Global Poker Index announces March 2022 date for poker's biggest annual awards show
Poker’s most celebrated award show won’t include a 2021 chapter, but the poker world can look forward to the return of the Global Poker Awards in 2022.
Global Poker Index President Eric Danis announced Tuesday that the next edition of the Global Poker Awards will take place in March 2022. This year’s scheduled run of the Global Poker Awards, initially slated for March 2021, will be canceled outright.
The announcement dropped on the Global Poker Index Twitter account Tuesday morning, with Danis telling PokerGO’s Jeff Platt that the circumstances of 2020 led to the cancellation of the 2021 awards.
“For the awards that were supposed to be presented in March 2021… those awards won’t be happening,” Danis said. “It’s been a rough year for everyone in poker; I guess for some of the high rollers, they’ve had a good time.”
“For most of us it’s been a rough year, and it just didn’t make sense COVID-wise to host awards.”
Danis goes on to say that a live version of the 2021 Global Poker Awards wouldn’t have been possible due to pandemic restrictions. The GPI President also contended that the widespread shutdowns of live poker tours and games around the world warranted the cancellation of the 2021 ceremony.
“To be fair, the subject matter itself; it just seemed like people’s heads were away from poker too much in order to host a proper awards ceremony and have a proper voting process."
Danis is also the President of The Hendon Mob, which oversees the world’s biggest live tournament database. Danis mentioned that according to Hendon Mob statistics, live tournament attendance was down 85 percent between March and December of last year.
“It just made no sense to go forward with a lot of the trophies that would have been presented during the awards,” Danis said.
Global Poker Awards return in March 2022
The Tuesday announcement from Danis didn’t entirely focus on COVID-era ramifications on live poker. The game’s most prestigious awards ceremony will return next year, with the 2022 Global Poker Awards set to take place in March.
Next year’s awards will emanate from the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. COVID-19 restrictions will hopefully be a thing of the past by the time March 2022 rolls around. Next year’s Global Poker Awards hope to incorporate something close to a full year of standard operations for the world’s live poker economy.
The last chapter of the Global Poker Awards ran on March 6, 2020. At that time, most in attendance and watching on PokerGO didn’t know they were in for a two-year wait before the awards came around again.
“I think it’ll be a special moment,” Danis said. “The Global Poker Awards were – other than the Bay 101 Shooting Star, was the last thing that happened in poker of significance before the shutdown.“
Featured image source: Twitter
