Caesers Entertainment have released the schedule of events for the 42nd annual World Series of Poker (WSOP).
The new WSOP schedule will include 58 events that include a number of new tournaments and some minor amendments to the overall programming of the famous tournament.
Recent successes in schedule changes, such as the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship, have received further backing from the organizers and are back in to the 2011 calendar. Reportedly requested by a number of players, and one can only imagine that that means high-ranking ones, the Player’s Championship will be played in July. ESPN has reported that this schedule change is due to the high price of the event; this is reported to negatively affect the WSOP as a whole due to the busting of some players right at the start of the tournament and give winning players in other events a chance of investing their earnings in events such as this later in the tournament.
A full-on addition to the WSOP in 2011 will be the $25,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em Championship which has earned the organizers’ favour over the $25,000 Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em event which statistics show to be one of last year’s most popular events.
Another controversial modification has been the overlapping of the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event (#4), which begins at 1200 hours on 2 June with the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship (Event #7) teeing-off the very next day at five in the afternoon. Being two events close to professional players’ hearts, concern has been shown that many pros will have to decide between one event or the other as a good run in the NLHe will mean they miss the PLO World Championship.
The $2,500 buy-in short-handed 10-game mix is a major new event that will include no-limit hold’em, seven-card razz, limit hold’em, limit Badugi, seven-card stud, no-limit deuce-to-seven draw lowball, Omaha eight-or-better, pot-limit Omaha, limit deuce-to-seven triple draw lowball, and seven-card stud eight-or-better. Beat that!
Accommodating the large numbers of players who wish to participate in the Main Event but not travel on the 4 July thereby missing Independence Day celebrations with families and loved-ones has meant the Main Event will now open its doors on 7 July.
Just when you thought normalcy was going to settle in at the WSOP, all hell broke loose. As the bubble got closer, some big names took major hits and the leader board got flipped around just a bit. Once again, one of the younger players on tour, Justin Bonomo, took charge and headed into the third day of the tournament as the chip leader with 2,678,000.
Grey Raymer has been playing great poker for the entire tournament and although he hit a small hiccup, he is still in this tournament with 2,287, 000. A name we have not seen atop the leader boards in quite some time, Ted Forrest, is also perched to make a run at the final table. With 2,586,000, he is sitting in second place and looking strong.
They had intended on playing down to 18, but play slowed down dramatically and 23 players will sit down at the table on day 3 in an effort to get to the final table. There are a lot of short stacks which may lead to a very short session. The next few players should go out rather quickly as they begin to play short-handed tables.
Here are your chip leaders heading into day 3: Justin Bonomo 2,678,000 Ted Forrest 2,586,000 David Baker 2,367,000 Greg Raymer 2,287,000 Lex Veldhuis 2,103,000 Alex Torelle 1,725,000 Keith Lehr 1,257,000 Vitaly Lunkin 1,166,000 Matthew Marafioti 1,003,000 The rest of the field is under 1,000,000 in chips with the bottom 6 having less than 500,000.
In other tournaments…. The first bracelet of the season was won by Andrew Cohen, winner of the $500 Casino Employees Event. He takes home a healthy $83,778 as he bested 866 other players. He also had the honor of going through the first ever bracelet ceremony.
Day 1 is over for the Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better (Event #3). This tournament saw a record breaking entry of 918 players. If it is a sign to come, this WSOP is going to have the largest prize pools that we have ever seen. The day saw a lot of action with over 700 players in the starting field finding the rail. Chip counts were not yet available as of this posting, but some big names are still hanging tough. Defending Champion Luu is still in the field and Eli Elezra finished the day very strong and is over 50,000.
In addition to Day 3 of the $40k event and Day 2 of the Omaha Hi/Low tournament, Event #4, a $1000 NL Hold’em event, kicks off today at 12 noon Vegas time. This event will actually be covered on ESPN if you are interested in seeing the live stream.
