Benjamin Rolle of RaiseYourEdge.com has played poker for over 15 years and has learned many poker and life skills along the way.

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James Obsts WPT Australia Championship victory had all the hallmarks of a storybook triumph. The 34-year-old from Melbourne tore through the competition to secure a title on Australian soil, hopping on a two-hour northbound flight to attend the event at Star Gold Coast, where he would go on to win AUD $585,359 ($398,488) and the third major live poker title of his career. Obst is more than 15 years removed from his explosion into the poker consciousness, as a teenage crusher of online poker. Between COVID lockdowns and aspirations towards professional tennis, Obst went more than three-and-a-half years without cashing a live poker tournament, and even then limiting himself to some brief summer stretches. But when it came down to it, there was seemingly some kind of magnetic pull that drew Obst to the WPT Australia Championship – and it paid off in a tremendous way. Usually I find it quite hard to travel for live poker, just because of some complications with my health and my body that make it quite difficult to stay in good shape when I’m away from home, said Obst. I tend not to travel much for tournaments these days for that reason, but when I realized that there was such a big event here and on the Gold Coast, in my home country, the main reason we go is to take a shot at winning a huge prize. It just fit into my schedule with tennis quite well, because I was sort of healing an injury, and it was just before a tournament I was going to play. And I also had some friends going up there I wanted to spend time with as well. Obst was, at one time, best known by the online poker moniker Andy McLEOD, tearing up massive tournament fields in his teen years in a time of explosive growth in the poker industry. By 2017 Obst had won his first WSOP bracelet, recorded a 13th-place finish in the 2016 WSOP Main Event, and claimed four PokerStars SCOOP titles atop millions of dollars of total online results. It was within this window of time in which Obsts trajectory diverged from that of some of his online poker contemporaries who would go on to make up the core of the high roller scene and WSOP bracelet events each summer. On a grand scale, the Australian government completely shut down online poker in the country in the mid-2010s, cutting it off from the rest of the world. In Obsts life, he decided that with a better understanding of some chronic illnesses that had affected him since childhood and proper care in place, he would pursue a long-held dream to pursue professional tennis in his mid-20s. Obst first reduced his schedule to just a few weeks of play every summer in Las Vegas, along with the occasional one-off stop somewhere in Australia. But he made the most of those limited opportunities. Obst made at least one final table at the WSOP every year from 2014-2018 and then cashed 10 times at the 2019 WSOP. Then, following a cash in a WSOP International Circuit event in November 2019, everything came crashing down. Isolated in one of the most locked down major metropolitan areas in the world during the COVID pandemic, Obst rarely left home as he missed out on both of his most dearly held pursuits, poker and tennis alike. That period was pretty dark for me for quite a while. I mean, it was the same for a lot of people, I’m not unique in that regard. But just before those couple years of lockdowns, I moved into an apartment and so I spent most of that time locked down. I couldn’t get on the tennis court. I couldn’t really do anything. I lost my fitness. It was off the back of my worst year in Vegas, too, and so there was a lot of personal struggle in that. By the time a window of opportunity opened up in the summer of 2023, Obst was eager to show what he was still capable of. He made three WSOP final tables in a single summer, including one of his best career results with a fourth-place finish in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. A second career WSOP bracelet followed at the 2024 WSOP in a $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship. To come back and to run well and to have all these experiences, you can’t put it into words, said Obst. It has reawoken my spirit. I feel like I’ve just been super lucky the last couple years, like everything’s gone really well. It’s probably not a feeling that I’m that conditioned to, but I just try to appreciate it for what it is every day. Despite No Limit Holdem representing a small percentage of his best live results, the draw towards the WPT Australia Championship was stron for Obst, especially coming off his second consecutive successful summer. He hadnt cashed in a tournament on the continent since late 2019, and between the size of the event and a chance to see some old friends, it became a no-brainer. And all of that came before Obst claimed the chip lead on Day 3 at WPT Australia and rode it all the way to victory. So many old friends in the community and I got to see so many of them again, and I’ve really missed that for a long time, said Obst. We haven’t had any opportunities in Melbourne for so long to play tournaments here, for obvious reasons with Crown. Its just very uplifting in terms of actually winning the event. I’m pretty aware of just the fact that I was very lucky throughout the week. I’ve given just as much to many different events and taken a lot of punishment, or had some tough moments falling short. In playing through the event, Obst also got a dose of something he hadnt seen for quite some time among a predominantly Australian field – hope and