A number of popular poker tournaments are being dropped as a result of the current pandemic
While the world keeps waiting for the coronavirus pandemic to get controlled, several poker event organizers are waiting until the last minute to make official decisions on future tournaments. This last month has been rough for the World Poker Tour (WPT) in terms of making difficult decisions to cancel or postponed events all around the world, and, with the virus spreading easily and positive cases being reported in almost every country, there aren't many more choices. Both the WPT main tour and WPTDeepStacks have been canceled in the past month; May events will need to wait a bit longer to be confirmed.
Executives will continue monitoring the coronavirus pandemic in the next few weeks, which are crucial as many countries are in the middle of a peak in new cases and daily deaths. Depending on how the situation develops, all May tournaments might be facing a cancelation. The organization started postponing events, and the list began with changed announced in mid-March. The WPT Venetian, WPT Barcelona and the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in Florida, initially scheduled for early May, were the first events to be postponed.
Conversely, WPTDeepStacks also released a list of cancellations once the outbreak of the virus became a global pandemic. After shutting down the scheduled series for WPTDS Vietnam altogether, the WPTDS Amsterdam was also canceled. WPTDS Maryland had a bit of more hopeful luck, as it was postponed not canceled. Also postponed was the WPTDS Championship at Thunder Valley after Jacksonville. Finally, the WPTDS European Championship in Deauville, France was also postponed.
