New Events Announced for 2010 WSOP
December 17th, 2009
Wait, didn’t the 2009 WSOP just end? (photo courtesy of AP)
It may seem like only weeks since the finale of the 2009 World Series of Poker, but believe it or not, the schedule for next summer’s 2010 WSOP has just been released. And along with the schedule come some fairly major tweaks to the event that should get the attention of both pros and amateurs.
Maybe the biggest change is an adjustment to what is often called the “player’s championship”. Since it started in 2006, this has been a $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event, with the winner taking home not only a bracelet, but also the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy. It also tended to award the winner the respect of their peers, since this mixed event has traditionally been thought of as requiring the broadest amount of true poker skill to win. But starting in 2010, the trophy and bragging rights will go to the winner of a new $50,000 mixed games championship, which will feature eight different games: Limit Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, Seven Card Razz, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball and, finally, No Limit Hold’em.
The final table of the mixed event will be all No Limit Hold’em, a plan which the WSOP and the Players Advisory Council hatched in order to get more heat for the event. Last year’s $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship suffered a big drop in attendance after ESPN announced they wouldn’t be putting it on TV, since nobody seems to watch poker that isn’t NLHE. After the WSOP decreed that the final table will be nothing but Hold’em, ESPN immediately announced they will be airing it.
Other changes to the 2010 WSOP include a new $25,000 6-handed NLHE event, and the addition of some lower buy-in games. The first five weekends of the event will now each feature a $1,000 buy-in NLHE event, all that are anticipated to be popular enough to require two Day 1′s. Okay, so that’s not a really low buy-in, but it’s affordable to a whole lot more people than that $25,000 bad boy, or even the $10,000 Main Event.
