The latest season of the hugely successful PokerGO Tour kicks off this Wednesday at The Venetian casino in Las Vegas, with seven tour stops from January to May confirmed.
From Sin City to Sochi and back again via Florida, the latest PGT looks set to award yet more millions as the battle to become this year’s champion begins with an intense schedule of events around the world, starting this week.
Viva The Venetian
Las Vegas is the first stop on the 2022 PokerGO Tour, with the classic poker venue the first port of call – The Venetian. The casino is, of course, part of the furniture in terms of Sin City gambling locations, and the 2021 PGT events there were very successful.
Poker is, of course, making a major return to the Strip this summer when the World Series of Poker heads to Bally’s and Paris after spending 17 years at The Rio. The Venetian is one of poker players’ favorite venues to play at, so we’d expect the PGT to thrive in the opening tournaments taking place this year.
The first four events on the 2022 PGT schedule are all based at The Venetian and cost from $10,000 up to $25,000 with the four-part High Roller series sure to test some of the best players in Vegas between January 5th and 8th.
“The inaugural season of the PokerGO Tour awarded more than a quarter of a billion dollars in prize money and surpassed all expectations,” Mori Eskandani, President of PokerGO, said in a press release celebrating the launch. “Poker demands that we celebrate those that perform at the pinnacle of competition. In the PGT’s second season, we are ready to raise the bar and continue to showcase poker’s elite at the game’s highest stakes.”
The reigning champion is, of course, Ali Imsirovic (below), who won an extraordinary PGT series in fine style, taking an extra $200,000 top leaderboard prize in addition to the millions he won in three dozen poker cashes across the 2021 series.
All-New Stairway to Millions Launches Second Week of Action
One event series that is new to the 2022 PGT is the Stairway to Millions. Costing between $10,000 and $100,000, eight events will crown a winner from January 12th – 19th inclusive, at the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
The Stairway to Millions series gives players the chance to buy-in for as little as $1,000 and run it up to millions in winnings, hopefully making it even more of an appetizing prospect for poker players of all levels, rather than just the elite. Taking place at the PokerGO Studios at the ARIA, the series features eight two-day events, with early starting days at ARIA then streamed final tables in the PokerGO Studio, with the final, larger, tournaments, taking place in the studio from the beginning.
The Stairway to Millions is different in terms of structure, too. Whoever makes the money in one level automatically wins entry into the next level of event, meaning it is more than plausible that a player who puts just $1,000 down to play could end up scrapping it out for millions of dollars in the $100,000-entry finale. Each of the ensuing levels buy-ins are deducted from the winnings in that previous event.
With $3 million in total guarantees, the Stairway to Millions series is bound to be an exciting new format to enjoy, with PokerGO subscribers able to watch the content exclusively when it rolls around during this month. With the final event of the series taking place on January 19th and having a $1.2 million guarantee on its own, drama seems just as certain as a bumper top prize. Every final table from the Stairway to Millions will be live-streamed on PokerGO.com throughout the series.
Who Can Take the Crown from Imsirovic?
Last year’s winner, Bosnian-American player Ali Imsirovic, took the biggest share of any players from the total of $262 million that was paid out. With over 17,500 entries, the 2021 PGT saw almost 150 tournaments take place under its banner.
The next 12 months are likely to witness even more, with the first two events joined on the schedule by the 2022 PokerGO Cup, the PokerGO Heads-Up Championship, dozens of ARIA High Rollers, the Super High Roller Bowl Russia and a host of side events in the former Olympic village city of Sochi and of course, the U.S. Poker Open.
As well as the aforementioned events, which run from January through March, the Super High Roller Bowl VII is currently listed to begin on May 27th, with the $300,000-entry event taking place back at ARIA where it will likely award multiple millions to the winner let alone other finishes.
While Ali Imsirovic won the inaugural PGT title in 2021, he was chased down by another player who dominated the headlines last year in Michael Addamo, who finished second for $100,000. He and third-placed finisher Sean Perry are likely to be big challengers, but others such as Sam Soverel, Daniel Negreanu, David Peters, Stephen Chidwick and Justin Bonomo are bound to feature heavily. If Bryn Kenney really does want his All-Time Money List lead back from Bonomo, he may also put in some serious PGT volume.
With a year full of top-quality high roller events, the PokerGO Tour is going to be exciting to follow throughout 2022. We’ll be following all the action as we look forward to each event, provide updates from the completed events and keep you in the loop as to which poker players are vying for the title from now until next Christmas.
Who will end up as the PGT Player of the Year? With the top six point earners across 2022 facing off in an ATP Finals style end-of-season tournament with starting stacks based on the number of points they earned throughout the season to that point, it’s going to be more exciting than ever to find out.
