Weekly Poker Roundup: February 6, 2018

Philipp Gruissem Signs with Partypoker

Online poker room partypoker continued to add to its lineup of pro players, adding Philiipp Gruissem to the mix this past week. Gruissem is a high roller event specialist, with a live tournament record bursting with six-figure cashes in ultra high buy-in events. In live tournaments, Gruissem has more than $11 million in earnings, while in online tourneys, he has more than $3.5 million in cashes.

“I feel great about joining partypoker!”

Gruissem told the partypoker blog. “They are now bringing healthy competition back into the market and partypoker has a new and fresh vibe that will grow our poker community.”

Gruissem donates some of his winnings to Raising for Effective Giving (REG), a charitable organization he co-cofounded with poker pros Liv Boeree, Igor Kurganov, and Stefan Huber. REG subscribes to the “effective altruism” school of giving, essentially meaning that it looks to contribute money to charities that deliver the most bang for the buck, regardless of the cause. The more people that can be helped per dollar, the better, is what REG strives for.

2018 Partypoker Tournament Series Schedule Set

Sticking with the partypoker theme, the site released the 2018 schedule for its ten online poker tournament series. The first of the year is POWERFEST, which began January 21^st and ends Sunday. The next poker festival will be the Knockout Series, which begins in three weeks.

The Knockout Series is new to partypoker and is basically what it sounds like, if you are familiar with knockout tournaments. Part of the buy-in is used as a bounty on each player’s head. When that player is eliminated from the tournament, the person who knocked them out receives the bounty, but in turn, their own bounty is increased, making them a more visible target as the tournament goes on. There will be three of these Knockout Series during the year.

Also new is the High Roller Series, which consists of higher buy-in events and runs concurrently with the $20 million guaranteed MILLIONS Online at the end of the year.

Here is the complete partypoker tournament series schedule:

• partypoker POWERFEST – January 21st – February 4th
• partypoker KO Series – February 25th – March 4th
• partypoker Monster Series – April 29th – May 6th
• partypoker POWERFEST – May 6th – May 20th
• partypoker KO Series – June 2nd – June 10th
• partypoker Monster Series – July 29th – August 6th
• partypoker POWERFEST – September 2nd – September 23rd
• partypoker KO Series – October 28th – November 4th
• partypoker Monster Series – November 18th – November 25t
• partypoker MILLIONS Online + HR Series – November 25th – December 5^th

WPT Tournament of Champions Adds Tourneys, Moved to Vegas

The World Poker Tour has announced that the season-ending Tournament of Champions (TOC) will be held at the ARIA in Las Vegas this year. The TOC used to be simply the WPT Championship, but it was changed to the TOC in 2016 and was made an invitational, open to only past WPT Main Event champions. Those who claim a WPT title in the current season earn a free seat, while all other past champs must buy-in to the tournament. It was held at the Seminole Hard Rock in Florida its first two years.

In addition to the move, the TOC will be joined by a number of other tournaments instead of being a stand-alone event and the entire tour stop will be called the Season XVI WPT Tournament of Champions Festival. The series will include a $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo event, four $25,000 High Roller events, and a $100,000 Super High Roller event.

There will also be an official Main Tour event at the festival called the WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic, which will feature a $10,000 buy-in and a single re-entry.