The biggest and most prestigious poker tournament has officially started and poker players from all over the world are expected to be in attendance.
The 2017 World Series of Poker (WSOP) started on May 30, launching a 6 week long poker extravaganza which finishes on July 17. The Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas is yet again playing host to the WSOP.
The 48th edition of the WSOP is set to be bigger and better this year with 74 bracelets, several new events, and same-day television coverage of some events for the first time.
Among the major changes introduced this year include the discontinuation of the November Nine concept with the WSOP Main Event champ being crowned in the summer itself.
The events schedule released features old favorites as well as new ones. There are eight new bracelet events being introduced this year, with the biggest one being referred to as the Giant. The Giant has a buy-in of $365 with five starting flights. Those surviving will come together on July 8 to battle for the first prize. .
Two of the new events will be offered online: the $3,333 WSOP.com high roller that will be held on Jul 1 and the $333 WSOP.com no-limit hold’em featuring a guaranteed prize pool of $333,333 starting on Jul 3. Yet another online-only event is the $1,000 no-limit hold’em online championship event which begins on July 7.
The other new events belong to a wide variety of formats. There is a team event which is the $10,000 tag team no-limit hold’em, the Marathon – which is a $2,620 no-limit hold’em event with 100-minute levels and 26,200 in starting chips, the $1,000 super turbo bounty no-limit hold’em event with bounties of $300 and finally, the high stakes $10,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or- better championship.
Popular events like the Colossus, the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop, the Seniors Event and $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed event are also on the schedule. Satellite qualifiers for major events are being held online at WSOP.com.
Poker fans looking for more fun beyond the WSOP have the option of trying their luck in the Global Poker Online World Challenge (GPOW). The tournament starts on May 31, runs for a period of 8 weeks and will feature a number of exciting events. Each weekday will have 18 tournaments running from late evening to midnight ET. Weekends will offer a total of 32 tournaments with every weekend having a $7,500 Guaranteed Sunday Gold Coin Challenge.
