSOP Online will run from Aug. 1 to Sept. 12 on GGPoker
- There will be 33 bracelet events, including a $5,000 Main Event with a $20 million guarantee
- Satellites for the WSOP Online Main Event cost less than $1 and last year’s champion, Stoyan Madanzhiev, beat a field of 5,802 players to win $3,904,686
Based on those facts, WSOP Online will almost certainly be the bigger series. If you focus on championship events and guaranteed prize money alone, the WSOP’s offering looks to be well ahead of the WPT.
Another summer of value
We only have to look back at last year’s head-to-head comparisons to see that, in relative terms, the WPT is right up there with its rival. In fact, when CardsChat compared the WPT Online Series to the WSOP Online Super Circuit, the former offered more value per event.
Our calculations showed that, when you divided the amount of prize money paid out by the number of MTTs, the WPT Online Series was better.
- WSOP Online Super Circuit average prize pool = $261,046
- WPT Online Series average prize pool = $561,702
*Total prize pool/Total number of events
This year may be different, however, as Partypoker and the WPT are still putting the final touches on the schedule, which means there could be some surprise announcements in the coming days. What’s clear, however, is that the final weeks of summer will be packed with value and provide the perfect build-up to the live WSOP in Las Vegas.
