The World Series of Poker has confirmed it will stage its first ever “pro-am” tournament, a $250,000 buy-in event to be held at WSOP Paradise. According to the WSOP’s own announcement, amateur players must apply for consideration, with a dedicated WSOP Pro-Am Committee deciding who receives an invitation to compete on the amateur side. Professionals, by contrast, do not require an invitation to enter.
Under the structure outlined by WSOP, amateurs and pros will start the tournament in entirely separate fields, playing only against others in their own category until each side reaches the money. The exact mechanics of how the two fields will eventually merge, and how far players will progress before doing so, have not been fully detailed by WSOP beyond that point.
The concept follows a similar $250,000 event co-promoted by WSOP and Triton Poker at last year’s WSOP Paradise. However, the format differs significantly. In the Triton version, recreational players nominate a professional player who then gains entry alongside them, creating an even split of amateurs and pros throughout the field. Those players are only kept apart on Day 1 before merging into a single field for Day 2 onward, played out as a standard tournament from there.
Card Player columnist Mo Nuwwarah has published an opinion piece questioning the new format, arguing it risks blurring the traditional distinction between tournament poker as a level playing field and the more exclusive, invitation-driven world of high-stakes cash games. Nuwwarah drew a comparison with the short-lived Professional Poker Tour, another invite-only concept that pitted professionals against one another.
Nuwwarah’s central criticism concerns how WSOP will determine who qualifies as an “amateur” for the purposes of the event, given that the process reportedly involves emailing WSOP to apply for consideration, with the Pro-Am Committee then making a subjective call. The piece cites Michael Moncek, a player with two WSOP bracelets and $8.4 million in tournament cashes who also plays high-stakes cash games, as an example of how difficult such classifications could be in practice, though Nuwwarah stresses this is used purely as an illustration rather than a suggestion that any individual player is attempting to exploit the format.
The identity of the WSOP Pro-Am Committee and its precise criteria for selecting amateur entrants have not yet been made public. Further details, including the size and composition of the field, are expected to emerge closer to the event at WSOP Paradise.
