The World Series of Poker announced that it will hold its first “pro-am” event. In their eyes, it gives wealthy recreational players a chance to compete for a bracelet in a way that, in my opinion, inches tournament poker uncomfortably close to what high-stakes cash game poker has become: a segregated competition.
We’re seeing the erosion of one of the last bastions of level playing fields in poker, and I hate it.
The event in question is a $250,000 buy-in at WSOP Paradise, and it will separate the amateurs from the pros until the field reaches the money on both sides:
THE FIRST EVER WSOP PRO-AM! 🏆
Buy-In: $250,000
Amateurs apply for consideration, with the WSOP Pro-Am Committee selecting who receives an invitation.
Professionals do not need an invitation.
Amateurs and pros begin in separate fields. Amateurs only play against amateurs… pic.twitter.com/yFYDZNehJh
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) September 16, 2026
In some ways, it hearkens back to the days of the short-lived Professional Poker Tour (PPT). That was also invite-only, and set up pros to compete against each other, ostensibly making for an elite viewing experience. In reality, pros don’t want to play against fields of other pros, because recreational money is the lifeblood of poker.
That’s where the novel invitational format has gained legs. WSOP and Triton co-promoted a similar event, also for $250,000, at last year’s WSOP Paradise.
The mechanics of this pro-am event differ even from the Triton format, though. In the Triton ones, recreational players nominate a corresponding pro who gains entry. Consequently, the field has an even distribution of pros to amateurs.
They also only stay separate for Day 1, combining on Day 2 and playing the tournament out normally from there.
WSOP sort of reverses the mechanics. Now, players apply to be classified as “amateur,” and that’s where my issues with this event begin.
Too Much Ambiguity & Subjective Decisions
Apparently, players who wish to enter on the amateur side can “apply for consideration” by sending an email to the WSOP. I have questions here.
What constitutes an amateur and what constitutes a pro?
Take Michael Moncek, for example. Moncek competes at the highest levels — monetarily, anyway — of both tournaments and cash games. He’s playing every WSOP event and has bagged two bracelets and $8.4 million in tournament cashes.
Yet, publicly available trackers of streamed cash games have him down millions of dollars. How much money he has won or lost at poker is between him and his tax preparer.
The author, after winning his second MSPT title.
Does he have to send his profit and loss sheet or his tax returns to the WSOP arbiters of poker labels? To be clear, Moncek seems like the type of guy who enjoys battling the pros and probably doesn’t care, I’m just using him as an example.
What about me? I have a WSOP bracelet and I’m a profitable player in my poker endeavors.
But I have a job, writing these words that you’re reading. If someone handed me $250,000 to play in this event, which side do I play on? I’m open to this idea, by the way, so if anyone has $250,000 laying around for a social experiment, slide into the DMs. We can investigate this process together.
Who is making these decisions, anyway? It says there’s a “committee.” Who is on the committee and will they explain their criteria?
I suppose we will get some hints about the answers to these questions when we find out what the field looks like. But for now, it’s all very opaque. And it’s hard not to wonder about some Oz-like entity behind the scenes engineering the setup to favor certain players or disadvantage certain others.
Invitational Format Is Antithetical To The Original Intent Of WSOP
The entire setup for this just stinks to me, and it’s the latest blow against the “poker as a meritocracy” ideal that draws many to this game in the first place.
It’s been happening for years now in the cash game scene, as higher-stakes opportunities have dried up for any players with a clue that aren’t connected with the right people. As someone who hasn’t been able to play in games I’d like to play in locally, let me tell you that it sucks.
Maybe that’s why this situation annoys me so much. I know what it’s like to be shut out of a good spot.
And if people want to protect their cash game whales, so be it. But tournaments were supposed to be the haven for players who wanted their careers to be more driven by skill than game selection and networking.
Tournaments put everyone on a level playing field. You don’t have to schmooze with the local game-runner to compete. Anyone with a buy-in is welcome to play. They get a random seat and compete with randomly selected players until someone has all of the chips.
It’s both brutal and beautiful.
When the WSOP and Triton co-promoted these invitationals in the past, I rolled my eyes and assumed Triton brass was basically running the show. Now, it’s clear the WSOP likes the idea of “protecting” its VIPs and is taking things a step further by making them go through this silly application process.
Taking the ‘World’ Out of World Series of Poker
I don’t think this should be a part of tournament poker, and I’m wondering where it ends. Sure, this is one event, but what happens if the 2-7 triple draw amateurs eventually decide they want to start next year’s $10,000 event without having Benny Glaser vacuuming up their chips?
One of the great things about the WSOP is supposed to be that I can register a $600 tournament, and I might sit down and see ‘Joe Home Game’ from Montana on my left, or I might see Daniel Negreanu. That’s why it’s called the WORLD Series of Poker. It’s an open competition where anyone in the world can play and become a champion.
I mean, sure, anyone in the world can still play this pro-am, provided they are willing to accept a seat on the pro side. But why should those guys over there get to play with a certain subset of players, while these guys over here have to fight for the right to play with those guys?
The WSOP should be as inclusive as possible, and a $250,000 tournament with arbitrarily classified players ain’t it. Leave the invitationals to Triton and let the players’ skill and luck determine who wins bracelets, instead of giving a select few wealthy recs a cheat code to avoid the toughest competition.
Mo Nuwwarah is a staff writer for Card Player and a highly successful tournament poker player. Not only has he covered the game since 2013, but he also racked up north of $1 million in career tournament earnings. He won a WSOP bracelet in 2024, taking down the $1,000 online pot-limit Omaha six-max event, and recently added a second MSPT trophy to his collection. He also owns two WSOP Circuit rings.
Photo credits: WSOP, MSPT.
