Updated on 22 Feb 26 by
Barry Carter
Poker Expert

The first two GGPoker WSOP events postponed

A terrible start on the first big WSOP Sunday as two bracelet events had to be postponed following a DDoS attack and server issues.





GGPoker securing the first World Series of Poker online festival ahead of PokerStars and partypoker is one of the big stories of 2020, but the beginning of the series was the stuff of nightmares for them.

Last night the first three online bracelets won outside of the USA were set to be awarded but two of the three events had to be postponed to next Sunday. Day 2 of the $100 Opener and the $1,111 COVID Relief Charity event both experienced freezing, had to be delayed several times and ultimately postponed until this coming Sunday.

Players were informed that a critical bug was found which was caused by an ‘overwhelming number of players’ joining the bracelet events. Today GGPoker confirmed they had also been victim to a separate DDoS attack:

As such the players in the Opener have been compensated with T$100 and GGPoker are doubling the $177,378 charity donated that was collected in the COVID Relief Charity event.

Daniel Negreanu, who made an official ‘Shuffle Up and Deal’ announcement before the tournaments started, was on hand to explain the situation and offer an apology:

What the correct way to handle this situation is tricky as there isn’t a solution that would please everybody. partypoker experienced this issue several times in the last couple of years when they hosted big multi flight events and often had to pay out sizeable amounts in compensation. There will be some people who simply cannot play next weekend but if they rescheduled the event for tomorrow there would be others unhappy with that.

For GGPoker it is not as simple as cancelling the two events and paying out based on equity because there are bracelets at the end of these tournaments and they do not want to be the first operator to have to permanently cancel a bracelet event.

Ironically it was a record breaking turnout for The Opener, with 29,306 entries it was officially the biggest World Series of Poker attendance in history. In better news, the first bracelet awarded online outside of the USA went to Shoma Ishikawa of Japan, who took down the $525 Super Turbo Bounty event for $117,650.

All eyes will now be on GGPoker for the better part of two months to see if they can prove themselves as being a big enough operator to handle a series the magnitude of the WSOP.

How should GGPoker have compensated players and continued the event? Let us know in the comments:


Barry Carter
Poker Expert

Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2, Poker Satellite Strategy, PKO Poker Strategy, Endgame Poker Strategy, GTO Poker Simplified, Mystery Bounty Poker Strategy and Beyond GTO. In 2025, he won the Global Poker Awards for Best Book and Twitter Personality of the Year.