optimism. Despite the lack of online poker access and limited operators putting on major live events in the country, the enthusiasm for poker among Australians continues to persist to a degree at which its hard not to feel contagious. I was chatting with a friend of mine in Melbourne who was a regular on the scene 10, 15 years ago, and he’s been out of poker for a while, said Obst. And he was just astonished at the field sizes and the amount of events that are running, like he could never have imagined that this was possible after online poker got banned. Whatever’s happening on the scene has been pretty incredible, and it’s not something I have my finger on the pulse of, but theres just a lot of passion for the game still and some great organized tournament hosts. I think the future is amazing. I don’t know if we ever get online poker coming back, but I did see that there’s quite a lot of young talent, guys in their 20s and even some 18-year-olds having real success, and I think bringing a lot of new energy and community to the game as well. Off the strength of his last two summers in Las Vegas and a WPT title, it would be hard for Obst to ignore the level of success hes enjoyed in his return to poker. Hes earned himself a seat in the 2024 WPT World Championship as part of his prize package for winning WPT Australia, and the game seems to be pulling Obst back in. For now, Obst still has his eyes focused elsewhere, at least in the short term. There will come a day, however, when Obst sees himself refocusing his energy towards a game that hes played for more than half of his life. And when he does, history shows that the outcomes at the poker table will follow soon after. Im committed as I possibly could be with a different direction, and that that direction will come to a close at some point, said Obst. I don’t know exactly when it’s going to be. Could be six months. It could be three years. I have to pour most of my energy into that because that’s what drives me at the moment. But I think when that time sort of stops, I imagine that I’m going to be diving back into a lot more poker in the future. I do miss grinding every event in Vegas, the full two months, and going as hard as I can. Potentially traveling to other countries and making that work as well. In terms of my level of poker, I feel really good, because for most of my career, I played through bad health and that really impacted the quality of my play and the results I was able to achieve. I always felt like I could do a lot more in the game once I got on top of everything, and so what I’ve been doing with the physical training has coincided with resolutions of long-term health issues. “And so I think when I do get back into poker, I think I’ll be able to play the best I ever have. And that’s an exciting perspective.

World Poker Tour is making poker history once again this December at the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. This time it comes as a record-setting, first-of-its-kind $5,000,000 freeroll in support of the launch of the latest sweepstakes poker offering: ClubWPT Gold. Roughly 2,000 players will make their way to Las Vegas for the biggest live freeroll of all time all in hopes of walking away with the $1,000,000 life-changing first-place prize. In addition to a potential seven-figure payday for the winner, 100 seats to the $10,400 WPT World Championship will be given away. Add to that five-figure mystery bounties with a larger than average percentage of the field making the money and the ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational Freeroll has the makings of the Event of the Year. So, heres everything you need to know about the ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational Freeroll. In celebration of the launch of ClubWPT Gold, the World Poker Tour is hosting the largest freeroll tournament of all time during the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. Nearly 2,000 players will have the opportunity to play but in order to be eligible, players must first visit ClubWPTGold.com and sign up for a free account. Registration takes just a couple of minutes. Once completed players will be eligible to win a Golden Passport, your ticket into the event. The freeroll takes place from December 13-15 at Wynn Las Vegas in the middle of the WPT World Championship schedule. Day 1 – Friday, December 13 Day 2 – Saturday, December 14 Final Table – Sunday, December 15 Start times are currently TBA. ClubWPT Gold will be available in the majority of the United States and Canada. Players need to be from a U.S. state or providence where ClubWPT Gold is available in order to be eligible. The first step is registering for a free account at ClubWPTGold.com. The next is participating in any of the contests, drawing and/or promotions provided by ClubWPT Gold and its ambassadors in order to win a Golden Passport which is your ticket into the event. Nearly 2,000 players will win a Golden Passport and the total prize pool will be $5,000,000 with a first-place prize of $1 million and 25% (503 players) of the field making the money. Everyone who makes the money and busts will also have a second-chance drawing where 1-in-5 people will draw one of 100 free entries into the $10,400 WPT World Championship event, which has three starting flights beginning on December 14. Those who make the final table are not included. Starting at 297 players left, the freeroll also becomes a Mystery Bounty with $720,000 in bounties up for grabs. Two $100,000 bounties are available as the top prizes. Everyone at the final table of nine will earn a minimum of $20,000 and have their own pool of Mystery Bounties including a $200,000 top