It would be difficult to identify a major competition as poorly suited to pandemic conditions as the World Series of Poker Main Event.

In a typical year, you’re talking about 7,000 people packed into a convention center hall, sitting nearly elbow-to-elbow, passing chips and cards back and forth, playing for hours and hours every day for nearly two weeks until somebody finally wins a life-changing amount of money.

“I think we came to realize almost immediately in mid-March that live poker tournaments, which are a definition of social gathering, were going to be challenge,” said Ty Stewart, the World Series of Poker’s executive director.

She triumphed with a 1st-place trophy in a $5,200 No-Limit Hold'Em event, outlasting a field of 147 for $199,840. 8 In January 2018, Bicknell appeared on Poker After Dark for a ladies only cash game titled 'Femme Fatale' week. Joshua Fields live updates from poker tournaments. Sign In / Register. Black Chip Poker 100% up to $1,000 Sports Betting Poker 100% up to $1,000 Global Poker Free $20.

But a year without crowning a Main Event champion was almost unthinkable. Beyond being the biggest prize in poker, it’s an event that penetrates mainstream American culture whether it’s Matt Damon’s character in the 1998 movie 'Rounders' thinking about going heads-up with Johnny Chan or an accountant named Chris Moneymaker showing up in 2003 and beating all the pros on ESPN to win $2.5 million.

Since then, people have come to Las Vegas every summer from all over the world, willing to put up $10,000 for their shot in the only kind of competition where poker pros, folks who play a weekly neighborhood game or celebrities like Tobey Maguire and Michael Phelps start off with the same chance to win.

“I look at this like, hey, the NBA found a way to have a championship, the NFL found a way to have a season. Even college football eventually came around,” Phil Hellmuth, a former Main Event champion and winner of a record 15 WSOP bracelets, said in a phone interview this week. “So I’d hate to see a World Series board where there was no champion in 2020.”

The 2020 World Series of Poker Main Event begins Sunday, Dec. 13. (Photo: Isaac Brekken, AP)

With some major modifications to the format, a champion will be crowned this year after all. Beginning Sunday, the WSOP has built a hybrid model for the tournament where players will play online for a projected two days until the field has been whittled down to nine for the final table. At that point, the remaining players will gather at the Rio on Dec. 28, go through a COVID-19 testing process and play in person in a bubble-type environment until there’s just one left.

The same process is already underway in Europe, where the online stage is over and the final table will begin on Tuesday in the Czech Republic. The two winners will then play heads-up in Las Vegas on Dec. 30 for the title of world champion and an extra $1 million.

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The reaction to the format, Stewart said, was “initially mixed but now it’s turning toward positive” because the big-name players ultimately understand how important it is for the growth of the sport to remain in the public view. And like past years, ESPN will cover the tournament with a heavy emphasis on the final table and the heads-up championship match while also showing some key hands from the online portion in something of an e-sports format.

“We felt like it’s our responsibility to not have an asterisk in 2020 into the history of the World Series of Poker,” Stewart said. “I think people understand that and players applaud the fact we're in this for the long haul and we’re trying to provide opportunities and interest in the game and the Main Event is really the only event that creates national interest and international interest.”

It won’t be clear until the tournament begins how many players actually signed up this year. Stewart said there were 674 entries on the international side. Most likely, it will be a fraction of the 8,569 who played last year.

Part of the reason for that is, in order to play the Main Event this year, you have to be physically located in New Jersey or Nevada due to state regulations of online gaming. The digital platform, Stewart said, is equipped with geotracking software that ensures players are logged onto a phone or computer within those state borders.

'We expect some players may be sitting in parking lots or hotels or their home for the first time, and that makes it a very unique Main Event,” he said.

It also changes the nature of the competition. For someone like Hellmuth, who has career earnings of more than $15 million in WSOP tournaments alone, experience in being able to read opponents can be a pretty big advantage in the late stages of a long event. He said before 2020, he hadn’t played online poker in five years but has developed a better sense in recent months of picking up tells on the timing of when opponents raise or push all-in.

'I think that it’s still a lot of the same principles apply, but I like it when there’s 50, 60 players left in a tournament and people are getting nervous and they're tired,” he said. “It's the end of a day and hopefully I can see what they’re doing more clearly whereas online there’s a little bit more cloak. They can cloak their face, cloak their nervousness.”

