2022 was a great year for live poker and 2023 doesn’t appear to be any different. This year kicked off with a jam-packed schedule of poker festivals and tournaments in all parts of the globe.
Indeed, this is the year that will signal the full recovery of the live poker scene since the devastating pandemic wreaked havoc in the schedule. To ensure that you are in the loop, here is a breakdown of January’s biggest poker events:
What we cover
Borgata’s ‘The Return’ made a big splash
In January, one of the most anticipated events for the start of the 2023 poker season was ‘The Return’. BetMGM in conjunction with Borgata teamed up to showcase the return of the ever-popular poker series that ran from January 4th to January 8th. Poker players in the northeast were given the chance to participate in 4 events that were hosted live inside the Borgata Poker Room and Central Conference Center.
The January event promised prize pools worth at least $4 million. Although there was a little bit on offer for every type of poker player, the 2 main attractions of the series were undoubtedly the $3M Championship Tournament, as well as the $1M Mystery Bounty event.
The Borgata Championship event kicked off with the Mystery Bounty event which had a buy-in of $2,200. The Mystery Bounty championship managed to attract 1,361, which allowed the prize pool to grow from $1 million to $2,670,340. This was the first ever Bounty event to be organized at the Borgata using the now popular Deep Stack Mystery Bounty set-up.
Unlike the conventional bounty system where poker players are rewarded a fixed amount for eliminating competitors, in its place, this new system allows poker players to draw a mystery bounty. The variation of this tournament was a No Limit Hold’Em with a re-entry option, $1 million in bounties, as well as a main prize of $250,000 for the champion of the event.
The second day of out-of-this-world 18 hours with one of the most out-of-this-world finishes possible. After playing for about 17 hours and 1 hour of deliberations, a deal was struck between the 9 players in the final table that consisted of bounties.
Eventually, Samuel Laskowitz, a poker player from New York was declared the official champion of the tournament. This score worth $146,609 was the second largest of Laskowitz’s career after winning his largest score of $250,000 in June 2022. Anthony Maio secured the second-place victory behind Laskowitz.
For his second-place position, Maio was awarded $142,054 to bring his total career earnings to $1 million. In 3rd place, on the other hand, was Ryan Eriquezzo who took home a handsome cash prize of $132,093.
As you can imagine, both the main attractions were an overwhelming success as each smashed their initial guarantees. The $5,300 The Return beat its original $3 million guarantee thanks to the huge turnout amounting to 1,142 entries. The massive crowd would generate a prize pool worth $5,538,700.
The nail-biting final table saw the last 8 pro poker players 8 play down to the night’s champion in approximately 7 hours of play. Eventually, Bin Weng would emerge as the winner of the grand prize worth $1,000,000.
The United Kingdom Poker Championships (UKPC) tournament also returned in January
United Kingdom Poker Championships, commonly abbreviated as UKPC, also made a comeback in January 2023 after more than a 5-year break. GGpoker announced that it would be teaming up with Dusk Till Dawn (DTD) having entered into an exclusive partnership as the official media partner and live reporting team for all DTD events.
Commonly known as the home of live poker in Britain, DTD has a stellar reputation for organizing some of the most prestigious live poker tournaments in Europe. The 2023 UKPC featured a Main Event with a buy-in of £560, as well as a guarantee of approximately £500,000. GGPoker customers were also treated to a host of prizes worth more than £50,000 at the site of the tournament.
This year’s UKPC was scheduled to take place between January 7th and January 11th in DTD’s headquarters in Nottingham. The £560 Main Event ended up attracting a field of 1,148. The online satellite events for the tournament were affordable at only $1 on GGPoker.
Poker players at the Main Event would sit down with 200,000 chips where they would battle each other to a 30-minute clock on Day 1, as well as 40-minute blinds on the last day scheduled on January 16th. This year’s UKPC organized several notable events including the £100,000 guaranteed Super High Roller with a £2,700 buy-in, the £100,000 guaranteed UKPC High Roller with a £1,100 buy-in, as well as the £230 6-Max Knockout.
Eventually, Karl Guinness would be declared the champion of the Main Event and the winner of the main cash prize worth £84,875. Guinness started his experience in UKPC’s Main Event with a huge stack and managed to outlast 169 poker players that returned on Day 2 where he found himself as the chip leader before the final table.
Guinness would go head-to-head against some of the biggest poker players in the industry the likes of Adam Maxwell, Lukas Robinson, Chris Da Silva, Waheed Ashraf, Gurvinder Shergill, Kathleen Padovani, Vincenzo Lupoli, John Adderley, Algernon Buchanan, Sandeep Shah and more.
888poker LIVE Madrid kicks off the year right
888’s first stop in 2023 was Madrid, a poker festival that lasted from January 13th to January 23rd during the 888 Poker Live Madrid Festival. The Festival was held at the Casino Gran Via. The highlight of the series was the €300,000 GTD Main Event with a buy-in worth €888.
To make entry into the festival easier, 888 organized a series of satellites starting from as little as 1 cent that would allow interested poker players to work their way up to a LIVE Madrid Festival package worth an estimated €1,600. Alternatively, interested parties could also buy directly into any one of the festival qualifiers for just $109.
Final Thoughts
January was jam-packed with lots of festivals and events for poker lovers. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the year has in store.
