Wptdeepstacks Heads to Hanoi After Vsop on Natural8

Vietnam is the center of the Asia-Pacific poker world this month and next. Many people don’t realize how popular poker is in Vietnam, but these events might go a long way to showing it. Natural8 just kicked off the player-favorite Vietnam Series of Poker that runs through March 21, online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. And in April, the World Poker Tour is sending its WPTDeepStacks series to Hanoi for the first time.

VSOP on Natural8

The Vietnam Series of Poker, also known as the VSOP, is only a few years old but has garnered a serious following of poker players in the region. The hope was to increase participation in the live poker series through its partnerships with the Asian Poker Tour (APT) in 2020.

Of course, the pandemic presented some unforeseen problems.

Nevertheless, the tour founders were determined to host their first Hanoi event in 2020 and did so during the pandemic. The VSOP’s first event at the Loyal Poker Club there offered ten tournaments over seven days from June 29 to July 5, and it was a huge success. All events broke through their guarantees with more players than they anticipated. And the VSOP Championship Main Event attracted 390 entries, so that the prize pool of V$3.12B far surpassed the original V$2B guarantee.

This month, the VSOP partnered with Natural8 to offer an online version of its series. It kicked off on 13 March and runs through 21 March with 14 official events and V$2B (approximately A$111,866) in total guarantees.

The series will award trophies to the winners of the 14 VSOP events, and all players can compete in the leaderboard competition with more than A$1K in prizes.

VSOP 2021 Schedule

Since the series already started, we’ll begin this list of scheduled events from 16 March forward. All buy-ins and guarantees are approximate A$ amounts per a currency calculator.

• Event 7 on 16 March: A$32.26 buy-in Charity Event (A$1,678 GTD)
• Event 8 on 16 March: A$54.20 buy-in Covid Bounty Hunter (A$5,162 GTD)
• Event 9 on 17 March: A$71.62 buy-in Da Nang Bounty Hunter (A$6,452 GTD)
• Event 10 on 18 March: A$87.75 buy-in Asian Poker Cup (A$8,388 GTD)
• Event 11 on 19 March: A$83.88 buy-in Spring Festival (A$8,388 GTD)
• Event 12 on 20 March: A$139.37 buy-in Hanoi Capital Cup (A$13,937 GTD)
• Event 13 on 21 March: A$122.6 buy-in Main Event (A$28,133 GTD)
• Event 14 on 21 March: A$67.11 buy-in Happy Ending (A$5,162 GTD)

Players can still qualify for leaderboard prizes. And there are satellites running throughout the series to win entries into the VSOP events at a discount.

WPTDS Returns to Vietnam

The last time that the World Poker Tour was in Vietnam was September 2019. Ho Chi Minh City’s Pro Poker Club hosted the tour. The festival of tournaments ran for nine days, culminating in the Main Event. That tournament attracted 373 entries for a V$18B prize pool. And New Zealand’s Hamish Crawshaw won the tournament for V$3.78B.

On April 16, the WPTDeepStacks tour will head to the Crown Poker Club in Hanoi. The entire WPTDS Hanoi festival will run through 25 April with the Main Event set for 21-25 April.

The entire series will offer 13 events. Since they are more than one month away and currency exchanges may vary, we’ll list the events in Vietnamese currency:

• Event 1 on 16-18 April: V$7M buy-in Warm-Up (3 flights, 2 reentries, V$1.5B GTD)
• Event 2 on 16 April: V$4M buy-in Deepstack Turbo (1 reentry)
• Event 3 on 18 April: V$5M buy-in Superstack (1 reentry)
• Event 4 on 18 April: V$33M buy-in Single Day High Roller (unlimited reentries)
• Event 5 on 19-20 April: V$3.5M or V$7M or V$14M buy-in All Bankrolls (3 flights, 1 reentry/flight)
• Event 6 on 20 April: V$6M buy-in Bounty (V$2M/bounty, 1 reentry)
• Event 7 on 21-25 April: V$22M buy-in Main Event (4 flights, 1 reentry/day, V$4B GTD)
• Event 8 on 21-22 April: V$55M buy-in Super High Roller (unlimited reentries)
• Event 9 on 21 April: V$5M buy-in Short Deck (1 reentry)
• Event 10 on 22 April: V$5M PLO (2 reentries)
• Event 11 on 24-25 April: V$6M buy-in Superstack Classic Freezeout
• Event 12 on 24-25 April: V$33M buy-in High Roller (unlimited reentries)
• Event 13 on 25 April: V$5M buy-in Megastack Finale (unlimited reentries, V$300M GTD)

More details on each event, including fees and start times, are on the WPT schedule.

Online poker site Poker King is running satellites for players to earn their seats into many of the WPTDS Hanoi events at a discount. There will also be satellites for bigger events, like the Main Event, at the Crown Poker Club during the festival.