It may not feel like it, but the 2023 World Series of Poker is just around the corner (a little over a month away). Earlier this week, the flagship broadcast outlet for the WSOP, PokerGO, announced its broadcast (streaming?) schedule for the run of the 2023 WSOP. Meanwhile, another announcement came out that ended one of the enduring traditions of the venerable tournament schedule.
47 Days of Action on PokerGO
On Thursday, PokerGO announced that they would air 47 consecutive days of poker from the dual homes of the WSOP, the Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris Las Vegas, this summer. “PokerGO is delighted to offer live broadcast coverage of the World Series of Poker for another year and do so with our largest livestream offering ever,” Mori Eskandani, the President of PokerGO, stated during the announcement. “We know how much the poker audience around the world loves our game and, specifically, the WSOP. Our coverage of the 2023 WSOP will set a new standard in delivering poker to the global audience.”
The $10,000 Championship Event of the WSOP is naturally the centerpiece of the PokerGO offerings. That tournament is scheduled to run from July 3-17, but PokerGO will also have several other major tournaments on the schedule. Livestreams of thirty (30) unique bracelet tournaments are on the roster, including the $50,000 Poker Players’ Championship, the $250,000 High Roller, the WSOP Tournament of Champions, and the Ladies’ Championship.
PokerGO will also make two subscribers to PokerGO very happy. On June 6 and July 17, a subscriber to the streaming service will be randomly selected and those two people will earn a very special opportunity to play in the 2023 PokerGO Tour Championship, the $1 million freeroll that pays the champion $500,000 for winning. More details on this can be found on the PokerGO Tour website in what is being called the “PokerGO Annual Subscriber Dream Seat Giveaway.”
Goodbye to An Old Friend
Nearly simultaneous with the announcement of the PokerGO schedule, the official rules for the 2023 WSOP were released to the media. The eagle eyes another poker journalist, Haley Hintze, picked out of the rulebook that the WSOP would no longer employ single-table satellites (STS) or another popular piece of poker history, the WSOP lammer. This brings an end to the highly popular feature that had been a staple of the WSOP since 1982.
Hintze points out that the lammers –a $500 chip that actually had no physical value – were used by players to get into WSOP tournaments through the years. These lammers were also used to pay off debts between players, to gift to another person or family member so they could play a tournament, or for other functions. Hintze notes that Kevin ‘kevmath’ Mathers, the head of the WSOP Twitter account, actually made this first known back in February.
Instead of issuing the lammers, it is thought that WSOP officials will now directly enter players into tournaments through their player cards, ending the need to have a physical chip for such purposes.
Why is the WSOP doing this? According to Hintze, there are concerns over the usage of the lammers as a form of currency that the WSOP wanted to eliminate. Hintze notes that there were “STS specialists” who would make a very lucrative living by playing these tournaments and picking up the lammers, which they would then sell (probably not at face value) to other players. With government officials looking to eliminate any potential money laundering of any type, the WSOP and Caesars officials want to look like they are being proactive on this issue.
The “satellite” was the creation of the then-WSOP Tournament Director Eric Drache in 1982. When it started, Drache wanted to get as many players as possible into the Championship Event. Drache figured that a $1000 buy-in single table tournament, with a “winner take all” format, would serve the purpose for players who couldn’t come up with a full $10K but could win in that single table setting.
There are no other surprises on the WSOP Rule Book for 2023, which can be checked out here. Registration is also open for players, including the ability to make a “package” deal for WSOP play. It’s time for players to read it over and get ready for poker’s greatest tournament.