Due to the pandemic, the stars of the world poker hid from TV cameras and concentrated on work near their computers. The organizers of the World Poker Tour will try to change the situation and remind the public, in particular, how famous high rollers look like.
First Contenders in the WPT Heads-Up Championship Revealed
A few months ago, some of the most successful poker players of our time took part in the eighth season of the TV show “High stakes poker”, receiving the minimum of live gaming practice for a whole year. While some gamblers switched to the Mega Moolah casino, Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan are expected to return to the offline game in mid-June. These American millionaires were the first to agree to participate in the WPT Heads-Up Championship.
Competitions in the poker duels format are made for players with a solid bankroll because the entrance to the tournament will be $25,000. The tournament table will consist of 32 poker players who will sort things out from June 18 to 22. The venue of the tournament is the Mexican Cabo San-Lucas. However, not all contenders for the title will get to the resort town. Some of them will participate remotely – online.
Heads-Up Challenges as a New Mainstream
During the pandemic, heads-up challenges have become mainstream in the poker world: Negreanu versus Polk, Galfond versus everyone, Negreanu versus Helmuth, and so on. The next super-confrontation that will take place very soon will be between Bill Perkins and Landon Tice.
There is no need to introduce Perkins: a successful businessman who loves poker and, despite having an average level of skills, constantly participates in high-stakes games. Unsurprisingly, after Negreanu vs Polk, Bill was fascinated by the idea of taking part in a game like this. He offered a match to Polk, asking for a 13bb/100 handicap. Even though he refused, there was a rival for Perkins.
Landon Tice is a young 22 years old poker star. The poker community first started talking about him in 2020, when Tice managed to beat Doug Polk’s heads-up. According to Landon, he went from micro-stakes to high stakes in just 18 months, thanks to the fact that he immediately started working with a trainer, became an active member of the community.
After that, Tice began to achieve notable wins: second place in one of the WSOP Online tournaments, victory in the first offline tournament Main Event 2020 MSPT Venetian, etc. Now, Landon decided to declare himself even louder by taking up Perkins’ challenge. So, the opponents will play 20 thousand hands of No-Limit Hold’em with blinds of $200/400. Perkins got a head start of 9bb/100, which is $720 thousand for the entire fight. Bookmakers consider the odds of rivals almost equal, but some give Landon a slight advantage. The first match of this intriguing confrontation starts on June 3.