prize and one envelope that is worth $0. ClubWPT Gold is the newest sweepstakes model online poker platform available in the majority of the United States and Canada. Theres no subscription necessary and players can play online for both cash and prizes. Once you sign up at ClubWPTGold.com, players will have the opportunity to purchase Gold Coins, a currency that is used for play money games on the site. At the same time, players are awarded an equal amount of Sweeps Coins, the sweepstakes currency that can be used to play in both Sweeps cash games and tournaments for both cash and prizes. The site is expected to launch in early 2025. The Golden Passport is your ticket into the ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational Freeroll and can be obtained in a number of ways. First, a player needs to go to ClubWPTGold.com and sign up, completing all the steps. Your first opportunity to win a Golden Passport is at signup. There will be a field for promo code and here, if you were directed by an ambassador (Brad Owen, Ethan Rampage Yau) then you can use their promo code and be entered in ambassador or influencer-specific drawings and contests. Roughly 2,000 Golden Passports will be given away right up to and during the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas, which starts on December 3. Players are eligible to win one Golden Passport per person but are allowed to participate in any eligible contest. For more information on the latest contests, drawings, and promotions follow both @WPT and @ClubWPTGold on all social media platforms. The ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational Freeroll takes place at Wynn Las Vegas, one of the worlds premier places to play poker. Players who have won a Golden Passport will be greeted with a swag bag of high-end merch and the exclusive Gold Lounge to take a break when not playing in this or other events, including the WPT Prime Championship and the WPT World Championship. For those who have yet to sign up for a ClubWPT Gold account, there will be an activation booth on site that will allow players to create an account in person, grab some merch, and be eligible for any last-chance Golden Passports that remain.

Regulated online poker hasn’t yet arrived in Virginia, but aspiring grinders still have options for playing online poker legally in the Old Dominion. Sweepstakes poker sites offer the best legal alternative to real-money online poker in Virginia. Platforms like ClubWPT award substantial sweepstakes prizes, including sweepstakes credits redeemable for cash. This guide to Virginia online poker aims to clarify the legal status of sweepstakes poker rooms, as well as direct Virginia poker players to the best legal poker sites available in the state. Virginia doesn’t permit real-money online poker sites, and it appears that status might not change any time soon. The Old Dominion does host a thriving online sports betting economy. State lawmakers recently shifted their stance on casino gambling as well, with a few physical casino properties open in the state. Virginia’s recent gambling expansion could eventually lead to regulated online poker launching in the state. There doesn’t appear to be much on the way in terms of online poker legislation in the near future, however. While real-money online poker isn’t a reality yet in Virginia, sweepstakes poker sites are legal. All prizes at these sites are awarded under a sweepstakes gaming model, and sweepstakes poker sites fall into a different legal category than real-money online poker rooms. The top sweepstakes poker room available in Virginia is ClubWPT. Keep reading for more on how ClubWPT works, what games are offered, and what prizes are on the line. U.S. states can legalize certain forms of online gambling on an individual basis. Mobile sports betting and daily fantasy sports experienced a boom period in the 2020s, with more than half of U.S. states offering at least one of these forms of online sports gaming. While online sports betting is available in more than half of the U.S., real-money online poker is available in less than 10 states. Virginia mirrors many other states, with a vibrant online sports betting scene but no access to online poker. Sweepstakes poker is thriving in the U.S., however, and is legal in more than 40 states. Sites like ClubWPT offer an excellent (and more importantly, legal) alternative to regulated online poker. If you want to play poker online in Virginia, ClubWPT tops the list of the best online poker sites available in the state. Read on for an overview of ClubWPT and how the sweepstakes tournaments work on the site. ClubWPT is a sweepstakes poker room owned and operated by the World Poker Tour (WPT). Virginia players will find two kinds of games running at ClubWPT – free-to-play games and sweepstakes games. The free-to-play games at ClubWPT use a play money currency known as “Play Chips.” The Play Chips games allow you to practice poker for free, with no monetary risk involved. You’ll also find free-to-play casino games on the site. ClubWPT’s sweepstakes games operate much like traditional poker tournaments, with sweepstakes credits and prizes on the line (instead of strictly cash). These games award more than $100,000 in cash and prizes every month. Players in all 50 U.S. states can sign up for a ClubWPT account and get access to the Play Chips games. The sweepstakes online poker games are legal in 36 states, and Virginia is on that list. Virginia players can access ClubWPT’s sweepstakes tournaments by purchasing a monthly subscription. You can choose between two different subscription levels, and also purchase a special add-on subscription that grants