In 2011, the WSOPC hosted its first National Championship, which was held at Caesars Palace just prior to that year’s WSOP. The tournament was only open to 100 WSOPC qualifiers and offered up a $1,000,000 prize pool.
The inaugural winner was Arkansas’ Sam Barnhart, who qualified after winning the WSOPC Horseshoe Tunica for $148,612 three months earlier. Barnhart’s heater continued later in the summer when he finished 17th in the WSOP Main Event for a career-high $378,796.
Barnhart relocated to Las Vegas after his remarkable run where he still resides today.
“Mostly cash games and online. Not playing as much,” Barnhart recently told PokerNews when asked what he’s been up to. “I’m also doing real estate. I will eventually get in commercial ‘selling businesses.’”
Few players have had the success to match Altman on the US-regulated sites. Playing under the moniker "JackBogle," Altman seems to rack up five-figure score after five-figure score as a regular in the higher-stakes tournament events every weekend.
He showed off his prowess in the spring as he stormed out of the gates during the WSOP.com Online Super Circuit in March with a ring win worth $32,781 in Event #3: $215 No-Limit Hold'em Deep Turbo. It was his second piece of WSOP gold after he took down a Circuit Main Event back in 2016.
While that sort of tournament may require more than the usual positive variance to win, Altman followed up shortly after with a fourth-place finish in Event #16: $525 No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT for $34,020. He then cashed five more times in the WSOP.com Season Finale series, highlighted by a fourth-place finish for $13K.
Given Altman's overall record of excellence both on the Circuit — he has $284K in cashes there — and on WSOP.com, he has to be considered one of the strongest players in the field come Sunday. Never afraid to play huge pots early, his highly volatile playing style means he'll likely mark himself as one of the final table favorites early by collecting a big stack, or he'll be on his way to whatever second-chance events are available on the client.
On Sunday, the World Series of Poker Global Casino Championship will take place on WSOP.com. Depending on whether the situation with COVID-19 clears up, it may be the final bracelet awarded in 2020. Not only will PokerNews be offering live updates throughout the tournament, but they will also live-stream the action on the PokerNews Twitch Channel.
The online edition of the GCC is the first in the relatively short history of the WSOP Circuit's season-ending event. It typically brings together all of the Circuit's finest competitors under one roof for a great shot at a $1 million prize pool in a short field of 120 to 140 runners. Now, all participants will be required to be in either Nevada or New Jersey to play. We will publish a list of all registered players at the start of the tournament at Noon PDT on Sunday.
Some players qualified via winning WSOPC Main Events or Casino Champion honors, some qualified by making the top 50 of the points leaderboard, and in 2020, others qualified by simply winning a ring in the WSOP.com Season Finale.
Here's a look at all those who won rings in that online season finale:
Event #12: $300,000 GTD Online Finale Circuit NLH Main Event 3x Re-entry
$525
1,109
$554,500
Frank "spaghettiii" Marasco
$127,535
In addition, players who met certain criteria were eligible to buy into the Global Casino Championship directly. The entry fee was a rake-free $10,000, which is added to the $1,000,000 base prize pool. Those eligible to buy-in directly where any ring winner from the 2019-2020 WSOP Circuit season.
The first step in getting set up to play on WSOP.com is to download the client. You can do so for both mobile (Android and iOS) and desktop (Windows 7 or higher and Mac OS X 10.6.8).
To get the correct version of the client, use the links below: