December 30, 2021
Tournaments & Cash Games
Dozens of live poker series are set to take place in January across America, sowing the seed for a busy tournament poker year, COVID be damned. From coast to coast, with plenty of stops in between, here are just a few of the series in coming weeks inviting players to gamble.
Ilyas Muradi won the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Championship last January. The Series returns to Seminole Hard Rock Jan. 13-26. (Image: Seminole Hard Rock)
Maryland State Poker Championship
Live! Casino, Baltimore, Md.
Jan. 5-17
Players in Baltimore have the 2022 Maryland State Poker Championship (MSPC), a 23-event series with $900K in guarantees, which includes a $10K guaranteed “Tournament of Champions” freeroll at the end of the month.
Although the $2,200 $300K guaranteed Main Event is no-limit hold’em (flights A and B take place Jan. 14 and 15), the schedule features many poker formats. It kicks off with $400 HORSE event, and includes Omaha 8, PLO, eight-game mixed, six-player max, and bounty events.
Special tourneys include a Ladies event Jan. 9, a tag-team event, also on Jan. 9, and a seniors event on Jan. 10.
The entire schedule can be found here.
WSOP Circuit Series
Choctaw Casino, Durant, Okla.
Jan. 5-23
Last January’s WSOP Circuit Main Event at Choctaw broke a thousand entries, and with its full schedule of 69 events helping feed this year’s 13 WSOP Ring events, player pools should be thick.
The series is crowned by the $1,700 buy-in $1 million guaranteed Main Event (Day 1 A and B — Jan. 14 and 15).
This series starts with a $250 buy-in $50K guaranteed Monster Stack on Jan. 5, followed by the $600 buy-in “gargantuan” event that has a $500K guaranteed prize pool. It has three starting days, beginning Jan. 6.
The Ring events are only a small portion of the packed poker schedule, which feature daily satellites and nightly tourneys with buy-ins starting at low as $70.
The full schedule can be found here.
WSOP Circuit Series
Thunder Valley Casino, Lincoln, Calif.
Jan. 13-24
A dozen Ring events are set to take place at the Northern California casino. Highlights include “The Opener,” a $400 buy-in event with a $250K guaranteed prize pool with four starting flights.
The $1,700 buy-in Main Event with a $500K guarantee starts Jan. 21.
Other notable events are a $50K guaranteed $400 buy-in “Monster Stack” event (players start with 30,000 in chips) on Jan. 20. Several satellites into the Ring events start Jan. 10.
The full schedule can be found here.
WSOP Circuit Series
Horseshoe Casino, Tunica, Miss.
Jan. 20-31
Like its sister series’ in California and Oklahoma, the series in Mississippi allows players to win some hardware for as little as $400. The schedule includes 13 Ring events, capped with a $400K guaranteed, $1,700 Main Event on Jan. 28.
The series kicks off with a $100K guaranteed, $400 buy-in, four-starting flight tournament Jan. 21. The $200 buy-in Ladies Event takes place Jan. 27, and the $250 buy-in seniors event Jan. 30.
The full schedule can be found here.
WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock, Hollywood, Fla.
Jan. 13-26
Another series featuring a massive number of tournaments, the Lucky Hearts Poker Open starts with a $600 buy-in event with a $1 million guarantee. The prize pool is built with six starting flights over three days.
The $2 million guaranteed $3,500 buy-in WPT Championship Event with its first of two Day 1’s begins Jan. 21. The final table of this event will be streamed on WPT.com. Last January’s Championship event brought in 1,573.
This series features one of the more robust satellite schedules of any series in January, and they start at $140. That include a couple $2,650 buy-in sats into the $25K High Rollers event and its $1 million guaranteed prize pool on Jan. 24.
The full schedule can be found here.
Images courtesy of Caesars, The Cordish Companies, and Thunder Valley Casino.
Written by
Bob Pajich
Bob Pajich is a poker news reporter, creative writer, and poker player who never met suited connectors he didn’t like.
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