access to special satellite tournaments running each Saturday. The monthly subscription fee allows unlimited access to the sweepstakes tournaments available in the tier for which you purchased the subscription. The subscription tiers at ClubWPT break down as follows: VIP ($27.95 per month, access to all VIP tournaments) Diamond ($149.95 per month, access to all Diamond and VIP tournaments) Super SATurdays ($100 add-on per month, access to Super SATurdays satellite tournaments) The VIP subscription level is the lowest-priced tier available at ClubWPT. The $27.95 monthly fee gives you access to all sweepstakes tournaments under the VIP filter. VIP tournaments use “Tournament Points” (aka TP) as currency. When you sign up for any ClubWPT subscription, you’ll start your journey with 500 TP. You can use those points to enter VIP tournaments. Your TP balance also reloads every day. A VIP tournament runs like a traditional online poker tournament, with cash (in the form of sweepstakes credits), prizes, and TP awarded to those who finish “in the money.” For example, the “$1,000 Mountain” VIP tournament awards the following prizes: Tournament Name: $1,000 Mountain Buy-In: 400TP Prize Pool: $1,000 USD + 202,500 TP Guaranteed First Place: $150 USD + 2,000 TP VIP subscribers also enjoy access to freeroll tournaments (aka zero TP buy-in tournaments) that award TP, cash, and prizes. The Diamond subscription level offers entry to tournaments with the biggest prizes awarded at ClubWPT. The $149.95 monthly fee grants access to all tournaments in the Diamond tier, as well as all tournaments in the VIP tier. Diamond tournaments don’t require TP to buy in, and you’ll get unlimited access to these tournaments when you purchase a subscription. Diamond tournaments award sweepstakes credits/cash, Tournament Points (which you can use to buy into Diamond tournaments), and prizes. A typical Diamond Tournament could look like this: Tournament Name: $5,000 Cash Guarantee Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers) Prize Pool: $5,000 USD + 541,000 TP Guaranteed First Place: $1,000 USD + 5,000 TP Many Diamond tournaments also offer the opportunity to win your way into live events on the World Poker Tour. For example, the following Diamond tournament awarded cash and VIP Tournament Points throughout the payout ladder, with a WPT Prime Passport as the first-place prize: Tournament Name: $2,500 WPT Prime Championship Passport + $500 Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers) Prize Pool: $3,000 USD + 467,500 TP Guaranteed First Place: $2,500 WPT Prime Passport + 5,000 TP The prizes awarded in the VIP tournaments include WPT Passports (entry plus travel stipend for WPT live events), WPT Voyage Cruise packages, and more. The Diamond subscription allows access to both the Diamond and the VIP tiers, and unlocks opportunities to win the largest prizes available at ClubWPT. All of these factors make the Diamond level subscription the best value available among the subscription tiers at ClubWPT. The flagship event on the ClubWPT schedule is the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge. The details for this annual tournament look like this: Tournament Name: $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge Buy-In: Entries must qualify through other ClubWPT events Prize Pool: $125,000 USD First Place: WPT Event Package $12,000 The top prize in the World Championship Challenge comes in the form of a $12,000 package that includes the buy-in and travel expenses for theWPT World Championship, held each December at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. You must qualify for the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge through other tournaments on ClubWPT. Most of the qualifiers for the World Championship Challenge are only available to Diamond subscribers. ClubWPT doesn’t operate as a traditional real-money poker room. Sweepstakes prizes are awarded to those that finish in the money in a sweepstakes tournament. The “cash” that’s up for grabs in ClubWPT’s tournaments is actually sweepstakes credit that can be redeemed for cash. Sweepstakes gaming is legal in more than 40 states, and Virginia is on that list. You can sign up for a ClubWPT account and participate in the free-to-play games from any U.S. state. To play in the sweepstakes games and compete for cash and prizes, you must be physically located in one of 36 eligible states while you’re playing. Heres how Virginia poker players can sign up for a ClubWPT account: Click the “CLAIM OFFER” link in any of the ClubWPT ads in this article. Click the green Sign-Up button at the top right of the ClubWPT home page Enter a valid email, choose a username and password, and click Continue Enter your name, DoB, and physical address, and choose a security question and answer. On the next screen, choose your subscription and your payment method. The Play Chips games and tournaments are open to all U.S. players, without a subscription required. To compete in the VIP and Diamond tournaments, you must purchase one of the monthly subscription packages and be physically located in one of the 36 eligible states when you play. You’re in luck if you’re located in Virginia, as ClubWPT’s sweepstakes games are legal (as long as you’re physically located in Virginia while you play). Sweepstakes pker sites aren’t governed by the same online poker laws that would apply to a traditional poker site. By definition, sweepstakes gaming platforms award prizes to winners, but these prizes aren’t direct cash winnings. All prizes awarded at ClubWPT, for instance, are sweepstakes prizes. These prizes include sweepstakes credits redeemable for cash. The biggest