The Sun-Sentinel,<\/em> there are 60 tables in the room, each with places for eight players and a dealer. They are separated from one another by plexiglass \u201canti-sneeze” screens, and masks are mandatory.<\/p>\nCertainly, there is pent-up demand for a major live poker tournament. But with a surge in cases in Florida since October, and up to 16,000 new cases reported in the state per day, many are asking, “Why now?” And more importantly, “Is it safe?”<\/p>\n
The World Poker Tour declined to comment on safety issues when contacted. However, inviting hundreds of people, potentially from across America, to sit in a room and pass chips to one another would seem to rebalance poker\u2019s risk versus skill ratio.<\/strong><\/p>\nAs one Hard Rock Hollywood regular put it: \u201cIt\u2019s a terrible idea. Everybody is dying to play live, so everybody is flying to Florida from all over the world. We\u2019re a hot spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why is WPT Lucky Hearts Allowed Go Ahead?<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn many other parts of the US, such an event would not be permitted to go ahead. But the Hard Rock Hollywood is located on the Seminole tribe\u2019s Hollywood reservation, which is outside state jurisdiction and therefore unbound by local coronavirus rules.<\/p>\n
In the rest of Hollywood County, commercial venues are required to limit their capacity to 50 people.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
Moreover, it\u2019s not as though live poker is unheard of in a state whose Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, is no fan of lockdowns. Many of the state\u2019s pari-mutuel card rooms are currently open and offering live poker, albeit on a smaller scale than the Hard Rock.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Daytona Kennel Club\u2019s website, for example, shows that the club is planning on running at least one tournament per day for the entire month of January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The World Poker Tour\u2019s (WPT) Lucky Hearts Open main event kicks off on Thursday at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida \u2013 the first major tournament on US soil since the start of the pandemic. It\u2019s also the first WPT event since the tour canceled its entire live calendar last year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":161750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
WPT Restarts Live Poker at Hard Rock Hollywood, but is It Safe?<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n