WSOP back with a bang despite minor controversies

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the longest, wealthiest, and most prestigious poker series ever held. It has successfully run for close to two decades. The event used to take place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas Valley, but this year’s World Series was held at Bally’s, the Future Horseshoe, and Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. The decision to shift location came about as a result of the previous venue being unkempt and operating with inadequate staff. After fixing these challenges by moving the venue, punters became satisfied.

How did the World Series of Poker 2022 take place successfully? The ease of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic made it all possible. All the 89 live events saw an outstanding attendance, with some events demonstrating more than a 40% rise in attendance compared to 2019. This proved that Poker is still a popular game across the globe. However, two incidents threatened the event’s success: one was when a flip exposed a faulty deck, and the other was a shooting scare that caused a commotion.

Poker players from all corners came to compete for the $80 million prize pool, which is commonly the biggest attraction. There were 8,663 submissions. The chips were superb, and the cards were “standing up better than most years”, Eli Elezra said.

The success of the 2022 WSOP shocked Daniel Negreanu, who was surprised it went smoothly. During this year’s WSOP, the ‘Poker Brat’ had six fistfuls of cash. Among them was a second-place result in the Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em competition with a $3,000 buy-in. The cards weren’t in his favor the remainder of the time. His attempt at the Main Event was a failure. After losing before the start of the first break on Day 2, he failed to win a single hand.

Matt Glantz, a renowned poker professional, finished in 40th place in the $1,000 buy-in Million Dollar Bounty tournament. He still went on to receive a substantial payout. After kicking out an opponent, he stood a chance to receive a bounty award, which he eventually won for approximately $20,000.

On Wednesday, July 20, The Tournament of Champions halted. Benjamin Kaupp emerged the winner in the exclusive freeroll and won $250,000 when the cards and chips stopped flying.

We are all aware that challenges and controversies can arise in any global event, and the 53rd World Series of Poker was no exception. For instance, in the scenario where Glantz won his huge reward, one flip resulted in 5-3-3. The issue was that both threes were spades, signifying a non-conforming deck. Chips had to be returned after the hand was presumed dead, and play continued.

One of the major complaints by the poker community during the event was that players who had been accused of cheating or had past cheating cases were participating. At this point, no worldwide blocklist bans cheaters in poker from competing in WSOP. It is still a work in progress.

A shootout scare in Las Vegas on July 16 caused panic and unrest at the WSOP event but later proved to be sound of shattered glass. Despite all these, the event concluded reasonably.