In the 2007 WSOP, the world met Hevad Khan. He was a loud, boisterous, and overbearing player the worked his way all the way to the final table before eventually being eliminated. For years there have been players that would do things to try and garner themselves some camera time. Handstands on chairs, loud outburst after winning a pot, or even a comical routine such as Humberto Brenes and his shark were part of the game. Hevad Khan took things to what was considered the extreme and the one example that seemed to prompt change was his antics when he took a chair and started dancing around with it. At this point, ESPN told Hevad that enough was enough. As a result the rule known as the “Hevad Khan rule” was instituted.
The rule states “Excessive celebration through extended theatrics, inappropriate behavior, or physical actions, gestures, or conduct may be subject to penalty. Any player that engages a member of the tournament staff during the celebration or utilizes any property of Harrah’s will be penalized in accordance with Rules No. 31 and/or 51. Harrah’s property includes but is not limited to chairs, tournament tables, and stanchions.”
I was all for this rule when it came out. When I saw Khan’s antics in 2007, I was embarrassed for our game. I was happy that something like that was instituted.
Harrahs has more or less decided that they will enforce this rule with a ZERO TOLERERANCE policy to any type of significant outburst. If a player shows any amount of high excitement or energy, a Harrah’s floor person is immediately over to the player issuing a warning. I saw this occur time and time again. There were some instances where it was warranted. One example was Day 1b of the Main Event. A man stood up in his chair after “shuffle up and deal” was announced and clashed a pair of symbols. A floor man was right there to issue a warning and tell him to keep them put away. That was an appropriate use of the policy. Then I saw another example where it was unwarranted. A player won a big pot on Day 3 of the Main Event. Day 3 is the day players reached the money. This guy was in a big pot for either most or his entire stack. He won the hand and exclaimed “Whoo! That’s what I’m talking about.” He wasn’t overly celebrating. He was loud, but not overly celebrating. Lon McEachern was standing right there beside me and said that, “The way they are enforcing this is ridiculous. You have to have some emotion.”
I agree with Lon. I think that the spirit and the intention of the excessive celebration rule were just. However, I think that the way Harrahs is enforcing the rule is harmful to the game. If you don’t understand what I mean, watch the Main Event coverage on ESPN. You will find the coverage to be bland and somewhat boring compared to the last few years. To be honest, the Main Event was indeed boring. Sadly, the cameras at ESPN caught the Main Event the way that it really was.
Now let’s enter the Players Entrance doors of the Amazon Room. When you walk into the room, you will see a sea of poker tables. The Amazon Room is setup with over 200 poker tables in four sections. The sections are color coded green, red, orange, and blue. Color coding the sections allows multiple events to be played in the same room without a lot of confusion. If you look to your immediate right upon entering, this is the red section.
The red section is the section where the cash games are held. Cash games start as low as $4-$8 Limit to the highest NL Holdem game that they can get interest for. All games are spread as long as there is an interest. High limit stud and mixed game players are known to be staples of the cash games. In the middle of the red section, you will notice some tables that are sectioned off. This is the high limit cash game section. The high limit section features the highest limits of various games played. During one late night event, a NL cash game was being played with around $8 Million on the table between the players involved.
To your left is the orange section. At the back of the section is the Media Tower. The Media Tower is a new addition at the World Series of Poker that was installed to give the media a place to convene and work inside the Amazon Room without getting in the way of players and staff. It’s also raised off the ground so you get a great view of the room. The orange section is used in a lot of the larger No-Limit tournaments and also is the starting area for most of the 5 pm mixed bracelet events.
If you walk further into the room you will notice the blue and green sections. The blue section is almost exclusively used for No-Limit tournaments. Any tournament that starts in the Amazon room at noon will eventually break down to the blue section. If you come to the Amazon room after 4pm to watch your friend that is still in an event, this is the section you will want to come to first.
The green section is used primarily for day two restarts early in the World Series. Larger No-Limit tournaments can be found here as well. The final table sections can be found at the back of the green section. The Milwaukee’s Best No Limit Lounge is the home of the televised final tables on ESPN and ESPN360. Inside the lounge is a specialized final table complete with pocket cams. It is surrounded by a makeshift studio including stands and cameras. High profile final tables will be played here. Other final tables will be played typically at green 15. These final tables are typically non-televised events and most of the mixed events wind up here. Next time, I will wrap up the tour with the satellite areas and a few other points of interest inside the World Series of Poker.