In some ways, it’s kind of a full-circle moment for poker, which has always had to evolve to grow. At the first WSOP in 1970, where Jack Binion invited seven of the top players to the Horseshoe casino, the winner was determined by a player vote after a series of cash games. It wasn’t until 1982 that the Main Event topped 100 entrants. The first million dollar prize was 1991, and the first time television viewers saw the cards via the “pocket cam” was 2002.

Moneymaker’s win sparked a boom of interest in the game worldwide, making it more accessible to people who weren’t professional gamblers and launching innovations (followed by regulations) in how people could play online for money.

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Now, because of COVID-19, we’ll have a World Series champion where the bulk of the tournament was played virtually.

“What we’re doing is just completing (our seasons) like the other sports leagues and I think it’s going to be a legitimate champion,” Hellmuth said. “You look at what happened in the NBA, they had their tournament in a bubble and it was kind of like what was happening in the rest of the world. Now we have our tournament with two days of online poker and more people are spending more time online during the pandemic. So I love it and I think it’s good for poker.”

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It's fair to say that Joshua 'slayerv1fan' Hoesel lives the dream. He's been grinding away in the poker ex-pat community of Rosarito, Mexico, for the last six years. During that time he's booked more than $1.5 million in PokerStars multi-table tournament winnings, including a $245K SCOOP 2016 win, around his regular schedule of playing hundreds of hyper-turbos a day. Today he played 847 of them, by his count. Then he polished off the day by coming to the final table of the Super Tuesday as chip leader, making a deal four-handed, and closing out the win.

The top 47 of this week's 345-player field cashed for at least $2,379.32, starting with Team Pro's Jason 'jcarverpoker' Somerville. He was the first to collect that payday, starting the process that ended when 2014 WSOP Main Event champion Martin 'M.nosbocaJ' Jacobson's K♣J♥ couldn't top WCOOP 2014 winner lipe piv's Q♣Q♠.

Jacobson fell in 10th place, setting up these eight players to fight against the hyper-turbo reg with the chip lead:

Seat 1: Andrey_pok21 (600,112 in chips)
Seat 2: Joshua 'slayerv1fan' Hoesel (1,868,405 in chips)
Seat 3: taltabro (853,275 in chips)
Seat 4: Boootsy (1,046,039 in chips)
Seat 5: Fiilismies (617,399 in chips)
Seat 6: lipe piv (1,595,065 in chips)
Seat 7: TiltMeBig (731,974 in chips)
Seat 8: BUCHAREST77 (512,766 in chips)
Seat 9: MaltLiquor40 (799,965 in chips)

It took 25 minutes before the first major collision of the final table came along. Two-time past Super Tuesday finalist TiltMeBig opened the action for 77K on the button. BUCHAREST77 called in the big blind with 7♠7♥, and then again for 590K after MaltLiquor40 jammed in the big blind and TiltMeBig folded. WCOOP 2014 Main Event finalist MaltLiquor40's A♣Q♠ caught an ace on the flop for the double to 1.28M, and BUCHAREST77 was left with 156K. The Romanian ended up all-in again on the following hand, again with [d] 7♠, but this time taltabro was on the other side with 8♦8♠. The board fell 9♣6♥9♥5♦K♦ and BUCHAREST77 left in ninth.

Finland's Fiilismies, who finished runner-up for $36K in the Sunday Grand in late February, doubled a few hands later after catching a king on the river to beat slayerv1fan's A♥Q♣ and double to 806K. TiltMeBig was on the other end of a similar situation two hands later, jamming from the big blind after Andrey_pok21 limped from middle position and lipe piv came along from the small blind. Only lipe piv called, holding A♣T♣. That trailed TiltMeBig's A♦J♣ only until the 8♠T♦6♦ flop. Running fours on the turn and river offered no help to TiltMeBig, who tilted right out in eighth.

Instead of being left with less than three big blinds' worth of chips, lipe piv now sat in second place with 1.73 million. Andrey_pok21, who had already improved on bubbling the Super Tuesday final in April, pulled into a tie for second three hands later. The Romanian player picked up A♦A♥ on the button when short-stacked taltabro had A♠9♥ in the big blind. A small raise prompted a 790K-chip all-in bet from taltabro, who exited in seventh after Andrey_pok21 called and the board came K♥K♣8♥6♥3♥.

The rest of the hour was good for lipe piv. The Brazilian defended the big blind against Andrey_pok21's 168K-chip opener and then check-raised all-in on the 2♥4♥2♦ flop. Andrey_pok21 folded and left the 278K continuation bet out there, giving lipe piv a 1.15M-chip pot and the lead as the midnight ET hour came to its end.

