The World Poker Tour (WPT) has announced the rollout of WPT Wildcard – a new poker brand and format geared towards social media content and unorthodox gameplay with unexpected twists along the way. WPT Wildcard has been structured with streaming, short-form content, and audience engagement at the forefront of its aims.
The first WPT Wildcard events will take place in October during the upcoming WPT Prime festival at the Lodge Card Club in Austin, Texas.
WPT Wildcard at the Lodge Card Club
Heart Attack Poker will be the first WPT Wildcard event at the Lodge Card Club. On October 8, WPT Ambassadors and an assortment of notable content creators will strap heart rate monitors to their bodies and battle it out in a live-streamed cash game. For both the players at the table and audiences at home, the setup will put each combatant's composure to the test as each increase or decrease in heart rate will be shown on screen.
Then, on October 12, the Mystery Bounty Wildcard Chaos event offers a $300 open buy-in event with a $50,000 guaranteed prize pool. If you thought the Mystery Bounty format was already wild, just wait until you see what WPT Wildcard wants to bring to the tables. The first-of-its-kind tournament will feature revolutionary gameplay elements – such as power-ups and penalties – to spice things up on the felt.
These power-ups and penalties include concepts like a Respawn (if you bust the event, you get back in with an average stack), a Table Swap (move to a new seat or table at any time), a New River (replace the river card before the action), a Bounty Forfeit (lose all acquired bounty prizes), or a Button Ban (the button skips you for an entire level). These twists add to the already-exciting nature of a Mystery Bounty event and introduce a touch of anarchy to the standard tournament format.
While the Lodge Card Club will play host to the inaugural WPT Wildcard events, the brand will eventually spread to other WPT stops around the world.
“WPT Wildcard offers a regularly occurring slate of unpredictable gameplay environments designed for content creators and their communities,” said WPT CEO Adam Pliska. “This revolutionary series breaks the mold of traditional poker, blending competition and entertainment in ways fans will never expect.”
