Coronavirus poker
Over the last 24 hours, the world has seen a ton of popular events canceled or postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak, including major music festivals and sporting events of all levels.
Poker is no different and several gaming companies announced alterations to schedules Thursday afternoon.
The U.S. Poker Open, a 12-event, high-stakes series featuring buy-ins ranging between $10,000 and $50,000 has been postponed. It was originally scheduled to take run March 19-31 in Las Vegas.
“Company leadership will continue to monitor and follow the guidance of government health authorities before making decisions about rescheduling for future dates,” said the company in a press release.
The series was one that consistently drew poker’s biggest names. Last year, David Peters won the $100,000 U.S. Poker Open main event for $1.32 million.
At the mid-major level, the Heartland Poker Tour announced that the remainder of the series at Hollywood Casino in Toledo was canceled, effective immediately. The RunGood Poker Series also announced Thursday morning that it would suspend its series at Horseshoe Bossier City in Louisiana.
“At RunGood, our mission has always been to focus on player experience above all else,” said RunGood CEO Tana Karn in a statement. “Discussions of extra cleaning procedures and steps to help our players have been the topic of many calls this past week. Being a small business tour operator, decisions we make are carefully calculated to ensure we maintain our founding principle.”
A more drastic step was made in the Netherlands as Holland Casino has closed its doors until March 31. The property was in the middle of Day 1A of its WPTDeepStacks main event. The tournament was canceled midway through the day.
It’s likely that more alterations to the upcoming poker schedule are coming as more information about the virus and its reach is uncovered.
