The World Series of Poker has announced its new 2021 season of the WSOP Online Circuit Series. In light of the challenges of scheduling live events in face of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the WSOP has expanded its online schedule on WSOP.com to cover the entire year and offer players the opportunity to win more than 180 WSOP gold rings.

The WSOP.com shared player pool in Nevada and New Jersey will be offered monthly Circuit series. Eight of these will feature 12 gold ring events with another four “Super Circuits” expanded to 18 events. In an attempt to capture some of the same benefits of grinding the WSOPC live events, the new online season will also feature cumulative and monthly leaderboards with added prizes as an incentive for those who succeed in racking up results in multiple WSOP Online Circuit events.

“Players deserve great tournaments and great value year-round and that’s what we aim to do with the 2021 WSOP Online Circuit Series,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart in the announcement. “We’ve been thrilled with the big prize pools for the WSOP.com events in 2020, and we only expect to see that grow with the new model.”

Over the course of the year, the WSOP Online Circuit Series will offer players more than $600,000 in additional prize money through a variety of promotions.

One of the biggest promotions arrives at the end of the year. The season-ending $250,000 WSOP Online Circuit Championship will be capped at 256 runners filled with the year’s most successful Online Circuit players. Seats can be earned by winning one of the gold ring events or by earning a spot through one of the other accompanying promotions including the $10,000 WSOP.com Circuit Player of the Month or a Second Chance Fast Forward freeroll.

Additionally, players who finish the year inside the top 50 of the Cumulative Circuit Leaderboard, but who have not qualified through any other avenue, will also be eligible for the Championship event.

Another $300,000 will be disbursed throughout the year in a series of $25,000 WSOP Circuit Stars Monthly Freerolls. Players who win a gold ring event that month, as well as those in the top 10 of the WSOP.com Circuit Player of the Month leaderboard, will make up the small field eligible to pick up a piece of the additional $25,000

As well as entry into the $25,000 Circuit Stars Monthly Freeroll, the top 10 players on the Circuit Player of the Month leaderboard will share $10,000 worth of tournament tickets. Points are accumulated by cashing in Gold Ring events with the leaderboard winner each month earning a seat to the Championship event.

The monthly Second Chance Fast Forward freeroll rewards players who play in multiple events, whether they cash or not. Players who play in a minimum of four WSOP Online Circuit events in a given series will be entered into the “winner take all” freeroll where the last player standing will be admitted to the WSOP Online Circuit Series Championship.

Also of note, the WSOP announced that in addition to the 12 events taking place on WSOP.com in Nevada and New Jersey, a 13th event is penciled in for “the pending launch of the WSOP.com service in a newly regulated market.” This looks like an indicator of a 2021 arrival of WSOP.com in Pennsylvania where PokerStars has already been operating for over a year.

The WSOP has also teamed up with official casino partners who will provide promotional rates for players who wish to travel to play in the events. In addition to co-branding the events with the property names, players can opt to buy-in and cash out at the onsite cage.

The new WSOP Online Circuit Series gets underway on January 14 with the start of the 18-event Winter Online Super Circuit.

WSOP Online Circuit 2021 Season