On the first hand of 25K/50K/5K play after coming back from the break, slayerv1fan opened for 105K, holding A♥T♠. He called when Fiilismies shoved for 523K on the button with A♣J♠ and caught a break when the flop was T♦8♥K♥. Fiilismies's gutshot draw came to nothing on the 6♥ turn and A♠ river, and the Finn left in sixth.

Andrey_pok21 looked set to double through lipe piv a few hands later after min-raising with A♣Q♦ and calling all-in for 1M chips when the Brazilian moved all-in with A♦5♥. Then the board fell 3♠2♣5♠4♦6♦, giving both players a six-high straight and half the pot. Two hands later the Romanian player called all-in again, this time in the big blind with K♠Q♥ after MaltLiquor40 jammed for 3,856 chips less in the small blind with T♥T♠. The coin flip turned into a set versus ace-high when the board came T♦7♣3♣6♣A♦ and MaltLiquor40 doubled to 2.04M chips. Andrey_pok21 was forced in with 6♣4♣ in the small blind on the next hand and lost out to lipe piv's 8♥8♣, finishing in fifth place.

Spreading the love to all

With half the field gone in just over an hour, the remaining four players were still stacked relatively deep. Boootsy was the shortest with 24 big blinds, while MaltLiquor40, slayerv1fan, and lipe priv all hand in excess of 40 big blinds each. After exchanging mutual 'gg' in the chat box they looked at the ICM numbers, slayerv1fan wanted a little extra:

lipe piv brought things back to earth, though:

Even though he didn't get more from the deal, slayerv1fan left happy with the biggest share - plus the chance to potentially get some rest a bit earlier after a very long day:

With the deal in the book the players all wanted to speed up the blinds, but that wasn't possible. Instead they toiled along on the 30K/60K level until MaltLiquor40 defended the big blind with Q♥6♥ against Boootsy's 130K-chip button raise. MaltLiquor40 check-called 157K on the 4♣3♠5♦ before making a six-high straight on the 2♥ turn and leading for 251K. Boootsy called there and then again for 810K on the 4♦ river, mucking with 185K left when MaltLiquor showed down the winner.

Three hands later Boootsy open-shoved in the small blind with A♥9♦. lipe piv called with 6♣3♥ and made queens and sixes on the Q♥6♠Q♠7♣5♠ board, sending Boootsy to the rail in fourth.

The other three players remained clustered together within six big blinds of one another until a hand where lipe piv opened for 154K on the button. slayerv1fan jammed for 2.86M in the big blind with 3♥3♠ and lipe piv called with A♥Q♣. A loss would have left slayerv1fan with about three big blinds' worth of chips, but the treys held up on the 8♦7♠8♥K♥6♥ board to bust lipe piv in third.

Three hands later a final coin flip would end the tournament. slayerv1fan shoved with K♠Q♣ and MaltLiquor40 called with 8♦8♥. MaltLiquor40 was still ahead after the 3♠9♦T♦ flop but the J♥ turn made a king-high straight for slayerv1fan. The K♦ river sealed the deal on this week's Super Tuesday.

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MaltLiquor40's $40K share of the deal is a top-10 career score at PokerStars - not bad for someone with more than $3.5 million in cashes here. And the extra cash on the table meant Joshua 'slayerv1fan' Hoesel's day ended with a cash worth $50,080.46, the fifth-best score of his PokerStars career. Congrats to both players, and to lipe piv and Boootsy for sharing in the four-way deal atop this week's Super Tuesday!

5/2/17 Super Tuesday ($1,050 NL Hold'em) results
Entrants: 345
Total prize pool: $345,000
Places paid: 47

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1. Joshua 'slayerv1fan' Hoesel (Mexico) $50,080.46*
2. MaltLiquor40 (Canada) $40,592.62*
3. lipe piv (Brazil) $44,519.33*
4. Boootsy (Canada) $36,501.87*
5. Andrey_pok21 (Romania) $18,728.22
6. Fiilismies (Finland) $13,759.46
7. taltabro (Panama) $10,108.94
8. TiltMeBig (Sweden) $7,426.98
9. BUCHAREST77 (Romania) $5,456.52
* - denotes results of a four-way deal that left $5,000 for the winner

Jason Kirk is a Freelance Contributor to PokerStars Blog.