2010 World Series of Poker

May 12th, 2010

The 2010 World Series of Poker is only 15 days away. As was the case last year, this year’s WSOP will feature 57 bracelet events in nearly every form of poker imaginable. The first bracelet event kicks off on the 28th with the $500 Employees Event. This year’s WSOP promises some new and exciting events and tons of prize money. Let’s take a look at what to expect.

The first day of the WSOP is usually forgotten due to the Employee’s Event. However, this year is a huge exception as the 5 P.M. event is the kickoff of the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship. This event replace the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Event that has crowned the “True Poker World Champion” since 2006. This year, the format has been switched to an 8-Game format that will include all that games of H.O.R.S.E. as well as NL Holdem, PL Omaha, and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. The best and brightest in the poker world will turn out for this epic event. This event will be televised by ESPN and will be NL Holdem only at the final table.

Due to the success of last year’s “Stimulus Special”, this year there will be 6 $1,000 NL Holdem events at the WSOP. The first five will occur on each Saturday of the WSOP and the events will each have two starting days. The last $1,000 NL Event will kick off Thurs July 1st with two start days. The fields in these events are expected to be massive. Last year, over 6,000 players entered the $1,000 Stimulus Event.

To meet the demand of players that wanted a higher buy-in NL event, the $25,000 Six-Handed NL Holdem Event was added. Six-handed NL Holdem has become one of the more popular variants of Holdem online and the WSOP is always at the forefront of meeting market demands in their events. The field is expected to have a lot of online players as well as many top professionals. The event kicks off on June 30th and there is an outside chance that this event will be covered by ESPN.

Being dubbed as an WSOP All-Star Game, the Tournament of Champions returns this summer to the WSOP. 27 players will compete for $1 Million in prize money. The event will kick off on June 27th and play down to the final table. The final nine will then come back on July 4th and play to a winner. The event will be televised on ESPN. 20 of the 27 players will be selected by popular fan vote on WSOP.com. Five players will receive automatic invites. Three of those are past TOC champions Mike Matusow, Annie Duke, and Mike Sexton. The other automatic invites are WSOP Main Event Champion Joe Cada and WSOP Europe Champion Barry Shulman. The last two spots will be sponsors exemptions. One will be an international online competition that will ultimately award one seat. The details on the other seat have not been released as of yet.

As always, the 2010 WSOP will be highlighted by the Main Event which kicks off on July 5th. The first day will be split up over four days and players may still register for any day they wish to start on. Players should note that registration for Day 1d has been high and there is a chance Day 1d will be cut off at some point to balance the other days. Play will continue in the Main Event until the final table is reached on June 18th. At that point, players will reconvene in November to play down to the champion. The 2010 WSOP Main Event will be televised on ESPN with the final televised on November 9th.

The 2010 WSOP promises to be the largest in its 41 year history. Harrah’s has dubbed this the “Year of the No-Limits” and with so many chances to win a bracelet available to players of all skill sets, there should be plenty of great stories from this series. Pre-registration is still available and you can even win your seat for the Main Event and other events at Full Tilt Poker.

by James Guill