prizes up for grabs at ClubWPT include WPT Voyage Cruise packages and WPT Passports (entry plus travel stipend to prestigious live World Poker Tour events). A traditional online poker site requires you to make a direct cash deposit and then put that money on the line in direct competition against other players. At ClubWPT, you can purchase a monthly subscription and, as long as your subscription is active, get unlimited access to the site’s sweepstakes tournaments. When you look for any kind of legal online gambling site, you’ll come across a few platforms that appear to offer traditional poker cash games and tournaments in all U.S. states. In spite of federal laws, these sites offer online casino gaming and poker in many U.S. states. While these sites might look legitimate, you might notice that they’re not regulated or licensed by any Virginia gaming agency (or any U.S. agency for that matter). If an online poker site runs real-money games, but doesn’t clearly display a seal of approval from a state gaming regulation agency, the site is operating illegally. These sites are known as “offshore” gambling sites, as they operate outside of the U.S. in terms of both physical location and legal jurisdiction. Offshore sites should be avoided for the following reasons: If you attempt to make a deposit at an offshore poker site, you’ll notice that it’s often next to impossible to deposit using a debit card, credit card, or ACH bank transfer. Illegal offshore gambling sites heavily promote cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. If you do manage to get a deposit through using a traditional banking method, that transaction will often appear on your statement as an online purchase from a retailer you’ve never heard of. Offshore sites try to disguise the true nature of player deposits in an effort to get around banking regulations. When you purchase a subscription at ClubWPT, that transaction will always clearly appear on your bank account as exactly what it is – a purchase from ClubWPT. When you sign up for an account at an offshore gambling site, you give your personal information to an illegal gambling operation that’s conducting business outside of U.S. laws. Make your first deposit, and now they have your financial information and your money. Once an offshore site has your information, you don’t know where or with whom that information might end up. Once the site has your money, you run the risk of never seeing those funds again. If your in a state without regulated online poker, your best bet is to play at legitimate sweepstakes poker sites like ClubWPT. ClubWPT, and its parent company, the World Poker Tour, operate with a keen interest in protecting the financial and personal information of its players. While illegal/offshore poker sites might appear to run legitimate poker games, those games are also often infested with the following things: Bots (computer/AI-automated “poker players”) Player collusion Multi-accounting (one player playing under multiple screen names) Ghosting (players controlling other players’ accounts) Legitimate poker sites like ClubWPT operate with the highest security protocols, with the aim of proactively eliminating these types of unethical activities. Offshore sites have little or no incentive to ensure the security of its players or the games on the site. These operations have one goal – taking deposits from players. You can’t expect much player security once they have your money. Yes. While regulated online poker isn’t yet a reality in Virginia, you’re not out of luck when it comes to playing poker online. Sweepstakes poker sites are legal in 36 U.S. states, including Virginia. These sites award prizes under a sweepstakes gaming model, which is defined differently than a real-money gambling model in a legal sense. The top sweepstakes site currently available in Virginia is ClubWPT. Online sports betting is the only form of full-scale online gambling currently legal in Virginia. If you come across an online gambling site that offers anything other than sports betting (or doesn’t bear a seal of approval from the Virginia Lottery), that site is operating illegally. ClubWPT offers the top legal alternative to real-money online poker in Virginia. ClubWPT operates under a sweepstakes gaming model, and operates legally under Virginia poker laws. ClubWPT is the best legal poker site available in Virginia. The site doesn’t run traditional real-money poker games, but it does offer sweepstakes tournaments with cash and prizes on the line. The “cash” on the line in ClubWPT’s sweepstakes tournaments are actually sweepstakes credits that you can redeem for cash. You can also win entry into WPT live events, travel packages to WPT Voyage Cruises, and more. ClubWPT awards more than $100,000 in monthly cash and prizes. Yes. You can play all of the games available at ClubWPT while located in Virginia. This includes the site’s sweepstakes tournaments, as well as the free-to-play (aka Play Chips) games. No. Offshore gambling sites operate outside of U.S. laws and should be avoided. Virginia does have at least one live poker room, and more could be on the way as the state’s casino industry expands. The top legal online poker site currently available in Virginia is ClubWPT. ClubWPT operates as a sweepstakes poker site, with cash (aka sweepstakes credits) and prizes on the line daily. There is no purchase necessary to play on ClubWPT. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. For more information regarding events, including how to qualify and location eligibility, visitClubWPT.com Ensure your jurisdiction allows play on WPT Global. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.