UPDATE: The WSOP was a complete tease with its tweet saying that the November Nine was not returning this year. While technically true, the Main Event final table is simply being moved up to October 28th through October 30th because the U.S. Presidential Election is taking place for the first Tuesday in November. Complete details of the 2012 WSOP schedule can be found here. We have left this article up because, well, we worked hard on it, though we have made a few obvious edits.
Caesars Entertainment Corporation plans to release the schedule for the 43rd Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) at 1:00pm EST Wednesday, but in advance of the official announcement, a few details have been leaked via the WSOP’s official Twitter account. The sneak preview included one bombshell non-story: the November Nine is no more will not be in November .
As the information was disseminated via Twitter, further detail of the decision was limited. The WSOP simply posted, “A few hints on WSOP schedule coming tomorrow…you won’t find the November Nine returning.”
The November Nine was created in 2008, pushing the final table of the Main Event from July to November (hence the “November Nine” name). One of the main ideas behind the controversial move was to allow the WSOP and ESPN to better market the final table, building up the hype so that more viewers would want to tune into the television broadcast. Additionally, the long break gave the final table competitors the opportunity to ink lucrative sponsorship deals, rather than having to scramble to field offers from online poker rooms just after qualifying for the final table.
Logistically, the schedule change allowed ESPN to air the final table episodes with just a short delay – less than a day – making it so that poker fans would not have to avoid hearing about the results for months before watching the action on television. Still, ESPN made the mistake of actually scrolling the results across its ticker before the episodes aired, spoiling it for many.
Initially most poker players and fans bucked against the change, disliking the break in the tournament’s continuity. People also felt it gave an unfair boost to the chances of the final table’s weaker players, as they would now have months to receive coaching and study their opponents. Ylon Schwartz, one of the original “November Niners” and 4th place finisher in the 2008 Main Event, had scathing words about the change, telling Poker News Daily, “It ruins the integrity of the tournament. The purity of old-time Las Vegas is gone. The antiquity and purity of the tournament have been liquidated into pure greed and capitalism.”
Nevertheless, the November Nine stayed in place through 2011 and, on the whole, the poker community seemed to get used to it, even if it was not completely embraced. The television coverage improved immensely, as well, as the broadcast delay was cut down to just 15 minutes this year, making the final table “almost live.” The entire Main Event was done in a similar way, with just a 30 minute delay. Die-hard poker fans loved the “almost live” coverage, as it allowed them to watch every hand and really get involved in the nitty-gritty of the final table play, but casual fans tended to be turned off by it, as the lack of hole cards made it more difficult for them to understand what was happening.
The success of the near-live broadcast may be one of the primary reasons for was rumored to spell the demise of the November Nine. Our own Earl Burton spoke to this the day the 2011 final table started, writing here on Poker News Daily:
“Rumors have abounded over the past few days that this year’s ‘November Nine’ may be the last, especially with ESPN stepping up and providing the ‘nearly live’ coverage that it did for the final few days of the Championship Event this year. With such a live draw – if ESPN were to continue the ‘nearly live’ format – it wouldn’t make sense to delay the final table and kill the drama.”
Aside from the big November Nine news, the WSOP also previewed a few other schedule details via Twitter:
• There will be no off-day during the Main Event this year.
• The number of tables has been increased to 480, allowing for 1,000 more players in the tournament area.
• The Main Event will be three days shorter “without compromising structure at all.”
• All days of the Main Event will last for 5 levels, starting at noon and ending at 12:40am. The last day is the lone possible exception.
As noted earlier, the 2012 WSOP schedule will be officially released at 1:00pm. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for all the updates.