Caesars Entertainment released the schedule of events for the 42nd annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) earlier this week. The schedule was revamped to 58 bracelet events with several all-new tournaments and scheduling modifications.
Among the major changes made to the 2011 WSOP schedule was the addition of a $25,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em Championship. The highly anticipated event came at the expense of one of last year’s most popular contests, however, as the $25,000 Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em event was removed from the slate.
The $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship, which was introduced last year, will return in 2011, but has been moved to July at the request of many. Also modified was the starting date of the Main Event, which will now get underway on July 7th to avoid any conflicts with the July 4th holiday.
One matter that drew a lot of criticism from some players was the adjacent scheduling of the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event (#4), which begins on June 2nd at Noon, and the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship (Event #7), which kicks off the next day at 5:00pm. The concern is that the two events are among the favorites of the pros and some may be forced to miss the Pot Limit Omaha World Championship if they’re still playing in the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event.
Professional poker player Todd Terry, who has cashed at the WSOP each of the past four years including a second place finish in an event 2007, was among the first to voice his displeasure on the TwoPlusTwo forum: “Having the $5K NLHE and $10K PLHE on back-to-back days is a horrible idea. You guys on the Player Advisory Committee (PAC), how did that get approved? Like if you had 200 people who would play both events vote, all 200 would have voted not to do it.”
Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke, who was added to the PAC this year, explained his reasoning behind the decision: “I got added (to the PAC) less than a month ago, but when I looked at the schedule, I figured since there were 1.5 days between the two, it wouldn’t be that big a problem, especially with the four-hour late registration they’re doing this year. Not ideal, but not especially huge. The $5K should be easily in the money by that point.”
The debate moved to Twitter, where WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel went back and forth with Terry regarding the issue. Said Effel, “23% of players who played the $5K last year also played the $10K PLH. If 40 (players) remain on Day 2 of $5K, then about 10 will miss PLH.”
The response didn’t sit very well with Terry. He posted again on TwoPlusTwo, saying, “The 10K PLHE doesn’t draw that many players (268 last year); even if he’s right that there will be 40 left, that’s a significant percentage of the $10K PLHE field. And registration closing isn’t the right measurement point; some people actually care about not missing the first four hours of a $10K event.
“There are a ton of players, like me, who are NLHE tournament specialists. For us, there are five key events in the WSOP this year: $5K NLHE, $5K 6-max, $10 PLHE, $10K 6-max, $10K Main Event. It really makes no sense to have two of them conflict in this manner.”
The initial reaction of the players wasn’t entirely negative. Jason “JP_OSU” Potter, who has a pair of WSOP final tables to his credit, praised Effel for the addition of another poker format to this year’s slate: “(I) really like the 10-game mix, would love to see it as a $5K or $10K next year. Schedule looks great, thanks for being responsive to feedback.”
The new 10-Game Six-Handed tournament has a $2,500 buy-in and will begin on Thursday, June 16th. The event has been requested by many of the top Mixed Game players for some time and should draw a “who’s who” of poker despite only being a $2,500 buy-in tournament.
Check out the entire 2011 WSOP schedule.
