- The 2021 WPT Russia ran from February 19 to 28 at Casino Sochi.
- With travel restrictions still in place, the fields in each of the trophy events consisted almost entirely of players from Russia.
- It was the first major live poker festival on European soil in 2021.
- For now, Casino Sochi appears to be the center of major live poker festivals in Europe.
While major live poker events are on a hiatus almost everywhere, a few selected festivals are still going ahead. One such event was the 2021 WPT Russia, which ran from February 19 to 28 at Casino Sochi.
The festival was hosted in cooperation with partypoker LIVE and concluded this past weekend.
With travel restrictions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still in place, the fields in each of the trophy events consisted almost entirely of players from Russia.
It was the first major live poker festival on European soil in 2021. However, more well-known operators are expected to make a decision about their activities in the months to come.
The festival itself ran without a hitch, albeit with no presence of WPT or partypoker LIVE international staff at the venue.
“The coordination of all the teams at Casino Sochi, partypoker LIVE, and WPT created a unique model for this festival and despite the challenges of working remotely with the time difference, everything went very smoothly,” Hermance Blum, WPT Vice President Europe, told PRO.
